The Minuteman

When you get blacklisted.  Interesting thing when you look at who hasn’t been blacklisted.  I look at that, like I do the hate mail I got, it means I’m obviously doing something right!

*Yes I get it, doesn’t mean I can’t have fun with it. 

IMPD says Officer Kyle Fleck, who joined the department in February 2010, hit a car parked at the Fashion Mall at Keystone Crossing at around 7:30 pm Thursday. Witnesses told other officers that they saw the marked police car hit the parked car. The officer then parked his car in front of the mall and went inside to find the owner of the car.

As Tam has shown this is a reoccurring theme with the IMPD.  Honestly I think Tam’s snark on this hit says it best.  Seriously I don’t have much else to add.

State Sponsored Criminal Count: 28

Because if you’re a cop, drunk driving is in no way dangerous to yourself or the public.  I mean the law just applies to the little people right?

h/t Tam

It took a while for me to figure it out.  I was the kid off by himself in school.  Once people got to know me, they were like he’s cool, it’s that initial hump that’s always been my problem.

I do find from time to time I still feel like the kid in the corner again. I wonder now if I’m just obnoxious and disliked, well if that’s the case I also remember Mr. Adams was and I have since learned to embrace it and work it to my advantage.  Note you can be both of those without being a dick.

I don’t blame anyone for a lack of traffic to my site, and evidently that makes me not normal.  I have discovered, since I finally started writing up regularly, that if I write something the traffic will follow.  Most of those complaining want instant gratification of getting hundreds of readers overnight.  I know that’s not going to happen. 

Looking at my stats on site meter and Google analytics though for the month of July, traffic was up 544% in site views over last year.  Yeah the site is 3 years old, yet I didn’t really start posting regularly till the beginning of this year.  At which point my traffic grew by 482% from the previous month.  My monthly traffic has now finally doubled what Joe gets in just daily traffic, but it is growing.   The more blogs I write, the more I have out there for people to find and explore.  I have figured that out and my original goal this year was a post a day.  I have since modified that to average a post a day.  Some times I have nothing to write about, other times I have stuff to do, and I can’t stop my life for my blog.

This has been a huge learning experience and I have approached it from the point of view of an explorer entering a new land, wanting to figure thing out for himself.  I have finally figured out the wonder of having continuing series.  I have three, one of which I need to take more pictures before I continue, another that is waiting for the next installment (I have been thoroughly exhausted from work lately and don’t feel like thinking about things relating to it on the weekends), and lastly a series shedding light where others would rather it remain dark.

The big thing with getting traffic is you need a couple things:

• Have something to say.
• Say it well, and convey your message.
• Provide something that people want to find out.

That first point is often a problem for me, I have trouble finding words or how to describe something.  Believe it or not I actually really hate writing.  It is the only way to get better at writing however. Yes it’s frustrating writing something up and for some reason it goes around the circle and you see it show up elsewhere without a peep in your direction.  Ultimately though who cares, you provided a voice towards the item that needed attention.  I do this for me, no one else, I seriously don’t really make any cash off of this venture either.  Not to say I wouldn’t like to subsidize my costs, but money is not a deal maker or breaker.

The third point is another difficulty.  Often I have trouble finding something that no one else has talked about.  Slowly though I’m getting sources for stuff to break something new, which helps considerably.  

Ultimately getting traffic and links boil down to one absolute principal, Don’t Be a Dick.  A lack of traffic is NOT a conspiracy against you.  Seriously if you act like a dick to people in within the environment you’re writing about, they’re going to throw your ass out.  Some people have figured this out, other’s haven’t.  If you don’t like being the kid in the corner, stop acting like a dick, and most certainly don’t disrespect people that your target community happens to respect.

The amateur videographer with the colorful vocabulary who memorialized the alleged 2009 police beating of Melvin Jones III during a traffic stop may be charged with illegal wiretapping.

It appears that numerous departments and prosecutors are going after those who would document police abuse.  Without documentation, these officers would be allowed to continue unchallenged in their crimes.  Instead some individuals brave the harassment and intimidation brought by our government for documenting them. 

Remember the government is force and any attempt to restrain a government official is an attack on their unbridled force.

State Sponsored Criminal Count: 27

Because the DA’s job is not to punish the police officer who broke the law, but to intimidate the public into no longer providing due diligence.  This wouldn’t have been a problem if she just hadn’t taken that video of the incident happening in public.

h/t JayG

Until about 2001, I would invite friends from Russia and Europe to visit because I wanted to share my wonderful new homeland. Now I invite them with advance apologies for the indignities they are likely to endure en route from the US government agents. Hopefully, we will all be able to be proud of America again someday soon.

Sentimental Value of a Flag – Oleg Volk

[It makes me ashamed that this is the case.  While I could easily shift blame one way or another I cannot.  I hate and despise the TSA and feel them to be nothing more than Jack Booted Thugs preying upon the innocent and law abiding.  I was still in high school when the patriot act and the fallout from September 11th destroyed what was left.  However it has continued on my watch, and unlike our fearless leader I will accept responsibility instead of shift it.  Even if the majority of these issues are directly out of my control.

The root cause of this issue goes further back than my generation, however a generation needs to step up and take responsibility.  A generation needs to finally put it’s foot down and say enough is enough.  I am looking to my generation as we are now creating the youth of tomorrow. 

Sadly however, I’m afraid that most of my generation still hasn’t seen the light.  So here and now, to my future children* I apologize as my father did to me. 

• I am sorry that I have not protected your freedoms and rights with as much force as I should have.
• I am sorry that I have let people use fear to destroy liberties and freedoms that weren’t theirs to destroy.
• I am sorry that you will never know a world where you won’t be molested while trying to fly across the country.
• I am sorry that many of the rights and freedoms I had as a child are already gone before you’re even a glint in my eye.
• I am sorry for the debt that my generation and the generations before have rung up in your name.

There are three parts to a sincere apology, the first is to say you’re sorry.  The second to state what you’ve done wrong.  Lastly is the question of, “How do I make it right?”  To this last part, I promise to do my best to end these issues so you should not have to live in the country the US has become.  To try and return the status of freedom and liberty to it’s once vaunted heights, so you may pursue whatever endeavors you would like for your life. –B

*no the wife isn’t pregnant currently.  It doesn’t mean I don’t owe my future children that will eventually come any less of an apology.]

Tam posted something recently regarding always checking that a chamber is empty.  I have a story along those lines but without the ND.

For those that don’t know me I am quite anal about not having live ammunition within my safe, even more so chambered in a weapon.  There are three reasons for this.

1. While the interior of the safe may not burn, the contents are safer should the safe exceed it’s fire rating.  With ammunition in the safe, the could cook off damaging equipment and valuable within the interior. 
2. Ammunition in the chamber that cooks off could cause bullets to pierce the integrity of the safe.  Thus allowing the fire to do more damage to the contents.  This also depends on the type of ammo loaded, for instance 62grn penetrator will be an issue to your safe integrity.
3. Lastly and most importantly, putting rifles in and taking them out of the safe while loaded is quite dangerous.  There was a news article recently about a man who ended up killing himself when the trigger on his 22 rifle snagged pulling it out of the safe.  Mechanical safeties can fail and I’m not going to trust my life to them.

Many look at putting ammo within the safe and say, well the safe will contain it.  Why in god’s name did you spend the money on the safe then if your own actions are going to render the protection it provides useless?  If you want to lock up your ammo, build a custom heavy rack with a lockable metal door.  If you want to be sly about it, make it a false wall and embed an RFID reader with a magnetic lock.

The bottom line is if I am needing a rifle and ammunition in an emergency and I’m going to my safe for it, I have planned horribly wrong.  So, every rifle as it goes in the safe is checked clear, and the hammer put down on snap cap.  This helps ensure my safety and those around me while putting in and pulling out of the safe. 

After Boomershoot 2010, I unloaded and cleared all my rifles and put them away as I normally do.  The next weekend I pulled out one of my AR’s to use in a private party.  I pull it out and swing on the trap area I’ve made and rack the charging handle.  To what should my lovely eyes did appear, not a blue or maroon snap cap, but a shining piece of brass and copper.

I immediately set upon trying to determine where my procedures lapsed during their last use.  I locked the bolt open and inspected the weapon.  First thing of note was that the safety was on, which considering the hammer is supposed to be down the safety should be off when stored in the safe.  For those who don’t know, an AR will not allow you to engage the safety while the hammer is down.  So obviously I hadn’t even dropped the hammer during storage.  I began to replay the unpacking from Boomershoot and I realized what happened.  We were in a rush, during the unpacking.  A buddy was helping me store all of them and uncasing them.  It was one of the last to go in the safe but was one of the first to be unpacked.  It was set off to the side without my actually having handled it.  When it came time to put it in the safe my mental inventory said I had, and it had been within sight the whole time.

From that experience my personal rule has become always check the chamber when picking it up if either of the following conditions are true:

• I have been handling other firearms as well.
• The weapon in question has been out of my sight, even if it’s in the safe.

My dad constantly told me growing up, “A smart man learns from his mistakes.  A wise man learns from other peoples mistakes.”  Between my mistake and Tam’s, please learn something!  Checking the chamber takes mere seconds and the ND depending on the cause can cost you everything.

Nichols also says that if he were a gambling man, his money would be on someone eventually getting charged in connection with the card games. So far, though, no one’s been arrested.

In the meantime, the Sheriff’s Office has amassed a tidy loot of more than a dozen slightly-used felt tables, lots of playing cards, stacks of poker chips, surveillance cameras and, biggest of all, more than $50,500 cash (although authorities haven’t disclosed the exact amount).

The sheriff contends these weren’t buddies getting together but arranged games to turn a profit for the organizer.  If that’s the case, why wasn’t the organizer arrested on the spot?  Later in the article it becomes immediately clear what’s going on:

"Any money seized … is subject to forfeiture," said John Gill, special counsel to Nichols . "If we say gambling occurred, regardless of whether we prosecute a specific person, we can seize the property and the money."

So what ever happened to due process?  I guess the Knox County Sheriff threw it out with the garbage when they discovered the county debt is increasing without restraint.  What better way to supplement it than through forfeitures that do not require a prosecution.

State Sponsored Criminal Count: 23

Because what better way to whittle your deficit down than to steal money from friends gambling in their garage.  It’s 100% taxation without due process or legal recourse for the tax payer, how can the state loose?