So before I went down to Norfolk, I went to the Inova Alexandria ER to see the urgent care doc. These are the people that treated me for Meningitis a few years ago when I worked at AOL (there was an outbreak in Reston which I contracted from a coworker, ostensibly in the cafeteria, although who can know...?). So they have ample history on me. I went to urgent care because I was leaving town and I had been in a kind of vicious insomnia trend. I haven't been able to sleep in months. Literally, months. I've been taking, typically, anywhere from 250 to 400mg of diphenydramine (Benadryl, Unisom, Tylenol PM, etc), and either adding Seroquel or Zyprexa (incidentally, also dating back to the AOL days), and throwing them back wth NyQuil or the Teraflu "warming syrup" (both are pretty high in alcohol content: 15-20%).
The MD on duty told me that she couldn't give me anything because she "didn't know my history" and that she didn't know whether I'd "do well on" them. She recommended I "call my psychiatrist" and "get something phoned in by the oncall nurse." I explained that I was leaving town for a week or more and that this was simply not possible.
What, exactly, did she think would happen? That she'd give me Ambien, Lunesta, Sonata, or any of the new pseudo-benzos and I'd kill myself with it or something? Exactly how is this different from a psychiatrist giving them to me? I happened to have an Rx bottle on me showing that I had a prescription and was just out.
So I drove from Arlington to Norfolk (this is 3.5-4h, give or take) on no sleep. I also taught a class for DISA on no sleep. I revised the lesson plan, tested the labs, got my clothes to dry cleaning, etc. By the time I was done with the class, I'd lectured for six hours, driven 425 miles, eaten nothing but a chicken sandwich (Wendy's) and an Odwalla bar (banana nut for whatever thats worth), and had been awake for 27 hours.
Of course, immediately afterwards, I had to revise the lectures and labs again, and struggled to get 4 hours of sleep.
You know you're an insomniac when you keep the NyQuil in the fridge (it's easier to yack down). That's how serious this is. I take the benadryl because I can wake up more easily when I take that. If I go with the Seroquel or Zyprexa, I get sleep, but it's usually eight to twelve hours, and it's a complete nightmare to get me out of bed in the morning. Unfortunately, if I don't get sleep, it's as or more dangerous than getting sleep but being groggy in the morning. This is the stuff ruined careers and families are made of.
I wanted to tell that doctor she was a complete waste of oxygen, but it wouldn't have helped. She was determined that it was not safe or reasonable to give me drugs. I've used the word pharmocracy in the past. This is surely what's going on here. There is a drug-prescribing oligarchy that is self-selecting and unwilling to cede any power to the consumer for fear of losing their relevance.
I have no problem whatsoever finding the right drug for myself. I've been in some form of physician care my entire adult life (either because of external stressors or internal medical issues, such as all of last year), and I know what does and does not work. It seems reasonable to me that I'd have the option to decide my own path of treatment, and enlist the MDs as advisors, much in the way the DOD prefers to secure its own systems, but asks me to consult.
In this case, what's wrong with a 30-day supply of Halcyon or Xanax? It would be trivial to argue the exact opposite is true: to not give me the means to get a good night's sleep is to virtually guarantee that my performance will be lacking on the road, in class, etc.
People seem to believe it's okay that we have laws criminalizing illicit drug use (the definition of the term 'illicit' itself being open to broad interpretation). But nobody seems to want to discuss the simple fact that educated consumers are capable of making their own decisions with respect to medicine. If HMOs wanted to prevent people from self-diagnosing and charging up an enormous ta on expensive drugs (Seroquel being among them, also Ambien and Maxalt), why not only cover for drugs which are prescribed by a doctor? I'd be happy to pay out of pocket for migraine drugs, somnolents/soporifics, and various psychotropic drugs (SSRI's, etc) if it meant I got the damn drugs.
19 March, 2007
17 March, 2007
If you're reading this from a class of mine
Yes, this is the personal page of Alex Avriette, and I am your instructor. First, please be aware that this is my personal page, and doesn't reflect the views or policy of the companies I work for/with, nor of the site I'm teaching at, etc.
So, I generally teach in two areas, Information Warfare, and Information Assurance. I provide a set of links here for your edification, not as an endorsement to use them in your own environment. I discuss in the class what using them does, when it's okay and not okay to use them, etc. Please be careful. Even if you're tasked with making sure a network is secure, people don't often have a sense of humor when it comes to attacking a network or host.
Anyways, on with the links.
So, I generally teach in two areas, Information Warfare, and Information Assurance. I provide a set of links here for your edification, not as an endorsement to use them in your own environment. I discuss in the class what using them does, when it's okay and not okay to use them, etc. Please be careful. Even if you're tasked with making sure a network is secure, people don't often have a sense of humor when it comes to attacking a network or host.
Anyways, on with the links.
- Purdue's CERIAS. This is a useful site, in that it has links to a lot of software that's used in the class for demonstration. However, a lot of it is out of date (and they acknowledge this). They were also compromised in 2007, and the full extent of this is not quite known. So be careful. Note that they have removed software that was modified.
- Fyodor's insecure.org. Fyodor produces, with the help of the open source community, the network scanning tool nmap. It's good stuff to have around. Note that it tends to work better on Linux and some of the other open source operating systems than it does on, for example, Solaris or MacOS X.
- OpenBSD is an operating system that I lecture on for a number of reasons. Primarily that it is an example of how an operating system can (and must) be "secure by default." However, the corollary to this is that an operating system that is believed to be secure (as in the case of OpenBSD, SELinux, Trusted Solaris, etc) is often the source of a false sense of impenetrability by systems administrators.
- When I teach, people tend to ask me a lot of questions about Linux. It's a good operating system to teach on, although I don't especially recommend it for production usage. For personal usage, I recommend Fedora and Ubuntu. For professional, production usage, RHEL is a better choice.
- There are many IDSs out there. You really can't do much better than Snort.
- We go over password crackers in every class. You'll want John the Ripper.
- Lastly, we discuss Solaris a lot. You'll want a couple pieces of software in addition to Solaris. First, the Solaris operating system is available for download. Be aware that Solaris 10, which is current as of 2007, has substantial changes over Solaris 8 and 9. So while I teach on it, it will of course be somewhat different than what you're running back at the shop.
- You will need a compiler and programs like lsof for Solaris, and these are available on the Sun Software Companion CD, and the Sun GCC CD. The supplied links point to media for Solaris 10. If you're using a different version (we use 10 in class), you will need the appropriate disc. In the past, gcc came on the companion CD, so you may only need one image. With one exception, below, I recommend you do not use software from sunfreeware.com.
- http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/freeware/index.xml
- http://cooltools.sunsource.net/gcc/index.html (gcc for SPARC)
- In order to build yourself a copy of gcc, you must first bootstrap your compiler. In this case, you will need the source for gcc, a compiled gcc, and the following link to a build process. This build process is complicated, and one of the reasons I recommend Linux both in the class and personally for "experimenting with" Unix.
- http://blogs.sun.com/sumitgaur/entry/compile_gcc_for_solaris_10 (compiling)
- http://gcc.gnu.org/ (the source)
- http://sunfreeware.com/programlistintel10.html#gcc33 (a precompiled gcc)
- The DISA STIGs. DISA used to provide these only to .gov and .mil TLD's, but it appears they are freely available now, as well as the "gold disk" or SRRs.
Reading lists
Per mention from Toby Buckell, I've started using Shelfari to manage the list of books I'm reading. There's a flash-based widget thingy on the bottom right at present, and it should also have a link to the list of stuff I'm reading. I do this for a number of reasons. Primarily, I have anywhere from a few to a few dozen books "in queue" to be read, and it's easy for me to look through what I'm going to be reading in a browser than to go and dig through "the stacks." Second, reading seems to be a social thing anymore, and I can direct people there (as I do with last.fm) rather than have to recite everything when they ask me what I'm reading/have read lately.
12 March, 2007
Dwarf nuns
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
dwarf nuns, neon markers, tattoo shop
Anyone who has read House of Leaves is encouraged to comment on whether a "post-post-modern" book is worth the effort. I have an enormous stack of reading, but am intrigued by the (rather unbelievable) claims about how important or innovative this book is. I'm curious, but not sure whether I should be devoting the time to read/figure out the book. At least right now.
11 March, 2007
Overheard in the kitchen...
Oh, wait. I have an idea... I should leave you with the rental, and take the STI down to Norfolk. I could get there in like half an hour!
Ok, so maybe I am fond of the car.
08 March, 2007
A quick update regarding Taiwan
For those who have been following. The answer, as of today, is yes. Details when the specifics get worked out. Taipei? Taichung? Keelung? Taoyuan? I have no idea. Drop me a line if you want more details. I can't make anything public yet. This has been in the works since mid-2005. On the off chance that he actually keeps tabs on me, I'd very much like to thank Leo for his work on this, over literally years.
Very, very fast.
Rip, mix... burn?
So as I mentioned a few days ago, my iBook is hosed (Hi Mark! Hi Skip!). This is unfortunate, because I liked the machine a lot. In fact, I gave up my 17" powerbook for it (went from 17" display and 1.3ghz cpu to a 12" display and 1ghz cpu, even). I wrote my first book on that laptop, and then rewrote it, and then rewrote it again. I used it so much I'd worn the letters off some of the keys and made a thumb-shaped divot in the trackpad. Alas, at a minimum it needs a new logic board. If you've ever swapped one of these guys, you know why it's supposed to be about four hours of labor, plus the part. By the time we've gone that far, it's just about the same price to get a new laptop.
And so here I am with a new Macbook. I got the white one, because paying extra for the privilege of having a black machine is silly. That, and I was quite happy with my iBook being white (note: I wore hand prints into the chassis, so it was "mostly" white). It's a 2ghz model, with 2gb of ram. So, on with the impressions.
First, I can't tell whether it's any lighter than my iBook. This is a good thing, because it's not any heavier – at least not that I notice. The display is brighter, and the glossy screen is helpful in some lighting situations. I'm not sure why Apple decided to make it a wide-aspect screen (it's not quite 16:9, the resolution is 1280x800). The result is that the screen is wider (I don't really care about wide when I'm writing, I just want to have at least one full page on the screen. I was able to do this with my iBook by setting the zoom to 77%), but the machine is less "deep." By this I mean from the leading edge (wrist) to the screen (fingertips). Sure, sure, this doesn't sound especially critical, except for one problem: this means my fingers are at a more elevated angle relative to the base of the machine (on account of the keyboard being placed closer to my palms). For those of you who aren't in the 100+ wpm crowd, fear not. However, I'm already getting cramps in my arms. I will, as I did when moving from the powerbook to the iBook, probably adjust my posture to the new machine. I just wish I wasn't figuring out how to use the new machine comfortably when I'm about to spend a week teaching (which is to say, spending hours and hours on lecture notes etc).
But perhaps the most important change here is I've switched from PowerPC to Intel. I traded in my 1ghz G4 for a pair of 2ghz Core 2 Duos. And frankly, I can't tell the difference. It doesn't boot any faster, Minefield is just as slow and crashety (although to be fair, the "crashety" part seems to be mostly due to things like the 4chan firefox extension), and everything else runs just about as well as it did on my iBook. Now, it's entirely possible that Steve will tell us that we absolutely ohdamatically must upgrade to the Intel machines when Leopard finally comes to market. But really, I don't see any reason I should have to upgrade from the iBook to the Macbook (note: the iBook's logic board problem stems from the fact that Apple/ASUS used a soggy french fry – rather than, you know, something robust – to solder the ATI chipset to the motherboard; had there been any reason to suspect this flaw had been corrected and wouldn't have happened again, I probably would have just fixed the iBook. However, this isn't the case.). The performance is near-indistinguishable for 99% of what I use the machine for. The reason I've been harping about the Alienware 17" SLI machine is not because I need gobs of AMD 64-bit CRUSHING POWER or anything. I just need the video horsepower for a particular habit I have of using 3-D landscape flythroughs for visualization (and no, I don't mean gaming; picture writing a scene in which somebody is moving between two arbitrary points on the planet, including the z axis through the atmosphere). I'd happily settle for a 2ghz Pentium Mobile as long as it had the graphics power to give me the 3-D speed I want and resolution. The rest of it is fluff.
Interesting to have a look back at the "Megahertz Myth" marketing (it's been taken off the US servers; for some reason, it's still kicking around on the asia servers). Either they were lying then, or they're lying now (two other possibilities: Macs are only to be used for running Photoshop, or that they were/are lying in both instances). Interesting, also, to note that they were comparing G4's to Pentium III's, which were, at least superficially, pretty nice chips.
So, the bottom line, when comparing the C2D Macbook to the G4 iBook is:
- Keyboard is uncomfortable (but you probably won't notice this)
- Screen is an awkward shape (but you probably won't notice this)
- Processor may be faster (but you probably won't notice this)
- You (and me, and every other Mac user) have been had (but you probably didn't notice this)
- It is nice and light (but you probably won't notice this)
07 March, 2007
Comments on Tipler
In some ways it was unsurprising to read Tipler's The Physics of Immortality. I had expected to see some of his influence in contemporary science fiction. However, the way in which Tipler's philosophy seems to permeate the corpus was surprising to me. Off the top of my head are Stephen Baxter (specifically the Xeelee Sequence and the Manifold books), Sean Williams and Shane Dix (Orphans of Earth), and Stross (Accelerando). Stross in particular seems to invoke Tipler (by way of Turing) for pieces of Accelerando. While I didn't come across the term "Turing Oracle" in Tipler's book, it is easy to make the association between a turing-complete machine and Stross' oracle. As well, the "simulation argument" is hashed out well in Tipler's book, and indeed becomes pivotal for both Glasshouse and Accelerando. Perhaps the part I found most interesting in The Physics of Immortality was his discussion of turing-completeness and the authenticity of a simulation.
Tipler's argument is that a simulation of something (namely a person) which is accurate to the quantum level is indistinguishable from the original. The simplest reason being that one cannot measure the quantum state of myself and a clone of myself without disturbing said state, and thus invalidating the reading. This, coupled with the definition of turing-completeness seems to indicate that if I were being simulated in very fine detail, and proved to be turing-complete, nobody, not even myself, could tell the difference.
This is more or less the crux of the book. He explains why he feels the simulation argument is correct (which is that we either are now or will be simulated) and because of this, nothing ever really need "die," as such. He contradicts this somewhat by saying that of course we must all die eventually, but that it needn't be permanent. This seems to somewhat miss the point of the book, which is that there will be a vast resurrection of the dead (however, hearing this explained in terms of cosmology is quite a treat). He does state that, because a perfect simulation is possible to the quantum level, and because infinite energy is available to the Omega Point (I still don't fully grasp his argument that infinite energy is possible, although certainly vast energy is plausible) that the required computation to manipulate such simulations (so as to "merge" me and new-me) is available. He makes the argument that this is a reasonable thing to do for the Omega Point, which brings me to the only real problem I had with his book.
If we assume that such manipulations are possible, and that vast resurrections will occur (even in simulation), the question of what is manipulated becomes pressing. Tipler brings up the notion of a sociopath. Do we resurrect a murderer or rapist? The answer is no. Tipler feels (although there's little justification here) the Omega Point has no interest in pain and – he uses the literal word here – evil. Such people would simply be omitted from the great resurrection or indeed fixed (which is itself the problem: we assume they are broken).
What then, of rapists and murderers? How about corporate criminals? Or heads of state? Soldiers? To assume that the Omega Point is willing and capable of making such value judgements is to assume that it is fundamentally similar to us, which Tipler himself refutes. Would it not be more accurate to (you'll have to pardon me, this is a bit macabre) simulate hordes of people for the rapists and murderers to interact with? Surely, part of what makes a murderer who they are is who they in fact murder. What, then, is the value of a murderer who no longer murders? Is their value simply as a person? Or is it more how they interact with society?
Tipler uses two examples here: children and pets. It would not be possible to make a perfect simulation of my parents, for example, were I not actually there. And so while the Omega Point may actually strive to perfectly reproduce everyone (and indeed Tipler suggests every single possible quantum state of a human would be resurrected – if memory serves here, it's 1010124 possible states!) it simply isn't possible to do so without providing the appropriate environment, the murdered and the raped included.
Which sort of begs the question, what's the point of a great resurrection if it's exactly the same as now?
He also discusses space colonization (and describes it as necessary to fulfill the simulation argument). I'd heard of the "astrochicken" some years ago, and not much since. Well, the bad news is not much new has come of it. Nobody, including Tipler, seems to have any idea how we'd ever defeat c. So it would seem that colonization of the universe will not be undertaken by things as massy as myself, but rather by autonomous, fractional-c probes which will do the work for us. Eventually, life will be forced to alter the universe to suit itself, but the real irony here is that there is no way for life on one side of the universe to meet life on the other side before the Heat Death. The assumption in The Physics of Immortality is that life will act consistently in favor of preserving life, without having contact with the rest of the universe.
Tipler professes in the preface of the book to have a great deal of faith that he never had expected to come across. He states that cosmology and modern physics have shown him that there is a God (of sorts), and that life is, for the most part, eternal. And yet the picture he paints is so bland. Not just bland, though, but perpetually bland. He very clearly explains that people alive today will not vacation at Epsilon Eridani. We're stuck here, until something gets bored enough to recreate us in a simulation that is remarkably like, well, here.
Tipler's argument is that a simulation of something (namely a person) which is accurate to the quantum level is indistinguishable from the original. The simplest reason being that one cannot measure the quantum state of myself and a clone of myself without disturbing said state, and thus invalidating the reading. This, coupled with the definition of turing-completeness seems to indicate that if I were being simulated in very fine detail, and proved to be turing-complete, nobody, not even myself, could tell the difference.
This is more or less the crux of the book. He explains why he feels the simulation argument is correct (which is that we either are now or will be simulated) and because of this, nothing ever really need "die," as such. He contradicts this somewhat by saying that of course we must all die eventually, but that it needn't be permanent. This seems to somewhat miss the point of the book, which is that there will be a vast resurrection of the dead (however, hearing this explained in terms of cosmology is quite a treat). He does state that, because a perfect simulation is possible to the quantum level, and because infinite energy is available to the Omega Point (I still don't fully grasp his argument that infinite energy is possible, although certainly vast energy is plausible) that the required computation to manipulate such simulations (so as to "merge" me and new-me) is available. He makes the argument that this is a reasonable thing to do for the Omega Point, which brings me to the only real problem I had with his book.
If we assume that such manipulations are possible, and that vast resurrections will occur (even in simulation), the question of what is manipulated becomes pressing. Tipler brings up the notion of a sociopath. Do we resurrect a murderer or rapist? The answer is no. Tipler feels (although there's little justification here) the Omega Point has no interest in pain and – he uses the literal word here – evil. Such people would simply be omitted from the great resurrection or indeed fixed (which is itself the problem: we assume they are broken).
What then, of rapists and murderers? How about corporate criminals? Or heads of state? Soldiers? To assume that the Omega Point is willing and capable of making such value judgements is to assume that it is fundamentally similar to us, which Tipler himself refutes. Would it not be more accurate to (you'll have to pardon me, this is a bit macabre) simulate hordes of people for the rapists and murderers to interact with? Surely, part of what makes a murderer who they are is who they in fact murder. What, then, is the value of a murderer who no longer murders? Is their value simply as a person? Or is it more how they interact with society?
Tipler uses two examples here: children and pets. It would not be possible to make a perfect simulation of my parents, for example, were I not actually there. And so while the Omega Point may actually strive to perfectly reproduce everyone (and indeed Tipler suggests every single possible quantum state of a human would be resurrected – if memory serves here, it's 1010124 possible states!) it simply isn't possible to do so without providing the appropriate environment, the murdered and the raped included.
Which sort of begs the question, what's the point of a great resurrection if it's exactly the same as now?
He also discusses space colonization (and describes it as necessary to fulfill the simulation argument). I'd heard of the "astrochicken" some years ago, and not much since. Well, the bad news is not much new has come of it. Nobody, including Tipler, seems to have any idea how we'd ever defeat c. So it would seem that colonization of the universe will not be undertaken by things as massy as myself, but rather by autonomous, fractional-c probes which will do the work for us. Eventually, life will be forced to alter the universe to suit itself, but the real irony here is that there is no way for life on one side of the universe to meet life on the other side before the Heat Death. The assumption in The Physics of Immortality is that life will act consistently in favor of preserving life, without having contact with the rest of the universe.
Tipler professes in the preface of the book to have a great deal of faith that he never had expected to come across. He states that cosmology and modern physics have shown him that there is a God (of sorts), and that life is, for the most part, eternal. And yet the picture he paints is so bland. Not just bland, though, but perpetually bland. He very clearly explains that people alive today will not vacation at Epsilon Eridani. We're stuck here, until something gets bored enough to recreate us in a simulation that is remarkably like, well, here.
28 February, 2007
Misery loves company
The logic board on my iBook is kaput. It's a $300 repair on a machine I paid $300 for. One could say that I've gotten my $300 out of it, but what makes the machine so nice for me is that it's rubberized plastic (e.g., durable) and doesn't fail. I've always said "yeah, if it breaks, I'll just buy a new computer." Spending a few thousand dollars on what your average mortgage lender sees as a toy is not a good way to get your home loan approved. So it would seem I cannot buy a new computer, and I do not have a computer unless I agree to fix the machine in question – which I told myself I'd never do.
This is complicated by the fact that Alienware has not yet updated their 17" SLI notebooks to include the Turion X2 procs. I had decided since my iBook was so reliable that I'd just wait until Alienware bumped the revision on their machines.
Looking around at the replacement logic board parts, I see that I could replace my current logic board with one that was 1.33ghz (21% speed increase). It might be worth it. However, there's no guarantee the new one wouldn't just go bad on its own anyways. And most of what I do slows down not because I've got a 1ghz proc, but rather because I only have 1.25gb of ram (incidentally, I'm also hoping Alienware will have a 4gb+ laptop model, given they're using the Turion).
At least I'm not alone...
This is complicated by the fact that Alienware has not yet updated their 17" SLI notebooks to include the Turion X2 procs. I had decided since my iBook was so reliable that I'd just wait until Alienware bumped the revision on their machines.
Looking around at the replacement logic board parts, I see that I could replace my current logic board with one that was 1.33ghz (21% speed increase). It might be worth it. However, there's no guarantee the new one wouldn't just go bad on its own anyways. And most of what I do slows down not because I've got a 1ghz proc, but rather because I only have 1.25gb of ram (incidentally, I'm also hoping Alienware will have a 4gb+ laptop model, given they're using the Turion).
At least I'm not alone...
26 February, 2007
Zero tolerance
Please reference metafilter in regards to this post.
Now, I think it's probably a bit of overreaction, but it's also pretty predictable. But the long list of comments seems to miss the obvious points.
(this is a straw man)
(this is tangential)
(ad hominem)
(hey look, two more straw persons)
(more ad hominem)
(almost; but a false analogy)
(was on the right track until ad hominem at paragraph three)
Around this point the discussion just wandered off into the weeds. I think what everyone has missed here is the fact that this was entirely predictable. Should Nancy Pelosi or Jim Moran have done the same thing – in their case coming out in favor of the .50 BMG or citizens owning a .338 Lapua rifle – there would have been stern rebuke and deep political repercussions down the line for them.
Calling into question the substance or purpose of the NRA, gun owners, or the validity of the term "assault rifle" is entirely missing the point. What people have missed here is the evil of politics and politicking. It has very little at all to do with guns or people of a conservative political bent.
(begin digression)
Last night I was listening to a political forum on CSPAN radio. The discussion at hand was the Republican contenders for 2008's presidential election. Of much discussion was John McCain. To understand McCain's present situation, they explain, one has to discuss the war in Iraq. Because he originally strongly supported the war, and strongly supported the president, he is in a bit of a political quandary at present. Quoth the pundits, he can't oppose the war now, he can't oppose "The Surge," and he can't break stride with Bush and Cheney. This is really a scary message, and none of them seemed to understand this.
Of course he can change his mind, change his political stance, and call a mistake for what it is. We all make them. I don't know whether it was a mistake to originally invade Iraq or not, but it simply isn't relevant to politics; it's relevant to historians. They are the ones who are going to define how and when and where things went wrong. But going forward, people like McCain very much can change their minds, and one hopes that they do. To insist that somebody must define a political stance and stick to it forever in fear of dire political consequences is to deny the vicissitudes of reality and reason. Saying we should pull out of Iraq today (which is not what I am saying, mind you) is not to say that we should not have invaded Iraq in 2003. It is simply saying that today is a good day to get out. The two concepts are related, but not in the way people seem to be insisting they should be.
(here's where we return to the discussion)
The important thing here, whether regarding McCain or this poor Zumbo guy, is that in politics, somebody is expected to make a decision when they enter office (or more correctly, while campaigning for said office) and stick to it until they leave. I don't especially like Zumbo's stance on things, but I also don't think it's unreasonable for him to dislike AR-15s or other (I object to the term) assault rifles. Much in the same way I'd be surprised, but not incensed, should Jim Moran or Nancy Pelosi (or Barbara Boxer, or Diane Feinstein, or ...) decide to repeal or at least discuss repealing laws governing the .50 BMG or assault rifles.
An editor at Outdoor Life for nearly 30 years and member of the NRA for 40, Jim Zumbo is a lifelong advocate of outdoorsmanship, hunting and gun ownership in print and on television. Last week, Zumbo left a comment on his Outdoor Life blog commenting on the rising popularity of assault rifles for hunting calling them "terrorist weapons" and suggesting they should be banned from hunting use. Three days later, Zumbo's lifelong career is all but over, having lost all his product sponsorships, was publicly disavowed by the NRA, and his show was canceled. With the 2008 election season starting and a Congress now controlled by the party supporting greater restrictions on assault weapons, Zumbo may be the first sign of a zero-tolerance conservative constituency.
Now, I think it's probably a bit of overreaction, but it's also pretty predictable. But the long list of comments seems to miss the obvious points.
It's very easy to find a .22 plinking rifle that looks just like a big, bad 'terrorist' weapon. Get over the aesthetics. Also, really: Can we drop the whole 'assault rifle' phrasing nonsense already? For a few minutes is it possible to drop the dogma and wonder objectively who started calling rifles assault weapons, and why?
(this is a straw man)
Zumbo may be the first sign of a zero-tolerance conservative constituency.
First sign? Are you high? The entire point of modern conservatism is zero tolerance.
Why? Becuase it works. Because by using it, they keep winning
See, they figure they aren't going to win every battle. At times, gasp, they'll be forced to compromise. So, just in case, they make sure their starting point is as far away from the middle as it possibly can be, so a compromise will be something they can live with (for a while, of course.)
This is one of the many reasons that Liberals have *no* voice in American politics. They start with the compromise position, and the conservatives start with the no tolerance, no compromise, everything or death position. Thus, if a compromised is reached, the comprimise is mostly conservative. On a 1-100 scale, libs start the bidding at 60. Conseratives reply with "minus ten, traitor." In the end? The bid comes in around 25.
(this is tangential)
Personally, I'm all for banning assault weapons, because they're useless for anything but close quarters combat, and I'm all for banning pseudo assault weapons, because that's what idiots buy. I'd much rather have a real rifle and a real pistol, not an AR-15 or some bullshit knockoff with a funky shape and an tube on the end.
(ad hominem)
"Terrorist weapon" is so entirely appropriate a description that it stings.
Really? Tell me more. What is it about assault rifles that makes them intrinsically a terrorist weapon? Remember, we are talking about civilian legal assault rifles here. Is it that they look scary? That you can mount a flashlight on the bottom?
(hey look, two more straw persons)
Zumbo overturned a rock. The most paranoid and insecure males obsess over assault rifles, not hunting rifles. This fits into their end-of-times worldview, which isn't based in reality, but based on the increasing self-awareness that they will never be a successful, happily married male. Regardless of the political betrayal or the psychological basis for this disappointment (and dissonance), the point is that Zumbo basically made them look foolish because they tell themselves, and their friends and spouses that the guns were for hunting. So they went after him. Now they really look like paranoid idiots.
It appears that the NRA has changed their stripes and now represents this fringe. The sportsmen are mostly conservationists these days and have little use for the NRA as a gun lobby, so the NRA went looking for new members it seems.
(more ad hominem)
The inability for the sporting community to allow such discourse without fierce rebuttal reminds me more of Putin's regime than anything American. Of course I must admit, such reactions do serve well to keep the party line in power and the NRA does have an amazing track record of using the political system to serve its purposes. Just because it is effective, however, does not make it right.
(almost; but a false analogy)
The speed and viciousness of this is what is remarkable. The pro-gun lobby is a well oiled machine.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if after he was shot, Ronald Reagan had come out with a strong public statement aimed at banning all handguns. How would the last 25 years of American history played out?
These gun nuts should SCARE THE FUCK OUT OF EVERYONE. Not just because of the obvious fact that they have guns, and lots of them, but because of the political stranglehold they have on this country.
(was on the right track until ad hominem at paragraph three)
Around this point the discussion just wandered off into the weeds. I think what everyone has missed here is the fact that this was entirely predictable. Should Nancy Pelosi or Jim Moran have done the same thing – in their case coming out in favor of the .50 BMG or citizens owning a .338 Lapua rifle – there would have been stern rebuke and deep political repercussions down the line for them.
Calling into question the substance or purpose of the NRA, gun owners, or the validity of the term "assault rifle" is entirely missing the point. What people have missed here is the evil of politics and politicking. It has very little at all to do with guns or people of a conservative political bent.
(begin digression)
Last night I was listening to a political forum on CSPAN radio. The discussion at hand was the Republican contenders for 2008's presidential election. Of much discussion was John McCain. To understand McCain's present situation, they explain, one has to discuss the war in Iraq. Because he originally strongly supported the war, and strongly supported the president, he is in a bit of a political quandary at present. Quoth the pundits, he can't oppose the war now, he can't oppose "The Surge," and he can't break stride with Bush and Cheney. This is really a scary message, and none of them seemed to understand this.
Of course he can change his mind, change his political stance, and call a mistake for what it is. We all make them. I don't know whether it was a mistake to originally invade Iraq or not, but it simply isn't relevant to politics; it's relevant to historians. They are the ones who are going to define how and when and where things went wrong. But going forward, people like McCain very much can change their minds, and one hopes that they do. To insist that somebody must define a political stance and stick to it forever in fear of dire political consequences is to deny the vicissitudes of reality and reason. Saying we should pull out of Iraq today (which is not what I am saying, mind you) is not to say that we should not have invaded Iraq in 2003. It is simply saying that today is a good day to get out. The two concepts are related, but not in the way people seem to be insisting they should be.
(here's where we return to the discussion)
The important thing here, whether regarding McCain or this poor Zumbo guy, is that in politics, somebody is expected to make a decision when they enter office (or more correctly, while campaigning for said office) and stick to it until they leave. I don't especially like Zumbo's stance on things, but I also don't think it's unreasonable for him to dislike AR-15s or other (I object to the term) assault rifles. Much in the same way I'd be surprised, but not incensed, should Jim Moran or Nancy Pelosi (or Barbara Boxer, or Diane Feinstein, or ...) decide to repeal or at least discuss repealing laws governing the .50 BMG or assault rifles.