Jesus Rifles

- Somewhere in Afghanistan -

"Akhmed!  I am mortally wounded!"

"D'oh!  What ever shall we do, Sarge?"

"Did you catch the serial number on that rifle?"

"ACOG4X32JN8:12, Sir."

"Ack!  That is obviously a reference to John 8:12.  Pull out your NIV and read it to me!"

"No need, Sir.  I can recite it from memory. 'When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.''"

"It is just as I feared!  I have been shot by a Jesus rifle.  Avenge me in the name of Allah!"

"But Sir, isn't Jesus one of Allah's great prophe-"

"DO IT ANYWAY!!!"

- Back to Reality -

I know, it's ridiculous, but according to ABC News, this is exactly what Michael Weinstein of the inappropriately named Military Religious Freedom Foundation claims is happening:

"It allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they're being shot by Jesus rifles, ... We're emboldening an enemy."

Getting shot may or may not tick you off, but if it's a Jesus Rifle (TM) you're sure to be angry.  It's almost like they haven't already decided the States are "the great Satan."

Seriously, though, worshipers of religious censorship "freedom" are making two primary claims when discussing this story.

Claim #1: It violates the separation of church and state.

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution reads:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

A violation of the separation of church and state is not necessarily a violation of the U.S. constitution (or any national law, for that matter) because the words "church," "state," or "separation" do not exist in the "establishment" clause.  This issue has nothing to do with congressional laws, so it gets the Bill of Rights nod of approval.

Claim #2: It violates U.S. military rules by proselytizing to the people of foreign nations.

The funny thing about this claim, similar to the one above, is that the people crying about injustice won't actually quote the rules.  Here is what the Uniform Code of Military Justice says about proselytizing:

"Military officials must ensure that service members are neither punished for their beliefs nor subjected to unwanted proselytizing or evangelizing from military chaplains or senior officers and noncommissioned officers, even if the proselytizing or evangelizing is intended as a good-faith effort to salvage the spiritual health of the service members."

What does this regulation have to do with protecting foreigners from harmful messages of love and forgiveness?  Right.  Nothing.

[Edit: Actually, there's more.  For a discussion of General Order No. 1, see the comments below.]

In addition, if you wanted to make the claim that service members are being subjected to unwanted evangelizing from officers, go ask your local serviceman if he'd rather have the Bible-stamped scope from Trijicon or the basic hunting model from Wal-Mart.  (Go on.  It's okay.  They're actually nice once you get to know them.)  I guarantee he'll agree with the officers that signed the contracts for these excellent pieces of American technology.

A private company has every right to stamp references to Bible verses, quoted Bible passages, crosses, or whatever on its products.  And if that company's products are the most effective at saving American lives, the armed forces have every right to purchase them.  Isn't the rule of law wonderful?

Besides, I have it on good authority that Trijicon only hires the very best productivity engineers.  Trijicon is one of, what, two? businesses in Michigan that are successful right now.  Perhaps the media could benefit from the use of some scopes to zoom in on actual problems instead of shooting themselves in the feet.

Amazing Case&PSU Combo

It's been a while since I've posted any recommendations for budget gaming PC hardware, and there's a reason for that. Video card prices are terrible right now, and RAM isn't much better. The production of AMD's HD4XXX series has dropped in favor of the new but understocked HD5xxx generation. In addition, AMD won't have any real competition from Nvidia for a few more months. Don't expect GPU prices to drop significantly until the summer season, after the price of Nvidia's yet unreleased hardware starts to settle.

As far as RAM goes, it looks like DDR2's reign is ending in favor of DDR3, so a lower supply has brought the prices up to DDR3 levels. By the time video card prices significantly drop, we might also see DDR3 go down a bit more.

Regardless, I did happen to notice a totally awesome deal that I wanted to make people aware of. AZZA, a company that doesn't seem to get much attention, has a great rebate/combo/sale/promo offer at Newegg for a PC case and power supply. Here it is:

Case: AZZA Solano 1000 Black Steel/Metal mesh ATX Full Tower - $65 (after $45 rebate and $10 promo code)

Power Supply: AZZA Dynamo 850W ATX Power Supply - $60 (after $40 rebate)

Discount: $20 (Case/PSU combo deal)

Shipping: $10

Total: $115

The shipping on the case is free, which is awesome because cases usually have the highest shipping costs. The same $20 combo deal also applies to three different power supplies. Here are the other two:

AZZA Dynamo 650W ATX Power Supply - $40 (after $30 rebate)
AZZA Dynamo 500W ATX Power Supply - $20 (after $20 rebate)

The 850W PSU has 2 6-Pin and 2 6+2-Pin PCI-Express connectors for lots of GPU power, as well as 4 12V rails.
The 650W PSU has 1 6-Pin and 1 6+2-Pin PCI-Express connectors and 2 12V rails.
The 500W PSU has 1 6-Pin PCI-Express connector for a modest single-GPU setup and 2 12V rails as well.

Therefore, if your power needs are similar to those of my current gaming machine, you can get away with spending a total of $74 (after rebates) for an awesome case with a nice 500W PSU.

Things to note:

- The rebates for the power supplies end on Dec 31st, the promo code for the case ends Jan 1st, and the rebate for the case ends Jan 5th.
- The case seems to have gotten great reviews on several review sites, as well as 5/5 eggs at Newegg.
- The Power Supplies seem to have decent reviews with 4/5 eggs, although the 500W only has 3/5 eggs. I generally don't suggest getting anything with less than 4/5 eggs and a healthy number of reviews, but I think it's safe to assume that the smaller PSU shares the same build quality as its bigger brothers. It wouldn't hurt to do a little more research, but at this price you're really not risking a whole lot. Remember, Newegg's customer service is second to none.

I know this deal is very rebate heavy, but I've always been comfortable with taking advantage of the rebate system. This bargain is so good that even if you're not planning on building a PC for a few months, you might want to grab these items anyway and use the rebate money to build the rest of your system later. Sure, other deals will be available in the future, but I haven't seen anything this good for a long time. Just be sure you are able test them right away to verify that they're working properly.

In other news...

I got a Microsoft SideWinder X6 keyboard for Christmas and am loving it. It was on my list because I wanted something with backlighting and a detachable numpad. The healthy list other features is nice, but I haven't had time to play with them much yet.

One thing to note is that it's a little weird getting used to the new key positioning. The macro keys on the left throw me off when I want to hit Tab or Shift, and removing the numpad also messes me up on the right side. I was expecting this and I'm sure it will pass with time. I want to try keeping the numpad on the left for a more ideal gaming position, so we'll see how that works out.

Truth is Absolutely Unrelated to Consensus

In light of the recent issue of "Climategate" I hope people are understanding how other areas of science may be impacted by similar problems.  If you think this problem is isolated to a few rogue scientists, you simply have not been paying attention to academia in our country and in the world.  The fields of environmental science, historical science, and medical science are all damaged by corruption, greed, and deception.  Even my own area of expertise, computer science, is not immune to these vices.

Facts are not factual just because people believe them to be true.  Consensus is completely independent of truth. In addition, credentials have nothing to do with trustworthiness.

C. S. Lewis lamented the fact that the proper use of logic is no longer taught to our children.  I lament with him, but I will not allow my own children to suffer the same harm.