Grey Matters

It is a phrase often invoked by the late, great Paul Harvey on his syndicated radio show. “It is not one world”, he would say, following that with an example of something, somewhere in the world that could only make Americans shake their heads in wonder or dismay.

While many parts of American culture have spread elsewhere around the globe, there are cultures that routinely do things that American culture finds unacceptable. Not the least of these is governance. We take our Democratic Republic for granted (often mistakenly calling it a “democracy”). We Americans choose our leaders. Granted, there’s not much of a choice and the choices too often make us choose the lesser of evils, but, one way or another, we choose our leaders.

It is not so in much of the world. Other heads of state, whether going by the title of “President For Life”, “Generalissimo”, “Royal Majesty” or something else, are essentially dictators. Much as we would like to see people around the world choose their own leaders, it is not America’s job to make it so. In recent history there are too many incidences of American interference leaving things worse off than before.

While addressing the United Nations recently, Russian President Putin recently took America to task for creating a series of disasters in the Middle East, and I have to say, I agree with him. Fourteen years after we invaded Afghanistan, Taliban forces have control of Kunduz and it’s only a matter of time before they control the whole country again. America is accused of “war crimes” for bombing a Doctor’s Without Borders hospital (possibly the result of the Taliban’s infiltration of the Afghan army).

Twelve years after Americans waded into Iraq, ISIS is establishing a Caliphate to replace the power vacuum created by the removal of Saddam Hussein. The Middle East is very clearly much worse off for American interventions.

People like me are lined up to say: “I told you so!” It’s not as though this result could not be predicted. American foreign policy needs to intervene in other countries only when our interests are directly threatened, and even then we need to consider the possible damage we might do. Even if rosy outcomes could be guaranteed, we have to weigh the cost in lives lost and money expended.

When Jeb Bush famously stumbled over the question of whether or not he would have invaded Iraq “… knowing what we know now“, I thought, “Hell, knowing what we knew then, I wouldn’t have invaded!” That is, even if Saddam Hussein actually had WMD, that was not sufficient justification for the USA to invade Iraq and dethrone Saddam Hussein.

The Middle East is a mess today not because of faulty intelligence (saying that Saddam Hussein had WMD) but rather from faulty foreign policy — the belief that Hussein’s possession of WMD gave us the right or duty to intervene.

America is not the world’s policeman and needs to stop acting like one. Sometimes we just need to keep our collective nose to ourselves. Other countries have as much right to their way of life as the USA has to its own.

It is not one world, and we need to just get along with other countries unless and until they pose a direct threat to the United States. We cannot make the entire world be like us. Let Libya be Libya. Let Egypt be Egypt. Let Russia be Russia. And, yes, let Iran be Iran.

Ben Carson was asked whether or not he believes that Islam is “consistent with the Constitution”. He answered, “No, it is not”.

He is, of course, correct but is being taken to task by people who have morphed the question into whether or not Islam is Constitutional, an entirely different question.

Is Islam consistent with the Constitution? You decide.

The Constitution embraces a Democratic Republic, Islam is a theocracy.

The Constitution is about rule of law; Islam is about rule of man (clerics).

The Constitution permits multitudes of religions; Islam will permit only one. Make that “mandates”. The Constitution permits people to have no religion at all; Islam does not.

And, not to be missed is the fact that electing leaders is prohibited by Islam. Muslims are ruled by whomever can best convince people that he has a direct pipeline to God and is God’s spokesman on Earth. Every act of Muslims, be they mundane or horrific, is the will of God.

So, is Islam “consistent with the Constitution”?

It occurs to me that Islam is like Communism in that its followers love the Constitution and insist upon their “Constitutional Rights” — right up until Muslims (or Communists) gain power. Then The Constitution, as well as other forms of representative government, are impediments and have to be eliminated.

I welcome your comments.

We’ve seen it on the evening news: ISIS destroying ancient structures that have stood for hundreds or thousands of years. Iraq and Syria’s cultural heritage being bulldozed, jack-hammered or blasted to pieces.

The Ninevah Museum in Mosul has been ransacked and pillaged, artifacts stolen and statues sledge-hammered to dust. Thousand of tomes and manuscripts from the Mosul Library, burned.

Gone are the frescoes of Nimrud, a once-proud city of the Assyrian people. Jonah’s Tomb in the Mosque of the Profet Yunas, destroyed.

The ancient ruins of the city of Hatra, believed to have once been the capital of the Parthian Empire is now used as an ISIS armory, execution site and training ground for ruthless ISIS fighters. Two Muslim shrines in Palmyra, destroyed.

Syrian heritage is being deliberately targeted by ISIS for ideological reasons. This is the ISIS version of Politically Correct. Anything that conflicts with their world view has to go.

Some have dubbed these acts as “war crimes”.

Director General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova wrote: “The bulldozing of the archaeological site of Nimrud marked a new step in the cultural cleansing underway in Iraq. These acts are a deliberate attack against civilians, minorities, heritage sites and traditions. In the minds of terrorists, murder and destruction of culture are inherently linked.”

One cannot help be appalled. And yet…

A similar cultural cleansing has started here in the USA, removing heritage sites and signs of traditions that those in power find unacceptable. It began when a mis-educated youth, who had adopted the Confederate Battle Flag as a symbol to represent his belief in white supremacy, killed a number of black people in a church. Since then, all things Confederate have been fair game for the cultural cleansers.

It began, of course, with the banning of Confederate flags. “It is a symbol of racism”, its detractors claimed. They, like the young man who had adopted it as an icon for his white supremacist views had been misinformed by the schools that were supposed to educate them. They believe it is a symbol of racism because they have been taught to believe it is a symbol of racism. Clearly, they’d not given it much thought, just believing what they were taught to believe. Like dogs barking just because the other dogs are barking, soon everyone was yapping about the Confederate Battle Flag.

Confederate Flags were the first to go. But that was just the start. Now we have statues being taken down and in at least one place, the remains of a Confederate general, Nathan Bedford Forrest, are being dug up from a Memphis city park that once bore his name. A statue of his likeness will also be removed.

In Annapolis and Baltimore, there are calls to remove statues of Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney because he presided over the Dred Scott decision. His crime? Following the law.

Highways and high schools are being renamed to purge the names of slave-holders or Confederate heroes. Names are being sand-blasted off buildings and monuments.This is happening all over the country as Political Correctness aims to eradicate history found to be objectionable.

I don’t see how this is greatly different from what ISIS is doing. Cultural terrorists are removing the names and likenesses of those of whom they do not approve. Where will it end?

Will the Washington Monument have to go? Should “Washington” be expunged from the name of our nation’s capital? He was, after all, a slave owner. How dare we let this monster’s name endure!

And what about Jefferson? Washington, D.C. has a monument to this slave owner. Cities are named after him. Jefferson and other slave-owning presidents appear on our currency. Does it all have to go to satisfy the cultural cleansers in our midst?

Why draw the line at slavery? Doubtless there are other classes of miscreants that the Politically-Correct class can identify for expunging.

We decry ISIS for its cultural and historical cleansing even as we emulate them.

Our cleansing of Confederate symbols will not change history and makes no more sense than what ISIS is doing by their destruction of history. And ours is every bit as shameful.

See <http://pjmedia.com/blog/barack-obamas-half-clocked-tale-of-islamophobia/>

Kid brings a suspicious looking electronic device to school and plugs it in. Teachers are rightly (IMO) concerned. I mean, look at it. What’s going on here? Kid says it’s a “clock”.

His “clock” has no face, no apparent readout. Analysis shows it to be parts of a digital clock which parts he has rearranged. Not everything is identifiable. Might it be explosive? And if it is a clock, aren’t clocks often used as trigger devices? Why is he bringing this strange looking clock to school? What about the pictured device is not suspicious?

Mohamed claims this to be an “invention”. Apparently, Ahmed would say nothing about his device except that it is a clock. Seriously. He “invented” a clock with no apparent readout of any kind and it needs to be plugged in. Quite a breakthrough.

Ahmed’s father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, says that his son has been singled out because of his race and religion. What a ninny. This looks like a case of harassment all right, not of Ahmed, but of Ahmed messing with his school, screwing with the system so as to be able to claim “Islamophobia”. If Peter Wilson had brought this to school, teachers would have been just as concerned.

Ahmed, said to be a tinkerer, had never before brought any of his gizmos to school and the first one he decides to bring looks suspiciously like a bomb. Good call, Ahmed.

And Obama tweets: “Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House?” There’s another ninny. Has Obama actually seen the clock? On what basis does he call it “cool“? Take one look at the device and tell me that the teachers were not right to be concerned based solely on its (not Ahmed’s) appearance. Since Ahmed was either unable or unwilling to demonstrate his “clock”, why would teachers be wrong to treat this device with suspicion?

More importantly, if a student brought such a device to class, were permitted to plug it in and it later exploded, would not school officials be blamed for not doing their jobs?!? So it didn’t explode. Why are we chastising officials for doing the job they would have been blamed for not doing it it had exploded?

Ask yourself this: If the English teacher had not known who brought this device to class, if (s)he had simply discovered it plugged in at the back of the room during class, do you think the reaction would have been different? Would (s)he have blithely ignored it as hawkers of “Islamophobia” would have us believe?

I suspect that, if the school had been equipped with metal detectors and armed guards, this “clock” would have been stopped at the door. In this day and age, we are trained to be suspicious of strange, dangerous looking objects. Ahmed exercised extreme bad judgement. Mohamed Mohamed is just making things worse by claiming victimhood for his son’s bad judgement and bringing in lawyers and professional victim representatives to stir the pot.

Shame on Ahmed Mohamed. Shame on Mohamed Mohamed. Shame on Obama and every other person trying to turn treating a suspicious device suspiciously into a racial or religious issue.

I’m a recreational shooter of both rifles and pistols. The subject of “accuracy” came up one day on a shooting-related forum to which I subscribe. It got me to thinking about “accuracy” and I decided that guns are neither accurate nor inaccurate. Guns can no more be accurate than can a hammer. Accuracy is the province of the shooter. Let me explain.

Say, I go to the county fair shooting gallery and I find that I cannot hit those motorized duckies gliding by. The sights of the rifle appear to be off. I’m not hitting what I shoot at. Some might say the rifle is “inaccurate”.

With careful observation I find that whatever my Point Of Aim (POA), my Point Of Impact (POI) is low and to the right. Knowing this, I adjust my POA high and to the left of my targets. Now I’m able to hit my targets consistently. Did this “inaccurate” rifle suddenly become accurate? Of course not.

Take another example, this time imagine a rifle whose telescopic sight is properly aligned and zeroed at 100 yards. That is, it’s POA and POI coincide at 100 yards. If I put the crosshairs on a target at 100 yards and shoot, I hit my target. Now I put the crosshairs on a target at 300 yards and shoot. I miss. Is the rifle “accurate” at 100 yards but not at 300? Nope.

Now, I know that with a 100-yard zero, I have to aim above my target at 300 yards to compensate for the bullet’s additional drop due to gravity at the longer distance. I have to hold a POA above the target. This distance that I have to aim high is called the “holdover”, holding the POA over the target. When I have the proper holdover, I hit my target.

In both cases, the scoped rifle and the county fair mis-aligned rifle, it required the knowledge of the weapon’s characteristics for me, the shooter, to be accurate — hit my targets. Knowing the sights and how they are aligned and how to operate them is crucial. Knowing the ballistic characteristics of the round being fired is as well.

Hollywood has taught too many people that just putting the crosshairs on a target and pulling the trigger will do the job. Sometimes it will, but it is much more complicated than that.

It is not the job of a gun to be accurate; that’s the shooter’s job. It is the job of the gun to be precise and repeatable. That is, given the same POA, same ammo, same weather conditions and such, to place its shots in the same spot at the target — to have a consistent POI. If a gun can do that, it can be shot accurately.

The key to precision and repeatability turns out to be precision and repeatability of the assorted components making up the weapon system, the barrel, the bolt, etc. The ammo especially needs to be held to tight tolerances. The shell casing length and thickness, weight of the powder charge, weight and shape of the projectile, seating depth of the projectile in the case, the primer, all these need to be consistent for a consistent, repeatable POI.

The same weapon can be accurate in my hands but not in yours – or vice-versa. The key to accuracy of any weapon is in the knowledge and skills of the shooter. Often times, a gun “will shoot better than I do”, which is to say, the gun is capable of more precision and repeatability than my own skills can yield.

Shooters can be accurate. Guns cannot