No Philosophy?

Several times over the past few years, well respected and well known people, have written that the reason liberty oriented people fail in the political arena, or achieve limited results that they cannot follow up on or capitalize on; is because there is no coherent philosophy behind the notion of liberty.

In fact, the common notion is that liberty is antithetical to philosophy; a notion reinforced by many peoples conception of Ayn Rands book "Philosophy, who needs it"; which is in fact a philosophical tract (as are all her books).

The thing is though, it isn't true. There IS a philosophy of liberty. It's internally consistent, complete, and comprehensive.

It's also so simple, that many people ignore it, pass it over, or don't recognize it as a philosophy. So it irks me that otherwise quite intelligent folks write that there is no philosophy, when I KNOW that people have been talking about it in front of them, or even with them, for years.

It's called the non-initiation, or non-aggression principle, and it is the only philosophical framework and ethical system that doesn't require either an appeal to divine authority, or appeal to collectivism... (actually perhaps it should best be states as simply not requiring an appeal to authority at all), to be internally justified and consistent, as it is derived from the principles of self ownership and fundamental individual rights.

It is the core of libertarian thought and philosophy; and it's completely simple:

1. You own your entire self (body, mind, and soul).
2. As you own yourself entirely, you have the absolute right to:
   • self determination
   • freedom of conscience
   • your own property legitimately acquired (which includes your entire self) and the employment thereof
   • the efforts, products, and outputs of all the above
3. You have the absolute right to defend those things, and the product or output of them; up to and including lethal force.
4. There are no other rights, excepting that which directly derive from and are part of those fundamental rights above (free speech, free association, ans the right to form contract for example are all a part of freedom of conscience and self determination). All other privileges, powers,franchises, licenses, entitlements, and immunities, are less than rights; and are either derived from, or in opposition to them.
5. All men have identical rights, neither greater nor lesser than anybother, and are otherwise equal in such things. As such all are entitled to equal rights, treatment, and consideration in matters of rights, and of aspects of law or society that intersect or conflict with them.
6. None may properly or legitimately initiate force or fraud against any other to violate or abrogate their rights; or for any reason other than the defense of those rights; but including defending those rights for others who either cannot defend themselves, or those who delegate that defense to you.
7. There are no rights, privileges, powers, or immunities which are not derived from the rights of the individual. A collective of individuals may exercise or otherwise act in consideration of those rights that the individuals within the collective may choose to delegste to it. A collective cannot arrogate rights on itself which are not delegated to it by individuals; therefore no collective may exercise more or different rights than any individual, nor may it exercise those rights which have not been explicitly delegated to it.
8. You have absolute responsibility for all of the above. All consequences are yours, good or bad.

It's very simple really; though as with so many simple things, it isn't necessarily easy.

Unfortunately different people/groups have slightly different definitions of force or aggression, and slightly different definitions of initiation.

For example: is pre-emptive self defense ethical? If so, how do you separate that from the initiation of unjustified aggression etc... etc...

So, the various liberty oriented subgroups spend all their time arguing about angels and pinheads.

I have said many times in the past that I am not what I have called "a non-aggressionist"; which to an extent is true; however I do subscribe to the philosophy above.

I state in my post "The Politics of Liberty":

"My beliefs on government are rooted in three core tenets.

• The coercive restraint of human liberty is inherently evil. Control of ones person, property, and behavior should be the exclusive province of the sovereign man.
• The only legitimate limitation of liberty is that which prevents transgression on the liberty of others, or which compensates those transgressed upon.
• Without a disinterested arbiter, maintaining a monopoly of legitimate force with which it resolves disputes and enforces compacts between men, the liberty of the weak will be abrogated by the will of the strong."

And this is where my conflict with the non-aggressionists begins.

I subscribe to the philosophy of liberty, but exclude myself from the "non-aggressionist" description, because my definitions of "initiate" and "force" or "aggression", are considerably different from those who consider themselves strict non-aggressionists.

For example, I think it's perfectly reasonable to kill someone who is planning to kill you, before they ever pick up a gun. To a strict non-agressionist, this is unethical and morally wrong.

I also believe that you are responsible not just to yourself, but to your wife and children for example; and that they are responsible to you. I also believe that it is perfectly acceptable for you to make choices for your kids to protect them, until they are able to do so on their own.

Again, the non-aggressionists think that is wrong.

In fact, they would strongly object to the way I wrote points 5 and 6 above; because they would consider defending someone elses rights an unjustified initiation of force, unless that individual specifically and explicitly delegates that right to you.

I believe that without governments, at least as voluntary collectives; the strong will inevitably violate the rights of the weak; until the strong are too powerful to be resisted, at which point they will enforce tyranny.

Non agressionists believe that because no government can be perfect, according to their interpretation of the phlosophical system of liberty; all government is therefore illegitimate and cannot be allowed to exist.

Personally, I believe that strict non-agressionism is a voluntary mental illness.

(Oh and on a strictly personal basis, I'm a catholic... and I see no contradiction between Catholicism, and the philosophy of liberty. I'm also a veteran, and I see no conflict between voluntary military service, and the politics of liberty. Those two make most of their heads just explode.)

So, there must be some pragmatism involved; as there must be with any system of philosophy, morality, and ethics.

The problem with this philosophy of course is that it is SO simple, that it isn't sexy or saleable. There is no hidden advantage. There is no tribal secret. There is no group to identify with.

Of course, that is the point.

It's about individualism. Individual rights, individual responsibilites, individual rewards, and individual consequences. This is why I call myself a muscular minarchist individualist, and not a non-agressionist; or even a libertarian.

Amazingly to me, at least on an emotional visceral level; is that this whole idea is uncomfortable, or frightening, or simple preopsterous to many people.

I write, quite a lot, and I play games, and I instruct; and there's something I've found common to all those activities:

Most people, when given a broad base of possibilites with limited restrictions, have difficulty in orienting themselves, and deciding what to do.

Being put into such a situation makes them uncomfortable, or even fearful.

This is the problem the philosophy of liberty presents.

Those people inevitably do better, the more strictures and structures are put up around them. It helps them orient themselves, and constrains their analysis. It gives them something to hold on to. They lose their fear in the reassuring embrace of "the system". They get reassurance from "the system" that they are not at risk, and that they are doing "the right thing".

The ultimate examples of this of course are Fascism and Communism; both philosophies based on totalitarian control; and both very attractice to those who feel lost or frightened or paralyzed without such limitations.

It is my belief that there are essentially two types of individual: Those who do not wish to be controlled, and those who do.

The problem, is that those who wish to be controlled, almost univerally have a desire to control others; or at the least to force all others to be controlled. The rest of us just want to be left alone; but by nature, the former philosophies grow stronger the more adherents they get, until they, inevitably, impose tyranny.

I also believe that those who wish to be controlled FAR outnumber those who do not; perhaps as much as 20 to 1.

They construct philosophies and ethical systems which conform to their own personal desires; and then justify their coercive actions against others within the framework of those philosophies; so that it becomes legitimate to use coercive power against those who do not subscribe to that philosophy...

...and so the beast is born.

William Shatner, has a talk show...

... and there is no punchline to that setup.

Amazingly to some, there doesn't need to be.

It's good.

In fact, it's great, as far as talkshows with celebrities as the guests go.

I just watched him do 30 minutes of "Raw Nerve" (on the biography channel) one on one with Tim Allen, and then 30 again with Valerie Bertinelli; and I haven't seen better celebrity interviews since Tom Snyder retired almost 10 years ago (though Charlie Rose has some good moments).

The reason why it's great is Shatners personality; but not in the way you probably think I mean. I had thought the show would really be about Shatner, more than anything, and the guests would be there sort of as his foils. It isn't... not remotely. The show is about his guests; and talking with them VERY intimately, about what makes them tick.

It works, because of who Shatner REALLY is, not his public image. This isn't James T. Kirk or Denny Crane, it's Bill Shatner.

This next part is going to sound fanboyish, but believe me it isn't. I'm no Trek fanboy, nor a Shatner worshipper; but I've always found him a fascinating man.

Shatner is... well, he's Shatner. There no way he could ever be anyone else; which is what makes him amazing. He is both larger than life, and still humble and personal at the same time (and yes, those ARE contradictory things). He's incredibly intelligent, quick, funny, amusingly self deprecating, and remarkably empathetic.

Amazing, for a man who for years had a reputation as an arrogant, inconsiderate, and ungenerous ass, among his former co-stars...

Funny though, the people he was actually working with at the time such acusations have arisen have always said otherwise; be it Adrian Zmed and Heather Locklear, or James Spader and Candice Bergen (two people who are not known as easy to get along with themselves).

I've met the man several times, at events, conventions, book signings etc... and randomly, once, at a shopping mall in Lexington Kentucky (we talked for a few minutes about his horses on that occasion). In person he is a man of great confidence, self assurance, and self posession.

Above I said that to some, all of this would be unexpected; because of his reputation, and the popular public image of him, as what is essentially self parody.

Simply speaking, Shatner is not remotely what people think he is.

A few years ago, I heard him speak for perhaps a half hour in an interview, about his experience with coming to understand what addiction was; and how he had never truly understood it, until he lived through it with his third wife, Nerine, who drowned in their swimming pool while under the influence of alcohol and sedatives.

As he talked about this horrible period in his life (and if you don't remember, the aftermath was truly offensive, as media vultures insinuated that he murdered his wife, or drove her to suicide); I was struck by a simple fact:

There is no filter to William Shatner. He is showing you everything, with complete honesty. Sure, there's charm and wit and social grace; but there is nothing being concealed there.

Which is why I am not surprised that he has a talk show, and that it is good.

In the hour that I've seen, he really went at it with his guests. No areas off limits, no questions out of bounds; and they talked with Shatner like he was a cross between a confidant, a lawyer, and a therapist.

The two interviews were among the most honest, and interesting, celebrity interviews I've seen; and they were so not because the people involved were particularly famous (Tim Allen and Valerie Bertinelli were never really "A list" by most definitions) but because they were real people, talking about things in a real way; and because Shatner has no filter, they responded to him without filters.

He talks about things that are interesting to him; and it's a conversation, not really an interview. It goes where it goes; without talking points or plugs or agendas.

I can't imagine a better kind of interview really.

I'm looking forward to his future guests, including Kelsey Grammer, Drew Carey, Howie Mandel, Judge Judy, and the kicker (I'm sure they'll save it for the last show of the season) Leonard Nimoy. He has even said that he's asked George Takei on (with whom he has had a long running feud, recently brought up again in the press due to Takeis activism on the gay marriage issue), and that Takeis people have tentatively agreed.

Precisely Wrong

Apologies, while they may hurt the pride (or the pocketbook) are easy.

A simple "I'm sorry. I screwed up. I'll fix it, and try not to do it again"... it isn't hard.

A sincere apology goes a long way.

Some people though, seem to be incapable of apologizing. Oh they may seem to say they're sorry, but... no that's not quite right is it...

"I'm sorry you were offended"... ummm, wait a sec... That's not actually saying you're sorry is it now... in fact that's rather saying "I'm sorry you were a whiny oversensitive idiot. It's not my fault, but I'm saying this to placate you"... or something like that anyway...

Last Monday, it came to the attention of the online gun community at large, that H-S Precision, a leading manufacturer of stocks for precision rifles, had sought out the endorsement of the former head of the FBI hostage rescue team sniper program.


This of course seems a natural thing, given that the FBI is a prestigious organization, HRT is an elite unite within the FBI, and that they use H-S precision stocks; this would be a great endorsement normally...

... but for one rather large thing; which has the online firearms community incensed, and calling for the boycott of H-S precision:

The former head of the sniper programs name, is Lon Horiuchi.

Why does this matter? What's in a name? Why are so many people so angry?

Lon Horiuchi is widely considered a murderer by American gun owners. He was in fact tried for manslaughter, but his bosses in the FBI and department of justice made charges go away by claiming a jurisdictional issue.

You see, Lon Horiuchi was the sniper who killed Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge, while she was holding her infant in her arms.

Some background on the incident from an earlier post of mine, "Murder by Incompetence" from August 23rd 2007:

Yesterday was the 15th anniversary of the murder of Vicki Weaver by the FBI; and the day before, was the anniversary of her sons murder by US Marshals acting in concert with the ATF. Yes, I said murdered by the government. Not just killed, but murdered. A crime was committed; and it has never been properly redressed. Much of the attention and blame for this crime has fallen on Lon Horiuchi, the sniper who took the shot that Killed Vicki Weaver. I won't excuse what he did (he should have known better), but he was operating on very bad information, very bad orders, and under what I would consider clearly unlawful rules of engagement. The greater culpability for this incident lies in the US marshals who were initially on scene; and from the FBI, HRT commander Richard Rogers, SAC Eugene Glenn, and deputy directory Larry Potts; who took over the scene after Kevin Harris killed deputy marshal William Degan in self defense. On the morning of August 21st, during a botched surveillance operation; deputy US marshal Art Roderick fired at Sammy Weaver (Randy Weavers son) and Kevin Harris, or at their dog striker (this is unclear); killing the dog, and drawing return defensive fire from Weaver and Harris. Deputy marshals Roderick, Degan, Frank Norris and Larry Cooper then opened fire on Weaver and Harris. Degan shot and wounded both Weaver and Harris, at which point Harris shot back directly at Degan, killing him. In retaliation, deputy marshal Cooper then shot Sammy Weaver; killing him. At no time in this engagement, did the deputies serve a warrant, or identify themselves as marshals. When the marshals called in the FBI, the situation they described to the SAC, was an outright lie. They informed the SAC and the HRT commander that the Weavers were radical religious fanatics, part of a white supremacist holy war cult; that all members of the family were armed and ready to fight at all times, and that they were going to kill their children and themselves rather than surrender. The marshals also told the SAC that they had been pinned down for 12 hours by heavy small arms fire, and possibly automatic weapons; and that William Degan had been deliberately murdered. Based on this outright lie, the FBI instituted rules of engagement to allow any adult with a weapon to be shot on sight. These ROE were clearly unlawful, and should have been rejected by the onsite agents (and a judge decided that as well later); instead HRT acted on them for a full day. Within a few hours, the FBI chain of command knew that the marshals had lied; but they did not change the illegal rules of engagement until after Horiuchi had already fired several shots at Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris (wounding both). Horiuchis final shot at Harris missed him, and struck Vicki Weaver who was standing in the doorway that Harris was entering, holding her infant child. I believe that Lon Horiuchi was negligent in his actions that day in firing through the doorway; and he was derelict in his duty to the constitution when he accepted the unlawful rules of engagement; but he did not commit deliberate murder. It seems clear to me however that the marshals wanted revenge for the killing of William Degan, and to cover up their own unlawful acts and incompetence. In furtherance of this, they deliberately mislead the FBI in the hopes that the Weavers would be killed, and there would be no witnesses left alive to their crimes. There is no doubt that Larry Cooper murdered Sammy Weaver, by shooting him (under whatever circumstances), while attempting to cover up the crimes and incompeteance of he and his colleagues. Further, there is no doubt that the US marshalls lied to the FBI in order to cover up their incompetence, and possibly their crimes. At the very least, they should be tried for manslaughter, if not second degree murder; in the deaths of Sammy and Vicki Weaver. Additionally, SAC Glenn, SAC Rogers and deputy director Potts knew that the rules of engagement instituted that day were illegal, unconstitutional, and unjustified. They should never have instituted those rules; but even in so doing, once they found they had been misled by the marshals they had an absolute duty to rescind them. They did not do so, and their incompetence and misfeasance of duty directly caused the murder of Vicki Weaver. Given these circumstances, Lon Horiuchi has been saddled, somewhat unfairly, with the majority of the burden of these crimes. I simply believe this is incorrect. Horiuchi committed negligent homicide; but I believe his chain of command showed a depraved indifference to the lives of the Weavers, based on their political beliefs; and therefore committed second degree murder, or first degree manslaughter (depending on the laws of Idaho, which I am unfamiliar with).

As you can see, I don't personally consider Horiuchi a murderer; however it is abundantly clear, that he committed an unjustified homicide; which can be construed as several different crimes, depending on the totality of the circumstances, and the exact laws of the jurisdiction.

By the laws of most states, Horiuchis actions would be charged as manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, or second degree murder (again, depending on the state, and the exact totality of the circumstances).

The standard by which criminal negligence is decided in most states is thus (or similar): If the defendant knew or should have known, that their actions could result in a criminal act or criminal harm, then they are guilty of criminal negligence.

Further, some states have a concept of depraved indifference; where if one could reasonably foresee unjustified grave harm coming as a consequence of an act, and does it anyway, one is either criminally negligent, or worse. Some states elevate depraved indifference homicide to the same level as deliberate murder.

Lon Horiuchi knew, or should have known, that his rules of engagement were unlawful and unconstitutional. You cannot excuse "just following orders" when those orders are clearly unlawful. He acted on those orders, even though he could reasonably forsee unjustified grave harm coming to those subjects he was engaging.

He acted on those orders, and an unarmed woman with a baby in her arms died.

Based on this, Boundary county Idaho prosecuted him.

They indicted him, and brought him to trial; however the trial was ended and charges were ordered dismissed by a federal judge, who ruled that Boundary county couldn't try Horiuchi because he was a federal agent acting in the scope of his duties as an FBI agent; and that any prosecution would have to be at a federal level (the supremacy doctrine).

Idaho petitioned the US attorney and attorney general to prosecute Horiuchi, but they declined on the grounds of sovereign immunity (an agent of the state - specifically in this case a law enforcement officer - cannot be criminally prosecuted for acting within their duties, so long as they acted in good faith, and without negligence).

Idahos argument was that sovereign immunity did not apply, because the shots taken did not follow the FBIs shoot/no-shoot guidelines, or lethal force guidelines, and because the rules of engagement were clearly unlawful; however the FBI formally disagreed, stating that it was the onsite commanders call, and that Horiuchi behaved appropriately and in good faith.

As charging is at the discretion of the US attorney of the state, or of the attorney general (at that point Janet Reno); and feeling that the FBI had adequately dealt with the situation internally, they declined to prosecute.

Idaho then appealed the judges decision on the supremacy doctrine, and won; clearing the way to try Horiuchi again. However, by this time, several years had passed, a new county prosecutor was in place, the FBI was stonewalling, and the justice department was pressuring the state and county very hard to drop the case; so Boundary county declined to refile.

I realize this is a lot of background matieral; but you need to understand why it is that so many people are so upset about this.

Lon Horiuchi killed a woman with a baby in her arms, without justification, while acting as a sniper during an unlawful operation; and acting under unlawful and unconstitutional orders. He was charged, and tried, but got off on an administrative technicality and through political pressure...

... and a company making equipment for snipers, published a full page endorsement from him on the back of their catalog.

As has been said, that's a lot like having Bull Connor endorse your brand of firehoses.

At best this endorsement is a major gaffe, and a bit tone deaf. At worst, it's a deliberate thumb in the eye to the millions (and it probably is in the low millions. It's certainly at least hundreds of thousands) of Americans who consider Horiuchi a murderer (or something akin to it).

Those people, who just happen to be H-S precisions core customer base. Precision shooting enthusiasts, competitive shooters, the military, and law enforcement. I think if you were to poll all of the above, all of us (and I'm certainly in that group), even the majority of law enforcement snipers (and yes I'm sure every last one of them is familiar with the incident), would find this endorsement at the least stupid, and more likely offensive.

As it turns out however, the president of H-S precision, Tom Houghton Jr., is old friends with Horiuchi. In fact, it was in part that friendship which led to the FBI using H-S precision stocks on their sniper rifles.

You might say that Tom Houghton "owes one" to Horiuchi.

Clearly, the company knew about the incident, and knew about the opinion of the gun owning public; and did it anyway.

Now I'm speculating here, but based on the companies actions I think I'm justified in saying they did this because as far as president of H-S precision is concerned, his friend did nothing wrong.

Of course they did not state this publicly, as this would be suicide.

H-S precisions single largest customer is Remington Arms; who use H-S precision stocks on their factory custom rifles, their special police and marksman rifles, and their tactical rifles. All in all I believe Remington accounts for about 1/3 of H-S precisions business.

Last February, a gentleman by the name of Jim Zumbo; a 30 year veteran writer and hunting editor for outdoor life, and television host for the outdoor life channel, who had been sponsored by Remington for over 20 years; wrote a post for his Remington sponsored blog, in which he described the most popular centerfire semi-automatic rifle in the united states, the AR-15, as a "terrorist gun".

In this article Zumbo said that there was no legitimate use for an AR (or other "evil black rifles") and called for the AR to be banned from civilian hands; because the mere fact that they are available threatens his own preferred "hunting" guns.

Within hours of the post going up, outdoor life and Remington had received tens of thousands of emails and telephone calls. Over the next few days letters poured in.

Zumbo made one of those non-apology apologies, basically saying "hey sorry I upset you, but I didn't do anything wrong".

The very next day, outdoor life canceled his longstanding column, terminated him as hunting editor, and dropped him from their TV network. Remington canceled Zumbos sponsorship deals; and all his other sponsors followed suit.

Last week, the CEO of Remington Tommy Milner said the following:

Because its thanksgiving and everyone is off, we have not made contact with HS. We have taken any reference to HS from our web site.. When you first emailed me I honestly did not recall horiuchi's name so you caught me unawares. I also do not read the blogs so the fact there was an issue came as a surpise. In any event, HS makes a great product and we are a large customer of theirs. Why they would pick a super controversial spokesperson is beyond me. Doing this violates pure business common sense. Early next week we will use whatever persuasive powers at our disposal to get HS to do the right thing.. Do me a favor and tell those on the bolgs that Remington and I are now fully aware of the issue, in full agreement with the outrage, and will do what we can t exert pressure on HS to reverse course. Thanks Tommy

I happen to agree with Tommy Milner, H-S precision makes a good product. In fact, I had ordered a customized stock from them for my 1000 yard rifle project.

They have unfortunately been oddly silent.

The morning after the story broke (I read it about 9pm the day of) I called H-S precision, but got voicemail. I left messages for both sales, and marketing; explaining that I was a customer of theirs, and also a writer and editor of several web sites, and I wanted to hear from them regarding the endorsement as soon as possible.

I called back this week, and again got nothing but voicemail. They have not been granting any requests for comment, or interviews for the now thousands of inquiries they have recieved; apparently including not responding to their major vendors and customers (according to people inside said vendors and customers; of course unofficially).

In fact, they have said exactly nothing for nearly two weeks since the story broke... until yesterday.

I've been waiting to write anything about this story until we'd heard from H-S officially.

Yesterday, H-S Precision released the following statement:

To Our Valued Customers: H-S Precision has received comments relating to individual testimonials in our 2008 catalog. All of the testimonials focused on the quality, accuracy and customer service provided by H-S Precision. The management of H-S Precision did not intend to offend anyone or create any type of controversy. We are revising our 2009 catalog and removing all product testimonials. Sincerely, The Management of H-S Precision

Well, I can see a lot wrong with that statement... first, I think we should strike that "sincerely", because clearly there was nothing sincere about it.

Clealry they are saying "well, we don't think we did anythign wrong, but we're sorry you were offended".

To add insult to injury, they did not send this to anyone directly, nor respond to any questions. They quietly put up a small "news" link in the upper right corner of their website, and released that statement without fanfare... perhaps hoping no-one would notice?

We noticed.

In the mere hours since this statement was released, even those who had previously been defending H-S precision have been calling for a boycott of their products... even going so far as to call for a boycott on anyone selling H-S Precision products, or otherwise doing business with them (such as Brownells and Midway USA).

On my part, I'll be canceling my order with them on Monday. I was waiting for the statement, now I have it, and I'm showing them exactly what I think about it.

I can only speculate about what the reaction of the rest of H-S's customers will be; but I predict this will be the end of the company.

This non-apology is in fact WORSE than Zumbos, because it is insincere and disingenuous; and because H-S precisions KNEW exactly what they were saying and doing than and now, and knew what our reaction (and yes I share it) as gun owners would be.

I expect we'll hear from Tommy Milner on Monday, announcing they have canceled their contracts with H-S. There may be legal wrangling involved, but Remington knows that they won't be selling another precision/tactical rifle with an H-S stock on it; or at least not to the non-leo/military market (government contracts are a lot harder to change).

I expect we'll also hear from Midway USA and Brownells (their two largest distributors) shortly thereafter, announcing they are dropping H-S.

Right now, there is exactly one thing H-S precision could do to save the company, if they're lucky: They could issue a statement condemning Lon Horiuchi, and his and the FBIs actions at Ruby Ridge; and profusely and sincerely apologizing to the Weaver family, and to the gun owning public for being so stupid and offensive.

Somehow, I don't think that's going to happen. I think Tom Houghton really believes that he did nothing wrong, and neither did his friend Lon Horiuchi.

This mans pride is going to kill his company.

Oh and Jim Zumbo? He's back at outdoor life (though he's no longer the hunting editor) and he's back on TV. He educated himself about the issue, and made a sincere apology, and to an extent, he has been forgiven (he will never be totally forgiven, nor totally trusted. That's just the way gunnies are).

A sincere apology sometimes goes a long way.

National Parks Carry

Just recieved from the NRA:

National Parks to Allow Right-to-Carry

Fairfax, Va. - The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), through the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has announced the final amended version of its changes to rules on carrying of firearms in national parks and wildlife refuges.

DOI’s move will restore the rights of law-abiding gun owners who wish to transport and carry firearms for lawful purposes on most DOI lands, and will make federal law consistent with the state law in which these public lands are located. The National Rifle Association (NRA) led the effort to amend the existing policy regarding the carrying and transportation of firearms on these federal lands.

“Today’s announcement by the U.S. Department of the Interior brings clarity and uniformity for law-abiding gun owners visiting our national parks,” said Chris W. Cox, NRA chief lobbyist. “We are pleased that the Interior Department recognizes the right of law-abiding citizens to protect themselves and their families while enjoying America's National Parks and wildlife refuges.”

DOI announced the rule change today and will publish the new regulations in the Federal Register. The new regulations allow right-to-carry permit holders to exercise their Second Amendment rights on national park and wildlife refuges in those states that recognize such permits. The move will provide consistency across our nation’s federal lands and put an end to the patchwork of regulations that governed different lands managed by different federal agencies. In the past, Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service lands allowed the carrying of firearms, while lands managed by DOI did not.

The NRA has long held that amendments to those regulations were needed to reflect the changed legal situations with respect to state laws on carrying firearms. Earlier this year, fifty-one U.S. Senators sent a strong bipartisan letter to the DOI supporting the move to make state firearms laws applicable to national park lands and refuges.

“These changes respect the Second Amendment rights of honest citizens as they enjoy our public lands,” concluded Cox. “We applaud the Interior Department’s efforts to amend these out of date regulations".

I live in Arizona, and am surrounded by Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado. Do you know how many national parks there are, and how much land that was excluded from right to carry in those states (I'm just going to ignore California here)?

This is spectacular news.

Now let's see Obama try to ban it by executive order so we can take THOSE toxic pieces of pseudo legislation to the Supreme Court.

The Single Best Statement I've Ever Heard on Terrorism...

... and it's from "The Daily Show"

Seriously, it is exactly and entirely correct in every way. No spin, no apologia, just raw unvarnished... welll... watch the video, you'll see.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mumbai Tragedy

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

I should note however, that there IS a rationale behind such acts; however flawed and vile it is.

A few years back I wrote a piece talking about what terrorism really was, how it worked, and what its goals were; in which I explained this rationale:

"[Terrorism is both] a tactic, and a strategy. In particular it's the tactic of forces that do not have the resources to mount a successful guerilla campaign; and the strategy of forces whose objectives are militarily impossible, but politically possible.

The objective of terrorism is to demoralize the civilan population that supports the controlling authority, and to provoke disproportionate and misdirected response from the controlling authority; which will tend to engender support for the terrorists from the disaffected population, and from outside groups opposed to the controlling authority.

Terrorism isn't about military targets, it's about violent politics and propaganda, and it works in this limited arena only. Terrorists arent trying to win wars, they are trying to gain enough support that they no longer need to be terrorists; or failing that, create enough chaos that the controlling authority collapses or loses control.

Once chaos has trumped control, the terrorists then have a better chance for conducting successful operations given their limited resources, which will allow them to take control."

Of course, it usually doesn't work; and in the mean time, a hell of a lot of innocent people die for no reason.

DEEP in the uncanny valley

Sorry, rough coupla weeks

It's been nonstop chaos, confusion, irritation, illness, and general mayhem around here lately. It's kept me from writing much useful or good in the past few weeks.

Rest assured, I'll be back on the job as soon as I can be. In the mean time, daily filler and status updates (as has already been happening) will let you know I aint dead yet.

Laptop is compute... mostly

So after working on the problem all day yesterday... well not directly... Much of the day was taken up in trying to restore from a backup unsucessfully, and then to take (successfully... eventually) clean backups off the drive in the laptop. Then much of the rest of the day was spent working around the problem so I could actually, you know, work, at the job, that pays me money...

Anyway.

I finally figured out this morning what was causing the problem. I have a corrupted data partition, on which are stored some critical files. Every time windows accessed some parts of that partition it would start to fail ungracefully, eventually locking up totally.

By booting to a rescue disk, and force mounting the other partition, I was able to get a full backup. Now I just need to wipe it, scan the disk for bad sectors, and recreate it clean so I can reload the data.

In the mean time, I've removed the partition from the volume manager so windows programs can't try and access it, causing another crash. I've moved my critical work data onto the primary partition, and I'm running off that for the work day, until I can do the full cleanup job.

Hopefully the many crashes in between haven't corrupted windows badly enough that I need to reinstall; though I probably should anyway, and will when I have time.

Laptop is no compute

This morning, the OS on my laptop decided to go into a repeated crash and burn cycle, which eventually thoroughly corrupted the filesystem on the OS partition.

I'm trying to recover from backups at the moment. Not having a great time with that so far.

In the mean time, it's not like I don't have enough computers; and if it comes down to it, I can always recover the data from the data partition easily (I don't store anything on the OS partition, just in case I have to wipe and reinstall); it's just a major PITA.

The worst thing is, all my work files are on that data partition; and for some reason every time I try and copy them off the system tries to crash somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 through (it's different each time), even when I'm booted of a linux recovery disk.

It's probably due to filesystem corruption; so I may need to pull the hard drive and attach it (through one of several adapters and docks I have. Remarkably useful things those) to a running system to get a clean copy.


Oh and I'm still sick, which makes it doubly fun. I'm at least keeping the food down (barely), and not getting dehydrated; but food poisoning leaves you funky for a couple days.

To Kim:

Thanks for the free ice cream.

That is all.

The pellet with the poisons in the vessel with the pestle

Once, when I was a young boy... I think about 7 years old; I was very ill. I ended up sick at home from school for about two weeks.

I was SO sick, that I couldn't concentrate enough to read (even then my favorite thing to do indoors) so of course I was terribly bored.

One of the local UHF television stations used to play old movies; and one day, they had a Danny Kaye triple feature, with "Hans Christian Anderson", "The Court Jester", and "The Five Pennies".

I was absolutely enchanted. I've loved Kaye's work ever since.

I was really amused, when I started playing Fallout 3 (a video game), and one of the songs on Galaxy News Radio, was Kaye's "Civilization".

I'm sick today, and funny enough, one of the websites I read had this clip, the most famous sequence from "the court jester":



Not Kaye's best work as an actor ("the five pennies" definitely takes that), but some brilliant writing, and great fun. If you've never seen it, you really owe yourself to watch it.

Coming back out the wrong way

Well.... that was fun.

I made the brilliant move of not eating anything all day but coffee and doughnuts this morning (or rather yesterday morning, since it's about 1am now), then going to help my mother move all day.

By the time I got home it was 9 o'clock already, and I was starving so I just grabbed some Burger King; my "usual" big meal from BK (if once a month can be considered "usual", a plain chicken sandwhich and a bacon double cheeseburger.

Well, the burger tasted a little weird, but I didn't think much of it at the time; and I finished it.

Mistake on my part.

I was fine for a couple hours... basically until just after I finished the last post. Or rather, the food didn't sit well with me from when I ate it, but it didn't seem serious; more like the normal indigestion you'd get after having a large meal after several hours of vigorous excercise on an empty stomach, plus a bit of a headache.

Then, all of a sudden, I started feeling very nauseous, and I started getting red blotches all over. I spent the last almost two hours puking my guts out, with great force and vigor.

I would say it would be fair to characterize the vomiting as "projectile".

God I hate puking.

It's not a standard "food poisoning" as such, because it happened too quickly after ingestion. I suppose it could be a bacterial toxin... a possibility strengthened by the secondary symptom of the rash; but it's still unlikely.

The rash, lack of fever, and the rapidity of the reaction suggest I ate something I'm allergic to; though that's a pretty limited list of things, none of which seem likely to have shown up in a Burger King burger.

As far as I know, my allergens are pretty limited. Onions antagonize my ulcerative colitis (not a true allergy), I'm allergic to certain fungi and substances derived from them (but not table mushrooms), I get amoxicillin rash (not a true allergy); and I'm not allergic to shellfish (I eat shrimp, lobster, clams, and scallops all the time, no problem), but I am to the red dye they make from concentrating the pigment from their shells.

Weird.

Anyway, now that it's all out, I feel MUCH better. The rash is going away, I'm not nauseous, and my headache is gone.

I'm going to take some benadryl just in case, and if symptoms return, or I pop a temp, I'll go hit the urgent care; otherwise I may have found a new food allergy.

Update: Well, it's definitely some kind of food poisoning, because just drinking my morning tea triggered it again. An hour after something went into my stomach, and I'm losing it out the wrong way again.

Also, since it's persistent, it's possible that I mistook the incubation period and it was something I ate on Saturday, or even Friday; the funny taste was there because the food poisoning was already on me, and I hadn't noticed it earlier because I hadn't eaten anything.

Vacations Over

So I took a few days off, as I'm sure you noted.

I was thinking back, and I realized something: this is the first time I've actually had five days off work in a row (that didnt involve at least two days of travel time in the middle and while I was employed) since... ever.

Ok, not really ever, but since I got out of the Air Force anyway.

Consider me relaxed. Actually, up until this evening it was very restful. Mels dad had the kids this weekend, and we slept in, cuddled, read, watched TV, and managed to get out to see "Quantum of Solace".

A damn near perfect weekend really... at least until, as I said, this evening.

Why this evening? My mother called me up Friday and said "I have to move out of my house by Monday at 5 pm, but I can't get into the new apartment until Monday. Can you rent me a truck and come over on Sunday to help us move".

I told her I wouldn't rent her the truck, but I would help her pick it up on Sunday. She said she would call me Saturday night with the details, and when to come over. Turns out she didn't call 'til 2pm Sunday.

Oooh boy...

Oh well... she's my mom. I'll be helping her out tomorrow after work too.

Quote from "Shadowforce"

I loved this line from the new hitler channel show on PMCs, "Shadowforce".

"No, it's not the way I'd do it at all... but hey we're just attached to them. They're in the front, mainly, so, they'll run into whatever first."

... Ayup.

532 nanometers

I just picked up a relatively cheap (on clearance for $20 each, from $49), 5mw green laser pointer (powered by two AAAs)... and man these things are way more fun than red lasers.

Superbright, and MUCH longer visible range. I took it out in the street and was able to easily see a dot 1/2 mile away.

I've only had it for a few hours, and I've already gone through a set of batteries.

Man... I REALLY want one of the 150mw versions now.

Lawyers and Money

No guns, and no hitting of fans with excrement, though my jaw and the floor got uncomfortably familiar.

The hopefully final legal bill of the year just came in... MY GOD.

The donations from our readers took us up through the summer, but were exhausted in August.

Since August, we've accrued another $24,000 in legal bills, of which we've paid $7000. We didn't know what that final number was until today though.

$17,000...

We had expected about $10,000 but they dragged the pretrial stuff out a bit, and then had to file post hearing paperwork and responses and all this other crap...

Christ, that's a lot of money all at once.

Oh and of course when they finally lose, they're going to file another pointless appeal, which we're going to have to respond to, probably another $10,000.

Before anyone does anything, no we are NOT asking for donations at this time. This is a very different situation than we were in at the beginning of the year. As of right now, there is no danger we'll lose the kids without additional legal services; and our lawyer will be understanding in allowing us some time to pay him. I don't know if he'll be understanding enough to stretch it out to a year though, which is what I'm going to need; but we'll get by.

Now if the judge would just issue the damn ruling. Apparently he has 60 days from October 24th to do so, but we're still checking with the court every day.

It's not QUITE like that...

... but it's close

Another year gone...

and hopefully a better year ahead.

Tomorrow is my 28th birthday, and it could not have come soon enough.

I don't count my years from New Year's to New Year's; to me, a year is from birthday to birthday.

By no means has this been my worst year ever; my worst year was 2003/2004, especially if the first week of December is included. 2004/2005 comes in second.

However this year yielded some difficulties I did not expect, and some joys as well. This will forever be the year of silver linings for me, as the catastrophes that did come along could have been much worse.

Yes, I did end up filing a very expensive response in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, but in the meantime I find out how many people out there give a damn, as many people aided us with both donations and words of encouragement. Also, the case would have been much more expensive if the 9th Circuit had gone forward with the scheduled oral arguments instead of sending the case back to state.

Yes, I did end up in state court (once again an expensive endeavor) but it was court on my turf and I'll be receiving the judge's ruling any day now.

Yes, my mother did pass away after a brief, grueling, and horrific illness, and I doubt I'll recover fully from what I've seen, learned, and had to do. I was there to give my father counsel, there to give my opinion on whether or not to take her off life support, there when she died, and there to watch my entire family apart. However I experienced much kindness along the road, and should my mother have lived she would have endured many years of chemotherapy and debilitating pain. Letting her go was the best decision we could have made given the circumstances.

The same is true of Springer; it was hard for me to deal Saturday, making the choice to put our poor cat out of her misery so soon after advising the same thing for my own mother. But she was suffering more by the minute, with no hope of recovery, and so we let her go as well.

It's been a hard year, and I've had to grow up a lot, but it could have been much worse.

I'd like to say this year will be better, and I honestly hope it will. We're finally getting legally married after all, and the light at the end of the legal tunnel is fast approaching. However, both my grandparents are ailing (they're both in their 90's), Chris's mother and brother are terminally ill, the health of my favorite uncle is declining rapidly, and we have two pets who may need to be put down in the very near future. This year is likely to feature even more death than the last.

However, in a few more we'll start growing the family even more and there will be life again. Even this year featured the addition of life; I gained a nephew, and we added Jayne to the family. There will be more children and more pets in the years to come.

At some point in the near future, winter will become spring and we'll be all right.

In the meantime I'll try to enjoy the holidays, but it will be hard. This will be the first Thanksgiving without my mom and I don't think it will be easy for me at all. Thankfully I have enough to do and enough people around me to keep me busy, so I'll be okay.

Hopefully this year will be better than the last.

Mel

Springer

One of our cats died Saturday.

I wrote a few weeks ago that we would have to put Kimber down soon, and that's still true, though she's doing well enough at the moment that it may not be for another couple months, or at least a few more weeks.

Unfortunately, this was our other cat Springer. She had sudden onset kidney failure. Thursday she was fine, Friday she was hiding from us all day, and Saturday she was gravely ill.

We took her to the emergency animal hospital where they made it clear there was no chance of recovery; and likely there would not have been even if we had got her in there the day before; because there was no clear cause of the kidney failure. The vet said it was likely poisoning, but could have been an unnoticed congenital condition. So, we put her down.

The kids haven't really absorbed it yet.

Causality Awareness

Methinks Dilbert is having a causality awareness failure.

It's not that the internet is more interesting... the fact that 90% of the internet is fanboys, spam, and porn (and no, the porn isn't good enough to be more interesting than actual people) means that it has to be the remaining 10% worth looking at he's talking about.

That 10% doesn't happen without interesting people to write it.

So the problem isn't that the internet is more interesting than people; the problem is that Dilbert knows the wrong people.

This supposition has been confirmed observationally...

Sorry for being content free

... But one of my best friends on the planet is staying with us for a couple days. Normal ranting and raving to resume Monday

Seven Score and 5...

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln,
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
November 19th, 1863

How Obama Got Elected

Zogby Poll from HowObamaGotElected.com

512 Obama Voters 11/13/08-11/15/08 MOE +/- 4.4 points

97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates

Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions

57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)

81.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)

82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)

88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)

56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).

And yet.....

Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes

Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter

And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her "house," even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!

Only 2.4% got at least 11 correct.

Only .5% got all of them correct. (And we "gave" one answer that was technically not Palin, but actually Tina Fey)

I've been saying it for years...

But now Jules Crittenden, the Boston Herald (that's the relatively good Boston paper, vs the other one which is wholly owned and operated by the New York Times)and the members of VirtualTourist.com have all affirmed my opinion that:




Boston City Hall is the UGLIEST BUILDING IN THE WORLD (or at least the ugliest public building anyway. There are some industrial sites uglier).

I came to this opinion the very first time I saw the monstrosity; but that opinion was solidified in the early 90's, when I actually worked at Government Center (what they call the "square" surrounding the damn thing).

I worked at a book shop in the little concrete trough at the southwest corner (basically just to the bottom right corner of the second photograph); and had to look at the hideous concrete wedding cake every day.

Worse of course is that it is situated in the heart of Bostons most beautiful buildings (especially the work of Charles Bullfinch). This is the view from the southeast facing windows, out into Fanueil Hall, and Quincy Market:


And here's Fanueil hall itself:


And here is the old state house, which is not quite directly across the street (it's across the street, but there are a couple of smaller buildings in the way):



Of course it's only made worse by comparing it to other public buildings around Boston, like the NEW state house (new being a relative term; it having been built around 1798, vs. 1713), which is a few hundred yards to the west (on the edge of Boston Common):

Or say, the Boston Custom house tower, a few hundred yards to the east (you can see the old north church steeple in that picture to the right):


And it's not just Bostons Colonial, Georgian, and Federal architecture that works. We generally get it right when it comes to new construction as well.

This is Rowes Wharf, and the new Boston Harbor Hotel; a development from the 80s, about 1000 yards from government center:


I don't know... perhaps how much of a blot Government Center, and City Hall, are on Boston can best be appreciated from above.

In Boston, the architecture follows the city; unlike in most other cities where the city follows the architecture. Boston isn't a grid; the streets were laid out as natural pathways in the late 1600s; and then again in the early 1800s, as land was reclaimed from the harbor. There are no straight lines in Boston.

Boston is full of organic shapes, and the buildings were made to fit into those shapes naturally. Boston is green, and red, and brown. A city for walking. A city of small public squares, none of which are square; and many parks, and public spaces, and little almost villages.

Boston may be a metro area of 5 million people; but the core of the city is only about 600,000; and it is scaled to fit.

Look at Government center in these photographs:



It's just one gigantic concrete and brick paved geometric space, right in the heart of Boston. Not only is it ugly, it is completely at odds with the entire city. It is surrounded by green, and round, and natural; and there it is, gray and concrete and the worst parts of artificial.

It is, simply, the worst public building in the world.

Don't just take my word for it though, here's the Herald:

"It’s official now. Boston City Hall is the ugliest building . . . in the world!

Bostonians didn’t need VirtualTourist.com and City Hall’s top billing on the World’s Top 10 Ugliest Buildings and Monuments list to figure that out. Residents have known it pretty much since the hard-on-the-eyes pile of concrete and bricks went up.

And like a good hard-nosed pol, Mayor Thomas M. Menino isn’t sulking. He plans to use the slur as ammo in his long-running battle to abandon the architectural eyesore for a City Hall on South Boston’s waterfront.

“Coming out and saying it solidifies it in my opinion,” Menino said. “People all around the world agree with me.”

City Hall was singled out for its dreary facade, cold interior, its big, empty, windswept plaza, as well as the way its monstrous, angular frame dominates its surroundings, said VirtualTourist.com general manager Giampiero Ambrosi.

The Web site, which claims 1 million members, placed the Hub horror ahead of such architectural atrocities as the Port Authority bus station in New York City, Montparnasse Tower in Paris and the LuckyShoe monument in Tuuri, Finland, a golden horseshoe overshadowing the Baltic country’s second-largest shopping mall.

Menino noted a bright side. The world’s ugliest building could be a tourism boon. “We really do have it all, the most historic places in the world and the ugliest building in the word,” he joked.

But whether a tourism campaign can be built around that blockhouse remains to be seen. Yesterday, out-of-towners passed it by without giving it a second thought.

“That’s gotta go,” said Ivette Arenas of San Francisco, when it was pointed out to her on her way to the Common. “You have some of the best (buildings), and right here you have the worst.”

“It is a pretty ugly building,” agreed Carol Sue Graves of Orange, Va., as she walked to Faneuil Hall.

An example of the “New Brutalism” school of design, City Hall was seen as a clean break from Boston’s past, said Jeff Stein, dean of the Boston Architectural College.

“They were looking for something new and startling,” Stein said. “And boy did it succeed.”

But Councilor Michael Flaherty, a skeptic of moving City Hall, said that even with the world’s ugliest edifice, it’s what on the inside that counts.

“You can have the best-looking building in the world, but what matters most is accessibility, transparency and accountability,” Flaherty said."

Oh and here's the rest of the list of the 10 worst:

"2. The Montparnasse Tower in Paris, France. Ugh la la!

3. The LuckyShoe Monument in Tuuri, Finland. Step away!

4. The Metropolitan Cathedral in Liverpool, England. Spaced out.

5. The NYC Port Authority Bus Terminal. Get outta town!

6. Torres de Colon, Madrid. They call it “The Plug.” Pull it!

7. The Liechtenstein Museum of Fine Arts. No masterpiece.

8. The Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh. Nae, laddie!

9. The Birmingham Central Library in Birmingham, U.K. Shhhh!

10. The Peter the Great Statue in Moscow. Like Ivan, it’s terrible!"

HT to Coyote Blog

Fallout Boy

Well, I meant to have the optics uberpost done today, but Fallout 3 has eaten my brain; so instead I'm going to give you some tips.

First thing, I'm not even going to bother reviewing it; because if you've been paying any attention at all, other than the stability problems, this is probably the best game since portal came out. It's almost certainly the best action RPG to come out since the original DeusEx.

So, if you're a fan of the genre, you're going to love the game. In fact I'm presuming the only reason you don't have it already is because you haven't bothered upgrading your system since the LAST good game of the genre came out (Oblivion probably; and that was almost three years ago).

For this game, you really do need a recent processor; either a dual core of 1.8ghz or above; or a single core in the 3ghz range. You also need at the least a Geforce 8600, or something similar, to run at a reasonable resolution at high quality.

It runs just fine on my $80 GeForce 8600gt 512 (DDR3); even with everything turned all the way up at 1680X1040 windowed. I'd say that's about the minimum I'd want to run it on though. I do have to turn the details down from ultra to high when I go fullscreen 1920x1200.

Oh and it runs just fine on my laptop, which has an 8600GS 512mb discrete card, running at 1440x980. Again, if I shrink the window a bit it runs on ultra high in windowed mode, but wont run well at full rez on ultrahigh. I get jitter and slowdowns (unfortunately it also crashes like mad either way - less in full screen than in windowed - ; but that has nothing to do with performance, because it happens no matter the settings).

So it doesn't take THAT much horsepower. Crysis is far worse.

Alright first things first, character creation is CRITICAL. You don't get to increase your basic attributes (called S.P.E.C.I.A.L. in this game) very often, if at all, during the game; and they effect everything that comes after them very strongly, so you have to get it right.

No matter what type of character you want to play, intelligence is the most important stat by far; and should be prioritized above all others. You should start the game with a minimum of 8 in intelligence, and give serious thought to 9 or 10. Remember, intelligence determines your base score for all your technical skills, as well as the number of skill points you receive per level; so max it out.

Also critically important are agility and perception; again no matter what type of character you want to make; because they control your gun skills, your sneaking skills, and your manual dexterity skills like lockpicking (a CRITICAL skill in this game).

The wildcard is endurance; because it controls basic toughness, but is also the relevant stat for assault weapons like rocket launchers, miniguns, and cannons. Dont reduce it below 4, and consider taking a 6 just to have it for later.

Physical strength it relatively unimportant in this game. It accounts for inventory capacity (which is important certainly), and melee damage; but that's about it. Since you can't really play an all melee character successfully I'd deprecate strength. Don't go below 4 though or bad things happen (you lose access to certain perks etc...)

Just after chosing your SPECIALs, you'll be asked to "tag" three skills. You will then get an initial bonus to those skills. I recommend you chose your tagged skills out of the pool below.

I don't see how you can build a socially oriented character in this game and win; or even have fun. Although there is a lot of social interaction, the game doesn't give you many social ways to avoid combat; and most of the quests are... not quite combat oriented, but would be very difficult to accomplish without combat.

You MIGHT be able to get by with a sneaker though, by putting everything into sneaking, stealth oriented stuff, and science(for terminal hacking). Also, at some point you can pick up a sidekick (actually, you can apparently pick up several simultaneously; though I haven't got there yet)and it may be possible to survive with stealth alone until you do; then have them handle combat for you.

...Maybe... I kinda doubt it though. Sidekick characters in video games tend to do dumb things, like wander randomly into the line of fire, fall into things, and set off traps. Stealth is not their friend.

Now, onto game play.

In general, conserve and collect like mad. Everything is saleable, so if you see something that has a value more than 4 times its weight; it's worth picking up to sell later. This is a HIGHLY resource constrained game, so you're going to want to explore everywhere you can, grab and conserve all the ammo, stimpaks, and money you can.

Dont ignore Karma; it does make a difference.

Also, don't ignore luck. It determines how much ammo and money you find.

Once you get past the first storyline quests (past Moriarty in "following in his footsteps") stop following the main storyline.

Go and talk to everyone in megaton, and get their quests. Then talk to all the people you meet on those quests and get their quests. Do the little side quests etc...

Unlike most open world games, Fallout 3 ends when you complete the last mission of the main storyline; so do all the side quests as they come, don't save them for later.

Get up to level 5 or more (I'd say take it all the way to at least 8), and build up your stats.

Get your repair, and lockpick skill up into the 75 or more range. These are by far the two most important skills in the game. You will be using them constantly; and I recommend putting them up to 90 fairly quickly (it's easy to have items bring them to 100)

Medicine and light guns, are also important; especially in the beginning of the game; and again I'd say bring at least light guns up to 90 eventually.

Science, Explosives, Heavy guns, and energy weapons get more important as you go; but are little help in the beginning. You'll want to get science up to around 50 at least by the time you hit level 7 or 8.

Honestly, although the other skills do provide some value, and some interest; You really need to concentrate on the core skills I've mentioned. You need to get good to survive the higher level enemies; and "barter" doesn't help you much there (though it's certainly useful in the shops).

When you do your side quests, build up inventory and caps. If you haven't already got your intelligence at at least 8 (10 would be better... actually I'd say start the game over if you didn't initially set it to 8 or more), and your perception to at least 6 (8 would be better) take the "intense training" perk every level until you do.

Grab the Thief, Gun Nut, Educated, Toughness, and Swift learner perks as soon as possible (prioritized based on your play style), and consider taking multiple levels in each. Oh and hunt those bobbleheads for the skill and ability bonuses.

Then, when you're well sorted, get back on the storyline. You'll be much more likely to survive, use less stimpacks, deal with the big baddies a lot better in general etc...

Did I mention conserve ammo? Use your VATS; and use the cheap ammo weapons, like the 10mm pistol and 10mm submachine gun. Wait until they get close, and then go for multiple headshots at high percentage.

Get good at light guns, and use the hunting rifle A LOT. It is by far my most used weapon. Once you're good, you can do some serious long range sniping with it using VATS. No, it's nowhere near as accurate as the sniper rifle; but the ammo is far easier to find, and far cheaper.

The combat shotgun is the best close quarters weapon of the first half of the game. The hunting rifle, the best for medium to long ranges, until you can get the lincoln repeater (and the .44 ammo for the lincoln is a pain to find in comparison). The assault rifle and SMG are useful for the midrange as well, but are wasteful of ammo, and inaccurate. I much prefer using my hunting rifle and VATS to make precision kills.

You're going to be in the washington DC metro tunnels a lot. Take every opportunity you can to pop up out of the stations, so you can set a map marker, and fast travel back there when you need to.


Repair, repair, repair, repair. Gather a half doezn duplicates of items you want to use and keep, and repair constantly. Keep your armor and wepaons as close to 100% as possible.

Lots more to come as I continue playing.

Someone once asked me, who I most wanted to be like

No hesitation, Stephen Fry....

Only not gay...

Or manic depressive...

Or english...

Or an actor...

But everything else, yup, like Stephen Fry.

Funny, so do these comics

The Longest War

In my veterans day post, I wrote a couple paragraphs about how I believe that Europe has never really recovered from World War I:

"Britain, France, Belgium, Canada, Australia, Russia... and on the other side Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary (and the remains of the holy roman empire), Turkey (and the other ottomans)... an entire generation of young men in Europe were lost to the most futile, worst run war, in modern history.

In four years, 18 million men died (or went missing, which is mostly the same thing), and 22 million men were wounded.

In fact, Europe has never recovered from this greatest of historical mistakes. It was the direct aftermath of world war one that lead to world war two; which created the postmodern European culture that is slowly being destroyed from without and within by self hatred, depression, defeatism, socialism, and Islamic fascism..."

A reader commented that I was perhaps being harsh, and that europeans were probably just as happy as Americans are... which I also disagree with; but more importantly he missed my larger point. Though honestly it's not his fault since I wasn't being very clear about it.

I have a political theory, that I've been working on for quite some time, and have spoken about at great length in other formats (usually long conversations with other military and political history geeks).

The theory is, roughly, this:

Western civilization has been engaged in what is essentially a single long and continuous war; with periodic truces, breaks, and returns to conflict; since at least 1618, with the 30 years war.

This single long war has been generational, and transformational, in its nature and impact. It has shaped every aspect of western civilization since it began. All the major political developments in our civilization since that time have either been initiated by this war, greatly strengthened by it, destroyed by it, were in reaction to it, or were otherwise significantly effected by it.

The 17th through 19th century wars of European dominance and succession were clearly related to the 30 years war. These wars led to the early liberty oriented revolutions (which were essentially reactionary to the excesses of the jockeying for european position). They also led directly up to napoleonic wars (which are properly taken separeately from the small "local" wars of the time), the crimean war, the boer war, and the various austro-hungarian-prussian wars of the middle to late 19th century (and indirectly the U.S. civil war, which was almost inevitable given the compromise that went into the formation of the United States).

These of course clearly led into world war 1, which further led into world war 2, the cold war, the korean and vietnam wars, both gulf wars, and even the "war on terror"... which is actually in itself a direct aftermath of world war 1, and the crimean war before it.

Essentially, I consider the 30 years war to be the first "world war" of the modern era (meaning the post renaissance period); and that all major conflicts since are strongly related to it.

Now the problem with a blog format in discussing this theory, is that I would need to write something on the order of 100,000 words to completely cover it... and perhaps 40,000 just to set out the bare outlines and minimum necessary filling in.

That said, I bet there are a bunch of my fellow military and history geeks reading this and thinking "he's crazy, and here's why" or "he's onto something, and here's why". With them, I can use shorthand; because they know what I'm referring to, and the context behind it.

That would be a very fun conversation for us geeks to have (and it has been, many times over) but it would most likely bore the pants off of most of my readers.

Also, I'd love to write it, and I may; but if I do it is going to have to be written as an honest to god book.

No-one may want to publish it; it is after all a somewhat obscure branch of military history and political science; but it deserves to have a book written about it anyway.

Second Annual Pistol Challenge for Charity

Last year, In order to add a little extra incentive to the Project Valour-IT fundraising challenge; and I had a reverse auction for a pistol.

Last year we auctioned an FEG PA-63, which is a perfectly decent little pistol; but not exactly a world beater.

We managed to raise about $5,000 through our little part of the challenge; and this year we need even more money, in less time, so I decided to up the ante a bit.

This year, we're auctioning off a SIG P6.

So, this is how it works. Anyone who donates to ANY of the teams during the fundraiser, send me a copy of your PayPal donation receipt for at least $150 (which I will verify with the folks at Soldiers Angels); and the person who donates the most, will win one of these, along with 2 magazines, a holster, and a set of custom wood grips:



I was going to refinish it, and put a set of night sights on it, but there was such vehement disagreement as to what finish to use, and what sights to put on it, that I decided to just leave it up to the winner.

The pistol the winner receives will be a former west german police issue pistol. It is in arsenal rebuilt condition, and was purchase from J&G sales, with a two magazines, a box, original paperwork, and a West German Motor Officers holster.

Obviously, due to the wonderful ATF, unless you are in Arizona, this pistol will need to be transferred from my FFL to yours; but I will cover the shipping. If you happen to live in Arizona I will handle this as a private transfer. Unfortunately for you crufflers out there, these pistols are not C&R eligible.

I hate to limit the pool of potential winners, but I'm not sure if this would be legal to transfer to someone in California and Massachusetts (because they have "approved" lists), or any of the states that require a special permit for every pistol you purchase (New Jersey and Hawaii for example); but it doesn't have any of the nasty "assault weapon" features that would get it banned in some states . If it is legal, hey great; ask your FFL to make sure.

Also note, this pistol would not be received from, transferred from, or won from Valour IT or soldiers angels; it would be coming from me, Chris Byrne.

This is my PERSONAL incentive to anyone who supports a charity I also support.

No-one at Valour IT or Soldiers Angels is in any way involved in this little giveaway. So, if some anti-gun lunatic wants to get all pissy, they can come talk to me about it, not Valour IT.

Personally, I know what my readers like, and that's guns; so I'm tailoring my challenge to the preferences of my readers. It's called "effective marketing".

I will accept receipts for donations occuring up until midnight November 30th/December first 2008; and announce the winner Monday December first at 5pm local time; so get me your reciepts before midnight.

I will accept multiple donations and count them together so long as they occurred during the fundraiser (including if they were dated before this post) . In the event of a tie (which I think is likely), the winner will be determined by whose donation (or whose latest donation to bring them up to total) is dated first (not necessarily who I receive them from first). Oh and I'm only counting down to the nearest $10 increment rounded down. I don't expect people to be parsing pennies for charity.

So, donate to a great cause. It's completely tax deductible, and maybe you'll get a gun out of the deal at the same time. Can't lose there folks. Please, donate if you can:

Active Minds means Saved Lives

"Greater love hath no man than this; that a man lay down his life for his friends" -- John 15:13

In June of 2005, then Captain (now Major) Charles "Chuck" Ziegenfuss, led an armored patrol in force into an Iraqi town where intelligence had indicated an ambush of U.S. forces was planned.

On arriving in the town, Cpt. Ziegenfuss was approached by a local resident, and informed of a large IED that was placed near his house overnight. Because his tank could not cross a bridge over a small irrigation canal to enter the town, Cpt. Ziegenfuss dismounted, and was proceeding on foot to investigate; when a second IED that had been previously buried under the roadway was detonated.

Cpt. Ziegenfuss was blown several meters into the canal; suffering severe shrapnel wounds over almost the entirety of his body excepting where he was protected by armor. He also lost half of one hand, part of the other, and much of the skin and muscle on his arms and legs to the blast.

I'm proud to say I know Chuck, and I've shot with him (he's a damn fine shot even still). He's a funny guy, with a hell of a lot of guts. A lot of other folks would've said "Well, I've had enough now"... but that just isn't the kind of guy he is. He's back on active duty, instructing ROTC cadets in his home state of Pennsylvania, and he plans on staying on active duty until they kick him out.

When Chuck was in the hospital recovering from his wounds (I should note, it's been three years and he is still in recovery; though he has been back on active duty since 2006); he figured something out: What he really wanted most, to help him get through the pain, and the boredom, and the mind numbing misery that is an extended hospital stay... was a laptop.

Thing is though, Chuck had two half hands, both wrapped in bandages. How was he going to use a laptop?

Well, he's not a quitter (there's an understatement). He had an idea, and he asked Soldiers Angels to help him out. Could they get him a laptop, with voice command software installed on it, so he could run the thing without using his hands much?

The Soldiers Angels motto is "Let no soldier go unloved", and these people move mountains, at great personal cost in time, energy, and money; to make sure that every soldier gets what they need to help them get through their times of hardship.

Turns out, the Angels more than lived up to their reputation, and they could indeed get Chuck a laptop, and they did, and it worked. He was able to keep his mind active, and keep communicating with the world at large even while he was laid up.

In fact, it was such an improvement to his morale, that he was able to (in fact he damn near forced them to) reduce his pain medication. So long as he could keep his mind occupied with other things, his pain didn't seem to matter as much.

Now, at this point, you might have got the notion that Chuck isn't one to lay down, even when he's lost 30lbs of muscle and bone, and is on enough morphine to kill a horse.

See, he figured, that if a voice activated laptop did so much for him, why couldn't they do this for other wounded soldiers. So he pitched the idea to Soldiers Angels; and Project Valour IT was born.

Voice Activated Laptops for Our Injured Troops - Valour IT.

Valour IT buys laptop computers, and accessibility accessories for wounded soldiers. Be they wounded in combat or training, if they need a laptop, and Valor IT has the money, they're getting a laptop and everything they need to make it work.

...If they have the money.

So far, Valour IT has raised enough to give over 1500 laptops to our wounded soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines; but there are more wounded men and women that could use our help.

So, just to keep this in the military spirit (and to use our rivalry to best effect), they have an annual interservice fundraising drive; with teams from and supporting each of the services competing to raise the most cash for the cause.

One should note, all the money ends up being used for ALL service members; the money raised by the Air Force team doesn't go only to Airmen. It's just a way of having a little fun while raising money for a good cause.

This is a standard, tax deductible charitable donation, and I can't imagine a better cause. All my charitable giving for the last two years, and for the foreseeable future (excepting that going to my parish), is going to Valour IT; and I ask you to please help in any way you can.