If You Aren’t Outraged, You Aren’t Paying Attention

Francesca Rice is a veteran. She owns firearms. Lakewood OH police heard about it, came to her condo, got the super to let them in and took them. Ms. Rice was not arrested, she wasn’t home, they just came an took her property. Ms. Rice owns them legally, but the cops will not return the weapons, worth over $15,000 without a court order. So she’s suing them. Story is HERE (Hat tip, Misfit)

If the people who did this weren’t wearing ugly blue polyester uniforms, this would be called “Grand Theft” and “Breaking and Entering”. The Earth-Bound Misfit suggests sending a copy of the United States Constitution to the Lakewood Chief of Police. I concur.

Chief of Police Timothy J. Malley
Lakewood City Hall
12650 Detroit Avenue
Lakewood, Ohio 44107

Also, the cash-strapped city of Cleveland (who is laying off police officers) is spending money and time on a gun registration program that is a. voluntary and b. has no data about efficacy whatsoever.

This might be a radical idea, but if you’re short of money and crime is a problem, you might want to stop hassling the law-abiding, and shift resources to, oh, I don’t know, actually catching criminals.

Graduate School #2

Cause, Manner, and Mechanism of Death.

I Introduction
A. Definitions
1. Cause—That injury or illness that was incompatible with life
2. Mechanism—How the cause was incompatible with life.
3. Manner—How the cause came about
4. What, How, and Why

B. Why is this important?
1. Double indemnity
2. Insurance policies
3. Criminal penalties

II. Cause of Death

A. That injury or illness that was incompatible with life

B. Examples
1. Gunshot wound of head
2. Hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease
3. Group A β-hemolytic Streptococcus sepsis
4. Blunt impacts to head with skull and brain injuries.

III. Mechanism of Death
A. Process

IV. Manner of Death
A. How the cause came about
B. Five manners of death
C. Violent vs. Natural
D. Accident, Suicide, Homicide
E. Undetermined
F. No value judgment
G. No Dumbicide, more’s the pity

V. Causation and temporal delay

A. Proximate cause
B. “But-for” causation
C. Time delay

VI. Cases

The Holy Shit Rule

Stolen from Ken at Popehat, but I think it’s well worth remembering. RTWT

BookFinder’s Most Sought After Out of Print Books for 2011.

I haven’t read ANY of them. And the only one I want is #34, Cards as Weapons by Ricky Jay. Hint, hint.

1 Madonna Sex
2 Nora Roberts Promise Me Tomorrow
3 Stephen King (as Richard Bachman) Rage
4 Stephen King My Pretty Pony
5 Ray Garton In a Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting
6 Luigi Serafini Codex Seraphinianus
7 Johnny Cash Man in Black
8 Norman Mailer Marilyn: A Biography
9 H.Henry Thomas Arithmetic Progress Papers
10 Kyle Onstott Mandingo

11 Allan D. Richter Eve of the End
12 Ray Bradbury Dark Carnival
13 Associated Press The Torch is Passed: The Associated Press Story of The Death of a President
14 Jean Larteguy The Centurions
15 Carl Sagan Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record
16 Cameron Crowe Fast Times at Ridgemont High
17 J.R. Hartley Fly Fishing: Memories of Angling Days
18 Dennis Potter Ticket To Ride
19 Mary and Vincent Price A Treasury of Great Recipes
20 Anne Alexander The Pink Dress

21 Lynne Cheney Sisters
22 Stuart Chase The Road We Are Traveling, 1914-1942, Guide Lines to America’s Future as Reported to the Twentieth Century Fund
23 Andrew Loomis Creative Illustration
24 David Williams Second Sight
25 Anna Elizabeth Bennett Little Witch
26 Nan Gilbert 365 Bedtime Stories
27 Allen Drury Advise and Consent
28 C.S. Lewis The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition
29 Alex Angos Endgame Artillery
30 Philip K. Dick Gather Yourselves Together

31 A.C.H. Smith Labyrinth: A Novel
32 Salvador Dali, illustrator The Jerusalem Bible
33 Elmer Keith Hell, I Was There!
34 Ricky Jay Cards As Weapons
35 Madeleine L’Engle Ilsa
36 Norman Denny The Casket and the Sword
37 Charles Eric Maine World Without Men
38 Paul Gallico Jennie
39 Robert Nathan The Bishop’s Wife
40 Ben Bova The Star Conquerors

41 Walt Kelly I Go Pogo
42 Curtis Richards Halloween
43 S.O. Pidhainy The Black Deeds of the Kremlin: A White Book
44 Clancy Holling The Book of Indians
45 Tom Lea The King Ranch
46 John Blaine The Magic Talisman
47 José Garcia Villa Footnote to Youth
48 Harry Twyford Peters Currier & Ives: Printmakers to the American People
49 Rasiel Suarez ERIC : The Encyclopedia of Roman Imperial Coins
50 Alice Starmore Tudor Roses

51 Kate Holmes Too Good to be Threw
52 Nicholas Guild The Blood Star
53 Charles M. Russell Good Medicine; The Illustrated Letters of Charles M. Russell
54 Donald Hamilton The Big Country
55 J. Mordaunt Crook William Burges and the High Victorian Dream
56 David Whitford A Payroll to Meet: A Story of Greed, Corruption, and Football at SMU
57 Leo S. Figiel On Damascus Steel
58 Marie Simmons Pancakes A to Z
59 W. Somerset Maugham Tellers of Tales: 100 Short Stories From the United States, England, France, Russia and Germany
60 Arthur Koestler The Act of Creation

61 Charles Thomson The Septuagint Bible
62 Henry W. Simon A Treasury of Grand Opera
63 Jack S Levy War in the Modern Great Power System, 1495-1975
64 Jack Howell The Lovely Reed : An Enthusiasts Guide to Building Bamboo Fly Rods
65 John Harris Covenant With Death
66 Charles Luk (Translator) Empty Cloud: The Autobiography of the Chinese Zen Master, Hsu Yun
67 Jan Wolkers Turkish Delight
68 Watt Piper The Bumper Book; a Harvest of Stories and Verses
69 John Burnet Platonism
70 David Miller The Nature of Political Theory

71 Laura Bannon The Wonderful Fashion Doll
72 John D. Green Birds of Britain
73 Glen Cook She Is The Darkness
74 Sarah Bradford The Reluctant King
75 Charles Flato The Golden Book of the Civil War
76 James Virgil Howe The Modern Gunsmith : a guide for the amateur and professional gunsmith in the design and construction of firearms, with practical suggestions for all who like guns
77 Ernest Cole House of Bondage
78 Patricia C. Barry ABCs of Long Arm Quilting
79 Ferdinand Pecora Wall St. Under Oath; The Story of our Modern Money Changers
80 A.E. Gutnov and A. Baburov The Ideal Communist City

81 Arthur Upfield The Lure of the Bush aka The Barrakee Mystery
82 Polan Banks Carriage Entrance
83 Barbara Newhall Follett The House Without Windows
84 R.P. Hunnicutt Stuart: A History of the American Light Tank
85 John Cage Notations
86 M.J. Whitley German Coastal Forces of World War Two
87 Roland Pierrot Chemical and determinative tables of mineralogy
88 Arthur Watt VLF Radio Engineering
89 John Atlee Kouwenhoven The Columbia Historical Portrait of New York: An Essay in Graphic History
90 Cecil Beaton The Glass of Fashion

91 David Sokol Pleased, But Not Satisfied
92 Steve Wiper USS New Jersey BB-62
93 Laura London The Windflower
94 Edward Matunas Practical Gunsmithing
95 Thomas Craven A Treasury of American Prints – A Selection of One Hundred Etchings and Lithogrphas by the Foremost Living American Artists
96 Paul Hoffman To Drop a Dime
97 Nicholas Brawer British Campaign Furniture: Elegance Under Canvas, 1740-1914
98 Sam Dalal Swami and Mantra
99 Alan Raven and John Roberts British Battleships of World War Two
100 Don Graf Basic Building Data: 10,000 Timeless Construction Facts

HIstology #1

Having lost a fight with the copy machine (it’s a clever bugger) I made it to class. Went through all the administrivia–pass out the syllabus, who am I, why are we here, all that rot. I manged to talk about Kohler illumination* how to focus the condenser, why one should not drop the microscope, ($1500 and north) or the slided ($25/pop, minimum) and why not to roll over slides with their chairs (yeah, I’ve done that). What are cells, what are stains, why to stains, stain things. The very basicss.

Was slightly disappointed in that the projecting microscope did not project, so I couldn’t demonstrate what I was talking about. And it makes it hard to do histology with not visual aids. But I think I needed tech help, which I did not have. So, after reaching the limits of MY abilities, I dismissed the class early. They can get their materials, and I will have everything set up the next time.

Graduate School #1

So far, six students. Three male, three female, four in the master’s program. Just basic introductory material today. I’m working on this class being less “The William Show” and more Socratic. We’ll see how it goes.

Pass The Word

Fellow blogger Carteach0 is running a raffle on his blog, to support the Wounded Warrior Project. WWP is a charity that helps raise awareness and gives assistance to wounded and disabled veterans. Please, enter and spread the word. His blog is HERE.

Sappy Cat Blogging

Murphy.

Blast from the Past

Two people in Wayne County are dead of a propoxyphene overdose. Story HERE. Haven’t seen one of THESE ina while, since the drugs was banned a while ago.

Monkey C. Monkeydew

The NPR’s Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy novels with the ones I have read in bold: Comments added.

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams The first was Brilliant. The others were OK.
3. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card This was a great short story, a decent book, and a series that should have quit after the first book, really.
4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert* Again, the first book was excellent, but they’ve been beating the dead horse of this franchise for so long the glue the dead horse made has disintegrated.
5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin
6. 1984, by George Orwell
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac AsimovLiked the first book, liked Foundation’s Edge though Isaac had lost a step by that time. The crossover books and prequels smelt of the lamp.
9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan
13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson
15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore
16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss
19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick
22. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood*# THIS counts as SF?
23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King*
24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
25. The Stand, by Stephen King*
26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
28. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman
30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein I’m surprised this book didn’t make NPR listener’s heads go asplodey. Or any of Heinlein’s other material, really.
32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffreyThe first one, OK, the rest, meh.
34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller
36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys
39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells
40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny
41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings
42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley*# Bradley cannot write without using stock epithets. Which are boring. And without polemic. Which is worse.
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson
44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven
45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien*I couldn’t take it. Too much lingusitics, and too few myths.
47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. WhiteThis one is really underrated.
48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
49. Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke
50. Contact, by Carl Sagan
51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons
52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
54. World War Z, by Max Brooks
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson
59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
61. The Mote In God’s Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind
63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke*
65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist
67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks
68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard
69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
70. The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne
73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore
74. Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi
75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson
76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
77. The Kushiel’s Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey
78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson
82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks83rd? 83rd? Some of the most complex and subtle SF around, and only 83rd? Plus Banks has a strong Progressive/utopian bias-which would be right up NPR’s audiense’s alley.
84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher
87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan
90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock
91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson
96. Lucifer’s Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony# Oh, my dear God.
100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis

That’s it. No Spider Robinson. No David Weber or S.M. Sterling. No Sprague De Camp or Poul Anderson. Hell, no 2001. A lot of classics were left out, and a lot of the good moderns were too.
* I couldn’t finish the book. # I threw it against the wall. 50/100. I haven’t had a lot of time for recreational reading too much.