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(There have been a lot of posts here lately concerning some serious subjects, such as the pending US election or the Russian invasion of Georgia. I thought we could use some lighter fare.)

It must have been twenty years since I first heard about it. A wife would wonder if her husband was cheating on her, but hiring a detective agency to follow him around can cost a great deal of money. What happens if he is in between affairs? It could be years before he strays again.

So a few detective agencies here in the United States employed attractive young women who would carefully strike up a seemingly chance friendship with the suspected husband. The idea was to never actually suggest anything illicit, but to see if the subject of the investigation would pursue this particular honey pot. If he mentioned right off that he was married and wanted to talk about his family in a positive way, then the investigation would end. If he suggested a weekend getaway with his attractive new buddy, then that would also mean the end of the caper.

The idea here is to see if the husband was wise in the ways of philandery. If he knew what he was doing and moved in for the kill, then at least the wife would know that he was unhappy with the marriage enough to stray when opportunity came a’knockin’.

Is this still something that happens now, or was it a minor fad that ran its course decades ago? I have no idea, but I am having trouble finding any mention of this sort of thing online. Even if there are still detective agencies that offer this service, it must be a very narrow niche market that isn’t very well known.

Our fellow Chicago Boy Steven has written a post concerning a similar service that is available in Japan. They have certainly put their own cultural stamp on things. For one thing, the female lure seems to be willing to allow things to get physical in order to get the goods on the target. For another, the agencies also offer similar services, this time employing a male lure, for husbands that want to dig up some dirt on their wives. They even offer to conduct some rather elaborate operations to manipulate lost loves into giving a client a second chance.

Go ahead and read the newspaper article which discusses the practice. Seems like an awful lot of money is being spent in Japan by people who need help in ordering their love lives.

I can see why this sort of thing isn’t very popular over here in the States. It rarely makes a difference during a divorce if one of the spouses is sleeping around, so there isn’t a financial reason to find out for sure. A divorce can also be sought by either party without the other granting consent, while in Japan it seems that infidelity is grounds for an annulment whether or not everyone agrees.

The sting operations described in the article are pretty elaborate, real James Bond kind of stuff. There really isn’t any financial motive to seek out services like that here in the US, but I can see why it would be worth the expense to someone who lives in a culture that will take such evidence into account when the family assets are carved up by the divorce judge. The article makes it clear that there are a variety of detective agencies that offer these services, and some of them are flush enough to maintain fleets of expensive cars to be used in the sting operations. That doesn’t happen unless a lot of people are willing to spend a lot of money for your services.

It also seems to me that the rigid social structure in Japan creates an almost unique environment for companies that offer these services. People make a big deal about how individuals will go to great lengths to try and avoid shame in that country, but they rarely mention that it also effects the bottom line. In Western societies, it is generally accepted that having trouble in your personal life usually doesn’t have anything to do with your performance or fitness in business. It seems to me that this doesn’t apply in Japan, where even the appearance of impropriety can damage your career prospects.

Stories like these, where people can be manipulated so easily if they are born into a shame based culture, makes me appreciate my own even more. Sure there are problems with a society that is individual-centric, but I think that it is still better than the alternative.

(Hat tip to The Volokh Conspiracy, who first brought the article to Steven’s attention.)

Long time readers know that I run a charity self defense course for violent crime survivors. I’ve been doing it for so long that word of mouth brings me more work than I can handle.

But it wasn’t always like that. When I was just starting out, decades ago, I would visit encounter groups and seminars to pass out some business cards and let people look me over so they wouldn’t be so self conscious if they dialed my number. Some of these seminars were more crowded than others.

The first seminar I ever attended for male rape victims was at one of the local hotels here in Columbus, Ohio. I was shocked to see how many people were there! It was standing room only, with men leaning against the walls and sitting in the aisles between rows of folding chairs.

Read the rest of this entry »

Is everyone up to speed on writer Mark Steyn’s troubles up in Canada? If not, you can get a pretty good take on the basics by reading this.

Lots of pundits have weighed in on the fracas, most of whom have very little to say which is interesting or insightful. But I keep reading them because they can sometimes be unwittingly and unintentionally hilarious.

Case in point is this overly long analysis of some of the legal issues involved by a (GASP!) real live lawyer. I found the bulk of it to be just like the same-old same-old that has passed before, until I got almost to the end and found….

“Sometimes, I think a statement or a publication can go too far, and in that case, the right to be free of vilification will outweigh the right to freedom of speech.”

I have little doubt that the majority of you who hail from the United States and who just read the line above greeted it with a snort of derision, or at least a roll of the eyes to go with that moue of disgust that rose unbidden to twist your expression. I also have no doubt that most of you who were nurtured in foreign climes are wondering what we could possibly see as wrong.

Americans live in a country that contains every culture, tribe, nationality, race, creed, and philosophy that exists. The only way for anyone to have a “…right to be free of vilification…” is if the culture is completely homogeneous. If there is an absolute code of behavior, values, and mores that everyone is obliged to follow, then it might be possible. But in a place where two or more cultures rub up against each other?

That is why we are snorting and making moues at our keyboards.

Follow the link above to the source of the quote and you will see that the author is a native of Australia who is currently studying in England. You would think that she would have realized by now, considering how the decisions that shaped her life has caused her to hop continents and experience other climes and cultures, that the statement that a “…right to be free of vilification will outweigh the right to freedom of speech…” is risible. But I also noticed that she started her blogging career writing for a Libertarian blog, and it doesn’t seem to have occurred to her that the very idea of someone being banned from saying insulting things about others is hardly in line with Libertarian philosophy.

I mean, where exactly does the concept of “liberty” come into play in such a case, anyway?

The point to all this (and there is a point for all of you who came down this far in the post), is that this is yet another illustration as to why Americans are more sophisticated than the rest of the world is willing to admit. The government in Canada is so worried about the self esteem of a select few that they have decided to force people to shut up, even though the speech in question is harmless and factual. A law student who has spanned a fair amount of the Earth’s surface seems to think that this is a good idea, only grudgingly ceding that maybe they are going just a touch too far in the Great White North.

But down here in The Land of the Free we realize that the path to advancement is to complain, grumble, and gripe about everything! We know, better than any other people in history, that the only way to see anything clearly is to hold it up to fierce and unrelenting scrutiny. Both truth and falsehood will become apparent in short order, and we trust people to make the right decision as long as the heavy hand of government doesn’t filter the debate.

How can you be more sophisticated than that?

(Hat tip to Mark Steyn.)

UPDATE
It has been pointed out that I made a mistake. The blog I linked to above is a team effort, and the person who wrote the post I commented on is not the Libertarian at the site. Their take on the subject is here.

Click on that last link and scroll down to the bottom to see that they linked to my own post. That was very kind of them, but it seems they were a might peeved over the identity confusion.

“A bunch of very smart economists who should know better have managed to confuse Legal Eagle with me. Mark Steyn didn’t make the same mistake, linking to both posts and noting the difference. Which if nothing else suggests he’s a very careful writer.”

Except that I’m hardly an economist. In fact, few of the writers here are. My own background, for example, is in law enforcement and the civilian use of armed self defense. Whether or not I’m smart enough to have known better I’ll leave to my readers to decide.

I suppose this illustrates the fact that it is easy to make a mistake concerning the identity of someone on a group blog, particularly when that blog doesn’t place signatures on the posts. (Just glance at the line under the title of this post to see what I mean.) Unless you have actually been reading the site for awhile, it would be easy to become confused as to who authored what.

Let us say that you are a physically active person, proud of the abilities which you have worked and sweated to develop and hone. And then you are injured seriously enough to warrant time spent in a hospital. There is nothing to do for most of the hours of the day but to brood on what you have lost, and wonder if you will ever be able to regain full function. It would be tough to keep the blues at bay.

Now imagine that you are a soldier, and you are in the hospital because of enemy action. Maybe your injuries aren’t going to be temporary, maybe you won’t ever fully recover. How much worse would that be?

The Walter Reed Army Medical Center has a library of games and movies to try and keep morale up, but they need more material. We can help.

They have an Amazon Wish List set up. You don’t have to buy new, the used stuff will do just as well for a lending library. And you will be able to purchase more items for the same amount of cash. You could even have a DVD shipped to them for as little as $5.00 USD, less than most fast food lunch deals.

You could afford that. Right?

Keats described his depression by saying “I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top”. I think we can give them a hand before they go under.

(Hat tip to Ace, and I cross posted this at Hell in a Handbasket.)

Apparently so.

The link above will take you to a report about an Ohio native that conspired to use “Weapons of Mass Destruction against tourists in Germany”. Let us take a look at the implications.

Places like Columbus, Ohio were what the sophisticates had in mind when they coined the phrase “flyover country”. Natives here call Ohio’s capitol city “Cowtown”, and it isn’t always meant with wry affection. I personally like to put a positive spin on things and claim that it is the world’s largest small town.

Yet we have a native son who was not only working to assemble something which would kill indiscriminately but he planned on setting it off in another country, located on another continent.

Aiding him in this endeavor were two immigrants who had plans of their own. The guy born in Kashmir wanted to help al Qaeda destroy the Brooklyn Bridge, while the other from Somalia was interested in setting off bombs in an Ohio shopping mall during the Christmas season. Both of the immigrants had been recruited by al Qaeda while overseas, and one of them had even received some military-style training at a secret base in Ethiopia.

So a guy from Somalia trains as a terrorist in Ethiopia before hooking up with a guy from Kashmir and a local in Columbus, Ohio. They plan on causing mass death in Germany, in Columbus, and committing an act of sabotage by destroying one of America’s most iconic landmarks located in New York.

Global War on Terror, indeed.

The only reason why none of these terrible plans came to fruition is because of Bush’s supposedly illegal wiretapping project. FBI agents approached the erstwhile bridge saboteur and managed to turn him. With a double agent in place, the evidence gathered was sufficient to convict them all.

If international terrorist groups like al Qaeda have plots hatching in the very heart of America’s heartland, what must it be like in those places where things are happening? How many terrorist cells are scheming and gathering materials for their dark work this very minute in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles or Washington, DC?

Just a thought to speed you on your way on this fine summer day.

(Hat tip to Glenn, Gateway Pundit, and I cross posted this essay at Hell in a Handbasket.)

I used to admire watches, little nuggets of technology that rode along on your wrist. I loved the digital watches that had games built into them that came out in the 1980’s…..

…but eventually gravitated to rugged, military style, mechanical watches with Tritium inserts so they would always glow in the dark.

This changed four or five years ago when I finally decided to buy a cell phone. Even though it was a cheap giveaway model that was passed out when I signed a 2 year contract with my service provider, it was still laden with enough gadgets and features to make my geeky heart sing. It had a calculator, a calender, an alarm clock, a stop watch, an international time function, and a note pad so I could write stuff down. I could even download and play games on my phone, even though I have never bothered.

You would have to buy an array of watches to enjoy all those functions way back when, and now they were included in my cell phone as a minor selling point. Pretty cool, but there is also a crappy VGA camera as well. Not many watches also had a camera built in.

Don’t forget that this is a four year old phone that was given away for free even back then. Nowadays you can spring for a phone that is a media center, allowing you to access the Internet, watch TV or movies, and play music. It would take far more free time than I have to use all those functions, so I have deliberately avoided upgrading. But I will probably get a phone with a better camera when the one I have now eventually succumbs to all the weather to which I keep subjecting the poor thing.

Chris has found that a watch is so much more convenient than a cell phone when he is filling out incident reports. Just glance at your wrist instead of pulling your phone out of the belt pouch, press the button to get the face to light up, look at it to determine the time, and put it back. He is more interested in pure function than anything else, though. The time is the only thing he really needs from his watch.

Milo is a watch enthusiast of sorts. He likes Soviet style watches, something with a 24-hour face. He ordered one online, but it never was mailed off. Disappointing.

This is sort of ironic to me. I remember that there was a brisk trade in all things Soviet amongst collectors back in the 1960’s, 1970’s, and 1980’s before Glasnost. Now you order up what you want from a website, but it seems they still are having a problem delivering the goods even though they aren’t Communists any more. Proof we won the previous Great Clash of Civilizations, and that the losers are still struggling to get with the program.

Sevesteen is also a watch enthusiast, although his passion are American made watches which use mechanical movement. He has even bought a Timex watch display stand which graced store counters around 1970, so he can show off his collection in the proper soft focus glory.

Sevesteen has even perfectly articulated how technology has leveled the playing field so far as personal time pieces are concerned. In the quote below, he explains why he is fascinated with watches that were made in the 1970’s.

“Go back 10 years, and watches were tiny by todays’ standards. Forward 10 years, and they are mostly quartz–Superior timekeepers, but it isn’t nearly as interesting when even a basic department store watch is equal (or superior) in performance to an expensive luxury brand.”

I remember reading Larry Niven in the 1970’s and 1980’s. He did a pretty good job of predicting the future course of technology in some of his Known Space stories by having people rely on their portable phones for just about everything, at least on technologically advanced Earth. Pretty similar to the way cell phones are evolving today.

The protagonist in one short story has a surgically implanted watch. The dial is seen glowing through the skin on one wrist, a neat little detail to prove to the reader that the story was taking place in The Future.

Some people have predicted the ultimate demise of the wristwatch. I doubt that will happen, but I think it is undeniable that the sales of that once indispensable item have suffered with the growing popularity of cell phones. I think that the only way to turn the trend around is to offer a watch with limited cell phone functions built in, or to come up with some sort of snobbish gee-whiz technical application like the implanted glow watch mentioned in the previous paragraph.

(Cross posted at Hell in a Handbasket.)

The headline reads….

NYC issues warning after aphrodisiac kills man

Why in the world would anyone need to be warned that taking the product was a bad idea? Or that they would think that sucking down something made from toad venom will get you in the mood for a romantic romp? The very last thing I would do to get all hot and bothered is to ingest something with the word “Venom” in the list of ingredients.

I think we’ll have to chalk this one up to evolution in action.

(Cross posted at Hell in a Handbasket.)

I’m licensed to carry concealed firearms, and it is a given that I always go armed if it is legal for me to do so. There certainly is no question that I am packing when I take my dogs on their evening walk every night.

Last year the pack and I came across a coyote that was gorging on trash, a fairly sizable wild predator in the heart of a modern city that was miles from any wilderness area. Although I was certainly ready to put it down if it was rabid and attacked, I let it go without hindrance when it turned tail and ran. Besides the fact that I’m not about to fire a gun unless I need to protect myself, coyotes aren’t enough of a threat to merit hunting them down in the city.

That might just change.

Click on that last link and see how coyotes in southern California have attacked small children in three separate incidents in a five day period. It was only because of the timely intervention of adults that none of the children were killed. Killed and eaten.

And it isn’t as if the children in question were mere babies, either. It seems that the coyotes are trying to snatch toddlers from playgrounds and front yards. Think of a 2-year-old with their face in the sharp grip of a coyote’s jaws.

This news article discusses how the experts are puzzled by how predation on humans on SoCal is on the rise, even though it mentions how one of the coyotes which attacked a little girl was limping as it approached the child. Seems to me that you don’t need to be an expert to realize that humans are easy meals for animals unless they are properly equipped to resist something with natural weaponry.

Added to that is the hippy-drippy “Nature is our cuddly friend!” attitude that dominates in that area of the country. If you have people who actually delight in having wild predators live in close proximity to human children, then there is going to be tragedy some time down the road. Where is the big mystery?

There is no real chance that a predator will be able to prevail over me, or that one will harm a child in my care. But that is because no one in their right mind would ever be able to describe me as a hippy.

My esteemed colleague Dan From Madison wrote a well received series of posts concerning how cougars are losing their fear of humans. It is no surprise that the big cats generate more concern because they are certainly more dangerous, and they have easily killed adult humans. I think that, unless attitudes change, there is going to be an incident where a child is killed by a coyote some time in the not-so-distant future.

And then the hunt will be on, hippies be damned.

Most of the students in my charity self defense course eventually get around to asking my advice concerning the most effective home defense weapon. I always recommend a shotgun without reservation.

There is a lot to be said for the humble scattergun. It is probably the most devastating close combat weapon there is, unless you have access to a submachine gun or a flamethrower. (And both of those damage your house too much.) Load it up with the right type of ammo and it will cure what ails you.

They are also incredibly intimidating, which has caused more than a few violent criminals over the years to give up without a struggle when they found themselves on the business end of a 12 gauge. They are so scary, in fact, that the Germans accused the United States of war crimes when our troops started to use shotguns in World War I. The guys who embraced poison gas as a weapon thought that a Doughboy using a pump action scattergun in the trenches was beyond the pale!

For more than a century, shotguns have also been the main heavy arm for street cops. They are extremely effective close up, but have less penetration and range than a rifle. Just the thing if you are concerned about innocent civilians, yet still have to take down a nest of criminals who have set up shop in a densely crowded neighborhood.

As a last note, shotguns are easy to learn how to use, and to use well. This doesn’t mean that no training at all is necessary, just that it doesn’t take nearly as much time to turn a novice into a safe and effective defensive shotgunner as it does to teach the basics of using a rifle in an urban setting.

All of that was going through my mind when I read this article by Bob Owens. It seems that the Chicago Police Department, reeling from a week of increased criminal shootings on the streets, is planning on buying 13,000 assault rifles and issue them to their patrol officers.

Whoa, Nelly! Hold the phone! Are they going to invest in SWAT training for every single one of their patrol officers? Because that is what it would take to minimize the risk to innocent civilians that using weapons with such high penetration in a city would bring.

No, of course Chicago wouldn’t invest in such training! They would never have the budget for something like that. Click the link to the Owens article and read how it is problematic for them to be able to find the money to buy the rifles, let alone the ammo needed for training and the infrastructure to keep the weapons in repair.

Have I mentioned that shotguns are only about 20% of the cost of an assault rifle? They are even cheaper than most handguns! So why advocate a poorly reasoned plan to buy assault rifles when a cheaper, easier, safer, and extremely effective alternative is available?

Because it is all an exercise in public relations. The city has been subjected to some bad press because of their lack of ability to control criminal violence, so this is an attempt to be seen as taking positive and highly visible action. Assault rifles are sexy and have a bad boy cachet, while shotguns are dull and pedestrian and lack charisma. The fact that it wastes money and actually puts innocent civilians at greater risk isn’t important, they have to look good on the evening news!

You might think that this is an isolated event. Chicago has a few bad weekends, some ne’er-do-wells shoot each other up in gang territory, and the city tries to deflect criticism by buying some unnecessary toys for their boys. But I would like to bring this news article to your attention, which reports that several other police agencies are planning on equipping their patrol officers with semi-auto versions of military weapons.

I suppose this post here at The Chicago Boyz will destroy any chance I have of employment as a firearms instructor for a major police agency. They’d never waste money on someone who says it is better to go with what works instead of what looks good on camera.

(Hat tip to Glenn for the heads up on the Bob Owens article.)

Back in January of 2007, a couple of detectives in England were in over their heads.

They came across a gang of five guys who were breaking in to a house. The detectives identified themselves as police officers, and attempted to take the criminals into custody. But the perps figured out that the cops were unarmed, and the fight was on!

Two unarmed detectives against five guys who had chains and hammers. Things looked grim, particularly when one of the gang became curious as to what the cops had eaten for breakfast and produced a knife to help him find out.

But then help arrived in the form of a nondescript private citizen wielding a cheap samurai sword. “Leave him alone, he’s a police officer!” he yelled, and charged the gang single-handedly. He fought bravely, if not particularly well, and managed to inflict a minor wound on one of the burglars. Criminals being a cowardly and superstitious lot, the gang broke and ran. The detectives managed to tackle and bag one criminal each, but by the time they had subdued their respective catches the good Samaritan had slipped away.

That guy had balls as big as churchbells, and I don’t just mean that because he went toe-to-toe with a swarm of ne’er-do-wells. While self defense is not illegal in England, or at least it isn’t technically illegal, it is against the law to use anything designed as a weapon to defend yourself. Local Detective Inspector Peter Bent stated “It needs to be said we cannot condone vigilantism or people running around with swords or weapons. It will be up to the Crown Prosecution Service whether they see his actions as justified or going beyond reasonable force.”

He could charge straight at a gang of armed desperados without a moment’s hesitation, but the guy with the sword could see no other option than running and hiding after the dust settled and the cops were back on their feet. I don’t blame him one bit.

The police launched a manhunt to see if they could smoke him out, and I have no idea if they ever managed to find out who had drawn steel to defend their lives on that day. Something tells me that the cops on the street, when told that they had to find an average Joe who had saved two of their own just so he could face the courts, merely went through the motions and really didn’t put too much effort into the search.

I’m telling you this because I was over at Milo’s, who is a British fencing instructor, and he says that unregistered samurai swords are now illegal in England. You have to jump through a bunch of hoops to prove to the state that you have a “legitimate reason” to own one.

Many American gunbloggers have noted that the media and other pro-gun control types become hysterical when discussing firearms. They like to imply that owning a gun is similar to petting a coiled cobra, as both will leap up and kill without warning when you least expect it.

I leave you with this English news article which proves that the British are going through the same thing with knives. Notice how the focus of a newspaper is “preventing youngsters from getting involved in knife culture” by sponsoring a weapon amnesty program. People could turn in their infernal devices to the police without fear of arrest, and someone actually gave them a cheap samurai sword that was sharp!

Judging by the extreme fear they show when confronted by a wall hanger with an edge, the police over there are having trouble recruiting anyone who doesn’t faint away when confronted with the very idea of a sharp piece of steel.

Inspector Peter Knights, of Hartlepool Police, said: “I am delighted to see a weapon of this nature has been surrendered. All too often we see items such as this used and abused by people which leads invariably to serious injury or death.”

Guys, I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.

(Cross posted at Hell in a Handbasket.)

This news article reports that 20 people were shot in Chicago in a single night.

But that is impossible! Guns are very carefully controlled in Illinois, and they are even more restricted in Chicago! They are so worried about illegal guns that even my own concealed carry license is null and void in the state, and I have to leave all of my perfectly legal guns at home if I visit my fellow Chicago Boyz!

Must be a miracle, all those guns just falling from the sky like criminal manna from heaven.

Truly we are in an age of wonders.

(Cross posted at Hell in a Handbasket. I figured that the self defense enthusiasts who visit there would be interested in this news.)

Megan McArdle is upset by something that Roy Edroso, a writer for The Village Voice, has said about her. He called her a “libstick libertarian”, which she feels is a misogynistic statement.

Well, it is a sexist comment! Considering that Mr. Edroso let it slip in an article where he rates ten Conservative blogs as to their Stupid to Evil ratio, Megan seems to be most incensed that he would be considering her femininity as a factor. What would being female have to do with being either stupid or evil?

She has a point, but that isn’t what I want to discuss. What puzzles me is how Mr. Edroso could have missed including The Chicago Boyz in his list!

Aren’t we Evil enough? We certainly try! I’m a gun-toting self defense instructor, and I even teach violent crime survivors how to shoot their disadvantaged attackers without charging them anything. To a New York liberal writing for a Leftist propaganda rag, that should put me somewhere above Joe McCarthy and just a little lower than Pol Pot. I mean, c’mon!

And stupid? I have bathtubs full of stupid at home, just in case a Village Voice columnist comes on by and wants to borrow a gallon or two. There are a few thousand rounds of ammunition in my living room alone, and I keep the guns used in the self defense class in my basement. According to those discredited studies the anti-gun lobby keeps quoting, I should have accidentally shot myself and every member of my family a few dozen times over by now. The fact that I haven’t shot anyone yet can probably be taken by a Liberal as proof that I am so stupid that I can’t even screw up right! If, that is, they can get over the fact that I am so stupid that I own guns in the first place.

And let us not forget my fellow Chicago Boyz! I doubt that any of them will be able to rise to the lofty heights of both Stupidity and Evility that I have achieved, but they all have their own geniuses in these areas. I figure that our combined talents creates a giant black hole that sucks all Goodness and Smartiness out of just about anyone unfortunate enough to glance at the title bar.

So the next time Mr. Edroso is compiling his little list, he should first stop on by and see what’s cookin’ with The Boyz.