James R. Rummel

I am a self defense instructor who lives in Columbus, Ohio.

Those Nutty Brits

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I always thought that the British were mad because of what they ate for breakfast. Kippers, bloaters and liver.

I know that not every person from England eats that stuff, but c’mon! “Bloaters”?

Back in the days when I worked for the police, we would have to fingerprint corpses to see if we could figure out who they were. Bloaters were what we called the ones who had been in the sun for awhile. You had to skin the finger tips and stretch the skin on wooden dowels to get a print.

No, I’m not saying that the English are cannibals that prefer food they don’t have to chew. I’m just not about to put anything in my mouth if the word “bloat” can be used as a descriptive.

But I have found a completely non-gastronomic reason to think the Brits are completely crazy. They are sending their juvenile delinquents to juvenile court. What I mean by that is not a court that specializes in hearing cases where the accused is a child, but a court where the judges are children themselves.

The idea behind this scheme, if the word “idea” is appropriate, seems to be that young punks don’t listen to adults anyway. If the judge is also a kid, then maybe a little peer pressure will get them to walk the straight and narrow.

I always wanted to visit England. You know, do some sightseeing, visit the points of interest, enjoy all that history. If this is any indication of where British society is headed, I better hurry up and get that done before the place starts to look like it does in 28 Days Later. Except that they won’t need any virus that turns people into mindless zombies to wreck the joint.

(Hat tip to Ace. This essay is cross posted at Hell in a Handbasket.)

Someone Explain to Me Why This is News

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The great Robert A. Heinlein published a short story entitled Solution Unsatisfactory in 1940.

The plot concerns a secret project to develop an atomic bomb to combat Nazi Germany, but the scientists involved with the project face insurmountable problems. Eventually the idea is hit upon to use the radioactive wastes from their experiments, ground up into a dust, which could be released downwind from enemy cities. The inhabitants of the city would all die in a few days, and the city itself would be poisoned by radioactivity for some years afterwards.

I have no idea if Gen. Douglas MacArthur was a Heinlein fan or not, but he suggested the same scheme during the Korean War. He publicly said that radioactive waste could be used to create an impassable minefield between the Communists and the Allies. That way the US could still use a nuclear weapon of a sort without goading the Soviets into using their own atomic bombs.

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We’re Number One! We’re Number One! We’re Number One!

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It seems that the United States has 90 guns for every 100 people, making it the most heavily armed civilian population in the world!

Yemen comes in at second place, with a pitiful 61 guns for every 100 people. Pikers!

Of course, the statistics are rather misleading. Most of the people involved in the shooting sports here in the United States have more than one gun, which skews things a bit. I think this is an indication of wealth, since people here can afford to buy more than one of these really expensive precision instruments, just as they can afford to take part in more than one firearm related sport.

The director of the Small Arms Survey said as much himself.

“Weapons ownership may be correlated with rising levels of wealth, and that means we need to think about future demand in parts of the world where economic growth is giving people larger disposable income,”

Anyway, I think it is just great that the United States leads the world yet again.

(Hat tip to Dave of The Nix Guy fame for giving us a heads up to the article. I also cross posted this essay over at Hell in a Handbasket.)

Review of Perfume:The Story of a Murderer

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It was about twenty years ago that I first realized that not everyone had a sense of smell that was as keen as my own.

A young lady I was sweet on was strolling with me through a mall, and she wanted to go in to one of those stores that sell fripperies for your bed-and-bath. I had always avoided those places because I dislike strong smells, but this time around there was a girl urging me on. Which one of my male readers hasn’t done something against their natures when a woman is involved?

The interior of the store was just as you would expect. There were sachets, jars of potpourri, perfumed soap, body oils, body washes, shampoos, and various bath oils. The odors had all percolated, mixed together, and produced an overpowering miasma that filled every corner of the store. If there is a hell where bad flowers go when they die, then that store was a portal to that particular perdition.

But I noticed something curious while I was in there. I kept running into people! I would turn or take a step back, absolutely sure that there was no one to trip me up, and I would end up stepping on some poor sap’s foot. What the hell was going on?

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The 4th of July Defined

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Many countries have holidays which celebrate the end of an old regime, and the time when their country was officially created. But I like to think that the American version is a bit different from most of them.

The history taught in schools would have us all think that the Continental Congress was pretty much a bunch of foppish, wig wearing dandies who liked nothing better than to strike dramatic poses and spout off long winded speeches laden with allusions to ancient Greek and Roman culture. This isn’t exactly accurate.

It was on this day 231 years ago that those same dandies told the greatest military power on the planet to go get bent. Any reasonable and accurate assessment of their chances to prevail would have been right down there at zero. Everyone who signed the Declaration of Independence, if they were being honest with themselves, could only expect to end their lives at the end of a noose. Most of their friends would swing with them. Their property and fortunes would certainly have been confiscated, bringing ruin and poverty to their families. But they did it anyway.

Those guys were real men. Balls as big as church bells. Anyone who wants to understand the United States has to start at that basic historical fact.

This day is the quintessential American holiday, and I am going to celebrate it in a way to honor the spirit and memory of the real men who put it all on the line for some impossible dream. I’m going to eat a lot of red meat, I’m going to pal around with my real men buddies, and I’m going to blow some stuff up real good.

Boo-yah!