New dress code in Iran: Jews and Christians must wear badges

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by MaggieL

Yes...the prefered method of execution is "stoning"; a stone wall is pushed over on the victim and they are crushed to death. The Taliban sometimes used mud walls and a bulldozer.

I guess the masons' union wasn't as strong under the Taliban.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

I guess the masons' union wasn't as strong under the Taliban.

rolling, gathering chuckles bursting into full fledged mirth.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Damn shame when a honest tradesman gets undercut by those cheap stoners.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Well done MaggieL! I'm an old Omaha fan myself, and I've used that line in conversation time to time. Too bad the tale was never finished AFAIK.

Polymer-frame Commander-length 1911 clone in Gwennie's paw, I see. Somebody has classicist taste in handguns. Is it one of the unusual kind with an external extractor? That dot aft the ejection port suggests something different from John Browning's original internal extractor.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Well done MaggieL! I'm an old Omaha fan myself, and I've used that line in conversation time to time. Too bad the tale was never finished AFAIK.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

In early 2004, Waller and Worley had moved beyond their disagreement, and were collaborating to finish the hanging storyline. However, Worley's death interrupted that work. Her widower, Jim Vance, using her notes, took her place. The title has been picked up by NBM Publishing, and has resumed publication as of November, 2005 with the new work being serialized in the magazine Sizzle.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Polymer-frame Commander-length 1911 clone in Gwennie's paw, I see. Somebody has classicist taste in handguns. Is it one of the unusual kind with an external extractor? That dot aft the ejection port suggests something different from John Browning's original internal extractor.

Kimber Pro-Carry 10 II. Yes, it's an external extractor...also serves as a tactile "chamber loaded" indicator

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Sweet. I like 1911s, own two (one's about eighty years old, w/new firing pin retaining plate, and reblued, with "Property of United States" ground off the frame), and have heard good report of Kimber. Next largebore centerfire pistol I get, I'd want either a Kimber or a .45 Kahr.

Is there a chapter of Pink Pistols in your area? They might be fun to shoot with.

Thanks very much for the new info -- haven't bought comix in some time.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Is there a chapter of Pink Pistols in your area? They might be fun to shoot with.

Ya think? :-)

Gwennie and I founded the Delaware Valley chapter about five years ago. She's National Media Spokesperson for the Pistols. The original founder Doug Krick (who had been quite active with the LP up in Massachusetts) was an old friend of hers; we found out *after* getting involved. :-).

DelVal meets every third Saturday for lunch and then shoots at a local range after.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Outstanding, and neato mosquito. If you're going to use arms, you should use them with skill and with diligence. Robert Heinlein once wrote, "A man should . . .fight efficiently, die gallantly. . . [quite an assortment of desiderata in the ellipses]. . . Specialization is for insects."

Maybe someday if you two come out to southern California, we might arrange to shoot in Holser Canyon, the extreme upper end of which hosts the annual Steel Challenge competition every August. Holser Canyon, near Piru, CA, is so end-to-end with shooting ranges it might as well be named "Holster Canyon." It would take a bit of arranging, as I don't have a membership out there, but it might be done.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Outstanding, and neato mosquito. If you're going to use arms, you should use them with skill and with diligence. Robert Heinlein once wrote...

Yes, we're both Heinlien fans, and know that quote and several similar others. (Like "Always keep your clothes and your weapons where you can find them in the dark.". His views on the subject were quite clear.

Originally Posted by RAH

My great-great-great-grandfather Lawrence Heinlein died prematurely at the age of ninety-seven, through having carelessly left his cabin one winter morning without his gun—and found a buck deer on the ice of his pond. Lack of his gun did not stop my triple-great-grandfather; this skinful of meat must not be allowed to escape. He went out on the ice and bulldogged the buck, quite successfully.

But in throwing the deer my ancestor slipped on the ice, went down, and a point of the buck's rack stabbed between his ribs and pierced his heart.

No doubt it taught him a lesson—it certainly taught me one. So far I've beaten the odds three times: continued to live when the official prognosis called for something less active. So I intend to be careful—not chopped down in my prime the way my ancestor was. I shan't bulldog any buck deer, or cross against the lights, or reach barehanded into dark places favored by black widow spiders, or—most especially!—leave my quarters without being adequately armed.

Perhaps the warmest pleasure in life is the knowledge that one has no enemies. The easiest way to achieve this is by outliving them.

It's not widely known that he got into quite a struggle with the woman who editied the Scribners juvenile series over the use of firearms in "Rocket Ship Gallileo"; some of the corresponance appears in "Grumbles from the Grave", the posthumous collection of his letters published by his widow.

Thanks for the invitation; I've been to CA but go there as infrequently as possible.

[MrVisible]

The original article on this subject was a complete fabrication. The author of the story, Amir Taheri, is standing by it, but has no evidence or sources that will corroborate his story. The paper that printed the original column has issued a retraction. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the draft of the law that was being discussed, and confirmed that all it did was encourage Iranians to wear Islamic clothing. The whole story was complete disinformation.

A good overview:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Ir...aw_controversy

And another:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0525/dailyUpdate.html

It may interest some of you to know that Amir Taheri was invited to the White House on Tuesday to offer his 'expert' opinion on Iran.

So we're being fed inflammatory disinformation in order to get us to start a pre-emptive war in the middle east. This sounds oddly familiar...

Originally Posted by Heinlein

A generation which ignores history has no past -- and no future.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by MrVisible

It may interest some of you to know that Amir Taheri was invited to the White House on Tuesday to offer his 'expert' opinion on Iran.

That's not what the briefing said. Wouldn't want to get a story only partly right...:-)

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by MaggieL

That's not what the briefing said.

Yes it is:

Q Can you give us a readout on the President's meeting this morning with the Iraq experts?
MR. SNOW: Yes. Oh, my goodness, I forgot to bring the list. But actually -- do you have the list, Fred? Yes, it was an interesting meeting. What you ended up having was -- I've got all the names but one written down here. We had Wayne Downing, Barry McCaffrey, Michael Vickers, Amir Taheri, Fouad Ajami and Raad Alkadiri. And you had a combination there of military men and also scholars who are students of Iraq. And it was an interesting discussion that touched upon cultural issues, on political issues, on the state of affairs in Iraq. You had a number of people who've been there recently, General McCaffrey having returned just last month from his latest visit. Fouad Ajami last year had the occasion to sit down and speak with the Ayatollah Sistani, Ali al Sistani.

[MaggieL]

One does like to read original sources. Also responses. More from the same author.

[MrVisible]

Well, it's an interesting strategy. You don't address any of the facts about the debunked story from the articles I posted, like that the National Post retracted the story in question or the refutation by the Associated Press, but instead repost the story, and a couple more articles by the same author. Perhaps you'd like to explain what it is you're trying to prove? Once someone's veracity is questioned, maybe you should check to see that their facts right instead of taking their word on their own honesty.

And are you actually suggesting that it's all right to invite this man, widely recognized as having fabricated disinformation to feed into the 'attack Iran' mentality, invited to the White House to provide 'expert' advice on any Middle East policy? Perhaps you think that, though he lies about Iran, he's scrupulously honest about Iraq?

Or was it just a reflexive "you made a typo, neener neener" response?

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by MrVisible

Or was it just a reflexive "you made a typo, neener neener" response?

Ah...so you actually knew he was invited to speak on Iraq, not Iran, and accidently typed the name of the wrong country, as opposed to being misled by what Molly Ivans' wrote?

As for "strategy", what I actually said was "it's interesting to read original sources"...which was apparently was the Taheri opinion piece (rather than the retracted Canadian article), which, far from being retracted, Taheri say's he's standing by. The other "original source" of course is the Snow briefing vs. the Ivans screed on "Truthdig".

I say it's interesting to read them. And I'm standing by that.