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Five airplanes

Posted on by Caleb

So, Kim du Toit wants to know what your five favorite cars are.  I say fie on you Kim, as much fun as cars are, aircraft are much cooler.  I’m sure that Scully and my brother will agree with me on the inherent superiority of aircraft in the aesthetics department over cars.  So, what are your five favorite airplanes, and why?  Here are mine, from 5th to 1st.

5.  The de Havilland Mosquito – AKA “The Wooden Wonder”.  It was a fantastic aircraft, that excelled at almost every role it was asked to perform.  The graceful lines soften the appearance, and yet it exudes a subtle sense of menace; as if it’s saying “I’m pretty, but I’m dangerous”.  The Mosquito is that woman in the old Bogart films that you knew was nothing but trouble, but you couldn’t stay away.

4.  SPAD S. XIII – For all the grace that the Mosquito has, the SPAD has none.  What earned it a fondness in my heart was not its appearance, but rather its performance.  Flown with skill by Eddie Rickenbacker in World War I, the SPAD had a reputation as being able to dive away “like a brick on rails”.  Not the most maneuverable fighter of the war, the SPAD was still an excellent aircraft in the hands of a skilled pilot.

3.  The P-39 Airacobra – Not on the list for its combat performance, the Airacobra is one of those weird planes that I thought was awesome as a kid, and have maintained a partial fascination with since that time.  It just think it’s a neat looking aircraft, although the guy who put a door on a plane should probably have been fired.

2.  F-4 Phantom II –  In addition to being the only jet on this list, the Phantom gets its number spot simply for being the ugly duckling at the ball.  And yet this huge turkey of a jet was used both by the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds as a demonstration aircraft.  It was a big beasty, but like the Airacobra, I’ve got a sickness for it.  It was the first plane I ever saw fly at an airshow, and when I was a kid, I had a huge poster of it on my wall.

1.  F-82 Twin Mustang – What can I say?  I like it.  I think that it’s a gorgeous aircraft, that never really got to see it’s day in combat.  It never saw use in World War II, which I think is too bad, because it would have torn up the Japanese fighters it would have faced.  The one feather in the cap of the F-82 is that it got the first three air-to-air kills of the Korean war, and eventually destroyed a total of 20 aircraft (sixteen on the ground).  It was the last piston engine fighter to be operated by the Strategic Air Command.  Sadly, there are no currently operational F-82s left in the country.  Personally, I think it would be awesome if some homebuilder with a bug up his fanny took a pair of Titan Mustangs…well, you get the idea.

So pretty.

self defense

CCW ROE

Posted on by Caleb

ROE stands for “Rules of Engagement” – I wanted to publish this in light of this thread here, as well as this new thread from Sebastian.  The debate was started because Sebastian and I both agree that lethal force should not be used to stop petty theft.

Pennsylvania law basically stipulates that you may use as much physical force as you require to recover or protect your property, or to remove a trespasser, but you may not use deadly force to do this.

PA law in this case forms a good guideline – however what we’re talking about is rules of engagement; or under what situations can you or should you use lethal force.  Please note, these are my opinions, and carry exactly as much as weight as you choose to lend them.

My life, or the life of my friends and family is more valuable than the life of a criminal.  That means that if anyone is clearly presenting the threat of lethal force or grave bodily harm (GBH) to myself, my family, or my friends, then I have no qualms about using lethal force to defend my life.  That’s rule number one.   Let’s look at shoot/no shoot situations with that in mind.  What I’m not going to do is role-play a bunch of hypothetical situations, these are general guidelines for general situations.

1.  Your home – From a legal standpoint, if you’re in a state like Indiana or another that has the Castle Doctrine, your home is a free engagement zone, essentially.  However, I won’t recommend carte blanche to go blasting people in your house.  In a home invasion situation, if I had the opportunity to allow the other guy to surrender, I would.  But he may not give me that chance, in which case lethal force is a go.  A furtive move, obvious weapons, failure to comply to instructions to lie down, all of those are triggers to move to lethal force.  However, you may not get that option, and you may encounter an intruder swinging a bat at your head.  In that case lethal force should be GO from the second you see a guy with a weapon.

2.  In the car – I’ll be blunt here; people who advocate dismounting a vehicle and engaging targets with a handgun are stupid.  If you are in a vehicle, and have the option to just drive away, then drive away.  The corollary to this is that your vehicle also makes an excellent weapon, if so needed.  A Toyota Camry is a much more efficient man-stopping projectile than a 9mm.

3.   Legal Obligation – Most jurisdictions require that if you use lethal force, you must have been in a situation where a reasonable person would have feared for their life/GBH.  This is a great guideline.  For example; were I being mugged on the street, I would reasonably be fearing for my life/GBH.  If I am being attacked in my home, same thing.  If I see some punk smashing the window of my car from 20 yards away and taking off with my iPod, then there is no fear of death or GBH, which makes it a “no shoot” situation.

When you get down to it; the law is a lot more important than your personal beliefs.  Even if you believe that stealing is “murder writ small”, the law says it isn’t, and if you use lethal force to prevent petty theft, then you’re a murderer in the eyes of the law.

When it comes to using lethal force, you actually have to be mentally prepared.  You have to decide now in which situations you’re willing to use lethal force, because when the balloon goes up, you will not be able to decide, and you will default to whatever you’ve trained your mind for.

When it comes to me, I’m not willing to kill over my property.  I’m willing to use force to protect my property, but not lethal force unless there is a credible threat to me or mine.

Uncategorized

Mayor Greg Ballard

Posted on by Caleb

I am truly shocked by the outcome of last night’s election.  Despite my many urgings for people to vote Bart Peterson and the incumbent Democrats out of office, I didn’t actually expect it to happen.  Thusly, you can imagine my surprise when I turned on the news last night and they were talking to Mayor-Elect Greg Ballard.

So what happened?  Some people are calling this the “biggest political upset” in Indiana history, and it certainly is for Indianapolis.  Just look at the odds Ballard had stacked against him:

  • Bart Peterson had more than triple Ballard’s funding
  • Ballard did not have the outspoken support of the business community or the local Republican party
  • In the past 40 years, no incumbent mayor of Indianapolis had lost a bid for re-election.

The simple fact of the matter is that Marion County residents were tired of the status quo.  The blame for rising crime and skyrocketing property taxes was placed directly at the feet of the incumbents – combine that with the fact that Ballard and the Republicans ran an excellent grassroots campaign equals a big win.

It’s worthwhile to note that the Marion City/County Council had a complete power shift as well; Republicans now control both the Council and the Mayor’s office.

Two final things that I want to point out from this election:

  1. Money can’t buy elections.  Like I said, Peterson outspent Ballard by a ridiculous amount, but he still lost the election.
  2. Grassroots can win elections.  Greg Ballard got out to the actual voting people of Indianapolis, and he did it without a lot of support.  He motivated his conservative base, and was able to get enough of the swing vote based on the property tax and crime issues.

I am hoping that the new administration will actually take steps to continue to improve Indianapolis, and live up to the promises of change.

One final note, I would like to say that Bart Peterson’s concession speech was dignified and professional, with none of the usual whining that we’ve seen so often.  He went out with class, and should be held up as an example of such.

hoplophobia

Déjà vu

Posted on by Caleb

Remember this story from Broward County?  The one where CBS Evening News basically did a hit piece on “assault weapons”, and claimed that AKs are flooding the streets.  Remember how the “confiscated guns” didn’t include a single AK-47?  Apparently, CNN felt left out, and had to do their own hit piece on assault weapons, this time from Palm Beach County instead of Broward County.

It’s almost the exact same article from a different location – the premise is that cops are “outgunned” by all these AK toting banditos, and thusly feel the need to issue assault rifles to the rank and file deputies.  I am actually a little appalled at CNN for trying this; especially since it really is the exact same story that CBS ran a little over a month ago.

As of about 9:30pm, this was the headline and CNN.com’s front page image.

It represents the worst sort of base appeal to emotions that the anti-gun side has to offer, and the article itself reads like a Brady Campaign press release.  I’ll debunk the factual inaccuracies here.

Across the country, at least 62 police officers have been gunned down this year — a record pace, said Robert Tessaro, the associate director for law enforcement relations for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.  As a result, the Brady organization supports police officers arming themselves with high-powered weapons “to protect themselves and their communities,” he said.  “We’re having more than one officer shot and killed a week. It’s just outrageous that officers are being targeted,” he said. “It’s something I think all Americans should be outraged about.”

How many of those officers were killed with “assualt rifles”?  I’d be willing to wager that the answer to that question is single digits, or zero.  Remember, that an actual “assault rifle” is a real, definable thing.  By definition, it’s a full automatic or burst fire military weapon firing a cartridge of intermediate power.  Now, an “assault weapon”, is a made up term, which has been used to cover semi-automatic rifles which look like “assault rifles”.

Continuing the quote from above:

He lays the blame squarely on lawmakers who allowed the assault weapons ban to expire in 2004.

Designed to be fired from the hip, assault rifles such as the AK-47 can spray at a rate of up to 600 rounds a minute in full automatic mode. It is the weapon of choice for guerillas and gangsters.

There are several things wrong with the statement, and allowing to stand as such betrays the motives of the CNN piece.  First off, fully automatic weapons have been practically illegal since the mid 30’s, and were not banned by the Assault Weapons ban which expired in 2004.  No, that ban covered semi-automatic rifles, which are functionally no different than this hunting rifle.

What the article is trying to do is make people believe that fully automatic AK47s were banned by the AWB, which expired in 2004, when in fact, fully automatic AK47s have always been illegal.

The sentence about the capabilities of the AK could entail a blog post in an of itself.  The AK was not designed to be fired from the hip, especially on full auto.  CNN and the Brady’s would have us believe that these guns are intended to be fired “Rambo style”, spraying bullets in a swath of destruction.  The problem with that is that anyone who has ever fired even a .22 rifle understands that “spraying from the hip” is the worst way to fire a gun.  The second half of the sentence, about the AK being the “weapon of choice of guerrillas and gangsters” is nothing more than an appeal to emotion.  By equating this gun with people that we know are bad, we are making the gun seem bad by association.  Nevermind that the AK has also been the weapon of choice for freedom fighters and several of our allies.  Just because a weapon has been used by someone for something bad, doesn’t make it evil.  It’s an inanimate object, with no will of it’s own.

The article continues with a statement similar to the one CBS made about $200 AKs:

There’s no doubt that urban street warfare, aided by a proliferation of cheap automatic weapons, has come even to Palm Beach County, once high society’s vacation mecca and a retirement destination for northern snowbirds.

Where are all these cheap automatic weapons that are flooding the streets?

“The streets of South Florida are being flooded by AK-47s and assault weapons from old Soviet bloc countries. It’s driven the price down, making the availability greater,” said Chief Timoney.

So…Belarus and the Ukraine are flooding our streets with AKs now?  Or maybe he’s talking about semi-automatic AK47 lookalikes.

The statistics used to support the “flood” of “assault weapons” aren’t exactly reliable, because they don’t define what an “assault weapon” is – so if you’re looking to prove a point, it’s pretty easy to pad your stats.

Articles like this are frustrating – because CNN is a major media outlet, people will see this article and just believe it, sight unseen.  The problem is that just like CBS did back in October, and just like John Zarella did in the past for CNN, a major media outlet is spreading disinformation and doing everything they can to foster fear.

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Election Day

Posted on by Caleb

Today is an Election Day in Indiana, so I encourage Hoosiers to get out and vote.  In my town, the voting was completely non-surprising, as all but one of the seats on the Town Council were Republicans running unopposed.  The one contested seat on the council consisted of the incumbent Republican running against a Democrat challenger.  From what I know of the race, I will absolutely keel over with shock if the incumbent doesn’t hold on to his seat.

The race that really interests me is one that I can’t actually vote in – that being the race for Mayor of Indianapolis.  While I don’t often talk local politics here, I have been strongly  critical of Bart Peterson’s administration, especially his ham-handed attempts to shove the blame for the property tax crisis onto the shoulders of others.

If you live in Marion County and haven’t yet voted, please go out and do so.  Remember who was responsible for your property tax increases – the current City/County administrators.  I strongly encourage you to send a message to the City/County government that you’re not going to let Bart and his cronies continue to screw you over in the name of a “a better city”.

I’m all for improving Indianapolis, but the plans that the current mayor has put into action place too much of the financial burden on the individual citizens of the City-County.

Those of us that live outside Marion County don’t have the luxury of complacency in this regard – as Marion County goes, so go the surrounding towns.  We have to keep a weather eye on Indianapolis politics, to ensure that our local administrations don’t get any “good ideas” from the Big City.

gun control/humor

Michael Graham gets it

Posted on by Caleb

And from the Boston Herald, no less.  I love my Bean Town, but I don’t really expect any of their media outlets to write things that, well, make sense in this day and age.  What’s even better is that he does it with a sense of humor.

This desire to condemn inanimate objects is a bit, well, weird. Naughty beer, illegal guns, bottles of alcohol with bad attitudes – perhaps it’s time to open the “Massachusetts Home For Guns Gone Wrong.” Maybe a local priest could start “Beer Town,” modeled after “Boys Town,” where the motto is “There are no bad beers. Just warm ones.”

Or

I may be naive, Mr. Conley, but I honestly believe guns aren’t bad. You just have to know how to handle them.

The whole piece is worth a read, actually.  I enjoyed it.  He does an excellent job of using an example of Massachusetts destroying “illegal beer” to point out the ludicrousness of the campaign against “illegal guns”.