Armistice Day, and thoughts about treason

91 years ago today, the fighting stopped in The War To End All Wars. I'm sure that this fact was not lost on our President, who went to Fort Hood today to a memorial service for the 13 men and women (mostly soldiers) murdered there last week.

They died while in service for their country, as soldiers do, and always will do. I hope that the President gives as much thought to those who died overseas, for our nation.

Dad and I were talking about how the murderer, Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, should be charged. (They haven't charged him as of this writing.) We agree that we would want it to be a capital charge, and that Mr. Hasan (he will soon be formally stripped of rank) should die. We've seen too often how even our own media likes to claim that rights of prisoners are trampled, on the basis of religious affiliation. Let him die for his actions, and have nothing more said about how he is treated.

Now, obviously, the Army will want to charge him under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. But I suspect also that the federal Department Of Justice will be itching to charge him with a violation of the U.S.C. But if that doesn't work, please recall that Ft. Hood is in Texas, and we have a rather efficient Capital Murder statute on the books, and we know how to use it.

Dad and I were curious if there was any crime in the UCMJ that is a capital crime, beyond Treason. Treason is the only crime defined in the United States Constitution, and is described thusly:
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."

That makes it sound more like it's under the USC, and in fact it's found under USC Title 18, 2381, making it a capital crime. Hm. Will the DOJ get this?

Senator McCain says that his action was an act of terrorism. Hm. To what end? Some reports have Hasan yelling "Alahu Akbar" as he was shooting. Was he acting on behalf of a terrorist organization? Our Congress has declared war on Terror, which would mean that he was acting on behalf of our enemies against the U.S. during a time of war, which constitutes Treason.

I've seen some online claim that this was simply murder, and not Treason. I submit that the case is more complicated than that. When we see an act of treason, we must call it what it is. This man was a soldier who indiscriminately killed other soldiers.

Blogarado, Part 2: It's Not A Party Until The Police Are Called.

We rolled to a stop behind the several bloggers' vehicles, on a lonely farm road in SE Colorado. What happened?

"Ambulance Driver hit a deer," we were told. Aw, crap.

We pulled around to the front of the line, and lit up the front of A.D.'s Dodge pickup. Not TOO bad. Must have been a small deer. I went to help drag it it in from the field, where it had expired after being struck by the grill and radiator of A.D.'s Dakota.

Whoa.

That's a big buck. No, that's a REALLY big buck.

At first glance, I figured 250 lbs. After having helped A.D. drag it the 100 yards to where the vehicles were stopped, I began to revise my estimate to far closer to 300 lbs. Mind you-- A.D. and I aren't petite little things, either.

We pulled it up on the road, and then the jokes started. 15+ bloggers, all beginning to get a bit chilly, thinking of the pot roast that FarmGram had prepared in town, began doing what they do: snark.

"I swear to Gawd, after what he did to my truck, at least I'm gonna mount that buck," A.D. said.

"Damn, A.D.-- you already killed him. Now you want to defile the corpse that way?" came a chorus.

The question then came up: Now What? We contacted our hosts, who were already at or near town, and explained the situation. It was decided that we would tow the pickup with already present pickups. We figured that it would be a shame to let the meat spoil and...

Crap. Three off-duty cops were present, and here we are, planning to leave the scene without reporting it.

I called 911.

"911. What's your emergency?" asked the dispatcher.

"Minor vehicle crash. Pickup versus deer. Both are expired. No injuries, Some road blockage. Copy 28?" I said, offering her the license plate number of A.D.'s pickup.

"What's your location?" she asked. Sensible enough, in case we lost connection. I had to ask what road we were on, and told her.

"Are there any injuries?" she inquired.

"No. That's why I said 'minor crash,'" I said, slightly impatiently.

"How many occupants in the vehicle?" She asked. Good question, but I didn't know, precisely. I asked, and told, and reminded her that no one was hurt. I told her that everyone was okay.

"Okay, I've got an ambulance en route," she said.

"But, as I've said, No One is hurt. We don't need a box. We need a game warden," I said, a little plaintively, now.

"Well, sir, it's just our policy, whenever there's an accident, we send medics," she said.

"Who will have less experience than the Paramedic instructor that was driving," I muttered.

"What's that," she asked, typing in the background.

"He said the he'll decline treatment," I said. "Please also notify the game warden." I hung up.

Just after this call, an off-duty Colorado Department of Natural Resources man happened to drive by, and told us that A.D. could keep the meat, but not the head. There was much cussing.

AD decided to get to work removing the head, and asked for a knife. About 10 were immediately opened and handed toward him.

Old NFO's fixed-blade knife turned out to be well-suited for the job, but not better than the Sawz-All that FarmDad produced from his pickup.

A.D. got busy removing the head.

After some time, a Sheriff's deputy arrived, and began to introduce himself. This young man was every bit of 16 years old, I'm certain. He never blinked at a large party of armed, laughing bloggers who took lots of pictures and made lots of risque comments. But he did a full triple-take at the hood ornament on A.D.'s pickup.

I quick stepped over and presented to him the business card left by the DNR man. "He said that we could remove the head," I said.

"Okayyyyyyy," said the deputy. "I've got a state trooper en route to work the accident."

"How far out is the trooper?" I asked.

"35 minutes, or so," he answered.

"You don't work these kinds of accidents?" I asked.

"Oh, I work 'em all the time," he answered, "but we're supposed to let the state troopers work them when they'll come to the scene."

"So you're leaving?" I asked.

"No, I'm staying with the scene, until he gets here," the deputy answered.

"To work an accident that will take about 20 minutes to work," I sighed.

"Yeah. Listen, I didn't make this policy," he said resignedly.

We started quartering out the deer. And by "we," I mean that Ambulance Driver got bloody, and we cheered and made inappropriate comments, and laughed and took pictures.

We discussed posting this picture (gore warning) without explanation, with a request for caption, under the post title: "Take That, Broadripple BlogMeets!" (Some of us not in the MidWest hear of much fun at those blog meets. Well, we're having fun, too...)

When the ambulance arrived, the EMT called it a baby deer, proclaiming that she had killed a much bigger one last year. I, still panting from dragging this one in, was indignant.

"Lady, that's about a 300 pound buck, no teeth left to speak of. He'll be about 5 years old," I said.

"Oh, I mean his rack is tiny. Probably about 130, maybe. I've got a 160 inch rack at home," she said, smugly.

Now, look. I know this wasn't a monster rack or anything, but my friend Ambo driver had just lost a radiator to this big boy. Last thing I was going to have is some smug para med from Colorado go dissing his deer. Besides, I've scored a buck or two, myself.

"Lady, that's a 20 inch spread, with near perfect symmetry," I said. "Nice beams, too. He'll go about 150." Honestly, I was pulling that number straight out of my butt.

"Oh, that's maybe a 16" spread," she said. Where y'all from, anyway?" she said, knowing the answer.

"Texas," I said, stepping into the trap.

"Oh. I might have known," she answered.

A tape was pulled out, showing an honest 20" spread (this picture has a point obscuring the final total, but it's 20"). Points were measured for later scoring. Just as well we measured it. The D.N.R. guy came back and took the head. Ambulance driver cussed roundly.

I took some more pics, and we all laughed and giggled in the cold for the next hour. If I had been the deputy, I would have assumed that everyone there was drunk or high, when in fact everyone on scene was sober.

We (A.D., with lots of spectators) finally got the deer skinned and quartered, and put it and A.D.'s gear and guns in the back of the Atomic Nerds' pickup. With 5 garbage bags of meat, about 10 rifle cases, and theirs and A.D.'s stuff, it made quite a pile. The Nerds prepped to tow A.D.'s pickup with a tow cable.

"Do you finally feel validated for having the truck?" asked LabRat to her stoic husband.

"Yes." Stingray looked satisfied.

Back at the FarmFam's house, I learned that Stingray is a hell of a brewmeister. His stout is superb, and I found nothing wrong with his IPAs, either. But after a glass of stout and four IPAs (Hey, back off-- I was on vacation.), I was feeling no pain. Whew.

What a lovely time.

"Blogarado" Part 1. It's good to go see good people.

So Dad and I left a wedding on Saturday night, and drove across the Texas Panhandle and the Oklahoma Panhandle to end up in Colorado, at a blogmeet first proposed by FarmGirl, and hosted by her whole family.

"Mountains!" you're thinking. Nope. We were in a part of Colorado where the terrain is less geographically interesting, though I liked it.

The people there are quiet, and fiercely independent. That's not to say, though, that they are distant or rude; they just don't need Nanny Government to help them live their lives. People carry guns, and generally do it in the open, without comment about it. Elderly man limping around his pickup at the Dollar General? That's a 4" revolver on his belt. Plump woman at the Loaf 'N' Jug? That's a small auto on her belt. They're not brandishing; they're just being compliant with the law, which requires them to obtain a concealed carry license if they want to cover their guns, or requires them to carry openly if they don't have a CHL.. Carrying a gun is not a stunt; it's just a simple aspect of living.

We showed up early in the sleepy little town, and decided to nap in the car outside the breakfast restaurant, waiting for our friends to arrive. FarmGirl and friends went in, past our snoozing selves, and texted me to come inside.

I met plenty of great folks that I had read, and a few that I had not.

After a leisurely breakfast wherein we all snickered at the effect of a large and amorphous group (that constantly changes number and tables) has on a well-meaning but scatter-brained young waitress (bless her heart), we retired to the range.

At the range, there was a pistol table and a rifle table, and we had reactive targets at the lines near both. The first firearm I shot was the most famous Bersa Thunder on the Internet.

I then fired the Atomic Nerds' Wedding Rings: A pair of Les Baer 1911s that Stingray and LabRat had given each other in lieu of literal rings, for their wedding. I'm not kidding when I say that I almost choked up.

I won't go into the litany of all the guns we fired, because, frankly, I'd bore you. I will say that people were more than eager to share their guns with each other, and more than happy to give each other ammo, to levels of generosity that were just silly. Old NFO handed me a Browning Citori in the keenest leather-and-canvas fitted case that I've ever seen, and told me to go have fun shooting clays, when I lamented that I had left my shotguns at home. The beautiful over/under looked unfired. When the dadgummed case for a shotgun costs more than most of the firearms that I brought, that's a sweet rig.

FarmGram fed us all like kings. To say that we ate heartily would be an understatement.
Nobody watched where their guns or worried about them. Everyone took the safety of the others on as their responsibility, especially the safety of little KB, AmboDriver's daughter.
Everyone took care to make sure the others got their stuff back.

We had a great time.

But then...

Happy birfday, InterWeb.

21 years ago, I was a little unusual in that I regularly contributed to the North Texas VaxCluster Bulletin Board System (NTV BBS). We used telnet to communicate with people down in Houston, and California, and such. I was so impressed when one of our regular contributors fired off some messages from Bangkok, Thailand. We were living in the future, at 1200 baud dial-up.

Graphic interfaces? Are you kidding me? It was all text. ASCII test, actually, and on a monochrome amber monitor.

I remember, two decades ago, considering whether to pay for the online service to get the Fort Worth Star Telegram for something like $20 a year, but then deciding not to. (The beginning of proof of the end, even back then. They were beginning to see that their marketing plan wasn't ready to deploy effectively.)

I remember firing up ProCom Plus on that XT Turbo with the new 20 meg hard drive, and that slight thrill as the external modem trilled and connected, blocking all other calls as it did so, so that I wouldn't be kicked off. No other phone. No interruptions.

I remember working nights in a help desk at Xerox in 1995, and deciding to go retro with the Windows 3.11 computer, going online with text-only programs, even though we technically could use graphic interfaces. As Xerox was part of the backbone of the Internet, I was amazed at the speed with which we could play network games research customers' problems.

ARPA put up ARPNet 40 years ago this month, and the Internet was technically born right then, some quarter-century before most of the world knew anything about it. It used to be a privelidge to get on the Internet; I remember having to sign some special paperwork to get an email account assigned to me at UT Austin back in the fall of 1990, and later at UNT in 1991. Now they automatically assign you one, and terminals are sprinkled around campuses like litter baskets or like payphones used to be. But like payphones, they're no longer much used, because the entire place is a WiFi hotspot, and everyone has a laptop, an ebook, or a superphone.

There used to be a technology gatekeeper at the doors of the internet: only those geeky enough to have a computer and keep it going, and willing to install and utilize their modems, would be able to get on. As such, there were some pretty bright people on there, back then. Now, in the Age of the Common Man, any fool can get on the internet as easily as he used to turn on Good Times or watch an ABC After-School Special. And they do.

The Internet is bringing us a tool for a world that is slightly different than we imagined even 15 years ago. It is paving the road for a new sexual revolution, allowing complete strangers to find each other far easier than ever before, for meaningless couplings.

Look at the data we can get.

Look at the connections we can make.

But people mostly still just use it to watch YouTube and porn.

We're in your southern fly-over states, making your money.

Traditionally, the nation's economic engine rooms have been on the coasts.

Not so much lately. Seems that the economy is favoring the warmer parts of the country. Texas showed to have a surprisingly high number of booming cities on this list of the best local economies in the U.S.

Want!

The Terrafugia flying car.
Most gunny folks that I know are into aviation. I don't know why, but it's true.

I'm one.

Typically, when people ask me how to get from my area to Fort Worth at about 4:30PM, I answer "By helicopter." This might well give a different answer. It's funny to see highway mpg listing on the performance specs of a plane. (30 mpg, b.t.w.)

I'd be terrified of a minor fender-bender, though. Get side-swiped in the parking lot, and you can still drive home, but flying would be a Bad Idea.

Laughing. Out loud.

My wife keeps a file on her email of things that genuinely make her happy when she opens them. Links to funny videos, digital audio recordings of our children when they were toddlers, and funny pictures and stories. We all trade these kind of things around on our email, but my wife actually keeps them in her Yahoo account in an Awesome file.

Today she sat down at the computer, and brought it up. She added the University Of Quebec's amazing single-take video (that would make Robert Altman proud), and then just picked one at random to read or watch. A few seconds later, she started howling. I mean to say that my spouse of almost 12 years sounded like a howler monkey as she read this.

Sure, I had read it 6 years ago. But damned if I didn't laugh again.

Kids ask the darndest things.

It's a tired cliche, but it's a fact that children are quite capable of posing some pretty profound questions, that most of us don't have the chops to answer.

Since most of my readership is brighter than the average person on the street, I now direct you to a list of some of those questions, so that you might answer them.

The fact that this is newsworthy is a good thing.

Do you have a cell phone with a camera in it? I do, and I was about the last guy to get a cell phone. My phone was $50, and was one of the "feature phones" at the AT&T store, which means that it's cheap.

But it's got some features, not the least of which is a video camera. I actually use it a lot. I video'd my daughter's karate tournament. I video'd a cottonmouth water moccasin that I caught, before dispatching it. It's easy, takes one hand to use, and I only push two buttons to make it happen. In short, I can be video taping recording something with about 2 seconds' notice. And I'm a blundering technophobe.

Just about everyone has one of these things, these days. My wife has one, my daughter has one, my mother, my father, and my stepmother have one. And if you're under 30, live in the United States, possess a camera that is in any way capable of recording video, then you know how to utilize that feature. It's a given.

So you can bet that really interesting things that happen around college students in this nation get video recorded. How could they not be? By definition, an American college student has the equipment, the knowledge, and probably the opportunity. So it is that we get YouTube videos of drunken youngsters doing things that their mothers would not approve of.

Now, let me ask you-- if your buddy was getting an unfair beat-down by the police, wouldn't you want to document that? And if you're a youngster with a camera phone, it's dollars to donuts that you'll whip it out, begin recording, and then send it to your friends in a fit of outrage.

Or, if you're a bright boy like one Dimitri Masouris, you'll sell it to the first high bidder you can find, like the attorney representing his beaten buddy, Mr. Phuong Ho. (Stop and think about that. Masouris took the tools he had, and turned them into something valuable and fungible, with his own hands and his savvy. Free enterprise at work. Gawd Bless America.) The video has been released to the media, and shown to the San Jose Police Department, who employ a couple of cops who got a bit frisky whilst arresting Mr. Ho for brandishing a steak knife. Reportedly, the video shows that at least one SJPD officer beat the unarmed Mr. Ho with a baton, even after he was handcuffed. Not good!

It's bad, and I'll expect to read about charges on the officer, if the video actually shows what is said to have happened. And that, friends, is GOOD. I want the idjits who beat up handcuffed prisoners to leave my profession. I want them charged, and convicted. I don't want it swept under the rug, with people muttering "cover-up." Good solid video gets convictions, and that's a good thing.

Here's the thing, though-- if this were common, we'd see a LOT more of it. There would be reality TV shows with nothing but footage of bad cops beating down helpless citizens, illegally. Because remember-- camera phones are everywhere. And most police cars have video cameras. And that weird guy on the corner always keeps an 8mm video camera handy. And there's surveillance cameras on every other corner. And... and....

Why don't we see more of this? Because frankly, it just doesn't happen much. And that, my friends, is a damned Good Thing.

Who's surprised? Not you. Certainly not me.

Perhaps another kind of motivation poster should have hung in the boardrooms of those companies that have recently been bailed out by the United States federal government.

I'm thinking that the entire text of the Aesop's Fable about "The Dog And The Wolf."

Hmmm... perhaps there's a shilling or two to be made, printing, mounting, and framing them for sale to businesses teetering on the brink?

"Now THAT would be something to go out on..."

From my favorite movie:

Gummere: [uneasily] You realize, of course, that if we fail in even the slightest way, we'll all be killed?
Adm. Chadwick: Yes, and the whole world will probably go to war.
Capt. Jerome, USMC: Gentlemen, if we fail and are killed, I certainly hope the world DOES go to war! [raises glass as a toast]
Adm. Chadwick: The world at war!
Gummere: A world war? Now THAT would be something to go out on...

You know, if I've got to shuffle off my mortal coils earlier than I currently plan to, then I rather hope it's on a slow news day, and makes the news scrawl. Hey, if I've got to suffer through an early death, then you have to suffer through the retelling of it.

I just pray that my last acts are judged to be noble, and that they are not witnessed and triggered by a murderous semi-tame dancing skating bear.