The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
We hear quite a lot of calls for gun restrictions based on the fact that they are great instruments for people committing suicide. I think this method is probably a bit more effective:
A man cut off his own head with a chainsaw after stabbing his 70-year-old father to death in their apartment in the German city of Cologne, police said.
Clearly easy access to chainsaws is to blame. Also, does anyone else notice that these really bizarre news reports always seem to come out of Germany?
Most people’s hearing drops off in adulthood, with higher frequencies being the first to go. Apparently shopkeepers in the UK exploited this as a way to ward off rowdy teens. The device they made emits a 17 KHz audio signal, which teens can hear, but most people over thirty cannot.
Teens apparently have caught on to this idea, and turned it against the adults, by creating a ring tone out of it. Teachers and other adult authority figures can’t hear calls or messaging, allowing stealth communication among their peers. Clever.
There is a demo on the site linked. I can still hear it, so I must have young ears. There is a similar issue with detecting the flyback transformers on older NTSC televisions, which is 15 KHz, or thereabouts. Most people lose the ability to hear them at a certain age.
We definitely have some weird people in Pennsylvania, but we don’t generally elect them Governor:
James E. McGreevey, who resigned as New Jersey governor in 2004 after saying that he had had an extramarital affair with a man, has become an Episcopalian and wants to be ordained as a priest in that faith, according to a published report.
The former governor, who was raised as a Roman Catholic, was officially received into the Episcopal faith on Sunday at St. Bartholomew’s Church in Manhattan, said the Rev. Kevin D. Bean, the church’s vicar.
I guess he was impressed that the Episcopal Church has accepted openly gay bishops. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Perhaps certain state legislators in Pennsylvania should enact Snake Control. Check this out:
Jackson picked up two western diamondback rattlesnakes, a pigmy rattlesnake and two copperheads to try to keep police from taking her into custody, authorities said.
Jackson, who was raising the snakes for laboratories, received several bites during the standoff and was taken to a hospital after police subdued her with a stun gun.
The snakes were later donated to a zoo in Hershey.
We have some weird people in this state. Clearly something has to be done about the proliferation of assault snakes within the commonwealth.
Hat Tip: Dave Hardy
Bruce has the skinny on an attempt to charge 20 dollars for your Sunday cookout, all to fight global warming, of course.  The best part is:
The local authorities plan to monitor compliance with the new tax legislation from helicopters, whose thermal sensors will detect burning grills.
Wow! I almost feel like this has to be a joke.  Can people really be this stupid? Can they? The people that came up with this need to emigrate to Texas, and try it there, where I’m sure the population would be happy to give this the response it deserves.
I don’t agree with the hippy sentiment on display here, but If you have a lot of junk in your safe, and not much in the way of furniture, there’s a British artist out there that might have some ideas to help you out.
 
This one chair looks like it uses Kalashnikov receivers that are pretty much intact. Believe it or not, I think importation of some of that furniture into the USA would be a violation of ATF regulations concerning importation of machine guns, as a receiver that was once part of a machine gun is regulated as such. I believe the ATF requires machine gun receivers to be cut into several pieces in order to be considered demiled.
A few months ago I came across this Wikipedia Article describing a portion of the border of Delaware and New Jersey:
Its existence dates from a deed to William Penn from the Duke of York on August 24, 1682, which granted Penn:
all that the Towne of Newcastle otherwise called Delaware and All that Tract of Land lying within the Compass or Circle of Twelve Miles about the same scituate lying and being upon the River Delaware in America And all Islands in the same River Delaware and the said River and Soyle thereof lying North of the Southermost part of the said Circle of Twelve Miles about the said Towne.
The fact that the circle extends into the Delaware River makes for a fairly unique territorial possession. Most territorial boundaries that follow watercourses split the water course between the two territories by one of two methods, either by the midpoint of the watercourse (the Grotian Method, after Hugo Grotius) or, more often, midpoint of the main flow channel, or thalweg. However, due to the text of the deed, within the Twelve-Mile Circle, all the Delaware River to the low-tide mark on the east (New Jersey) side is territory of the state of Delaware.
I’m not sure that type of water border is really that unusual though, because if I’m not mistaken, the entire portion of the Potomac River belongs to Maryland and Washington, D.C., with Virginia and later West Virginia not starting until the shore. The interesting thing here is there’s a small piece of land on the New Jersey side that actually belongs to Delaware:
That’s not a mistake. I’ve seen it on other maps too. I’ve always thought it would be great fun to have a “shoot trap with a shotgun that’s illegal in New Jersey” party on that little bit of land, plant a Delaware flag and lay claim, and just generally annoy the hell out of the anti-gun ninnies in New Jersey by taking Delaware’s “weak” gun laws over to that side of the river, and having a fun time.
Of course, this could also increase an already tense situation:
Regardless of the Supreme Court’s admonition to the two states against further litigation on this subject, they were back before the court as late as November of 2005, when New Jersey’s desire to approve plans by BP to build a liquefied natural gas terminal along the New Jersey shore of the Delaware River fell afoul of Delaware’s Coastal Zone Act. The court on January 23, 2006 appointed a special master to study the border dispute, a process likely to take years. Meanwhile the Delaware House of Representatives considered a (symbolic) bill to call out the National Guard to safeguard the State’s interests, while New Jersey legislators made comments about the Battleship New Jersey, moored upriver from the site.
Hell, I’ll join the Delaware National Guard in that case. I’m pretty sure Delaware could take New Jersey in a gunfight ;)
Via Slashdot, laws of physics that don’t apply in Hollywood.
With the string of new kung fu films out (they run the gamut from The Matrix to Charlie’s Angels), you just can’t escape the small matter of bad physics. Yeah, the action scenes look great and all, but in reality momentum is conserved, such that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So, when you see a gal kick someone across the room, technically, the kicker (or holder of a gun) must fly across the room in the opposite direction – unless she has a back against the wall.
Pretty much. Read the whole thing. It’s pretty good.
From the Land of Snow and Beavers, comes this fun piece:
“Our first thought was to Taser it, but we didn’t think that would go over well in front of people,” Evans said. “It would be a safe way to control the animal and it wouldn’t hurt, but the public might not think that.
“They ended up wrestling it, or at least trying to wrestle it. On the third or fourth attempt they finally got it to the ground and got the can off.”
Evans said the deer ran into the bush uninjured, but with the imprint of a coffee can around its face.
I’m not sure I’d advise taser use to incapacitate a wild animal. They aren’t even really all that effective on people sometimes, and, with the exception of all but the biggest ones (kidney belts, I’ve heard, are pretty much impossible to fight through), depend on a psychological component that you wouldn’t have in a scared animal who’s brain is wired a bit differently. I suspect it would have some effect, but I would say you’re probably likely to injure the animal or be injured yourself trying to deal with it. Plus, here’s one from the Taser manual:
The nervous systems of animals are greatly different than human beings. The ADVANCED TASER is designed to be effective on a human attacker. Accordingly, it will not be as effective at incapacitating an animal as it is on a human being. The ADVANCED TASER should not be used as sole protection from wild, uncontrollable, or attacking animals. Law enforcement can use the ADVANCED TASER or dogs, but it is advisable to have animal control officers present to “collar” the incapacitated dog while the T-waves are working.
But the funny part is these Canadian cops thought that wrestling the thing to the ground was a good alternative :)
CNN has an odd but interesting defense of other story:
A man says he broke into an apartment with a cavalry sword because he thought he heard a woman being raped, but the sound actually was from a pornographic movie his upstairs neighbor was watching.
“Now I feel stupid,” said James Van Iveren, who has been charged in the case. “This really is nothing, nothing but a mistake.”
According to a criminal complaint, the neighbor told police that Van Iveren pounded on the door and kicked it open without warning February 12, damaging the frame and lock.
I don’t honestly think charges in this case are appropriate. A reasonable person, hearing what sound like screams of help coming from a neighboring apartment, I think is perfectly justified in doing something here, even if I wouldn’t do exactly what Mr. Van Iveren ended up doing. I think Van Iveren is civilly liable for the damage he caused, but what he did should not be criminal, and society ought not encourage the “don’t get involved, let the professionals deal with this” mentality that prevails among government officials.
This does illustrate the risks we face in coming to the defense of others; it’s something we do at our legal peril. I think the real lesson here is that if you like loud, screaming pornos, keep the volume down.
I see Bitter is running the same story, from a different source.
UPDATE: Bitter updates on the post linked above that it turns out it’s not particularly screeching porn, which I suppose would make a difference. At the very least, this should keep things interesting for whoever ends up on that jury :)