aubreyturner.org

Here are some pictures of my dog from this Sunday, when it was still warm and sunny outside.

Both were taken while she was checking for squirrel activity in the corner of the yard (always a favorite pastime for her).

It looks like someone forgot to tell the weather gods that this is Texas, not Minnesota.  Yesterday it was 64.  The day before it was 73.  Right now it’s 26 with 30mph wind gusts (and blowing snow). 

Ugh.  I think I prefer hot and humid.

As usual, once the “authorities” get their paws on your guns, it’s really difficult to get them back.

Leroy Carmichael wants his guns back.

Arlington police seized a cache of weapons—including a sawed-off shotgun and a machine gun that are registered with the federal government—from Carmichael’s home in October after a report that he was suicidal.

A psychiatric evaluation found nothing wrong with the 72-year-old former police officer. And no charges were filed against him.

Now the city wants him to sign a waiver releasing them from responsibility if they return his guns to him.  Mr. Carmichael has refused, quite rightly stating that he shouldn’t have to sign any kind of waiver to get his property back.

Here’s the part that raised my blood pressure, though.

Assistant City Attorney Kathleen Weisskopf said that police have the legal right to seize weapons if officers believe that their owner is a threat.

“They can seize those weapons pending the outcome of a criminal case,” she said. “But in this situation, we are not filing any criminal charges, so the law is a little gray.  (emphasis added)”

Weisskopf said that property issues are typically resolved through a court hearing or after a criminal case is disposed.

It seems to me that there is no “issue” here.  The damn city stole this man’s guns and needs to return them to him.  They’re rightfully his property and there is absolutely no legal reason for them to hold them.  But when it comes to guns, some kind of freaky magical spell comes over these people and they have to make it difficult to get your legal property back from them. 

If I was him, I’d consider filing charges against every city official and police officer involved for theft if they didn’t return my guns ASAP.  I’m not sure who would take such a complaint, though (“Officer, arrest yourself!”).

Did I mention that in their solicitous concern for Mr. Carmichael’s welfare that the ever-so-diligent Arlington police missed one?

Carmichael says that he still has a .45-caliber handgun that police overlooked when they searched his home.

“I’ve had it all this time, and I’ve never shot myself or anyone else,” he said.

“There was nothing wrong with me, and I shouldn’t have to sign a waiver to get my property back.”

In one of those strange situations that wouldn’t be believable as fiction, a UPS driver found himself in a catch-22 yesterday.

In a odd twist, a United Parcel Service driver was on his way to deliver parts to Cheshire Medical Center in Keene when his van was in a serious crash involving two tractor-trailer trucks on Route 9 at Chesterfield Hill, police said.

The driver’s name and severity of his injuries were unavailable this morning.

The driver was taken to Cheshire Medical Center by ambulance with a head injury, but the hospital couldn’t do some of the tests he needed because one of its machines was down, police said.

And the parts to fix that machine were in the man’s wrecked truck on Route 9.

Fortunately, after a brief delay they were able to retrieve the parts and perform the tests.

Instead of sending the driver to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, someone was sent to get the parts out of the truck, they were installed, and the machine was put to work, police said.

I wonder if UPS Tracking has a code for this situation?

Link via Engadget.

It amazes me that there are still people who idolize Josef Stalin.

Dozens of residents of Josef Stalin’s hometown celebrated the 125th anniversary of his birth Tuesday, singing, dancing and drinking champagne toasts to the late Soviet dictator.

People cried and kissed a 6-foot-tall cardboard cutout of Stalin and laid wreaths at the base of a monument in the small town of Gori, 50 miles west of the capital, Tbilisi, paying honor to the man who oversaw years of brutal purges and remarkable industrialization of an agricultural society.

Some of the people at this “celebration” remarked on how at least under Stalin they had jobs.  I suppose it’s easy to think this if you were one of the lucky ones who didn’t get sent to a death camp.  I wonder how the families of his victims and the few remaining survivors feel about him?

I noticed that XM and Delphi are trying to generate buzz for the new Delphi MyFi as a Christmas gift.  The MyFi is a handheld XM radio receiver with a built-in five-hour digital recorder (sort of a cross between audio TiVo and a VCR).  Given my experience with XM over the past two and a half years, I’m not convinced that this type of product is going to go over well. 

To receive XM in real time you need to have an unobstructed view of one of XM’s two satellites, which are in geosynchronous orbit over the continental US.  For heavily built-up areas (Dallas, New York, etc), where the view of the sky is likely to be obstructed XM has installed terrestial repeaters.  So if you happen to live in one of these areas, perhaps the device would work for you.  However, if you’re elsewhere, I would expect that simply going into an inner room in a house would cause you to lose signal. 

XM is great when you’re on the road, but I just don’t see how it would be a satisfying experience as a portable, given the potential reception issues.

One of the things I am given to understand about the Ohio CCW law is that, like Texas, it forbids concealed carry in venues that serve alcohol (although Texas draws the line at 51%, thereby making it OK to carry in most restaurants that incidentally serve alcohol).  As I’ve written before, I think these laws end up leaving people in needless jeopardy.

It turns out that there was a licensed CCW holder within five feet of the shooting.  What did he do?  He stood there in fear because he was disarmed due to being a law-abiding citizen.  While we can’t say with 100% certainty that this armed citizen could have brought this to a successful conclusion, the fact that he never had the chance to do so because of the asinine fears of some GFWs is outrageous.

I also noticed something interesting in last night’s WFAA report.  All of the people attending the memorial service at Arlington Convention Center were required to pass through metal detectors.  I wonder what would have happened had a lawful CHL-holder tried to enter?  By state law, since the convention center is owned by the City of Arlington, they could not lawfully stop that person’s entry.  But I bet they’d surely try to discourage it. 

A test of one of the potential components of the ballistic missile defense system failed today.

President Bush’s drive to deploy a multibillion-dollar shield against ballistic missiles was set back on Wednesday by what critics called a stunning failure of its first full flight test in two years.

The abortive $85 million exercise raised fresh questions about the reliability of the first elements of the plan, an heir to former president Ronald Reagan vision of a space-based missile defense that critics dubbed “Star Wars.”

Looking at the Google News feed for this story it was hard not to notice the gloating of the media at this turn of events.  It seems to me that the purpose of testing is to uncover these kinds of faults and fix them.  If all you have are successful tests, then it would seem that something is missing from those tests. 

I think the unfortunate thing is that there are a lot of people who for some misguided reason think that defending ourselves against missiles is morally wrong.  There is significant overlap between these idiots and the press, so any failures tend to be trumpeted as a case for the whole system not to work.  Intercepting ballistic missiles is a nontrivial operation, so it will take a while for the technology to reach maturity.  I also doubt that we’ll ever come up with a foolproof system without perfecting our energy weapons capability (or at least it seems easier to me to track and hit a missle with a directed energy weapon like a laser than it would be to intercept it with a rocket, although I’m not a rocket scientist…). 

With the normal stoicism of the Bush administration, I suspect they can easily weather the bleatings of these idiots, although the weaker members of Congress may vacillate when it comes time for further funding.  Given that the government of North Korea is batshit crazy, has nukes and missiles, and is a perfect example of the “success” of socialism we need a missile defense system sooner than later, just in case Kim Jong-il decides to take a few running dog capitalists with him when his country finally descends into chaos.

Perhaps it’s rock-and-roll blasphemy to ask this question, but can someone explain to me the popularity of Bruce Springsteen?  Even at the height of his popularity in the 80’s I was curious as to why people liked him. 

Was the market for gravelly-voiced singers not being properly filled by Bob Dylan at the time?

I’m just now starting to feel like one of the living after a bout with some kind of damn bug.  It was pretty annoying because it would pop back up just when I thought it was over.  I’m hoping it’s done now, but we’ll see.