Gun Control???

It has been several weeks now since the tragedy in Newton. My own heart still aches for all the children who have been affected by the violence there. As for the families of the children who were murdered the problem is that I can partially image how horrible it must be and it brings chills and makes me sick to think about it. My empathy and my prayers go out to you all.

This tragedy has seemed to have stoked the fire of the gun control crowd. The President went so far as to “promise” to do something. I have read statements from multiple public figures calling for new legislation so that “this never happens again”. In some areas lists of registered gun owners have been posted publicly in an attitude of singling out “dangerous” individuals. I realize that my opinion in the grand scheme of things is practically irrelevant, however, thanks to living in America, I still get to have one.

Before I express my opinion let me make a few things clear: Yes I own guns. No I am not a member of the NRA. Yes I think people should be allowed to own guns. No I am not a psychotic, fundamentalist nut case with an underground bunker full of ammunition just waiting for Armageddon so I can start blasting zombies. Yes I teach my kids that guns are ALWAYS dangerous, to NEVER point a gun at anything that you do not want to kill, and I keep guns and ammo separate and secured.

So what about gun control? Or better yet why don’t we get rid of guns from the public altogether? There are reasonably thoughts on both sides that can be debated. I am not writing this to comment on rational reasonable debates. I am writing this more as a prayer that folks would stop and think a moment about what they are saying. There are three main fallacies that are fueling the current gun control movement.

“We have to make sure this never happens again!”

                This is a wonderful utopic idea, but it is also totally impossible. For the atheist crowd this is the idea of mental health. Until all mental health problems have been eradicated or can at least be pre-identified 100% of the time, murders and mass murders are still going to happen. For us Christians we understand that things like this will continue to happen and only get worse until sin, death and satan are locked away forever. In the same way as you can not legislate morality so can you not legislate mental health. If this was possible then we should simply make it illegal to have murderous thoughts.

“Guns killed my child.”

                I hate to say it because it is so simple that it sounds stupid, but it is true. Guns do not kill people, people kill people. If you had the power to make every gun and every gun making plant disappear off the face of the earth forever murder statistics would change very little. If you get rid of guns there are still bow and arrows. If you get rid of bow and arrows there are still swords. If you get rid of swords there are still knives. If you get rid of knives there are still slings and stones. If you get rid of slings and stones there are still clubs. If you get rid of every inanimate object that can be used by one person to kill another person guess what you are left with? At the beginning of Genesis we read that Cain killed his brother Abel with his bare hands. For the atheist there are two ape men beating the snot out of one another until one dies. Murder has been around as long as humans have existed. Guns just happen to be the current contemporary method. As I said above, you will never stop murder until you stop the need/desire to murder.

“If we got rid of certain types of guns we could limit the death toll.”

                While a fallacy, this is the one that seems the most reasonable on the surface. If we got rid of all guns with large capacity magazines that would prevent someone from shooting up a theatre full of people or a classroom full of kids correct? If you have to reload the gun after every shot then someone, anyone, can take the shooter down while they are reloading. 12 people were killed in Aurora and 28 were killed in Newton. A person carrying a handful of single shot guns could never have come close to those death tolls. So obviously this would mean no more mass murders in the double digits, right?

In 1989 Ted Bundy was executed for killing 35 people that were proven to have been killed by him. He is suspected of possibly killing many more. The only time he touched a gun was when he struggled with an arresting officer to try to get the policeman’s gun. 

On April 22, 1999 Luis Garavito was captured. He confessed to murdering 140 children, 139 of those have been confirmed. He is under investigation for the murders of many more. His victims could in reality number more than 400. He never used a gun to kill any of his victims.

On April 19, 1995 Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols detonated a bomb in Oklahoma killing 168 people including 19 children under the age of 6. McVeigh easily purchased the material needed for less than $5000. No guns needed.

On September 11, 2001 terrorist used packing knives to hijack commercial airliners. These airliners were then used to attack various sites. Without the use of a single gun, 2,996 people were murdered.

Friends, the real truth is, where there is an evil twisted will, there will always be ways.

Raspberry Pi

Well I finally did it! I broke down and bought my very own Raspberry Pi. No I am not obsessed with fruity confectioneries and yes I know how to spell “pie”. A “Raspberry Pi” is an amazingly powerful, amazingly full featured, amazingly compact and amazingly inexpensive computer. For $35 you can own a 3” x 5” PCB with built-on processor, 256 MB memory, RCA composite video, HDMI port, dual USB ports, SD card slot, audio port, and Ethernet LAN port. Using free utilities and one of several free open source OS options you place a bootable Linux on an SD card. The device then will boot from the SD card into Linux with the drivers all loaded and ready to use.

Beyond the obvious possibilities for general development and experimentation, I have two specific projects that I am going to work on. One cool thing about having the OS loaded on an SD card is that you can potentially work on multiple projects over the same development time by swapping out the various SD cards associated with each project.

The initial project that was the main driving force for buying the Pi was to function as the brain for an X10 smart home.  I have been working with X10 for a year or two including creating a set of PHP web pages to control various X10 enabled devices within the house. These pages can then be accessed from any internet web browser. I have a dream that this could someday become a business venture.

The second project is more just for personal use. I would like to have a media server that hooks up to our entertainment center. I have done this in the past using hardware that I had lying around. The problem was that said hardware was usually desktop class items. Using desktop hardware takes quite a bit more power than laptop or even smaller electronics. To get around this I tried to leave the media server shut down while not in use. We could then issue a Wake-on-LAN packet to start the PC up. This ended up being a pain and more than the other members of the family really wanted to deal with. I have enough spare laptop hardware to provide three systems for Tigermomma, myself and the Tiger Cubs. Plus spare parts to keep these three ancient units going. But I don’t have enough hardware to have a laptop server dedicated to media. So I had this great idea to use the Raspberry Pi as a media server. This would make a cheap and energy efficient solution.

I thought that I would document my Pi adventures in case they prove interesting to others. Let the fun begin……

Dean Koontz - Frankenstein Series

Recently I finished the Frankenstein series by Dean Koontz. Dean Koontz is my second favorite author. Robert Asprin is my all time favorite but specifically for the MYTH series. The rest of his work is mediocre. Dean Koontz on the other hand seems to within a fairly broad category of supernatural/mystery/thrillers. Within that genre however he writes on a broad range of topics. My favorite book of his is probably Lightning. This is in part due to the fact that it was the first book of his I read. Any ways I have enjoyed all of the Dean Koontz books that I have read so far.

The Frankenstein series is made up of five books. The story line is somewhat divided in two between books one through three and books four and five. The first three books were very difficult to put down. Every chapter I read just dangled the carrot out a little farther and made me want to read even longer. I struggled a little more with books four and five. The series could have easily ended at book three. I have still not completely decided, but I half way feel that might have been the better way. Book four was mostly forgettable but necessary for setting up book five. I feel that the best things about book five were the fringe characters that gave the story a fresh coat of paint and some new angles into the human condition. The ending felt a bit rushed and although I enjoyed the whole story I still feel it might have had a bit more graceful ending if done at book three.

My daughter Ms. Teen reads so many books that every time we pass a library she starts experiencing some kind of paroxysm brought on by the close proximity of so much un-read text. Originally she was reading this series with me. I got ahead of her during book two and was able to start book three well ahead of her. I was only about half way finished with book three when I made the decision to tell my wife that Ms. Teen was not allowed to read any more in the series. The contrast between good and evil is a central concept in the book. Further more the villain (Dr. Frankenstein) was obsessed with denying God as well as any moral right and wrong. These themes made the book very interesting to me but also were presented with such extreme graphic detail that I could no longer feel comfortable letting my daughter read these things. 

For adults I found this to be a great story that allowed for plenty of self reflection as well as examination of the world we live in that could very easily produce the same evil obsessions. For younger readers the violence which at times was extreme and grotesque was constant throughout the series. There were also frequent examples of sexual promiscuity including at times abusive and aberrant behavior. Finally there was enough profanity to make it noticeable throughout the series. In my mind, definitely not a series for younger readers.

Every now and then you come across a WEB site that you just have to share with others. This site touched my heart and almost made me cry. I hope to follow up with this and see how I might help this group sometime in the future. My heart goes out to all the parents that have had to use these services.

http://www.touchinglittlelives.org/

Fast Food Armageddon

As my wife loves to say, I just have to “vent” some. For supper I stopped by a local fast food restaurant on the way home from work. I consider myself to be an exceptionally patient and long suffering person. After this stop however I am convinced that humanity is doomed. 

Being such a nice guy, I try not to overwork the minds of the young people working the drive up line. So I try to always keep my orders as simple as possible. Tonight I did exceptionally well by choosing to get the same exact meal that my wife and daughter were getting. Assuming that statistically most people tend to get more than just a single kids meal when going through the drive through I chose to give them my son’s kids meal order first. My logic was that this would delay if not prevent them from immediately trying to ring up the total and send me around to the next window before I am able to get in any more of my order. By the way, in case you are wondering, speaking fast or non-stop to try to get out the entire order first ultimately fails miserably.  This tactic usually results in getting the wrong food items, sometimes I am not even sure the stuff they hand out is made by that brand of franchise. But I digress. On this particular evening my plan of starting with the kids meal works perfectly. Realizing that I am not a child, the person on the other end politely asked me if I have more to order. Yes! Now I get to use my master plan. With great anticipation of exiting the drive through having experience a pleasant and successful encounter I order a chicken sandwhich, baked potato with butter and sour cream, medium sized with a Mr. Pibb to drink. I watch the screen fill up with my order just as I asked. So far so good. Now the real test. I tell the young person, “OK now I want 2 more of those EXACTLY the same.” There is silence for a time. Then I hear, “You mean you want another chicken sandwich, with baked potato butter and sour cream, medium sized and a Mr. Pibb.” My first thought is to say “no I want it the OTHER exact same way.” But still holding on to the hope of pulling off a win for the home team I politely say yes. Of course now the individual is asking, well more like pleading, that this is the end of my order. So they tell me my total and I pull around to the side.

As I am pulling away from the window it dawns on me that the amount quoted to me is much less than it should have been for 4 items. When I pull up to the window I quickly tell the young person that I had actually said I wanted three total of the chicken combos. The look of panic, horror and lostness evident on this young man’s face was what I expect will be common after the rapture. He finally realized that I did actually want more food than what they were preparing to give me. He understood that I wanted another chicken combo but the concept of exactness seems to be foreign. I will admit that at this point I was failing at not showing any frustration. Trying my best to be polite I suffered through repeating my chicken combo order, yes you counted right, for the third time. Apparently this threw everyone into such chaos that they asked me to pull ahead while they sorted it out. After waiting for five minutes or so they finally brought out the bags.

End result…. My little guy did not get his drink but he did get a bacon cheeseburger that is not even possible to get in a kids meal. I only got two out of the three baked potato but on the up side I got two extra large fries. So much for trying to be efficient. I have to wonder, could that young man not figure out how to extrapolate what three of the same thing meant, or was he so enslaved to the technology that the system falls apart if you get things out of order. As I said, doomed!

Lucas/Disney Tradeoff

I can still almost see and feel myself on a cool evening early in the summer of 1977 wrapped in a blanket and lying on top of the roof while my sister made out with her boyfriend in the car below me. The hairs on the back on my head stood on end from the first triumphant cords blaring across the drive in. My eyes were locked on the screen as the bright yellow words scrolled towards the top of the screen... "In a galaxy far, far, away...." I have watched Star Wars so many times that I could pretty much retell the entire story with most of its details from memory. From nearly forty years ago I can still almost feel the rush of fear and excitement that I felt when very early in the movie a black mechanical nightmare coalesced out of the smoke, followed by probably the most memorable movie sound effect of all time, the slow rasping breathing of a nightmare. From that moment on and for the rest of my life, Star Wars was not just a movie, it was a part of me. It inspired my imagination like nothing else ever has. Yes, it's true, I love Star Wars. And I was there to see its beginning. I was there in the crowd as the magic was revealed to the world. I am not second or third generation like so many fans. I am a member of that pioneer class. Because of my love for Star Wars from the very beginning I feel almost obligated to comment on the recent amazing development of George Lucas handing the keys to his galaxy over to Mickey Mouse.

While Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi had a few small issues they were easy to overlook. After 16 years of waiting to see more Episode I and the following two movies had some serious problems:

      Episode I – Immaculate Conception by the force! Really George? Really? I mean beyond the obvious offensiveness to Christianity is this really the creative genius that gave us swords of pure light that in the right hands were effect weapons against laser guns? Not particularly original George. Then in an attempt to gain an even wider fan base he includes a character that is so universally hated that Jar Jar only supporters are wives who previously thought Star Wars was unique to a DOD initiative. Truly I have never know a “good” character to have instilled such instate hatred from the first moment they opened their mouth. There is Anakin’s infinite goody two shoes nature. Gee George are you attempting to make a contrast between Anakin and the future Darth Vader? Guess I missed that…. NOT! Finally we have the badest Sith warrior this side of the Hapes Cluster. So bad that a single lightsaber is not enough to keep him busy, no this dude needs a dual bladed staff. He tears through good guys like …. Well like a lightsaber through warm butter. So how is this ultimate bad beaten? By 100 Jedi Masters? By a super laser blowing up the planet he is on? Nope, by a Jedi Padawan who hacks him in half while Darth Maul stands by picking his teeth.

      Episode II – Hayden Christensen…. ‘nough said. But really, after seeing some wicked cool lightsaber fighting in Episode I including flips, force jumps and dual bladed sabers, Episode II cranks up the action with a Dark Jedi actor who is older than the slime between Jabba’s fat rolls. So George how do we make it look cool? Oh, oh, I know lets have them fight under a partially broken disco ball so we can’t see how un-athletic Darth Geritol is. But hey at least we get to see a Jedi fight with two lightsabers, well at least for the three seconds that he gets to keep his real arms. Then there is Yoda’s big fight scene. I’m guessing that George got his inspiration for this scene from the time he let his 3 year old grandson drink 2 Red Bulls in a row then chased them down with a couple of Pixie Sticks.

     Episode III – YES! More Hayden Christensen, I can’t contain my joy. I love R2-D2, but it is pretty sad when he tears through the bad guys better than 2 Jedis combined. So Mace Windu can take the Emperor down but Yoda gets his butt kicked by him? That’s almost sacrilegious. Speaking of which, Master Yoda the ultimate Force master, light or dark, tucks his proverbial tail between his little green legs and exiles himself after little more than a draw with the Emperor. So basically Yoda decides that somehow he can help and protect the galaxy the most by running off to hide by himself for many years. So much for serve and protect. I think George found himself trapped in the inconsistent timing of his own story. At the end of Episode III we see Anakin who can be mid twenties at the most, Ben Kenobi has to be 30 to 35. Less than twenty years later Luke Skywalker, still a teenager meets both Darth Vader and Obi-wan who have somehow aged 30 or 40 years in the same amount of time.

So in the end my two cents worth is that some fresh blood might just breath so new life back in to the world that Lucas has let grow stale while living off the unbelievable profits that the franchise has generated. Disney has the resources to make any new movies epic. Let’s just pray they don’t turn it into a musical with the cast of Disney Junior as the future Jedis.