Guns and Bullets

I have been looking at rifles in the last few moments of spare time I will have before I head back to the Corps, and I just watched a video of a guy bad mouthing the AR-15 something fierce. Very Annoying. The AR and the AK are built on two different mindsets for two different purposes. In their own niche, each weapons performs very well, especially when you tweak them a little.

The AR is built on the American military philosophy that superior training and equipment will always beat superior numbers. Thus, the weapon constructed by a number of tight fitting parts that enhance accuracy, but are less tolerant of foreign matter or bad maintenance. Thus, the IRA used the Armalite AR-15 in Ireland (ever wonder about the name Ire-land, a land full of ire, but I digress) for accurate, sharp combat, then ran home, cleaned the thing, took care of it, and used it again.

The AK, on the other hand, is built on the Russian philosophy that if you throw enough people at the enemy, you'll win sooner or later, probably later. Put another way, quantity over quality (that's why Russia does not make semi-auto AK-47s, they are all fully automatic). The AK can spew out a lot of hard hitting lead in a short time, even if you just pulled the thing out of a bed of quicksand. The reason for this is that the gun is made of fewer, looser fitting pieces, so there is more wiggle room for dirt, mud, and general junk to get in without jamming the gun. The problem is that this wiggle room destabilizes the firing chamber, so after about a hundred yards, accuracy goes out the window. The AK is an excellent gun if you are fighting (or hunting, I tell my dad) in thick brush or if you will be using it for long periods without being able to clean it.

Both guns are great, but neither can do the other's job. If you try to make them, don't get mad that they don't measure up.

Wishful Logic

Last night the Bastrop GOP put on a forum dealing with the issue of the proposed ACC campus being built in Bastrop. In return for getting a campus on the wrong side of town that over three years will grow to serve 1,100 annually, Bastrop will become co-signers for ACC's $444,000,000 debt, a debt that will grow after ACC buys land and builds a $38,000,000 campus. The reasoning behind this bad investment goes something like this.

1. Bastrop has a low household income level,

This is caused by Bastropian's low education,

Therefore, more education will raise income level.

2.If we bring in an ACC campus, then more people will get a better education.

3. Therefore if we bring in an ACC campus, then Bastrop will get a higher income level.

All three arguments are seriously flawed, however, as the propositions and conclusions are either false, do not follow, or both.

The most solid argument of the three is (1). Education and income level are fairly complementary. If you have one you are likely to have the other. The problem is that young people in Bastrop are not staying in Bastrop if they can help it, at least as far as I can tell. This is me speaking without any studies or polls, but from what I have seen, if young people can leave Bastrop, for the most part they do. Hence, giving Bastropians a better education would not necessarily raise the income level since the recipients of that education would simply leave the Bastrop area.

Argument (2) is where the real problems are. First, it assumes that Bastropians would get a better education if they could, which is not true for the majority of Bastrop youth. It is an unarguable fact that Bastrop High School is rife with problems ranging from drugs to pregnancies to violence. Less than 40% of BHS graduates go on to take any form of higher learning. That means that over 60% of Bastrop Youth do not take advantage of distance learning or any of the easily accessible college campuses around Bastrop. Former Mayor Scott suggests that if we put an ACC campus right next door then the young people will attend. Some of them will, it would be foolish for them to turn down free education. The second reason that this argument falls flat is because it assumes that the people a new campus would attract will make good use of the education. Those that want a good education in Bastrop can get it today with distance learning or at one of the many ACC campuses nearby. The people who enroll in a new campus will be the ones who are, for the most part, free loaders who will not put their education to good use (I am speaking generally here and from my own experience, which is, I admit, limited).

Thus, when we arrive at Argument (3), every proposition that it is built on is false, and thus it is left without a leg to stand on. This was former Mayor Scott's only reason for pushing the project, and I was suprised to not see any kind of statistics from him on average income in any of the cities ACC has annexed in the past. Instead, all I got were figures from Mr. Parmalee showing that the cities themselves annually lost around $2,100,000 dollars to the program.

Also, we are being told that the campus will add nine cents to property taxes for ever hundred dollars of property value. We are promised that the rate will not rise, but Austin was told the same thing when ACC first began, and the rate has since almost doubled.

Yes, Bastrop needs to do something to fix it's education, but this is like saying the best way to fix a house is to make it taller, never minding the fact that the foundation is shifting. Throwing money at something and building newer, bigger, emptier buildings (think BHS Performing Arts Center) will not fix the problem. There are numerous other options that Bastrop can look at, the ACC proposal is far from the best.

Wrong Place, Wrong Time

The dominant issue over the last few days has been the attempt to build a mosque only a few blocks away from Ground Zero. The propriety of such a building at such a sight is questionable at best, but can we please, focus on the issue and not throw up smoke screens all over the place? No one is suggesting that mosques should be restricted across the U.S., there is no persecution of Muslims across our nation, we are not throwing them in jail or forcing them to meet secretly in homes and woods as many Muslim nations continue to do to Christians and Jews. No, all we ask is that they not build a Mosque only a few blocks away from the most horrific massacre of Civilians this nation has ever suffered, an act committed by men who claimed to be dedicated Muslims.

To claim that this is religious persecution is nothing other than silly, when one looks at a map and sees that there is a Muslim place of prayer less than half a mile from Ground Zero, and a mosque less than two miles from the site. Why exactly do we need another, bigger mosque, right next door to the place the twin towers stood? Also, bear in mind that the property was bought for a very low price, on account of the fact that the building that stands there now was damaged by landing gear from one of the planes that crashed into the twin towers.

I mean, what is it about the site that Muslims have to build a mosque there? Why? I'm not saying that all muslims are complicit in the acts of 9/11, but the Imam who is trying to build the mosque has not exactly gone out of his way to show his horror at the acts, claiming that America was complicit in the attacks, having created Osama Bin Laden. I'm not trying to heap abuse upon anyone, but building this mosque seems just a tad bit unncessesary.

A Difference of Opinion

I was reading an article on the movie Salt the other day, and it mentioned that while young teenage males are watching Angelina Jolie beat up men bigger and stronger than herself, acting as a female Jason Bourne, young girls are watching Edward and Jacob rescue Bella Swan from one sticky situation after another. Bella is no passive puppy getting carried everywhere by Edward and waiting helplessly for Jacob to come save her, but the burden of protecting the girl falls on Edward and Jacob, and even her dad does his best. In Salt on the other hand, it is the woman who is doing the saving. So girls are looking for strong men, and boys are looking for strong women. Just a note to the feminist crowd, you might want to start by informing the girls what they want before telling society what the girls want. And guys, man up, and I don't mean go to the gym (though that's good too). Open doors for girls whether they are six, sixteen, or sixty, give up your seat when there are not enough to go around and let the ladies get in line first. There is a reason the Middle Ages were known for true love, the men were chivalrous.

There are many people who find it difficult to wrap their heads around the hatred that displayed toward theists by atheists such as Christopher Hitchens, P.Z. Meyers, and Richard Dawkins. Many write it off as simply hatred against those in disagreement, others claim the hatred is simply doubt about atheism being manifested as anger toward Theism. While there is a bit of truth in these explanations, they do not explain the anger for one basic reason. They dramatically under estimates the effects of believing something is really true, especially when that something concerns the existence of God and moral standards.

Most, if not all, atheists have bought into the theory of evolution, which makes very clear statements about good and evil, the nature of man, and what the world should be like, or what utopia should look light. In general, good is strong, pleasant, and natural, evil is weakness, pain, and self denial. Man is only one step on the evolutionary ladder and is not intrinsically more valluable than any other organism, and the world only progresses as fast as evolution. These statemnts are in direct contradiction to the tenents held by many theistic belief systems: God determines right and wrong (our enjoyment has little or nothing to do with it in the short run), man is unique and above all animals, and history will end with mankind going to heaven and hell.

Now, if everyone were to stay at home and hold these beliefs to themselves, there would not be as many arguments. The problems arise when we try to make laws, run nations, and set policies. If you oppose abbortion, stem cell research, or euthanasia, then you are obstructing the atheistic march to utopia by slowing evolutionary development in the human race. If yuo oppose gay marriage, incest, bestiality, or polygamy, then you are opposing good (pleasure, that which is 'natural') and advancing evil (denial of one's urges). When you support prayer in school, the mention of God in the pledge of allegiance, or the mention of Intelligent Design in schools, you are filling children's heads with nonsense from humanities dark and barbaric past, ideas scientific atheism hates as much as most people hate Fascism (which is, by the way, good atheism).

Thus, Atheists have no problem with theists who leave their beliefs at home, but their wrath is hurled up at those theists who point out the harm in atheistic ideals and attempt to prevent them from implementation. Another way of looking at it is a comparison of war. In wars such as the American Civil War, the Napoleonic Wars, there was a measure of respect between soldiers. Religious war is different, combatants in a religious war are fighting because the other side is evil. Thus, there is no respect between sides. Theism vs. Atheism is by definition a religious war. Atheists see Theists as full of ideas harmful to the human race, and thus see them as unworthy of common rules of decency and argumentative etiquette.

A brief disclaimer: Much of the above is generalization and I realize that. If I wanted to speak specifically to every case I would have to write a book. Someday I might, but please realize that there are exceptions to just about everything I said, but the general rules still holds.