What if THIS homeowner had a loaded gun handy?

Following on the case where a Laval, QC man was acquitted of murder for killing a police officer whom he mistook for a home invader, we have this from Maryland:


Without bothering to alert Berwyn Heights police, sheriff's deputies moved into position. Posing as a deliveryman, a deputy took the package to the family's door. After Mr. Calvo's mother-in-law initially refused to sign for it, the package was finally taken into the home, where it sat, unopened, on the living room floor. Whereupon the deputies, guns drawn, kicked in the door, stormed the house and shot to death the Calvos' two Labrador retrievers, one of them, apparently, as it attempted to flee. The canine threat thus dispatched, the mayor [Mr. Calvo] -- in his briefs -- and his mother-in-law were handcuffed and interrogated in close proximity to the bloodied corpses of their dogs.

Within an hour, it seems, the police concluded that something was seriously wrong and that there was at least a strong possibility that the Calvos -- whose home contained not the slightest evidence of involvement in the drug trade -- were unsuspecting victims. The deputies left without making arrests.

For exactly why the (county, not local) police were doing this, read the article (it's short). In brief, it was about a package of marijuiana addressed to Mr. Calvo's wife, hardly the kind of threat to world peace that should accompany this sort of action. The man is the Mayor of his small town, and as a public figure, the cops should have been able to walk up to the door and serve a warrant in a civilized fashion without assuming Mr. Clavo is Scarface or something. And they were Labradors, not fucking Rotweillers or even Alsatians; arguably the least threatening (non-puntable) dogs I know of.

The most alarming thing about this (it's a later development than this article) is that nobody in any authority is doing anything about it as of this writing. The State Attorney General should be kicking some ass, but not a peep.

Some of you will remember Waco from a few years ago, and although it's yet more heavy-handed, trigger-happy US law-enforcement action, at least the Branch Dividians were armed. Still, I haven't seen anything that makes me think they were a threat to anyone else, which brings it in line with the current story.

If these tactical squad guys want so badly to shoot at people, join the US Army and ask to go to Afghanistan. There isn't a lot of this in Canada because neither the public nor (more importantly) the government would stand for it. In fact, in that incident in Laval, the cops didn't shoot even when tactically, at least, they should have.

Time will tell on this one, but I might expect this sort of thing (and more to the point, the lack of legal redress) in China or Russia, not "the land of the free".

Blood in the water

Although I haven’t heard much of it in awhile, (probably `cause I’m not looking) this article seems to put a real dent in the ‘pull out the troops, send in CIDA’ plan. I particularly like that this is written by someone with a vested personal interest in delivering aid to the Afghans.

The place is not safe, full stop. It is marginally (ok, a lot) safer if you’re heavily armed and travelling in armoured vehicles, albeit you are then a really obvious target. If you are in any way obviously a Westerner you are a target, not only from the Taliban but any criminal, etc. groups. The latter types don’t screw with the Army because they’re in it for the money, not to meet Allah in person, but they will certainly take out soft targets, usually for ransom. Painting a big Red Cross, etc. on your stuff just marks you as a soft target.

At that point the Taliban will kill you (although capturing and torturing first aren’t out of the question) and the plain crooks will try to find some way to make money off of you. The only things even slowing any of this down are the security forces; it’s obvious this year that they aren’t stopping it.

So what happens if Jack Layton and his ilk get their way? To this point it’s been: ‘stop the combat operations and focus on reconstruction!’ I have never believed that that would work, but I seem to have a lot more company these days. There is the equivalent to a good-sized (bigger than ours) army in Afghanistan trying to secure the place and it’s just getting worse.

Some will say that this is the symptom of the fighting; if you start talking instead all the nastiness will end. It’ll end alright; under the boot of the Taliban taking the place back to the Stone Age like it did a decade ago. It seems we went in to stop that, and the same bleeding hearts who don’t like us beating on the Islamist idiots are the ones who deplored the state of women (in particular) under the same Taliban.

If things were going our way, more dead Taliban would be an actual advance for us. We can, it seems, keep wasting them and an inexhaustible supply pours over the border from Pakistan and elsewhere; ergo, no net advantage.

Pakistan is trying to take the fight back into the Tribal areas of the NW Frontier, but with limited success. They have gotten kicked (due to plan leaks to the opposition) several times, but if they can find a quiet way to co-ordinate with the Americans, maybe we can kill enough bad guys to make a difference.

Should we stay or should we go? If we stay it will be trouble, and if we leave it will be double (or reverse that, I have no real idea), but the root of the solution involves killing them faster, in larger numbers, without taking a pile of non-combatants with them. Driving around in well marked aid agency vehicles is just a good way to get killed, etc. until we manage to do that. The Taliban know their business, and it’s a simple, nasty one; kill enough people and they’ll be too scared to keep trying to fix the place. The Taliban like it broken, it keeps the people in their place: ignorant and poor.

So leave the troops in and they at least have someone who can fight back, or pull them out and leave all the soft targets completely to their own devices. Yes, Jack and company, that will help all concerned, and we’re seeing the proof of that now. We’ve proved that killing aid workers will do more, at less risk to the bad guys, to undermine our objectives and our will to continue than killing soldiers can.

The key to being effective (as opposed to nice) is doing what works best, and killing defenceless aid workers works brilliantly against western governments and populations. Expect to see more of this.

The Guns of August, or, Back to the USSR

Ok, so the Olympics may still be on (really only begun), but I’m not noticing that as news. What is news, and it’s hard to overstate the disaster potential which remains in it, is Russia’s serious smackdown of Georgia.

As of today, the Russians have claimed to have stopped pursuit operations into Georgia, but they’re not in a hurry to pull back out. I suspect they are looking for any excuse (and they don’t need much of one) to pound the Georgians, specifically the army.

This is a message to the Georgians, all former ‘Soviet Republics’ and to the West as well that Russia is back and it makes the rules in its’ back yard. For a long time the Russians only had economic means to bend satellite countries to its will; those (read: natural gas and oil) remain, but the Red army is back, baby.

This is no surprise to any who have been following things in that part of the world, but a lot of people have these fuzzy memories of the Russians getting shot to hell in Grozny the first time around. The second time (1999-2000) was a far different story, and marked the return of the Russian Army as a serious force.

Georgia has been angling for NATO membership, and we can all be thankful that they weren’t let in. This is nothing against Georgia, but they are in Russia’s sphere, and major wars have started over a lot less than the current goings-on. If they were full members of NATO, we would be obliged to HELP THEM FIGHT THE RUSSIANS. I emphasized that to ensure you were as alarmed by that prospect as you should be...

Culturally and politically we have a lot more in common with Georgia than with Russia, but we can’t help them. If NATO decided to start WWIII over this (II started over Poland, and WWI over Serbia, of all places) Georgia would be flattened before the first NATO troops rolled onto Russian soil, and eastern Europe (e.g. Ukraine, Byelorussia) would revert to the Soviet/Russian glacis that it used to be as the Russians pushed into it to pre-empt them joining us or being used against them.

It gets better. I personally have no use for Kosovo (I think we backed the wrong side), but the Serbs like the Russians and vice-versa. All it would take is for some ‘ultranationalists’ to take over in Belgrade while NATO`s hands are tied with the full might of the Russian armed forces (they have a navy and an air force too!), and Kosovo would be southern Serbia again.

Are our sailors still trained to a high pitch to find and destroy Russian subs? I doubt it. I’m not even seriously considering a nuclear exchange, but let’s remember who we’re talking about here.

Sure, the combined forces of Europe and the US could beat the Russians, but at what cost, and really, to what purpose? If (imperfect example) Mexico decided to take Arizona back, what would the US do? The Yanks would probably stop at the Rio Grande, but they aren’t the Russians. Militarily the Russians did this right, putting the hurt on the opposition and leaving them no sanctuary. It looks ugly on TV but war is hell, even the small, local ones.

It also has to be said that Georgia, allowing for the fact that it was provoked (repeatedly), did start this by attacking in South Ossetia. That was a big mistake, but I imagine this will be the last time Georgia assumes that the Bear is still hibernating.

Hold off on that Hydrogen-powered car...

First off, I've not been very productive here, and I'll be amazed if anyone is still paying attention. That said, I slogged through this paper on Hydrogen as a fuel source, and I think it's required reading for anyone to understand why you won't be pulling up to the pump at the local gas station to fill up your hydrogen powered car.

Your car will run on H2 with little modification; the stuff explodes just fine. The things I didn't know were the energy required to separate it and near impossibility to transport it any significant distance in any economic or useful quantity.

I did see a really good article about some engineer in the US who got grants to convert his house and car to H2. He electrolyses it himself from rainwater using electricity generated by his solar array, and the H2 he doesn't need during the summer is stored in bulk tanks and is topped up by whatever he can generate during the low solar periods and is used to run things until the sun is out enough to make it unnecessary again.

That has potential, but it's a major investment (c. $250K for your house) and not likely to be economical any time soon. Maybe some sort of planned community thing? It will work on a neighbourhood scale and may make sense there before anywhere else, but I'm not in that racket.

I won't summarize it more than that. It's a bit dry but it's only 15 pages, and those of you math-challenged like myself can skim the equations and get the gist from the graphs. We have to come up with some new ways of doing things, and there are some useful suggestions in this paper even if I don't agree with all of their assumptions about global warming.

Who pays for this again?

First the background:

VANCOUVER -- Immigrants with HIV account for a large portion of new infections of the disease in Canada and they're slipping between the health-care cracks, warns a recent report.

Although Citizenship and Immigration Canada is considering making HIV a reportable disease, currently it is not,meaning it is not considered a public health risk and it is not mandatory to report infections to public health officials.

The recent report by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control found that about 16 per cent of all new infections in Canada are linked to people from countries where HIV is prevalent, yet they make up only 1.5 per cent of the Canadian population.

The 2005 figure means the infection rate was almost 13 times greater for immigrants - or those connected to them - from HIV-endemic countries than for Canadians.

It's not the Black Death or anything, but I think we can all agree that HIV leads (in most cases) to AIDS, and that is both terminal, transmissible and a drain on our health care system. For the record, there is some dispute about the inevitability of the HIV-AIDS link but I include that only in the interest of balance. HIV remains a reliable predictor of AIDS, if nothing else.

The article continues:

Michael Battista, a Toronto lawyer who focuses on immigration and refugee law, said people are counselled about the dangers of spreading the disease.

"Citizenship and Immigration Canada wisely decided that people with HIV do not pose a danger to public health or safety," Battista said.

"And so I think it's on that basis that Citizenship and Immigration Canada doesn't have a strong connection to provincial health authorities in terms of reporting newcomers with HIV."

Battista believes the follow up from provincial health officials is an intrusion.

"I think there are huge privacy concerns that are raised when people with HIV go through the system, particularly given the fact that HIV is not something that is easily spread," said Battista.

Between 2002 and 2006 there were 2,567 immigration applicants who tested positive for HIV during their medical examinations among the 1.2 million immigrants to Canada accepted during the same period.

Of those HIV-positive applicants, 89 per cent were determined to be medically admissible to the country.

A person with HIV has an added burden compared to other Canadian immigrants getting into the country.A person with HIV is not inadmissable outright, but it is very difficult for HIV-positive immigrants or refugees to gain admission.

That last bit first. With the volume of people who would like into Canada, I see no reason to admit people with any serious disease, hard to get or otherwise. As well, 89% is MOST of those who try, suggesting to me that it's not as hard for them to get in as that last sentence would have us believe.

I don't personally think that anyone not a Canadian citizen has any entitlement to our health care system, and I certainly don't want waves of medical refugees fetching up on our shores, but the numbers don't seem to suggest that is happening. I am also not so concerned with privacy issues as they relate to would-be immigrants carrying a deadly infectious disease. Then again, I'm not a lawyer who makes his money from those people, so I would like to think my position is hardly surprising.

This is not all about level of physical risk from a given disease; there are financial costs associated with treatment of any of these things, and people who haven't paid into the system are an undue drain upon it. It's very nice for Citizenship and Immigration Canada to "wisely" decide who is entitled to our taxpayer money, but last I checked those bureaucrats hadn't been elected. And there is the law on the matter as well:

A foreign national can be considered inadmissible on health grounds if they're likely to be a danger to public health or safety or could be expected to cause excessive demands on health or social services.

I was reading something yesterday about the reality of the costs of things and the dangers of deciding that those costs don't exist or are irrelevant. The Gods of the Copybook Headings will tell you "If you don't work you die." but it seems that a passing familiarity with the basic economics of the world, let alone our taxpayer-funded system are of little import to our "elites".

He got one thing right at least.

When the agent accuses Khadr of crying to avoid interrogation, Khadr tells the agent between gasping sobs, "You don't care about me."

Damned straight I don't. I wonder if he was this much of a cry-baby in Taliban camp in Pakistan but somehow I doubt it. The solution to this would have been a third bullet, since the first two were inadequate for the job; now we'll never be rid of this guy.

Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

I like to think that this is a victory for some kind of sense in this country, but it's flawed for sure.

The father of two testified he thought his family was being attacked by home invaders when a police team swarmed his house on March 2, 2007.

Nine police officers smashed down the front door of Parasiris's home with a battering ram in the pre-dawn raid.

Tessier and his colleagues ran upstairs to the master bedroom with their weapons drawn.

Parasiris testified his only thoughts during the chaos were to protect his wife and children.

He grabbed his .357 Magnum and was confronted by Tessier, who was dressed in dark colours with nothing indicating he was a police officer, according to testimony in the trial.

I take only the most obvious facts into account in making my appraisal of this being a good result, that is some guy waking up disoriented in the wee hours of the morning with a bunch of guys in ninja/SWAT gear thumping up his stairs waving guns and yelling.

Apparently the cops were yelling "Police, warrant" or some such, which is all well and good, but a) buddy had to hear that, b) he had to register it (he was rudely awakened after all) and c) he had to believe it.

A jury of his peers have already ruled that his action was reasonable in the circumstances, and I for one agree. He's most certainly going to be charged (and convicted) for not following the safe storage laws mandated for restricted firearms, which is definitely what happened here. He would not have been in any position to wake up and shoot some intruder otherwise. It's also highly questionable that he kept loaded firearms in a house with children, but these matters are before the courts as I write this so 'nuff said on that.

For the record, I share his appraisal of the .357 revolver as the ideal CQB weapon for countering home invasions. It will stop anyone in their tracks, is more manageable than a .44 for follow-up shots, and as a revolver you can keep it loaded forever with no poxy magazine-spring fatigue to cramp your style.

No; in case you suspected sarcasm, I'm quite serious. It is very much against Canadian law to be prepared to defend yourself effectively so I will not suggest you rush out (to wait months or more) to get a permit to buy said pistol. You do however know, in case it's ever relevant, that a .357 Magnum is capable of taking down a fully-equipped SWAT trooper at close quarters, and your average punk home invader would be a much softer target, dusted/cracked out or not.

It is a tragedy for the family and friends of Officer Tessier that he lost his life in this manner, but it's a dangerous job and we take our chances. There are hopefully some questions being asked of the Laval PD that will avoid a repeat of this event. From a professional standpoint, it was an operational failure that this guy got the drop on him and was not neutralized as soon as he presented a weapon.

If you talk the talk, you had better be able to walk the walk; what I mean by that is if you're going to go charging in SAS style you are presumably expecting to need that sort of kinetic, lethal action, and you'd better be bloody well ready to use your training to the full. A guy swinging a gun at you certainly warrants a lethal response, and I note that Officer Tessier's fireteam partner (or whatever the cops call them) didn't empty a magazine into Mr. Parasiris, the tactically correct response to one of your buddies getting capped.

So, to sum up:

• a very unfortunate loss of a police officer in the line of duty
• an excellent precedent to reaffirm our legal right to use up to lethal force to defend ourselves and our families from home invasion, etc.
• an expose of the questionable choice of targets by the local PD
• some serious questions could be asked about all these SWAT-type officers and why they are parading around with all this kit and doing these assault operations if they aren't either properly trained for that sort of thing or not prepared to use their training when circumstances warrant.

I doubt that anyone at the trial was thinking about this the way I did, but this is after all MY blog, and I'm special as we all know...