A Feverish Grasp On That Metaphorical Silver Lining

Get that stock market value as high as your fantasy allows. I plan to borrow against my 401(K) at the end of the month and every little bit helps.

h/t Instapundit

Space In The Campaign

Want to hear all about the actual technology required for a Moon Colony and Getting There From Here (and just how available all that stuff actually is)? Tune in to Fast Forward Radio at The Speculist tomorrow night (2/1/12) at the special time of 11 pm eastern/10 pm central to listen to Rand Simberg and Brian Wang, two guys who actually know what they're talking about and aren't running for any political office (and aren't indebted to anyone who is :)).

Yo, Phil, Stephen; I don't give a damn what else is in the news for this show at least. Tell the nice people who these guys are and then get straight to it!

They Got Me

I managed to pick up my first no shit trojan yesterday (FYI, I think it was hidden in some Java script within a you tube video and is called "blacole"), everything seized up and then my firewall went pffftt! I managed to ID it and remove it, but I still can't get my firewall back up, nor can I access my e-mail account. I can't get my desktop to uninstall anything either, so to the computer store we go - back in a week I hope. This little netbook allows me to do minimal stuff, but I sure miss that 22" screen and sound system.

At the moment, I'm mostly waiting for the 44 updates to finish. Man, I've got to start taking care of my computer gear a little more frequently one of these days (yeah, that's gonna happen :)).

Officially, it sucks to be me.

Correlation With Liberty

One of the blogs I read regularly (look, see? It's over there to the side of the page) is M. Simon's Power And Control; he's a fellow USN vet and frequently addresses a number of different topics I am interested in but don't have the academic background to follow at a detailed level of discussion - he's good at explaining technical topics to a lay readership. Imagine my surprise upon reading this post title Gunners Look At Drugs.

The Gun Values Board appears to be a forum and one I'm not familiar with. I do know that writers and interview subjects don't always have editorial control over the titles on their published work, but "The Second Amendment Community Tends To Ignore The Connection Between The War On Guns And The War On Drugs" strikes me as more than a little ill-informed in my blog reading experience. The interview reads like an e-mail exchange (and if so the lack of supporting links is kinda annoying, but, again, editorial control and all that) and makes a reasonable if shallow case for the proposition that ending drug prohibition is consistent with defending our Second Amendment rights. You decide.

What I found compelling was the observation that:

Long term PTSD (everybody gets it short term if the trauma is severe enough) is a genetic problem, and roughly 20% of the nation is susceptible. Of that 20%, roughly half have problems well into adulthood. That would be the 10% of the population that are “addicted” to illegal drugs and alcohol.

The core organ involved seems to be the amygdala although the hippocampus is thought to play a role as well. The interesting thing about these organs is that they don’t “communicate” with the brain much except as chemical factories. Neural pathways are sparse into and out of the amygdala. So you can’t “think” your way out of the reactions those organs produce. You can’t will away the fear messages that the amygdala broadcasts.

Two thoughts come quickly to mind; "Just Say No" isn't gonna work for these folks, and it seems a quick jolt actually does make some people better (without quotes, scary or otherwise). I think it's pretty well established that the British shooting community (what there is left of it at any rate) is a good deal more tolerant of shooters having a "quick bracer" over the course of the day than we are on this side of the water. Might be time to give that a second - and actually science-based for a change - look maybe. Probably not, prejudice is so much more comfortable, and this from a group that ought to be more familiar than any with the virulent racism and class-based elitist prejudice that inspired so many of the gun-restricting laws and regulations that bedevil us in the US.

One other consideration did occur; of the roughly 10% of Americans that are genetically susceptible to long term PTSD, and of whom some portion is likely also among the 10% addicted to drugs and/or alcohol, how many are also members of the 60+ million households (that is the number the NRA claims isn't it?) that have one or more guns therein? Which, when you stop to think on it (and for a given value of us), makes them part of us. You know, fellow "gunners", members of the militia if they're the right age, all that inalienable rights guff we prattle at each other about. Unless they're sick, then it's a disdainful sniff and a quick view of our backsides as if they were unclean defilers of our privileged sect.

A closing thought; how about we make a concerted effort to shine a little medical (or any other that seems relevant) science onto what ails them and seriously consider offering our fellow citizens some of the treatment that contributes to unit cohesion and morale, just as we do amongst ourselves now (there's a very backhanded joke in there if your personal kink permits that sort of quirk). It is well established that we the citizenry are "the militia" the 2nd Amendment refers to; I don't read any exclusion to that other than age, so maybe we ought to act - and more importantly, think - just that way and treat our fellow militia members as such.

Think of it as strengthening the frailer links in the chain that guards our mutual rights, if metaphor helps at all.

Go and offer comment at M. Simon's post, he needs better gun rights material to work with. While you're there read the drug related stuff on his side-bar, it's informative. Liberty does have limits, but "Liberty is indivisible" has quite a ring to it.

Good Guess

I'd be more impressed if I knew how many guesses predictions were made in total. 10 for 10 is really something, 10 out of a 1000 not so much.

h/t Instapundit.

That's Their Story

And, apparently they're sticking to it.

So to speak.

h/t Instapundit.

Finally, TSA Bags One Not Their Own

I have to say, I'm kinda surprised at not reading all about this all over the gunblogosphere. It's been 48 hours since the mystery device was found in the carry-on baggage of Trey Scott Atwater of Hope Mills, Texas (as CNN made certain to reveal*) "wrapped in military grade wrapping" while said gentleman was boarding a flight for some mystery destination in N. Carolina (let's see, man in the armed forces flying to some place in N. Carolina ... hmmmm, wonder which branch of the service he's in?) (and while I'm being all parenthetical and such, what the digital-camo-blazes is military grade wrapping?).

Is this the performance bar we can expect from TSA/DHS/WTF from now on - a decadal cycle of apprehension of someone carrying something that merits being qualified as, "At no time was there any danger ..." according to FBI spokesman?


* To be fair, the local FOX affiliate wasn't coy about putting his identity out there either.

Get Stuff'd, LLC

A question I have been asking online - and trying to answer - has been, "How do we get there from here?" Mostly this has been confined to the human societal context of employment and wages during the transition from the historical model of trade and markets, capital concentration in large manufacturing businesses and marketing efforts from corporate to individual, to the projected model of individual fabrication on demand at the (for the most part) strictly local, individual effort level of operation. The former model we all grew up participating in; the transition away from that to the projected fabber/maker model has imposed numerous and growing demands on the ways and means we have available to us to continue our individual ability to obtain the things we all need to meet the daily demands of our and our family's lives. Adding complexity is the simple fact that such changes are more of a process, a series of separate events permitting advancement to a nominally greater level of individual capability.

It's often said in recent years that the US is losing it's manufacturing capability. This is a falsehood. The truth is that the US produces more now then ever before in it's history (as does Japan for example - this isn't a US-centric occurrence); it's just doing so with fewer pay-earning, tax-paying people doing the work than ever before. And there's the crimp in the bright and shiny futurist's dream; how do we - especially those of us like myself who earn our daily crust building something for others to buy - continue to make a living (and occasionally buying some of the stuff for our own use) when the jobs we have need of are being performed by machines instead? How do we get from here - putting Tab "A" into Slot "B" on an assembly line - to being capable of fabricating what we need for ourselves as the need for an item arises (or as another's desire for an item makes them willing to exchange value to acquire an example)?

Instapundit has linked obsessively to the on-going meltdown of education (and by implication skills training too) efforts and institutions in the US and elsewhere, and more power to the good Professor for doing so. His recent link to Stephen Gordon's Speculist post is in my opinion an examination of this education/employment dilemma from the actuarial other end my own approach has pursued. Which is good; we need to develop a remedy that meets current needs as well as those almost certain to develop in coming years.

My personal belief has long been that individual education, both technical as well as classical, offered the most reliable mechanism for relieving the employment opportunity dilemma as well as the "education bubble" which is both a financial and subject matter issue I think. Too many new lawyers (or whatever - too many degreed people generally) having both a dearth of practical skills to earn a living and a financial debt that requires an upper-middle class income level just to fund basic payment levels is the crux of the problem. From my perspective, too many manufacturing workers no longer having a recognisable opportunity to earn a living using their years-in-the-learning skills as they get progressively older is the actuarial other end of the same condition.

Instead of placing these two groups of people in active opposition to each other, we need to devise a mechanism whereby they can both achieve their desired ends. And therein lies the strategic opportunity my other personal interest speaks of (a strategic opportunity is, by definition, one that no-one else has recognised and taken advantage of).

I recognise and agree with Stephen's observation that much of retail and individual business is transacted in the "comfy chair" environment that booksellers like Barnes & Noble and coffee shops like Starbucks are associated with. Stephen's contention that education ought to transition to such an environment and away from the historical "groves of academe" model that modern universities strive for is well taken. Such a model would permit learning at the individuals pace and ability (and remove most doubt as to the source of failure as well), and do so at a potentially much reduced cost at the same time, Stephen notes that much of the current cost of education derives from administrative overhead endemic to the current school model, though I notice he pays little attention to the near-certain efforts people will make to create equivalent drags on the "coffee shop" model of school too. Even so, anyone not named Kevin Baker can only put so much into a single blog post, and Stephen makes a good case for his observations on education.

I want to take a different approach to addressing the same circumstance (and not only because my middle name isn't actually Contentious either :)) and place this issue in the context of human rights, in particular the right enumerated in the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. I select this particularly contentious human right because it is my belief that it best addresses the dynamic we also face in the education and employment "bubble"s.

In a nut shell, the US Second Amendment asserts that we each possess an inherent right to defend ourselves within certain delineations - principal among these being that our efforts not impose upon another's equally valid individual right. My argument is that this principle can be also equally validly expressed as an inherent right to fend for ourselves, and that this logically leads to the necessity to structure our society in such a fashion as to maximise the potential opportunity for everyone to do just that, as their interests guide them and from within the identical delineations and limitations on mutually acceptable options and actions that constrain their other expressions of their rights.

In this model (and I recognise I'm stretching the definition of the word here - it's a work-in-progress), education is a life-long pursuit to provide a context for the skills training one acquires to obtain the wherewithal we each need in life. A practical knowledge of plumbing (more specifically, the mechanics of a fluid under pressure within a confined space - like the brake lines in your car, for example, and not just the drain under the sink), electricity (why not wash out the interior of a plugged in toaster again?), CPR (see: electricity), arithmetic (yes, I understand that spreading the risk of real estate mortgage finance among numerous parties reduces the level of individual risk, but how does assuming any additional risk entail advantage to me again?), the potential subject list is probably longer than the lifespan of even Lazarus Long and all of it offers added opportunity for individual advantage particularly from within the context of the ethic imbued within the Second Amendment. Classical education provides the shared context for practicing the specific skills we need trained in to meet the challenges of supporting ourselves in the ethical manner prescribed by the equal and inherent human right of self defense from proffered threat (whether deliberate or circumstantial).

This is a very good - if somewhat dated - paper on the nature and general types of fabrication processes and though presented in 1997is quite readable to a non-specialized audience of which I certainly am a part. As a practical matter, something like what is described here is what most of us would need familiarity with to be positioned to make the leap from building things using Industrial Revolution methods to what I regard as a likely seeming near-term future manufacturing model. Much as an apprentice plumber doesn't start out building the high pressure steam lines for a nuclear reactor-driven power plant, a qualified new-hire fabricator needs a demonstrated competence with the basic knowledge and operating principles of deposition fabrication before taking charge of a commercial fabrication machine. Documenting a level of competence using essentially a hobbyist version of the technology achieves this I think.

An example of what I'm saying (and not too surprisingly, I hope, consistent with my Second Amendment thesis) can be seen here. A personal machine shop has the capability to build a complex machined tool (which is the practical definition of a gun after all) from refined metals stock. A fabricator has the capability to build the same machined tool from refined metal (and other) stock by building up succeeding layers of material to construct the desired end shape rather than by removing the excess raw material to reveal the desired end product. Another example of a potential application for this entry-level professional fab shop business opportunity lies in special orders of complex machined objects that are no longer being produced, such as the example noted in this Oleg Volk post.

Our education "coffee shop" needs to offer that specific level of training/education, to anyone willing to learn the subject matter at the least financial cost manageable. From my past association with Stephen Gordon and Phil Bowermaster, I'm sure they have no objection to doing any of what I've suggested here, but it isn't clear they're actually seeing the connections and thus the strategic opportunity that I assert exists.

A recurring concern with any alteration of the education/training model has to do with the accreditation/documentation of the subject matter learned. I think Phil Bowermaster's employer sells a product that could readily be adapted to achieve this end. As Richard
Fernandez writes in his Belmont Club critique of Stephen's education post:

Your diploma would essentially become your reputation log, rather like the debits and credits that you see when you view your bank account. That is your “rep”; your human capital balance.

That strikes me as a very eloquent description of Zapoint's SkillsMapper technology, and making their business product into the world standard for documenting individual education and occupational skills ought to be an obvious opportunity I would think. That aside, having some commonly acceptable standard of documentation is necessary to escape the constraints of the existing education/employment models while not making matters even worse. Given the frequently competitive nature of business and employment generally, pursuing such a program from an ethical basis such as that imbued in the inherent human right of self defense seems merely common sense as well. A business and manufacturing model that allows us to make and get the stuff we want to make our lives safer, more satisfying or just plain livable is certainly an improvement on the hopeless dependence that is being offered to us in the present, as is an education process that is as unlimited as we choose to be ourselves. Styling that idea as a Limited Liability Company is just my idea of humor.

It isn't really possible to "solve" a systemic problem such as those under discussion here. The best we can hope to accomplish is to create a mechanism whereby individuals have the opportunity to make the necessary change for their own reasons. By structuring the opportunity such that ethical action is more rewarding than some other choice because that creates the greatest chance of personal success seems the least intrusive method of preventing deliberate mis-use of the skills and knowledge learned, and not coincidently I believe, not a method chosen by our present educational and employment structures.

Edited to add: Al Fin independently arrives at a similar conclusion on the education topic that contains a variation on the business opportunity I note above. Very much worth your attention and consideration.

Picture Of War Crime Justice

At the very end of his Dec. 22 Chaos Manor post, Jerry Pournelle links to a Treppenwitz post, now several months old, which examines a famous photo from the Vietnam War. Therein blogger David Bogner reviews some of the lesser known facts surrounding both the picture itself and people's perception of the recorded image.

All of that is interesting, yet the single most operant fact that contributed to the circumstance playing out as it was recorded at the time is never directly mentioned.

Without recounting the Treppenwitz post, the basic facts are: in 1968 the Communist Viet Cong/Viet Minh insurgent forces staged extreme acts of violence in violation of a negotiated truce throughout much of then-South Vietnam. Captured in the act of mass murder, one of these VC was summarily tried and executed by the military and civil police commander for the city and military district of Siagon (the city since re-named as Ho Chi Minh City). This summary execution was captured on both still and motion photography, the still image probably being the more historically famous of the two.

Here's the thing; the executed man (formally Captain Bay Lop, South Vietnamese Communist Party Army, Viet Minh) was properly judged and sentenced "in accordance with the provisions of the Geneva Convention (aka Laws of Armed Conflict) regarding "Armed Partisans", " civilian combatant s", and "crimes against non-combatants". Were an American or other NATO officer to be presented with an insurgent in Afghanistan captured committing the same crimes, he would be equally in accordance with the law (negotiated treaty having force of same in the USA) in also issuing a summary judgement and execution. We would also subsequently crucify him too.

We cry about how terrible something is, empower someone to impose our considered will upon any perpetrator of that thing, and then cry in horror that we didn't mean for what then happens to take place, all while we set out to destroy those who did our bidding in our name. Police, soldiers, politicians; you name it, the list is virtually endless. We put people in a position to act with our authority, then refuse to accept responsibility for the predictable results of our decision. If we want honest and open enforcement of our societal decisions, we must be prepared to accept responsibility for what those we so empower do as a result. Further, if we want an open and honest society (government, law enforcement, whatever) we must judge all things - not least ourselves - just as openly and honestly.

In executing Capt. Lop, South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan was photographed performing his sworn duty in an entirely lawful manner. The honest image of that honorable act was subsequently used in deliberate campaigns of lies and misdirection, both here in the United States and elsewhere, which are themselves symptoms of what still ails American society - possibly fatally. We very well may not be able to elect ourselves out of our present national condition, but I suggest Gen. Loans experience is instructive of the consequences if we don't.

My thanks to Jerry Pournelle for this timely reminder at the outset of our latest national election year. Sometimes, harsh facts are best illustrated by harsh images.

Merry Christmas.

Getting The Business

I recently bought a TS-200 Aperture Sight from Tech-SIGHTS for my SKS. Then last Friday, I read this post at Oleg Volk's blog about the Tech Sights for the Saiga 7.62 x 39 rifle. Having the same gun in .223, I commented asking advice:

My Saiga is in .223, and the Tech Sight is on my SKS instead, and I haven’t done the conversion to AK mags, of course. Not having done the conversion myself, does anyone have experience just modifying the recoil spring cover plate to accept the Tech Sight? It looks like it ought to be a fairly straight-forward matter for drilling the necessary hole, but I’m concerned the sight would make removing the spring cover difficult thereafter. I’ve got the Pro-Mag scope mounting plate installed and it causes the scope to sit too high for comfortable shooting so I’m looking at alternatives.

Now, I want to make clear that the optical scope works perfectly well as mounted on the Pro-Mag mount except for the excessive height problem. It seems to hold zero and permits easy use of the factory sights, but the pronounced muzzle flash these Saiga rifles produce really degrades the scope performance as perceived by the shooter post-shot (an observation made by several others who own a Saiga or have shot my rifle). The Tech Sight seemed a known option to look into.

Initially not being able to post a reply to my comment at Oleg's, Larry Nesseth of the Tech-SIGHTS company wrote me an e-mail clarifying what was involved. He has since managed to put it on Oleg's blog:

The Tech-SIGHTS will fit your Saiga with out any problem. The sight actually mounts to the receiver and not the cover. You replace the rear portion of your recoil spring assembly. The part with the button on it that locks your current cover in place. Once you replace that part with our sight assembly, you assemble the rifle the same way that you always have. Then install the new cover that comes with the sight and you are ready to zero the sights. The AK100S and AK200S models for the AK47/74 will fit the 5.56, 5.45 x 39 and 7.63 x 39 Saigas. The sight will fit the 308 Saiga as well but requires a recoil buffer to be installed in the recoil spring assembly to limit the bolt carrier travel just ast the original recoil assembly does. I hope this helps. It tried to post this on Olegs blog on the Saiga but it would take for some reason.

I have a friend actively searching for a Saiga in .308 so that bit of data will come in handy for him, and a look at the Tech-SIGHT FAQ page for the AK-47 answers most of my questions, though finding the data without Larry's help was needlessly difficult for this customer at least.

Suffice to say, while it will likely be late February before the Christmas "sticker shock" recedes sufficiently, I will be buying the TS-200 for my Saiga .223 rifle just as soon as the wallet permits.

Thanks Larry. Taking care of business like you have makes for a modest amount of economic recovery.

Eventually. ;-)