James R. Rummel

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

Scratching my Head

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Another item of interest at Strategypage.com is this essay by James Dunnigan. It seems that Russia has petitioned the United Nations to outlaw the production and sale of AK-47 knockoffs.

I’ve always wanted to make a living as a writer, so I’m actually in favor of reasonable copyright and patent laws. But I can’t help but wonder what the Russians are trying to accomplish here. What do they think the UN will be able to do, anyway?

It also strikes me as ironic that Russia is appealing to the one body which has been at the forefront of efforts to ban the sale of small arms. While it’s logical to assume that the UN would be in favor of outlawing the sale of knockoff AK’s, I don’t think they’ll be too thrilled that the main reason for the measure is so Russia can reap the benefits of exporting assault rifles.

It’s a strange world we live in.

Closing Doors

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The military analysis blog Strategypage.com always has something interesting and topical. Case in point is a discussion of the US military’s recruiting efforts. (Scroll down to the post dated Sept. 1, 2005.)

If you’ve been following the news then you’ve probably gotten the impression that service in Iraq is so unpalatable that it’s almost impossible to get anyone to sign up for military service. SP says that this is not the case, with reenlistment and recruiting rates for combat units exceeding expectations. Iraq is a selling point instead of a liability.

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More Stinginess

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Alashiya and I were trading Emails, discussing the hurricane relief efforts, when she dropped a bombshell on me. “What are all of these other countries doing to help the US victims of a natural disaster?”

Huh! Good question. It could very well be that there’s some sort of relief effort being organized in another country, but I can’t seem to find any mention of it in the news.

I mean, the people of the United States have always been generous when innocent people from foreign countries need help. You can trace this back to the Berlin Airlift, the opening salvo of the Cold War, and we’ve been going strong ever since. So now that Americans are hurting, why doesn’t someone step up and make an offer of help?

It’s certainly become fashionable in recent years to claim that Americans aren’t doing their share when it comes to aid. I’m waiting for those same critics to rip the rest of the world a new one.

We Apologize for any Inconvenience

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Those comment spammers, dontchya love ‘em? Steven den Beste tried to leave a comment earlier in the day, and his immortal prose was blocked by our MT Blacklist anti-spam utility. Seems that a spammer slipped a little something in the URL line which prevented anyone from using the letters “DE”. Clever of them.

Clever, and yet oh so annoying.

It’s fixed now, but I thought it would be a good idea if I stepped up to the podium and said a few words to our readers.

I’m not an admin here, and I don’t set policy. That means your comment might be deleted due to content and language that Jonathan or Lexington find offensive and there’s not anything I can do about it. (Not that I’d want to, since anything that pisses off Lex or Jonathan automatically pisses me off as well.) But keep in mind that I can get into the Blacklist and make changes. If anyone has any problems they can drop me a line at james_43202@yahoo.com and I’ll get right on it.

That is all. We now return to our regularly scheduled blogging.

How Much do Journalists Earn, Anyway?

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Florida Cracker and With Cheese brings us the story of a college newspaper that was the victim of an anti-war hoax.

For two years the paper published letters supposedly written by a little girl whose father was serving in Iraq. Some of the letters were also addressed to President Bush, taking him to task for invading Iraq in the first place. The only problem is that the father didn’t exist and the little girl was an imposter. It took so long for the hoax to be uncovered because none of the paper’s staff thought to confirm anything.

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