Author: matthew

The automated system was malfunctioning. Despite cutting-edge technological mechanisms for passive detection of and active response to frequently-changing usage patterns, it simply had not been able to cope with ongoing changes. Debates raged on email threads as to how to respond. Some proposed simplifying the system; they were derided for the quantity of user input required and the probability of escalating cost when users failed to take appropriate steps. Others proposed increasing the number of monitors in use to allow for potential uses that had not been considered when the system was designed, and were in turn derided for the additional complexity and cost to institute such a system. Eventually, after the furor died down, the discussions ended, feelings were hurt and many excellent and complicated solutions considered, the horde of nay-sayers and optimists, all with a say in the outcome, settled on a solution. “Do what you think best,” they instructed the solitary facilities engineer.

So he uninstalled the motion-detecting systems, and installed a light switch.

Recently, Mother Jones published a widely-circulated study suggesting that armed citizens have never stopped any mass shootings in the USA. It’s important to know how these things are counted, though. If the shooting doesn’t boast a sufficient number of deaths — at least four dead — then it just doesn’t count. That’s a lot of mass shootings that just don’t count as such.

Let’s take a look at what else doesn’t count.

• The San Antonio Theater Shooting doesn’t count because the armed citizen who stopped it was an off-duty cop, hired security for the restaurant, and despite multiple rounds fired only one person besides the shooter died.
• The Trolley Square shooting doesn’t count as an armed citizen stopping it because he was also an off-duty cop.
• The Clackamas Mall shooting doesn’t count because the armed citizen never actually fired his weapon.
• The Santa Clara shooting doesn’t count because an armed citizen prevented it from reaching the required minimum of four victims.
• The Frontier Middle School shooting doesn’t count because the teacher wrestled the shooter’s own gun from him.
• The Pearl High School shooting doesn’t count because the body count was only three when the vice-principal stopped him, and the vice-principal never fired a shot.
• The Appalachian School shooting doesn’t count because the body count was, again, too low, plus students “tackled” the shooter. The fact two other students were pointing loaded firearms at the shooter? Doesn’t count.
• The Tyler Texas shooting doesn’t count because the armed citizen was the only one killed when he returned fire. Insufficient body count, and really, the citizen got what was coming to him for getting involved, right? He doesn’t count.
• The Arvada, Colorado shooting doesn’t count because it took place in two separate places, with individual body counts of two apiece. Plus, the shooter killed himself; the fact he had already been severely wounded by an armed parishioner doesn’t count.
• The Tucson, Arizona (“Gabby Giffords”) shooting doesn’t count because even though one of the citizens who tackled the shooter was armed, he didn’t draw the firearm.
• The Aurora, CO “Church Shooting” doesn’t count because the shooter only killed one person before being killed in turn by an armed parishioner.

Mother Jones, you’re absolutely right. Armed citizens don’t stop mass murders because, well, apparently armed citizens simply don’t count.

And for my fellow armed citizens, we’ve learned an important and valuable lesson from Mother Jones. Next time:

1. Ensure you are not a current or former police officer or military veteran. If you get involved, you won’t count. Perhaps you should just walk away.
2. Wait until the murderer has killed at least FOUR innocent people before drawing your sidearm. If you get involved too early and save innocent lives, you won’t count.
3. Ensure you fire at least one shot — even if it is not required to subdue the shooter — so that your tally counts.

Unfortunately for Mother Jones, I can count. There’s no way I’d stand idly by so that their counts could finally stand up to scrutiny.

Regards, Matthew P. Barnson http://barnson.org/node/1890

Source: http://dailyanarchist.com/2012/07/31/auditing-shooting-rampage-statistics/

EDIT: A mutual friend brought up that I apparently missed an article quite similar to my blog entry. Apparently, I agree with Ann Coulter on an issue. http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2012-12-19.html

EDIT: I hereby license this work under the Creative Commons “Share and share alike” license. Basically, it’s yours to share, but attribute your modifications.

Support: “Why didn’t you escalate this issue earlier?”

Me: “I don’t actually care if it’s fixed. The two points of my ticket submitted over three months ago were: “One: To demonstrate the workaround I’m using, and “Two: To highlight the typical and spectacular inefficiency of our support model unless someone whines to Support constantly or has connections in the company. Like I’m doing right now in this meeting with our respective management teams to try to fix our support process.”

Support: “But you should have escalated it. I’d have taken care of it right away.”

Me: “…?”

Friends,

Several bills assaulting your right to keep and bear arms were introduced to Congress on Monday, January 7, 2013. Among other things, these bills seek to register semi-automatic firearms. Noncompliance will be met with police raids of your home, seizure and destruction of your property, fines, and imprisonment. I understand many people were upset by the Sandy Hook tragedy. So was I. The appropriate response to this kind of tragedy is to empower you to defend yourself from the criminal, insane, and invaders foreign and domestic. It is not to further restrict your inalienable right to defense of yourself, your home, your livelihood, and your children.

The legacy of the twentieth century is that governments murdered millions more people — mostly those over which they governed — than were ever killed by criminals or died in foreign wars. Many of those governments which registered and seized firearms were amongst the most murderous; registration and seizure were but the prelude to widespread imprisonment, exile, and executions.

Many people have a bias toward normalcy and believe this cannot occur in the United States of America. Should these bills pass, we can only hope they are correct.

Semi-automatic firearms with large magazines have been in routine use since the time of Jefferson, when he chartered the Lewis & Clark expedition in 1804 to include a prototype semi-automatic rifle as part of the arsenal. We Americans have used these tools as individuals and armies for over two centuries. Increasingly frequent school shootings, however, are a relatively new and rare phenomenon mostly occurring since the passage of the 1990 Gun Free School Zones act.

Should these bills pass — despite their unconstitutional nature — I will register my firearms peacefully. No black helicopters will descend on my suburban house. No BATF agents will endanger their lives raiding my home in the middle of the night to seize unregistered firearms. Should one day we be invaded or the government overrun, those of us with our names on those registration lists will be targeted to shortly thereafter receive bullets to the back of our heads just like happened in the Soviet Union, Cambodia, China, Turkey, Uganda, Rwanda, Germany, and occupied Europe during World War 2.

But I will fight in hopes to prevent that day from ever arriving.

Some few of the bills below are fairly innocuous. I’m in favor, for instance, of reporting when guns are stolen, and a freely-usable electronic system for instantly checking the background of potential buyers so I can be sure I’m not selling a firearm to a criminal. We could limit abuse through the simple creation of one-time passcodes to this information on the part of prospective buyers.

But the abuses in most of these bills should not — MUST not — stand. They would outlaw the most common, safe, and effective firearms, rounds, magazines, and add-ons for home defense. And the timing of all the bills below is suspect; all play upon emotionalism in hopes of pushing a political agenda, instead of supporting and being supported by logic, reason, and balance of power encouraged by our Constitution.

Please act with me. Write your Congressmen or Congresswomen. Forbid them from taking away your life, liberty, and property through these bills:

1. HR 137 (Carolyn McCarthy, D-NY) “THE FIX GUN CHECKS ACT: To ensure that all individuals who should be prohibited from buying a firearm are listed in the national instant criminal background check system and require a background check for every firearm sale.”
2. HR 138 (Carolyn McCarthy, D-NY) “THE HIGH CAPACITY AMMUNITION FEEDING DEVICE ACT: To prohibit the transfer or possession of large capacity ammunition feeding devices, and for other purposes.”
3. HR 141 (Carolyn McCarthy, D-NY) “CLOSING THE ‘GUN SHOW LOOPHOLE’: To require criminal background checks on all firearms transactions occurring at gun shows.”
4. HR 142 (Carolyn McCarthy, D-NY) “To require face to face purchases of ammunition, to require licensing of ammunition dealers, and to require reporting regarding bulk purchases of ammunition.”
5. HR 34 (Bobby Rush, D-IL) “THE BLAIR HOLD FIREARM LICENSING AND RECORD OF SALE ACT: To provide for the implementation of a system of licensing for purchasers of certain firearms and for a record of sale system for those firearms, and for other purposes.”
6. HR 117 (Rush Holt, D-NJ) “To provide for the mandatory licensing and registration of handguns”
7. HR 65 (Sheila Jackson, D-TX) “RAISING THE AGE OF LEGAL HANDGUN OWNERSHIP TO 21: To prevent children’s access to firearms”
8. HR 21 (Jim Moran, D-VA) “THE NRA MEMBERS’ GUN SAFETY ACT: To provide for greater safety in the use of firearms”
9. Not yet submitted: “Stopping the spread of deadly assault weapons” (Dianne Feinstein, D-CA)

Although I also dislike its timing, please encourage your Congressmen or Congresswomen to support the one bill submitted that will actually help reduce the frequency and severity of school shootings:

1. HR 133 (Thomas Massie, R-KY), “To repeal the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 and amendments to that Act”

Respectfully, Matthew P. Barnson

Supporting links:

• Magazine limit ban being pushed to a vote as soon as possible, otherwise people will come to their senses: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXrAt7-ij2k
• Write your congressman: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/mail/?alertid=61046526&type=ML
• What extremist anti-gun people really are willing to do. Hint: it involves prying firearms out of the cold, dead fingers of anybody who has one: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20121230/OPINION01/312300033/1036/OPINION01/Kaul-Nation-needs-new-agenda-guns

In my opinion, this man embodies the voice of the Bolshevik Revolution: Ask the defenders of liberty to give up their arms peaceably. If they don’t do it, kill them.

About me

Many people think you need to consider the source in any argument. So here you go.

I own one 9mm pistol. I do not own any high-capacity semi-automatic rifles outside of an antique tube-fed .22 with a cracked stock that was given to me by my brother-in-law a decade ago. I do not hunt. I do not fish. I carry a firearm mostly to defend myself against two-legged predators.

I drive a hybrid and bicycle to work a lot. I voted for the moderate candidate — Barack Obama — both times, but I oppose mainstreaming the opinions of the extreme Left. I’m upset at how polarized toward the Far Right our House of Representatives has become, yet at a time like this I’m glad someone with a backbone might actually fight for my rights instead of buttering them up and serving them to a vain delusion that banning semi-automatic weapons will somehow save us from criminals and the insane.

Some friends have asked me to finish the sentence, “I need an assault weapon because…” The term “assault weapon” is a pejorative. I will use the term “modern sporting rifle”, because that’s what it is.

I need a modern sporting rifle because it is the lightest, safest, most reliable, most comfortable, most ambidextrous, most configurable, most well-tested, least wallboard-penetrating, safest to use at night defending my home, cheapest to keep in good practice with rifle ever developed by mankind; all of those features are extremely useful to me when practicing with the firearm, and may be critical to the defense of my home, my livelihood, my family, or my life.

Before you accuse me of shifting goalposts, I edit this document as needed to address inaccuracies, poor grammar, incorrect spelling, poorly phrased logic, etc. Words are ephemeral on the Internet. Deal with it.

In this age when conspiracy theories abound and you can find entire communities devoted to group-think, finding dragons in the clouds and believing them to be real, I think it’s a great idea to revisit Michael Shermer’s Conspiracy Theory Detector. Summary below the break.

1. Proof of the conspiracy supposedly emerges from a pattern of “connecting the dots” between events that need not be causally connected. When no evidence supports these connections except the allegation of the conspiracy or when the evidence fits equally well to other causal connections — or to randomness — the conspiracy theory is likely to be false.
2. The agents behind the pattern of the conspiracy would need nearly superhuman power to pull it off. People are usually not nearly so powerful as we think they are.
3. The conspiracy is complex, and its successful completion demands a large number of elements.
4. Similarly, the conspiracy involves large numbers of people who would all need to keep silent about their secrets. The more people involved, the less realistic it becomes.
5. The conspiracy encompasses a grand ambition for control over a nation, economy or political system. If it suggests world domination, the theory is even less likely to be true.
6. The conspiracy theory ratchets up from small events that might be true to much larger, much less probable events.
7. The conspiracy theory assigns portentous, sinister meanings to what are most likely innocuous, insignificant events.
8. The theory tends to commingle facts and speculations without distinguishing between the two and without assigning degrees of probability or of factuality.
9. The theorist is indiscriminately suspicious of all government agencies or private groups, which suggests an inability to nuance differences between true and false conspiracies.
10. The conspiracy theorist refuses to consider alternative explanations, rejecting all disconfirming evidence and blatantly seeking only confirmatory evidence to support what he or she has a priori determined to be the truth.

Examples of conspiracy theories that fail the test: “Birther” theory, “9/11 planned demolition”, and “Clinton Body Count”. If you hold up the Benghazi ambassador assassination to the same scrutiny, I don’t see how anyone can come up with any other explanation than that there WAS a conspiracy of Islamic militants who decided to attack the compound on the same day as anti-American demonstrations took place in many other highly-populated places in the Middle East.

It’s also useful to note that most conspiracy theorists share common traits likely to cause them to believe conspiracy theories:

1. Backing more than one conspiracy theory,
2. Talking about conspiracy theories with like-minded people,
3. Endorsing democratic procedures,
4. An imaginative outlook, (this is not a compliment; it means imagining things and believing they exist in the real world)
5. Mistrust of authority,
6. Feeling suspicious of others.

Conversation with my staff over the phone in India today. I love colloquialisms.

Me: “In this case, our application is just the canary in the coal mine. ” Them: “A what?” Me: “A canary in a coal mine. If it is dead, it’s not because it had a pre-existing health condition.” Them: “What health condition did it have?” Me: “… Uh. It was poisoned. By being in a coal mine.” Them: “Why would a coal mine poison a bird?” Me: “The coal mine may contain poisonous gases. That’s why miners would take a bird down into the mine with them: so if the canary dies, they could know to run to the surface.” Them: “That’s so cruel. If there are poisonous gases in a mine, they shouldn’t bring a bird with them in the first place.”

Had to go on mute. Laughing too hard!

Comment thread: https://www.facebook.com/ihenpecked/posts/10151254231702458?comment_id=24876373&notif_t=like

This morning, I decided to sit down and analyze some statistics, and from them I arrived at a hypothesis that I still need to validate. What do you think?

If you look at the statistics, as of 2012 the median household income is RISING in the USA, and in fact is at the highest levels in history in inflation-adjusted dollars. It’s easy to see where the money is coming from if you analyze income over time by gender, race, and education. The overall national economy is not a zero-sum game (the US economy overall is expanding without taking away from other economies; in fact, economies world-wide are expanding, too) but wages within the total at any given time appear to be a zero-sum game.

Hispanics and Blacks are increasing in income, while Asians and Whites are decreasing. Women are increasing in income, while Men are decreasing. Pay for those with at least an Associate’s Degree is increasing, while for those with less it is decreasing; more women than men are getting those degrees, and Hispanics and Blacks are increasing their share of degrees while Whites are decreasing their share.

Therefore, if you are a white man with less than an Associate’s Degree — a really, really gigantic block of voters! — you’ve probably experienced a profound negative shift in your socioeconomic status over the past decade. From this point of view, Barack Obama is a nightmare for America, accelerating this shift, and representing the “evil” that is destroying a way of life.

From my perspective, there’s a simple — but not easy — cure. Get an education and get on-board the gravy train of the “knowledge economy” that is at the heart of America’s current economic domination of the planet.

But it seems to be more popular to rail at perceived injustice than to improve one’s own situation.

For those who missed it, here was George Washington’s 1796 farewell address to the nation, touching on political parties:

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.

If you have a few minutes and are interested in an unbiased graphic of political trends in the House and Senate, check this out. It shows the shifts in power based exclusively on economic voting bloc patterns of the House and Senate over time. There are some fascinating patterns here, especially if you click the “large” graphic and pan around…

* The near-complete complete collapse of the Center Right in the House and voting dominance of the Far Right, starting around 1984 and continuing today. The last time we saw such an evisceration of the Center Right was under William McKinley at the start of the 20th century, but even then a few holdouts remained. Today, the only Center Right congressmen in the House are Democrats. * Voting Far Right seems to be a winning strategy for Republicans in the House for the past thirty years. While I often disagree with the Far Right ideology — I’m very much a Centrist — it’s hard to argue with the success of the takeover. * It’s hard to pick out the Policy Pendulum from this graph, but it looks like House voting patterns swung from Center Right to Center Left in 1930-1940, 1956-1966, 1974-1993, and 2006-2008. * Joe Biden’s trend from Far Left to Centrist during a long Senate career. * Newt Gingrich’s voting record looks very much like that of Gerald Ford. * That centrist candidates really tend to get their teeth kicked in in swing states; one is much safer on the Far Right or Far Left if the goal of the politician is longevity. * Senators Hatch and Byrd have one thing in common: they both kept their Senate seats far, far too long. I wonder if they’ll both die in office, too?

http://xkcd.com/1127/ Blogged at: http://barnson.org/node/1883

I just read an Open Letter to Republican Strategists, and gotta say I can’t agree more. I’m not quite as affluent as this guy, nor do we align on every issue. Nevertheless, I’m a bread-and-butter type of voter for the Republican Party — my party, by the way — but I handed in my vote that helped hand the Democrats the election.

Our party needs to get out of the business of being up in everybody else’s business, and focus on a core message that actually resonates with my kind of voter:

• Fiscal conservatism in deed, not just in name as it has been for my entire lifetime.
• Be pro-science. The current Republican anti-science stance is repugnant. Arguing over the benefits and disadvantages of cap-and-trade proposals is just fine. Arguing over the existence of settled conclusions in climate science, rape-induced pregnancy, evolution, and physics just makes you look like “the party of the stupid”.
• Be in favor of fixing health care. Being squarely anti-ACA is inimical to this goal; enhance, improve, and adjust the legislation. Your promise to “repeal ObamaCare” on Day 1 in office is a big part of what led to your defeat. Give productive suggestions, instead of a promise to tear down necessary improvements to US health infrastructure.

There is more, but that would be a good start. Instead of deciding to double-down again on an extremist form of anti-American fascism, why not entertain the notion of finding out what a winning constituency actually wants?