Posted 4:00 PM by Angie Schultz

A Disarmingly Modest Proposal

Hey, kids! Wondering what to do about guns, and the psycho nutbars who kill with them? Ex-diplomat Dan Simpson has the the answer:

Now, how would one disarm the American population? First of all, federal or state laws would need to make it a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine and one year in prison per weapon to possess a firearm. The population would then be given three months to turn in their guns, without penalty.

The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building. All firearms would be seized.

On the streets it would be a question of stop-and-search of anyone, even grandma with her walker, with the same penalties for "carrying."

See? Easy-peasy. I don't know why we didn't think of this earlier.

But Simpson doesn't go nearly far enough. While these specially-trained squads of police (we should name them Simpson Suicide Squads, in his honor) are seizing guns in every warehouse, farmhouse, outhouse, henhouse, doghouse, and cathouse in the country, they should also look around for:

• Illegal drugs
  
• Child porn
  
• Stolen goods
  
• Bootleg music
  
• Pirated software
  
• Untaxed cigs and booze
  
• Stills
  
• Spotted owl carcasses
  
• 3.5 gallon toilets
  
• Transfats
  

Doggonit, the list is darned near endless! It would just be more efficient, now that we've gotten rid of that pesky Fourth Amendment (as well as the Second), to clear the country of all contraband, forever. And think of the jobs it would create!

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that the borders aren't exactly hermetically sealed, and it's possible that guns might slip in from Mexico, Canada, or Neptune. Well, Simpson has thought of that, too -- and his evaluation?

That would constitute a problem for American immigration authorities and the U.S. Coast Guard, but not an insurmountable one over time.

Because it's worked so well for drugs!

So who is this Simpson clown? Is he Homer's dumber brother? The article identifies him as a retired diplomat, as well as a member of the editorial boards of the Toledo Blade and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

NNDB -- a site of unknown credibility -- says that he's a former ambassador to the Central African Republic (from '90 to '92), the Deputy Commandant for International Affairs, US Army War College ('93 to '94), and ambassador to the Congo (then called Zaire, '95 to '98). (There were many google hits for these ambassadorships, so I feel fairly certain of them.) This entry from the 1995 CIA World Factbook (which isn't actually on the CIA's network) says that Simpson was the ambassador to Kenya at the time, and also represented US interests in Somalia (where we didn't have an actual embassy).

This column, in which he praises Jimmy Carter's bright, incisive, mind-bogglingly obvious questions, confirms that he's the same Dan[iel] Simpson.

Aha! Look for "Daniel H. Simpson", and you get this, apparently written no later than August, 1994, which says that Simpson has had posts in other African nations, as well as Bulgaria, Iceland, and Lebanon. This explains what he was doing between his stint as teacher in the Libyan Army Military College and his 1990 appointment as ambassador to the Central African Republic. I had wondered.

It gives me the warm fuzzies to know that the US was represented for decades in benighted African nations by a fellow who apparently regards the Constitution as a regrettable stain on some fine old 18th century paper. I guess I assumed, in my American ignorance and hubris, that he might be teaching the Africans about democracy and the rule of law. While all they time they were teaching him about tyranny and stuff! Ha ha! Joke's on me!

I mean, us.

Despite my title, I don't really think this was an attempt at Swiftian satire. Slublog, commenting on Ace's site, lists some of Simpson's previous columns, which are all of the same political stripe, although not nearly so deranged. I link directly to Slublog's comment (something Ace apparently hasn't figured out how to do) so you can bypass Ace's confused, non-sequitur atheist hate-on.

Iowahawk has more jokes. Contains the special bonus word: BLAMMO!

Labels: Fools of Our Planet

Posted 8:14 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Artists' Drive

Artists' Drive, Death Valley, CA, Aug. 1995

Almost forgot about Foto Friday! Don't have much to say about this: the sky is an impossibly dark blue, and there seems to be a pyramid lurking over in the upper right, waiting to pounce. It might've wandered over from Vegas.

The colors are caused by various minerals in the rock, as you might imagine. Looks like a spumoni spill. There are other views of the area which resemble delicious fudge ripple.

We went in August, as you can see, and it was hot, but it wasn't that hot. I don't think it was over 100. Someone told us that only foreigners go to Death Valley in the summer, and so it proved.

I'd like to go back some day and spend about a week photographing the place. I'd go out at sunrise and sunset, and spend the rest of the day sleeping. I'll have to become rich first: the ice cream was pricey.

Labels: California, Foto Friday

Posted 3:34 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Many Heads Are Better Than One

The Olgas/Kata Tjuta
Northern Territory, Australia, Aug. 2000

This rock formation is similar to, and a shortish drive from, Uluru/Ayers Rock. As I recall, on the road between them there's some sort of observation platform you can climb to get a look from afar. The native name is Kata Tjuta -- Many Heads -- but European explorers named the primary peak Mt. Olga (and therefore the collection became "The Olgas") in honor of Olga, Queen of Württemberg.

Actually, Mt. Olga was originally named Mt. Müller[1], after German-Australian scientist Ferdinand Müller, but Müller requested that the name be changed to honor the queen. According to Wikipedia, (WARNING! Wikipedia!) there was a little quid pro quo, in that Müller gave up the mountain and got a title instead, and the right to add von to his name, becoming Ferdinand von Müller.

It's obvious that Olga never saw a representation of the mountains, or she would have given it a second thought. The viewer's first reaction, on learning that these hummocks are "the Olgas", is to wonder what part of Olga they are meant to resemble. Most unfortunate.

These things mesmerize me, producing that familiar itch: "What's over there? What is that? Let's go see..." They're far more fascinating to me than Uluru, which is just a big ol' rock. I wish we'd had another day or so in the area to explore the Olgas. There's a three hour walking tour ("A three hour tour!") you can take, but we got there an hour before sunset on our last day, and I didn't feel like hiking.

This was scanned from a print, but I posted it anyway because I love the colors -- the dark sky and layered clouds, the golden grass, and the many-colored shadows on the hills.

Here's the national park site.

[1]Actually, he gave the King of Spain a lake, and the Queen of Württemberg a mountain, but accounts differ as to whether it was originally supposed to be Lake Ferdinand and Mt. Müller, or Mt. Ferdinand and Lake Müller. Do you care? I don't. But I do care that the Sydney Morning Herald link I posted above believes that Olga was Queen of Spain. No, Amadeus of Spain got the lake (now Lake Amadeus).

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 9:08 PM by Angie Schultz

I Hope You Brought Enough for Everyone

Orin Kerr has a thoughtful post on the tendency of people to rush to derive lessons (and develop policy thereon) from events like Monday's massacre.

But in my view, the problem with responding to news of tragedy with policy ideas right away is that we tend not to realize in such situations how often our "proposals" are really expressions of psychological need. It's human nature to respond to tragedy by fitting it into our preexisting worldviews; we instinctively restore order by construing the tragic event as a confirmation of our sense of the world rather than a threat to it...Given that people will tend to see in events what they want to see, turning to policy right away will come off as rudely "playing politics" to those who don't share your worldview.

Besides predictable arguments for and against gun control, I have already seen blame placed on:

• Satan (where have you gone, Flip Wilson?)
  
  
• Psychiatry (by Guess Who)
  
  
• The "culture of passivity"
  
  
• The parents of the victims. (Extra points for this one, and a demerit for somehow forgetting to use the phrase "little Eichmanns".)
  
  
• America's "chain letter society", in which unbearable pressures to excel drive students to slaughter a bunch of strangers.
  
  
• UPDATE: Compulsory education. From Natalie Solent, normally a paragon of common sense. Et tu, Natalie?
  
  
• Ralph Nader(!!)
  
  
• Republicans,
  
  
• and, of course Boooosh!
  

(Damian Penny has a Blamenanza here.)

And so we see that your reaction to the tragedy reveals your inner psychology. My reaction was, "Probably some psycho. Psychos are scary. Better double-check the door."

However, there is one thing that we know for a certainty: in the fullness of time, this incident will become a Law & Order episode. It will be altered somewhat, of course. It will take place at "Hudson University", and the shooter will be a brilliant but troubled 15-year-old who got into college (too) early. He will not succeed in killing himself, and a medical examination will reveal a brain tumor. We will discover that:

• A doctor knew about the tumor but did nothing because the tumor invalidated some theory he had.
  
• An English professor thought the killer was weird, but encouraged the weirdness because it validated some theory he had.
  
• An overworked court clerk checked the wrong box on some form, thereby preventing the kid from being put away.
  
• A gun manufacturer sold the gun knowing that it could be converted to semi-auto (which was completely legal).
  

McCoy will make sure the doctor, the professor, the clerk, and two gun company executives go to the slammer for manslaughter. (Mercifully he spares the kid's mother.) Meanwhile, the kid's lawyer will successfully argue that state-run mental institutions are EEEEVILL, and gets the kid released to the custody of his parents. (This is the same lawyer who, last week, sucessfully argued that for-profit mental institutions are EEEEVILL.) In two years, the kid will go on another rampage, but McCoy will sleep the sleep of the just, because was able to look past simplistic notions of culpability (i.e. "the shooter did it") and identify the real killers (everbody else in the universe). (Plus, stretch a five-minute story into an hour, minus commercials.)

So I blame Dick Wolf.

Posted 4:25 PM by Angie Schultz

Why I Love Modern Technology

The internet probably negates the need to have friends now.

Precisely.

(Look here for context. Fourth blockquote.)

Posted 1:52 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Archimage

Arch, Great Ocean Rd., Victoria, Australia
Dec. 2000

I've tried to find the real name of this object, but everything just comes up "Arch". This is on the Great Ocean Road, which runs along the southeast coast of Australia, southwest of Melbourne. We drove from Adelaide to Melbourne, and a few hours from Melbourne there are a number of beautiful bays with islands, like the 12 Apostles.

Erm, that's pretty much all I have to say about it. I was going to put up a different image, but I decided that those scans were all out of focus, and needed to be redone.

OK, here's the official Great Ocean Road website, and since it's so cool, a route planner for driving within Victoria. Put in "Melbourne" to start and "Port Campbell" to finish. And then it'll ask you if you want Melbourne 3000 or Melbourne 3004. Hell, I don't know, but Melbourne 3000 will be the city center. The route it gave me did not actually go along the coast. You're gonna wanna take dat left toin at Albuq -- er -- Geelong to drive along the coast.

Dagnabbit, you young whippersnappers don't know how good you have it, by gum. When I took this trip, back in the Year Aught, we didn't have no fancy schmancy web-based travel guides. We had to make do with static maps on dead trees! And they was hard to fold! And the good Lord help you if you lost your way, because if you was caught out after dark, the bunyips and drop bears would getcha! Why, I knew this one feller...

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 10:17 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Fine Arts

Woof! Just getting in under the wire today. I had to do some work (so unfair!) that took up most of the day. Have some fine arts.

Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, July 1996

I was going to gripe that this wasn't the greatest picture in the world, but then I cropped it and fiddled with it, and it turned out much better than I'd thought.

So, I've changed my mind: it is the greatest picture in the world. Except for some of my other ones.

Don't have much to say about the P of FA, except that it's real neat, and that there's a cheesy MST3K movie -- whose name will suddenly occur to me in about three weeks -- that has a brief scene in which stunt men in Roman-ish armor perform a little tepid swordplay amongst the columns.

I nearly choked when I saw it. It kinda precipitates the disbelief when you recognize Ancient Whatsopolis from your vacation. "Watch out, Maximus! I tripped over that sidewalk in 1996!"

Labels: California, Foto Friday

Posted 9:38 PM by Angie Schultz

Prophecies Found on an Old Egg McMuffin Wrapper

fire cannot melt steel
the founders' conspiracy
she has now revealed

planes hit, towers fall?
the laws of physics say no!
bush must be involved

chicken wire, blocks burn
and the empire is consumed
google it, she says

"the maw shall open
and sewage issue forth,
driving wise men mad"

in his twelfth quatrain
great nostradamus predicts
the rise of rosie

Labels: Fools of Our Planet