Hamas Diversifies

Hamas has decided to improve their image by holding mass weddings like the Moonies. (Because everyone loves those Moonies right?) The Grooms clutched copies of the Koran, the brides dressed in kevlar and each couples got a free hand-held, laser-guided wedding gift.

I understand that Hamas also funds charities like daycare and summer camps where children get instruction and nurturing from caring professionals.



(Warner Bros. can take a joke right? I am not going to get sued am I? Why am I more worried about lawyers than Hamas?)

IRA Bows to My Will.

The IRA is claiming that they will lay down their arms. I blogged about this recently which can only mean they have been moved by my words. Now if Gerry Adams can die and the Orange Order of Protestant Peckers


Also known as the Lame Pride Parade,
can march off a cliff instead of through Catholic neighborhoods...

Well, one step at a time.

Some People's Children.

After not checking my blog's e-mail for a while due to vacation and summer scholarly pursuits I was partially delighted (partially overwhelmed) to see that I had one million messages due to the new community which I had joined, Life, Liberty and Property. Before you start to think that I am the most popular organism to hit the web since the second coming of the anti-Christ, I should mention that most of these were housekeeping issues sent to all like, "Should so-and-so be new members?" and "Should we merge with such and such?" By being out of touch I lost my opportunity to weigh in with my new found authority on these issues. I hate it when power slips through my fingers.

Anyway...

There was one stream of messages which brought up some interesting concepts which I thought I would address. (I hope this is not considered airing dirty laundry in public but it touches on issues which I have often heard brought up when discussing liberty.) A female member of the community brought it to common attention that she had received some unwanted comments from another member which she felt were inappropriate. When told about this he continued the comments on his own blog which she felt constituted sexual harassment and asked what the community thought about this.

Now I always like to get both sides of a conflict before choosing a side (if at all) so I was going to look up the relevant links after I went through the rest of the one million message. Fortunately this was not needed because he sent a response with his side of the story.

Are you in suspense? Probably not because most of the people reading this are part of the community but just in case someone is here from a technorati search on sexual harassment, God help you because I love keeping people in suspense.

Where was I? Oh yah...

He started out... kind of making points - that his initial remarks were in response to a discussion of a sexual nature and that the rest of his comments were on his own blog so should be his own business. He then preceded to undercut his own argument by repeating the comments which he knew were being found offensive, to the group as a whole just to prove that he was free to. I have nothing against sexual content in a discussion but in the context of demeaning someone (which is like using fine wine to drown puppies) it does not wash with me.

You see, there are three possible reactions which are available when someone tells you that the comments which you thought were harmless flirting are considered inappropriate.

1) The wise approach (typical of people with good social skills) - tell the offended party that you did not intend the comments to be threatening or offensive and that you regret that they had that effect. You might even reread the comments and their context and if you can see how the person might have come to their conclusion you might actually admit this or apologize. If you are certain you have not stepped over the line you can always let your statement of no mal-intent stand for you and let it go.

2) You can take the defensive stance - make the argument about your comments being harmless and make snippy comments because you are hurt that someone questioned your motives and integrity. Claim that your irrepressible nature is being repressed. Mentioning censorship and/or political correctness can sometimes dig up some sympathy.

3) The last resort is the really unhealthy reaction - make further comments in a more hostile context in order to intimidate.

I feel he did a reasonable job of achieving a compromise between number 2 and 3; proof that compromise is like peace. It is a noble instinct but it is not always the best tool in the drawer.

The point of this post (sometimes I do come to one) is not to argue that his comments or e-mails constitute sexual harassment. Though I personally feel they do, he has already been asked to make like a weed and grow away so my opinion on the issue is of little consequence. My point is to address a couple of issues which his saga (I would need to go back to his messages to get his name and I really can't be bothered) brings up.

Firstly, he feels that her complaint to the group and anyone who supports it is unlibertarian (a common charge when libertarians disagree) because they are "censoring" him. Part of the concept of freedom is the idea of freedom of association, if I am not mistaken. Part of any association, whether a friendship, a community, a club, a church or an organized blogroll is the establishment of understandings. These can be formal like secret hand shakes and codified laws or informal like norms of acceptable behavior. Such understandings are the common civil 'lubricant' of any association to the point that many might consider them common knowledge. If only.

The point of freedom of association is not that the very lowest standards of behavior must be adopted to accommodate everyone's view of freedom but that you are allowed to assess whether the standards of the community are in line with your own and join or leave as you see fit. One person's freedom of expression does not require the entire community to associate with him against their will. A person's right to expression does not entitle him to be provided with unlimited opportunity for expression.

If one of the goals of this group is to advocate for freedom and someone decides to abuse that freedom in a way which casts the group and its goals in a negative light, there is no hypocrisy in deciding that they are interfering with that goal. If, on the other hand, the goal is for every person to be as free as they can be at all times then those of us who prefer to retain some basic social norms (very basic - I don't want to have to drink my tea with my pinky extended) are interfering and I would not be surprised or offended if I were asked to leave. If the group were split then the group should split with each going to their respective tree-houses. (I suspect that not many want to enter what's-his-name's tree-house... or is that just me? No one else seemed to have left have they.)

The other issue this fracas has brought up is that a couple people felt that this is a personal matter and should not have been brought to them. While I understand the impulse to not get involved I would disagree. The complainant had a right to know how the community felt on this issue so she could make an informed decision as to whether enough of our standards were in line with hers and make a decision as to whether to remain. I am glad this was brought up rather than having a member needing to choose whether to link to a blogroll including someone who is being a prick towards her or leave the group. I feel that the right decision was made by the moderator and that hopefully such difficulties will not arise in the future.

Boy am I in Trouble

If this guy got a fine I might end up getting the chair!

Parascience

Every once in a while a science story hits the mainstream that sounds really cool. Then you get in to the details and notice some interesting commonalities:

• A condemnation of those who remain skeptical of the claims [Real scientists accept and encourage skepticism of their work because it provides them with ideas on how to test it so as to put it on a stronger footing.]

• A reliance on results which are very low but "statistically significant" [Statistical significance is a subjective choice. Many scientists use a standard but arbitrary cut off which states that, if the effect you are trying to measure is nonexistent and you were to do the experiment exactly the same way with the exact same number of trials 100 times you would expect to get the results you got only 5 times or 1 time depending on how significant you are trying to get. Statistics never prove an hypothesis, they only tell you whether, on the basis of your experiment, you can reject the hypothesis.

• The effect was discovered at Princeton University which has a thriving paranormal /parapsychology culture though not much to show for it.

• At some point meta-analysis is invoked. [Meta-analysis is a statistical trick used to turn many small scale experiments into one big one. Different statisticians can use perfectly acceptable standards for meta-analysis and get completely different results. And they are the ones who actually understand this crap. Many of the finest scientists have taken one stats course in their lives which is one reason why science journals need to be so choosy about what they print.]

• At some point quantum mechanics - or more precisely - poorly understood quantum principles of an unknown nature are invoked.

• The results will not appear for other people when they to reproduce the results.

This story by Wired News has all those elements which leads me to believe that these people who have worked for nearly 30 years to find evidence that the human mind can influence machines or random outcomes of physical processes should keep working and stop griping that people should be more accepting of their work. Princeton also has a project designed to show how major news events cause the collective consciousness of the planet to flip out and upset random number generators. Once again we are dealing with statistics and once again only people without a sound basis in statistics (meaning everyone) is supporting it.

On a similar line of thought, I have noticed that there is a world of difference between medical science (things your doctor tells you) and medical studies (things your nightly newscaster tells you); the latter being produced by drunken pre-med school frat boys or by companies or lobby groups with a major emotional or financial stake. Studies are typified by ridiculously small sample sizes, conclusions which completely do not follow and a high degree of popular press publicity. Even the popular science press can be sucked in by them at times, though they tend to be slightly more balanced in their reporting. (In the preceding New Scientist link if you were reading quickly with a pre-existing distrust of video games you would think the article was proof that they were harmful even though the exact opposite could also be true without the article being wrong. Most other media who reported on that story were not as balanced.

So let us review.
Words and terms which should activate your Bullshit detector:

• "Skeptics suck!" (or words to that effect.)
• Meta-analysis.
• Quantum entanglement. (unless the story is about particle physics.)
• Spooky action at a distance. (Any quote by Einstein that can be understood without a PhD or via paraphrasing is generally being taken out of context.)
• Statistically significant.
• Princeton.
• A new medical study.
  

This will be on the final exam.

Harry Potter Causes Chaos

Harry Potter has caused the Pope to loose his cool as an earlier post mentioned. One of the things Potter has done to society is to increase the number of blind people who can read Braille and to increase the number of kids who love to read. It is hard to tease out the number of kids who have become interested in literature because of the Potter books at the moment but several news stories have mentioned that there has been an increase in literacy rates since the Potter phenomenon. An English professor who I know has told me that, in spite of what some reviewers have said, the literature is very sophisticated.

I myself was very influenced by the Dragon Lance stories as a kid though I would not be able to repeat the stories to you now. They truly influenced my reading habits for the better. My experience with the Potter stories is limited to the movies but I have noticed that they have the most important elements of any successful series:

1) There is great character development. Even the low level characters are of interest.

2) There is is a fascinating and original premise to the story. (A private school for wizards? How many have there been of them?)

3) There is a sophisticated story line.

These are the same factors that made the Star Treks, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Babylon 5 series such a success.

They are also what makes the Catholic church so frightened about the welfare mom from Chipping Sodbury near Bristol, England. What if Christianity is not as cool as a kid with magic powers?

The end could be near!

The Snow in Europe

Update: Did I mention that there are many people in North America who would like to see the following discussion made illegal - any discussion of legalizing drugs made illegal? Amazing is it not?

Now, I am against the prohibition of recreational drugs though I would never recommend using cocaine. Granted it is not quite as addictive as its little brother crack or heroin but anything as addictive as coke with the tendency to make your heart run like a gas chain saw is not something I would want my hypothetical future kids messing with (try talking to them). That being said, the extreme sacrifices that the war on drugs demands from society are so far out of line that only the most irrational can justify them. (Unfortunately those are the people who come out to vote in large numbers.)

Given the progress being made in addiction research like vaccines which temporarily teach the body to mop up small chemicals like cocaine, nicotine and heroine (by sticking them on the end of big proteins so the immune system can recognize them - currently being tested) and like drugs which interfere with the hijacking of the reward system of the brain and help reduce the cravings, now would seem like a good time to end the destructive law enforcement "war on drugs" and start a medical "war on addiction". This would require a redirection of resources from abusing our civil liberties to financing medical science (as opposed to medical studies which are done by drunken frat boys and publicized on the nightly news).

The following is a story about how someone in the E.U. parliament is doing coke in the staff washroom. It would be so cool if they had evidence that it was a politician but it is likely a low level staffer. What I hate is that if coke was discovered in a private sector washroom there would be massive drug tests.

I recently saw an episode of Myth Busters (the only cool reality TV show on earth - they spend their time experimenting on urban myths and cracking jokes instead of swearing at each other and building stupid bikes, cars and houses) which demonstrated that the general purpose drug tests which many companies buy on the Internet are so sensitive that they will show someone who has eaten a couple of poppy seed bagels as testing positive for opiates (like heroine). They estimate that a significant fraction of job applicants have lost opportunities because of drug tests due to poppy seeds and since there is no law saying you need to tell someone they flunked a drug test, they never know. The false positive rate on these tests is frighteningly high.

It is interesting that the governments of the world (influenced by the American "War on drugs" will criminalize any drug which causes an hallucination or a euphoric sensation, regardless of the real addictive or negative health effects. It is as if pleasure and altered visions are in and of themselves damaging. There is a similar fear of using strong pain killers on terminally ill patients in case they somehow survive and become addicted to the meds or if they accidentally die 3 hours early. It seems that whenever the government makes a decision on medications it almost always makes the most unethical one, thanks to bio-ethicists .

I can tell you this - if Serotonin/norepinephrine re-uptake inhibitors ever become illegal I will be running black-market supply chains within 3 days. Tom Cruise can kiss my ass.

But the idea that there are people using coke on a semi-regular basis in the EU parliament while their member nations have laws making citizens into criminals for doing the same seems somewhat hypocritical to me. People lose jobs and have their lives ruined over the choice of chemical they use to relax but if you are rich or politically connected you can just find Jesus and get out of trouble for free.

Let us focus on harm reduction and stop giving a monopoly to organized crime. Alcapone is dead. Lets put the boots to his Hells Angels descendents.

More of that Old Time Religion.

Ok, I admit that I post a lot about religion, especially the really wacky aspects. It might seem to some that I am obsessed with it. It just seems that it has such a power in society and it completely evades any large scale criticism. You can say or do just about anything, express the most insane thoughts but if they have the words "faith" or "God" or "spiritual" attached no one is allowed to laugh or scowl. Wouldn't it be nice if one of these big "inter faith councils" that meet from time to time to make unanimous demands on society (usually to call for more command economy social justice) would spend a couple hours on agreeing on some practices which respectable religions should not engage in. I mean the little things that would separate themselves from cults like demanding that an adherent separate himself from all friends and family that don't join or calling on adherents to bomb unbelievers and OBGYNs who do abortions. Maybe religions could all come forward and give their true position on the separation of church and state and whether they have the same respect for secular people as they claim to have for other "people of faith".

A simple list of 10 or so principles that they feel responsible religions should live up to would be nice.

Thou shalt not promise health or financial miracles on behalf of God in exchange for money or political support.

Thou shalt not demand that books or people be destroyed no matter how ugly they are.

Thou shalt not move to South Carolina in an effort to destabilize the state or the nation.

etc.

That last one is an interesting story. I have heard about it for a while but I guess they could not decide on which state to gang swarm. It seems that when the words "under God" were wedged into the American pledge of allegiance by the Knights of Columbus back in the 50's, they needed to make some room by removing the word "indivisible". This is great for the Christian Exodus crowd. (The Knights of Columbus are the same ones who want the Ten Commandments rubbed in everyone's face when they enter courts and can not stand the idea that there are kids out there at this very moment who are not being forced to pray against their will regardless of what their parents think of it.)

I do not want to give the impression that I am against the Christian Exodus plan. I am all for it. South Carolina is a small price to pay for getting rid of the truly loonie from the rest of the continent. As businesses run like hell, the economies of neighboring states will blossom with the economic refugees and a small number of S.C. residents will be able to make a living selling prayer cloths and holy oil. The rest can wear barrels for clothing and contemplate their good fortune at living in a new Christian nation.

In other news, it seems the Pope has expressed some pre-pontificate worries about Harry Potter. Why is he worried? Benedict has a big stick and Harry has a dopey little wand. He feels that Potter has the ability to undo Christianity. (He does have the mark of the beast on his forehead)

In a letter sent two years before becoming pope, Benedict XVI expressed concern that the Harry Potter books "erode Christianity in the soul" of young people, a German writer says.

Imaginary tales of magic and mystery can cause the end of Christianity eh? Kind of like kryptonite. It looks harmless but put it around Superman's neck and he becomes Superwuss.
Mother Goose and the writings of the Brothers Grimm must have been early Satanic plots that failed because of poor demographic penetration.

It seems the vicar of Christ has been reading a book (Other than the Bible? Way to go you rebel!) which claims that:

the Potter novels blur the boundaries between good and evil.

In the Potter novels it is sometimes hard to figure out who is on the side of good, evil and just out for themselves. We don't want children learning that do we. Sometimes certain members of the authorities are untrustworthy. Most slanderous! The Pope's literary informant...

also asserts that (the stories) glorify the world of witches and magicians at the expense of the human world.

That would be the world of witches and magicians which does not exist! Are these people on crack?!?

The Vatican recently put out its "thoughts" about how horrible it was that people who were disobeying its teachings were taking communion. They then lamented that too few Catholics were attending church. Again I must ask about the crack.

Meanwhile Palestinians are having to decide what kind of role religion should play in their society. The spokesman of a Hamas run Palestinian clearly explains where Hamas' feelings on the issue lie:

"We are not like the Taliban," Sabri said, referring to the Islamic fundamentalists who enforced harsh religious laws during their rule of Afghanistan. "But we respect them (the Taliban) because they chose something suitable for their people."

I am glad they cleared that up.

[sigh...]

Evil Spirits.

Many high profile murderers have blamed their crimes on evil spirits. It is in part to give themselves a way out of accepting personal responsibility but also to defuse the natural outrage of the general community. The amazing thing is that for a large segment of the community this tactic works. People find it easier to believe in demonic influences than to believe that with an extremely abusive childhood or a loose gene here and there, a human being - just like them - can be a psychopathic monster.

The belief in evil spirits is not a harmless coping mechanism though. It is a very dangerous delusion. The following story is absolutely disgraceful and while it is about Africa, the only difference between it and stories in the west is the frequency and the ability to get away with it. The underlying belief is the same. It is time these delusions are treated as such and not legitimate spiritual beliefs.

In the last link about the Pentecostal exorcism gone bad the judge sentenced the perpetrators to 4 years each. Either these people willfully and with forethought took actions that a sensible person would know to be lethal and should have been imprisoned for torture and murder for a long time or they were both violently insane and as such should have been institutionalized until they are no longer considered a danger to anyone. Instead they are given a sentence that is more in line with white collar crime because their religion gives them special status.

It should be noted that while they are sorry the kid died they don't really consider the exorcism a failure:

Both Mr. Zepeda-Cordero and Mr. Osegueda have agreed in the months since Walter died that they were performing an exorcism. But it was not a botched exorcism, they said.

Mr. Zepeda-Cordero's lawyer, Andy Rady, told the court his client takes some solace in his belief that, in the hours before Walter's life ebbed away, the devil also left his body.

Well that's one way to do it. Maybe they only got 4 years because the were "successful".

Google Earth - Very Cool.

I have been playing around with the free software Google Earth and I must say I am very impressed. There are some tiny glitches here and there (like a lake being highlighted in one place if you have the bodies of water toggled on, and the photo of it being slightly off side.) but it is a seriously impressive tool.

I did not have any experience with Google Maps but here is how the Google Earth program works. Lots of satellite and aerial images (of various quality and age and updated periodically) are stitched together to form the globe. Topographical information is incorporated so that you can get a sense of what the Grand Canyon looks like or how far and big the hills and mountains are near your home town. You can toggle on or off things like roads (highways and street maps are overlaid on the images), borders, geological markers like volcanoes, shops, schools, churches, restaurants, you can search the location you are in for search terms like the name of some business you have heard about and as you zoom in towards it a pop-up balloon will provide a link to the business' web site if you want to see it. You can type in a street name or a postal code and it will zoom in to the correct portion of the street map. You can type in a new city or town name and it will zoom out and fly to the new location giving you a sense of geographic perspective. Some cities (American only so far, I believe) have included 3D models of their larger buildings.

You can bookmark specific places and I can imagine a huge number of uses for this; not to mention that it is just really cool to play with. I noticed some regularly spaced little dots in Libya which I thought might be nuclear missile silos but were just circularly irrigated fields in the desert. Boy was my face red after calling the Pentagon on that one.

This software is like Zinthos - "Its exactly what you need, exactly when you need it." (obscure anime reference.)

More Violence (Humans Suck)

What is this on going to be called? 7-7? July seventh? From a raw numbers point of view it was pretty pathetic but that is small comfort to the grieving and maimed and scared. It will be small comfort to the innocent Muslims who get beaten up, threatened and harassed by the craniolithic cowards who will use this as an excuse to behave in the way they always wanted to but could never pretend to justify. I remember a friend of mine living in the States near Washington DC after September 11 th telling me about going in to an Arab owned store plastered with the stars and stripes on every wall and seeing the proprietor with a smile that only one who is scared shitless can muster. He remembers how he was thinking that here was some guy who needs to worry every night about himself or a family member getting killed in a robbery now having this new threat of irrational retribution forced on him by a combination of the stupidest of his new countrymen and the stupidest of the people from his homeland who think they are acting on his behalf. No matter where you go, humans suck.

I was recently working on a post about Ireland. It was a much more difficult post than most I have done because my Father is Irish (South - the Republic, though he is protestant) and he was sane enough to get out (not because of the violence but because of the stupidity). When I was a kid I was proud of my Irish background. It is a pride I have long ago come to discard. I take no side in 'the troubles' because anyone who has looked at both sides with any semblance of a rational mind will see that everyone involved is out of their God damned minds. The trouble was that every time I tried to end the post, it started crossing the line into hate speech. I don't want to hate Ireland (north or south Protestant or Catholic) but when you see the IRA and the 'Orange Order of Flamboyantly Gay Senior Citizens' and their effeminate militant pride parade it is hard to see them as worthy of warm thoughts.

Just in case I abandon the post all together, the point of it was that just before September 11th they were particularly pissing me off. The Protestants (Protestant Irish being my immediate ancestors remember; my people) were throwing rocks, bottles and eventually a small bomb at small (grade one and two) Catholic school girls who were being escorted through the mob by their mothers and police. Their crime, you see, was that they were putting their Catholic feet on Protestant sidewalks as they went to school. An act of unmitigated terrorism by the reckonings of the Protestants.

So then September 11th happened and it seemed like everyone but me forgot about that. I thought I would do some unscientific anecdotal research to see if I saw any evidence that Ireland had wised up since September the eleventh. In my opinion it has not. Both sides are acting as if nothing happened. There is no sense that there are people out there now who would blow them both up by the thousands and not give a damn if they were from the north or south or whether their priest was married or not. They still have the murder worshiping murals up and they still allow terrorists to speak for them in negotiations. They still murder each other but they also feud among themselves to kill time now and then. They, my people, have not learned a damn thing.

The only hope for the world is for us to convince both the IRAs (all five of them) and the Loyalist/Unionist/Ulsterists/whatevers to think that Al Qaida is supporting the other side. We could then let the lowest wits of Ireland and its northern UK province and the lowest wits of the Islamic world wipe each other out.

By the way, humans suck.

On a more positive note, scientists are trying to sequence the genome of Neanderthals from fragments of DNA in fossils. Maybe if we can do this for Homo Erectus we can go back to the drawing board and get humans right this time.

Faith Healers Who Kick it Up a notch.

An evangelical sect which claims faith healing can cure HIV, epilepsy and depression is attempting to gain a foothold in New Zealand.

Now faith healers and quacks (I'm looking at you Tom Cruise!) have been pushing the envelope as of late. Not long after I blogged about Benny Hinn I was watching some Preacher named Peter Popoff (oh man, I wish I had made up that name as a spoof!) giving away "Miracle Spring Water" in small packets which looked suspiciously like those little soy sauce or vinegar packs you get with take away food. In addition to the normal cures that snake oil provides it also causes huge sums of money to mysteriously enter the user's life. I am watching this stuff and wondering why you can do this stuff under the guise of religion when you would get thrown in jail if you tried this in a secular infomercial. Does Vision Television, the Canadian network which retransmits this scam not have to worry about broadcast regulation because they are airing criminals for Christ instead of regular old 'worldly crime'? He did not say if you are supposed to drink it or squirt it in your eye but those who testified on his show were asked if they followed his directions and if they anointed it which I will bet requires a donation after the fact. At the very least you get your name added to a list of people who would request "Miracle Spring Water" by mail. Somehow I would guess people on that list get contacted again. Maybe in regards to an Internet penis.

Anyway back to faith healers ... and Judith healers and Shawna healers.

I think that if these New Zealand fellers can really cure AIDS they should all agree to be injected with the virus by a skeptical neutral party (OH, OH, I'll do it!!) and then see what happens. No taking anti-virals either that is cheating.

I just love that being religious can be used as a 'get out of jail free' card for anything. Are you about to be put out of business for your dubious claims and business practices? Turn into a religion. Can't get one of those pesky medical degrees? Become a Psychic surgeon.

I wonder if I can hold up a liquor store and defend if on religious grounds? If I can I will abandon atheism right now!

What is Wrong With This Exactly?

Here is an interesting device. It is a kind of trap for rapists. It is worn like a hollow tampon but when a rapist tries to violate the woman he finds that the contraption is attached to his willie with barbed hooks. It requires a doctor to remove it surgically (the device not the willie) but it means that little time is spent by police tracking him down.

But anti rape activists are against it.

"This is a medieval instrument, based on male-hating notions and fundamentally misunderstands the nature of rape and violence against women in this society," said Charlene Smith, one of South Africa's most prominent campaigners against rape.

No, I would say that this is based on a perfect understanding of the nature of rape and as for being male-hating, Given that I am a male and I don't rape, I don't see how it is hateful to me at all. As for innocent guys worrying about being caught accidentally, I have one word: foreplay. Plus this would not even need to be used extensively. One or two instances hit the paper and I will bet that rape rates in South Africa drop dramatically.

I do not see why a rapist needs to be spared a little pain and discomfort given what he is doing and since many rapes are perpetrated by a few rapists, this one unhappy night for a few violators could spare large numbers of women of this crime. Not to mention the reduction in AIDS and STD transmissions and unwanted pregnancies.

As far as I can tell this device is a legitimate form of self defense and one hell of a future deterrent.