I’m alive. Lots of good meds and great staff to keep me comfortable.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Fox News is reporting on a little piece of technology that is aiding a small police force in Mississippi:  clip-on video cameras.  Basically, a police officer activates the camera when he is interacting with the public, and it documents both his actions and the actions of those he is speaking with from very close to his perspective.

For police, this gives evidence of anything a suspect does or says during such things as traffic stops, serving warrants, or arrests.  It also protects them against false charges of being unprofessional and abusive.  This would be especially useful when used in conjunction with dashcams, and provides a record when the officer is away from his cruiser.

For those who interact with the police, it gives them a recording of those interactions.  If a policeman is out of line, his own recording will hang him.

The current technology has a removable memory chip that is used to store any video taken.  My guess is that an officer activates it when he or she is doing something with the public, and turns in the memory chip at the end of their shift.  I would improve on this in two ways.  First, the camera should be on for the duration of the officer being on duty, with no way for the officer to turn it off without physically destroying it.  The camera should have enough battery and memory capacity for 24 hours without recharging or emptying the storage chip.  Second, the camera should use mobile broadband to stream the audio and a lower resolution version of the video to a central location in addition to using local storage.  This will take care of situations where there are technical issues with the memory chip, as has been seen with dashcams where the tapes stop working just in time to record a traffic stop where the police are accused of abuse.

I could see this being used not only by beat cops, but by all government officials that are in positions where a record of all of their actions would come in handy, including military personnel walking patrols, prison guards, and TSA agents.  If a TSA blue-glove knows that he, along with all of his co-workers, is recording the pat down of a 95 year old grandmother, with no way for him to tamper with it, maybe a little more professionalism and common sense will start to sprout.

Well, it’s only taken 34 years since the first time a doctor said they should come out, but I’m finally having my tonsils removed.  By the time you read this, I’ll be under the knife.

I’m not going to be posting for a couple of days, but I’ll be back.  Some of my first posts after surgery may be a little…. muddled.  Hey, my doctor promises to keep me ‘comfortable’ for the first week or two after I come home.  If I piss anyone off, just drop me a note and I’ll do an edit/delete once I’m back in my right mind.

Or maybe I’ll take the best of these, publish them, and be the next Hunter S. Thompson.  Man made an entire career writing about what happens when you’re stoned.

Anyway, I’ll see you guys in a couple of days.

I started Independence Day and the last day off I will have all month doing my favorite thing:  I took Girlie Bear to the range and let her blow through a box of .22.  A steady rain for the first 45 minutes we were there pretty much melted the cardboard target stands we used, but they still showed enough of our targets that we could get some practice in.  She’s getting good enough with the Rossi and the 10/22 that next time I’m going to back her target up about half again as far as it is now.

After she didn’t care for the 20 gauge last time, I bought her a recoil pad for her shoulder.  She tried shooting my black powder rifle, and said she liked that a lot better.  Not sure if it’s because the Omega doesn’t kick as much as her Rossi in the shotgun configuration or if it’s the recoil pad.  Probably a little of both.  I’m going to start looking in earnest for a good used black powder rifle for her to use this fall.  She’s ready.

As for me, I shot the 10/22 a few times, then shot the Garand.  Nothing says “Happy Independence Day!” like shooting an M1 Garand.  Then, of course, it was time to shoot the 1911.  I did cheat a bit and shoot Tula ammunition through it.  I also started working on figuring out how to accurately shoot the Smith and Wesson .357 that I bought just prior to Knoxville.  It’s got a very light single action trigger, and I’ve started to learn where on the front sight works best. Double action is also very smooth, but I need to do a bit of dry fire before that evens out for me.

After clearing the range, Girlie Bear and I headed over to the local purveyor of fireworks and geared up for tonight.  I gave Girlie Bear a budget of $20, and to her credit, she bought an armload of explodey goodness for $19.56.

Once we got home, I got the charcoal going and prepped dinner.  Our menu included smoked turkey, roasted potatoes and onions with garlic, fresh corn on the cob, and Dutch apple pie with vanilla ice cream.  I have to say the hardest thing I did today was leave the turkey alone after I brought it in from the smoker.  There was about 45 minutes while the potatoes were on the grill, and I just sat and thought about how good that gobbler smelled.  Everyone feasted well, and I can honestly say it was one of the better meals I’ve made lately.

After dinner, Girlie Bear and I prepped the area for fireworks.  Boo came out after his bath and watched me set off “wockets” and “sparkles” for him.  I tried to keep it low key out of consideration for the neighbors, but as soon as it got really dark, three of them started setting off mortars.  Oh well, something to remember next year.

I hope y’all had a good 4th of July and had a chance to celebrate!

While listening to a recent podcast, someone asked “Why is it that the American revolution is the only one that didn’t end in a bloodbath?”.  From the French Reign of Terror, to the killing fields of Cambodia, to the mountains of the former Yugoslavia, almost all revolutionary political changes have included mass killings.  Usually these incidents include not only members of the former ruling class, but also common people who don’t fit into the mold that the new regime was using to cast their new society.

So what was different about the 13 original states?  Not to say that there wasn’t bloodshed, because there certainly was a bit of that after the shooting war ended.  But those colonists who remained loyal to Great Britain were for the most part allowed to leave with their lives, if not the bulk of their property.  Contrast what happened in 1783 in North America with what happened in France in 1789.  While there was some violence and what we would probably call ethnic cleansing over here, in Paris, they started lining people up for a close mechanical shave.

When the South and Central American colonies overthrew their Spanish masters, people were hung and shot in successive waves.  Repeat that in Russia, post-WWI Germany, and post-colonial India, Africa, and Southeast Asia.  Millions died in China after the Communist takeover in 1947.  There was even violence in the ‘peaceful’ dissolution of Communism in Eastern Europe in the early 1990’s, culminating in the Balkan Wars.

The only exceptions to this rule I can think of off the top of my head was the Velvet Divorce of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and possibly the movement of some members of the British Empire to self-rule, such as Canada and Australia.

So what happened?  Why are we so different?

Some posit that the American colonists had been pretty much self-guided for such a long time that when we decided to finally make it official we didn’t see the need to purge our ranks.  Others suggest that in the beginning, if you didn’t like your neighbors in North America, both of you had ample opportunity to just up and move.  To paraphrase Heinlein, nothing makes good neighbor relations like ample elbow room.

I see the truth in these theories, and they probably had a lot to do with it, but there’s something more.  The leaders of our revolution had several hundred years of British political and social development to rest upon, aided by physical separation from the corruption of these ideals, to support them.  They could read Locke and other members of the Enlightenment, but their studies were not muddied by the sausage factory of a working parliamentary system. 

They also had the luxury, at least until the last couple of decades before 1776, of being able to have their cake and eat it too.  They could stand on their rights as Englishmen, but due to being a long sea voyage away from London, they didn’t have too many of the responsibilities a subject owes to his sovereign.  When Parliament and King George III fought a war for French North America and expected the American colonies to chip in through taxes, the colonists began to scream about violations of their rights.  I’ve always wondered what would have happened if, when the Americans squawked about “taxation without representation”, King George had raised several prominent Americans to the House of Lords and given them a vote.   Would there have been an American revolution if Washington, who was a British hero after the French and Indians War, had become First Earl of Virginia?  What if Franklin, or more likely his son, became the Duke of the Mid-Atlantic states?  Add in a few elected members of the House of Commons from Boston, Charlestown, and New York, and the cassus belli for the revolution starts to evaporate.

But to get back to the question at hand, why didn’t the streets of Boston, New York, and Charlestown run red with the blood of Tories in 1783?  Why were those who opposed Washington politically not taken out to the woods and shot?  My guess is that the leaders of the revolution truly believed that their calling was to bring the theoretical politics of Locke and his contemporiaries to fruition, and were able to agree on it well enough to forestall bloodshed.  Their solution was flawed, and we spend much time, treasure, and occasionally blood improving on it.  But with a little luck and a determination to do the right thing and go home, they got it right enough that lining people up for the gallows or the guillotine was unnecessary.

For over two centuries we’ve been following their example and with only one exception, we’ve been able to keep this thing going without watering the fields with blood.  We argue, scream, belittle, and backbite day in and day out, but political victors have never put the losers on a train to nowhere.

Today we commemorate the day our colonial ancestors made it official. There was a long war ahead, followed by debates and arguments over what the revolution would bring to the new country, but in one form or another, our republic has stood for 235 years.  Here’s hoping it stands for at least another 235.