Maryland Has the Bomb: Photos from the Army Ordnance Museum

I drove back from NJ on Friday. I've done the post-Christmas/pre-New Year drive from NJ-to-DC a bunch of times, and I always say I try to stop by the US Army Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Ground, or the National Cryptologic Museum at Fort Meade.

I think I've only managed it once, in the pre-digital camera era. But I did hit both museums in the same day. Not this time, though -- I got to Aberdeen a little later than I'd hoped because of traffic. And, you can't take the closest entrance -- you have to go around a bit to a visitor's entrance, show ID, sign in and get a visitor pass.

Because it was late afternoon, the light started fading pretty quickly. So I was pretty rushed and only had a chance to do a quick run through.

Here's the full set: US Army Ordnance Museum, 12/27/07. Some highlights:

M1 Abrams main battle tank

Watch out: Maryland has nukes:

"Handle With Care."

That's the tactical nuclear recoilless rifle, the M-388 Davy Crockett, often purported to have a kill radius bigger than its delivery range.

Closeup of the warhead:

"Hi there!"

Smoking kills:

Booby-trapped cigarette, lighter and cigarette pack.

Collection of Lee-Enfield rifles:

A non-ordnance-related sign:

"The Other Door is the Men's Room. This is just a closet."

Now, one good thing about it being so late in the day, the setting sun added an orange tinge -- on the desert tan-painted stuff (mostly German), it gave things a neat, reddish-pink highlight:

Panther? I don't know my panzers.

Either a Tiger or a Mark IV.

Someone had put a wreath at the base of this tank:

Wreath laid at the base of a tank.

This tank has seen better days:

The colors were still kind of neat.

A five-tube rocket artillery piece:

The T-12, a 43,000+ pound bomb:

MOAB on this.

Since Aberdeen is about 30 miles north of Baltimore, it's just far enough away to be a haul, but it's worth the visit. Check out the full set for more.

Tags: army ordnance museum, aberdeen proving ground

Yahoo Messenger: Six Simultaneous Spims on Sign-on

I have a Yahoo Messenger account that I don't really use, but I have it set up in my Adium multi-IM client anyway.

Over the past couple of months, I've been noticing an uptick in SPIM -- IM Spam -- coming from Yahoo Messenger names, mostly at sign-on.

I don't use my Yahoo identity for anything except signing up for the occasional Yahoo group, and I leave my Yahoo Messenger privacy preferences open so I can get IMed by anyone.

I'm well-familiar with SPIM from my AIM & AOL names, where I'd seen plenty of password phishing attempts, as well as the usual IM spam. Between IM Catcher and other, back-end IM spam stopping measures, it seemed they had a pretty good handle on it, and it really hasn't been a problem for me for some time.

Which is why I was amused two weeks ago, when I got six simultaneous Spims to my Yahoo Messenger account on sign-on:

Yahoo Messenger IM Spam.

It was funny, but annoying.

Tags: yahoo messenger, spim, im spam

Nuke the Whopper Freakouts -- It's the Only Way to Be Sure

Consider this an early New Year's Resolution -- after extensive thought and through analysis, I have come to the conclusion that every "actual customer" who was upset by the purported discontinuation of the Whopper sandwich needs to be beaten thoroughly about the head and neck. And I'm volunteering.

Furthermore, anyone who was stupid and/or fame-seeking enough to actually sign the release to appear in the Burger King Whopper Freakout commercial needs to be stopped. By any means necessary.

Stop the Whopper Freakout.

Sure, we all have our tastes and preferences, but if a fast-food chain hamburger means that much to you, you need to be put down with extreme prejudice.

While this may be a master stroke in quasi-viral marketing, I can't watch, or even listen to the commercial, lest I get overwhelmed with rage and disgust.

On a side note, I see that the fake manager of the store is Regan Burns, formerly the host of the game show Oblivious ("The game show you don't even know you're on!"). Guess he doesn't mind getting typecast in hidden camera shows.

I actually kind of liked Oblivious, not least of all because their gimmick allowed them to pay out what was probably the smallest cash prizes out of any game show, ever.

Looking at Mr. Burns' IMDB entry, I see he was also involved in Fox News' alleged news-comedy show, The 1/2 Hour News Hour, so he must be used to projects that aren't funny and inspire loathing. Though I understand that an acting gig is an acting gig.

Tags: whopper freakout, burger king, regan burns, oblivious

This Entry Intentionally Left Blank

This is pretty much an entry about nothing. The Christmas cold I'd picked up in New York had flared up on Thursday and I'd thought it started to fade Friday afternoon, but it rallied. So I'm staying in again, since I do want to be in some sort of shape to do something fun on New Year's Eve. Though I'm not quite sure what that's going to be yet.

The Patriots/Giants game is on right now -- I can't say that I'm really watching it, since I don't particularly care if they go undefeated or not.

That's about it.

Post-Christmas Roundup, Part 1

It took a grueling six hours to drive from New Jersey to Virginia this afternoon.

That includes an hour crawling on the New Jersey and Delaware Turnpikes; two pit stops (including time to brush off a "out of gas, can you help me out" hustle), and about an hour at the Army Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Ground.

So it actually wasn't all that bad.

Of course, I apparently brought back some sort of cold (although it's possible it's been incubating since Friday) -- I've got a sore throat and the crawly chills all over.

I've got a whole lot of pictures from Christmas Day and the surrounding events that I need to get up, though I really just want to stay horizontal right now. I just watched 300, which I picked up at the Virgin Megastore on Broadway on Christmas Day (hey, it was just about the only thing open) -- after all the buildup, all the hype, I just have to say:

What a visually interesting, overwrought piece of melodramatic crap.

The 300-inspired memes were more interesting than the movie.

Also, yet again, I bought a CD I already own -- Belle & Sebastian's If You're Feeling Sinister (anyone want a free CD)?

At this point, I have to add them to the "make sure you don't already own the CD" list of bands, which includes Throwing Muses, Cocteau Twins, Stereolab, and Mazzy Star (and I've only got two of their albums).

Smash Lab: Everybody Pile On!

I caught a little bit of the Smash Lab preview just now on Discovery. It has the distinct whiff of FAIL about it.

Poking around the Smash Lab message boards (you need to choose better seed topics, guys), there seems to be a lot of negative feedback from Mythbusters fanboys, who're calling it a Mythbusters knockoff. Which is true. But just because it's a Mythbusters knockoff doesn't mean it can't also be good. It's just that this show isn't very good.

I mean, the Mythbusters pilot was pretty rough and it's a lot different from the way the show is now. But it was still good.

Primary problems with the Smash Lab premiere:

1. It was an hour-long commercial for Rhino Linings.
2. The "car bomb" used 12 pounds of TNT. Even tamping the charge with sand to direct the blast into the building makes it a laughably small car bomb.
3. They showed the effects of the "car bomb" on the "protected building." However, they didn't show the effect of the "car bomb" on an unprotected building. That's kind of important. In fact, without it, it's useless.

As to the rest of it -- some folks are ragging on the hosts, others don't like this or that -- it might get better, it might not. But if they're going to be "solving" problems instead of disproving things that are myths anyway, they're going to have to do a better job.

Tags: mythbusters, smash lab, discovery channel

Merry Christmas to All

I'm at home right now. We got back from dinner (Chinese, of course) a little while ago.

Instead of the usual full-sized tree, we've got a mini-tree up in the living room, which saved Mom & Dad (mostly Mom) some trouble.

I may have done something monumentally stupid that's unrelated to anything else, so I've been somewhat preoccupied, but Mom had a little health scare yesterday (everything's fine, thankfully -- Mom thinks the sister worries too much) that put things back into perspective.

So we'll see what happens with the stupid thing later on.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

An Ironic Friday and a Guinea Pig

At Friday's happy hour at Carpool, I experienced the textbook definition of irony, in that the actual outcome was completely different from the expected outcome. On several different, yet interrelated levels.

This is not to say that it wasn't also a pretty good day. Even though I got gnawed on by a guinea pig. Or maybe because of it. It's hard to say.

There was the playing of darts. Also foosball, as these terrible cameraphone pictures demonstrate:

Kathryn and Stephanie foos. Jeremy observes, in mid-blur.

Sibyl and Suzie.

If one suggests that I am being demonstrably more cryptic than usual, one would be absolutely right.

I Walked into Target to Get a Can Opener...

...and I walked out $134 bucks lighter. On the plus side, I got most of the rest of my Christmas shopping done.

I had Christmas gifts on the mind, since the can opener is for Mom (she's hard to shop for). But while I was in there, I walked by a display with a few copies of Guitar Hero III for Wii, so I picked one up for for my sister and her guy.

Also, (if you are my sister, please stop reading now) I got her a Hello Kitty toaster, which, besides being pink, also burns a picture of Hello Kitty into each piece of toast.

Actually, I'd get one for myself, except:

1. It would be, well, totally gay.
2. I already have a perfectly functional toaster.
3. I don't make toast very often, and when I do, it's usually an English muffin, which would look pretty disturbing.

I have to thank the giggling college girls in the next aisle for calling it to my attention, or else I would have missed it.

DC Blogger Meetup Runs Smack Into the DC Holiday Cop Surge

Wednesday was the December edition of the DC Blogger Meetup Group at RFD. I personally witnessed two unusual things that distinguished this meetup from previous meetups:

1. Current lead Meetup organizer Nikolas was found lurking outside:

Not typical Meetup organizer behavior.

2. We had Night Vision capability:

Photo taken through the night vision monocular, without benefit of an adapter.

The night vision came courtesy of Jadxia and friend Max (who isn't currently blogging, though he has Tumblr'd).

You can see more event photos by first-timer Andy Roth.

Also notably, we started to see more and more of a police presence outside:

What's that going on behind John Croston? (More on that in a minute.)

For my own part, I seem to recall going on a lot about various blogging and social media things, so apologies to Ross, Shashi, Matthew Martin, not-yet-blogger Tommy, and anyone else I may have cornered if I talked their ear off (though we covered a lot of topics).

Oh, and I also had a grilled cheese sandwich, largely because of this Charlotte Harris entry.

What About the DC Holiday Cop Surge?

---

As the night went on, we kept seeing cops going by the bar. Lots of them:

"Is there a problem, officers?"

At first, I thought they were just walking around a lot to keep warm, but once we got outside, we saw that were lot and lots of cops out -- walking around in groups of ten or more, circulating around the Verizon Center:

Evidently, the Starbucks was a popular focal point, which is kind of silly, since everybody knows that the triple murders in Starbucks happen in Georgetown:

Forget about a cop on every corner: Try 10. Maybe 20.

As far as I could see, they were just tromping around in their groups of 10 or more, trying not to run into each other or the crowds of people leaving the Wizards game.

It was kind of pointless, though I was reminded of a video I saw at the Hirshhorn last year, which featured the British Coldstream Guards marching around central London (in full regalia and following certain rules so they'd gradually all meet up and march together).

Note the reaction of the passing pedestrian in red.

Their khaki cargo pants and caps were very crisp and I didn't see any guns (though they did have reflective vests -- watch out!), so I asked one if they were auxiliaries or cadets -- he said they'd graduated but weren't full officers, so I guess they were probationary officers.

He also said there were about 250 of them that night, and it would last through the holidays. So I would assume that, once they're full officers and the holiday cop surge unpleasantness is over with, they can make their way over to the 2/3rds of the force that sits behind desks (barring any "all-hands-on-deck" weekends, of course).

Back to the Hut

---

Anyway, once I managed to wade through the cops (and boy, did I feel safe -- you know how rough Gallery Place right around the Verizon Center can get -- plus, since they were mostly unarmed, no chance of negligent discharges), I made it to Arlington, where I'd ditched my car.

I stopped in to Galaxy Hut for a little bit -- bartender Bill was back from his European tour. I ended up eavesdropping on some Brit guy looking for a cougar bar (which Galaxy Hut very much is not), then talking a lot of crap with two random guys -- one, a security guy for Fannie Mae, and his friend, a government contractor/spook-type.

And then when even I got tired of hearing myself, I went home.

(You can see the rest of the night's photos in the full Flickr set.)

Tags: dc holiday cop surge, galaxy hut, verizon center

Crashing the AOL Prom

I wasn't going to try to crash the AOL Holiday Party -- "The Prom" -- this year. (Hey, I know when I'm not wanted.)

Besides, I understand the need for cost cutting, and even moving from the Air & Space Museum to a venue from an earlier era (Westfields Marriott), but having it on a Monday night, from 6:30 to 9:30? (And "business casual," to boot.) It hardly seemed worth the effort.

But, it was going to be the first one that I missed in over a decade (well, other than the one that Jon Miller canceled in... 2002? to send another cost-cutting message). And, I had a late offer that I couldn't refuse. So I went.

I hadn't been to Westfields in a bunch of years, and the intervening time had seen some new overpasses and developments, including the Sully District police station, where two police officers were killed last year -- it's right down the street.

Despite the evening rush hour traffic, we got there early -- after all, three hours isn't much time to have to worry about lines, parking shuttles, and such nonsense. So we had to wait a bit to get in.

The tree in the lobby was pretty nice:

Things picked up pretty quickly, as these short events tend to do. It wasn't as elaborate as prior years, but it was still pretty nice, and to be honest, I was never a big fan of the stilt walkers, celebrity impersonators, and all that jazz.

I mean, they could have had it on the AOL campus and I don't think anyone would have cared, as long as there was food and an open bar, but I guess there aren't any kickbacks in that. (Note: Any mentions of kickbacks are purely speculative.)

There were a couple of bands. One of them was a country duo:

The bars were plentiful and open, which is always nice. I had to slow down after a couple of drinks -- not because I was worried about making any career-limiting moves (ha), but because I wanted to stay upright.

It was also interesting to see the varying interpretations of "business casual," which ranged from evening gowns, to a few ensembles that were a half-step removed from sweats.

I saw a lot fewer people than I'd hoped -- a Monday night, plus an October and December layoff will probably do that. I saw a few fellow involuntary alumni, some of whom had gotten back in (presumably in moments of weakness or inebriation).

Some folks were surprised to see me (not quite, "Who let you in here?"), though I wouldn't say that anyone was dismayed or horrified to see me.

I have a few people pics that didn't come out very well, and I didn't get a shot of the lady on roller skates handing out blinky rings (she was a big hit), so I mostly ended up taking pictures of the damned tree:

As predicted, they were pretty prompt in getting us out of there at 9:30. Though it took Rover from The Prisoner to get us stragglers out at 10:

"I am not a number! I am a free man!" Seriously, unless you're driving a conversion van, what the hell are you going to do with it?

We hung out in the hotel bar for a while, then moved to the nearby Blue Water Grille to hang out some more.

That's about it, other than to say I was looking at the AOL entry on Wikipedia to look at some dates, and note that some self-promoting clown calling himself "The Untouchable DJ Drastic" seems to have added himself as a "Notable person associated with AOL":

I wouldn't call "Peter Ban" particularly notable, either.

Hey, AOL has come down a lot since its heyday, but I don't think they're quite that low yet. I'd remove it, but I guess I still don't see myself as having a neutral point of view.

Tags: aol prom, wikipedia

Socially Freeloading at the Social Times Launch Party

As part of my ongoing campaign to social network around the DC tech scene (not to mention social freeload and social mooch), I went to the launch party for Nick O'Neill's Social Times at 1223 in DC this past Thursday. (I'd seen the listing on Ross Karchner's very useful DC Tech Events site.)

I'm not the clubbing type, so the only time I get to 1223 is for launch parties and tech networking events. I highly encourage the practice.

Since I'd met Nick at BarCamp DC, I wasn't being a complete party crasher, and I did run into several familiar faces, including a few of my former AOL cow-orkers:

AOL and Revolution alum Tim O'Shaughnessy of Hungry Machine and Jen Consalvo of My AOL.

Among the night's sponsors whose displays I stopped by were widget-maker Clearspring and personal activity matching service WhyGoSolo:

I also ran into Joseph Price, whose social media-centered play I'd seen at the Fringe Festival, and a bunch of other folks.

After the well went dry, a few of us decamped for a bite at the Daily Grill:

Nick O'Neill

And oh, look: It's Frank Gruber

Thanks to Aaron Brazell of b5media for picking up the dinner tab:

There are a few more pics in my set -- see more from Jared Goralnick's Flickr set: Social Times Launch Party

I still do need to get some calling cards made up. Probably go the VistaPrint route like everyone else, but I have to figure out what to put on it. For my event registration, I'd put my initials, "JML," as my affiliation.

I find that the dynamic tension against self-imposed restraint usually generates focused creativity. I'm thinking Joelogon Media Labs (or is that too close to the, um, other Media Lab?)

Tags: social times, tech networking

The Insidious Spread of Summary View

Is it just me, or are more blogs suddenly switching to the "summary view" (a.k.a. "more after the jump") main page display?

DCist, with the rest of the -ist network, switched over this week to a multiple-choice main page template, which defaults to Summary view (a la Metroblogging DC), which shows you the full entry (that is, barring any manually-inserted "continued" links) for the first couple of entries, then a short summary that forces you to a continued link, no matter how short the entry is.

At least they offer you a preference for "Full" view, which gives you complete entries (well, at least the portion before any manually created "continue" links), though the preference doesn't stick for me:

Like I said in my work blog back in July, I don't like the "More after the jump" construction, except for very limited cases (really long entries, spoilers, NSFW content, or pic or Flash-heavy entries). In most cases, it looks like people (and when I say people, I mean blog networks) who are trying to squeeze out an extra pageview by forcing you to click through.

There is the problem, of course, of long pages and big, empty sidebar gutters, but I think this is a problem that troubles designers more than real people. I, for one, would rather scroll a bit more than have to keep clicking. And clicking. And clicking.

Additionally, if you're going to force a truncated view of the main page entries, you could at least show more of them than you would in a flat view. Otherwise, what's the point?

It looks like Silicon Alley Insider is taking a similar tack, except they seem to be taking a giant step backwards -- they've taken the blog and made it look like an old-fashioned Web page:

The center column content, which is the main content, is all blog entries from the same blog, but they're only showing 3-line summaries, again forcing you to click through to the article. Though I think the impetus here isn't necessarily trying to squeeze out another pageview -- it's more so they can make room to cram more crap onto the page. But in doing so, they've managed to remove any of the, you know, useful bits from the page.

Anyway, boo.

(Now has anyone seen my Technorati multiple tag entry box for Greasemonkey? I've lost it and I can't seem to replace it. That's annoying.)

Tags: Silicon Alley Insider, summary view, more after the jump, DCist

On Consuming TV Series on DVDs

I had a Chipotle burrito for dinner tonight. It pretty much put me out of commission for the rest of the evening (heartburn), which is why I'm staying in and watching a Firefly mini-marathon on Sci-Fi channel. Which is kind of dumb, since I already own the series on DVD.

I also received the Band of Brothers boxed set this week (Amazon, $25), even though it basically runs on the History Channel in a continuous loop. So I have new additions to the evergrowing-pile of unwatched DVDs -- the one that you might think I would have whittled down during my enforced downtime. But no.

(Incidentally, I'm now fully and officially unemployed -- Friday was my official separation date from AOL -- up to this point, I've been technically on the payroll, without actually having to go to work. It was pretty sweet. I will be talking more about it and my AOL career. Eventually.)

Anyway, unless you're one of those people who've ripped their entire DVD collection to a gigantic media center hard drive, you've probably encountered this little problem with TV series DVD boxed sets -- namely, how do you go about choosing which episode to watch?

(Actually, even if you're ripped your DVD collection, it just makes consumption a little more convenient -- it doesn't solve the whole choosing side of things. I'm sure someone [Corey] will tell me about this great Linux/Open Source/Media PC/Ginormous Hard Drive solution, though there's also the problem of bonus features and such. And do they even make DVD jukeboxes that actually, you know, use the actual physical media? I'm old-fashioned that way.)

For something like Firefly, it's relatively easy, since the series tops out at 14 episodes that mostly stand alone (despite having an underlying story arc). But what about something that was actually, you know, successful, like Friends, Star Trek, Seinfeld, whatever, that ran many seasons and had hundreds of episodes? Or something where episode order really matters, and you can't just snack on individual episodes (24 being the ultimate example of this)?

Unless you're going to do your own mini-marathon, or you're actually disciplined/OCD enough to keep track and watch the episodes in order, how do you keep from just cherry-picking the best-known episodes? Especially for a series that you, say, liked well enough to buy the boxed set when it was on sale for really cheap at Best Buy, but you don't have the episode list memorized?

I guess what I'm looking for is some sort of media management system -- something like a Netflix (with a little bit of iTunes) for your personal collection, to keep track of your personal viewing to show you how many times you've viewed an episode, and what's next in the queue. Which would pretty much mean ripping the DVD and forgetting the physical media -- wouldn't really be workable any other way.

My own DVD player is a now-ancient Apex player which doesn't have many features, save for one of the least intuitive remotes ever made. It also occasionally tries to die on me. However, its saving grace is that it's a 3-disc carousel, which I find helps with serendipity and flow -- I can pre-load it with 3 discs and get around to watching them (or not) when I feel like it.

Naked Whining College Students, Donut Clerks, and Instant Celebrity

A few bits on instant celebrity in the world of social media:

* Being Overly Aware Is Not Good: You probably saw the item this week about the Dunkin' Donuts clerk in NJ who fought a robber so he'd "look good" in the inevitable YouTube video.

While bonking the robber in the head a few times with a metal tip cup may or may not have been the best course of action (the clerk didn't get hurt, though the robber got away with $290 in cash), choosing a self-defense strategy simply because you don't want to look bad on camera does not make for good long-term survival prospects. Though it might get you on a late night talk show. (Alas, we will never know, with the writer's strike and all.)

* Being Unaware Is Also Not Good: Via Obscurestore -- Tufts University has a Naked Quad Run, which is pretty much what you would expect (and similar to events at other schools).

The local paper ran a puff piece on it, and the web version features quotes, photos, and an embedded YouTube video: "Tufts Naked Run brings students together -- with a few injuries." Here's the video, which features rear nudity:

Judging by the article and video comments, there are a lot of whiny, indignant, and insulated college students who don't seem to understand that, just because you're on the grounds of a private university, doesn't mean that you're not still in public view (think "exposing yourself in a bar"), and thus fair game to journalists, citizen journalists, perverts, and perverted citizen journalists.

It's slightly puzzling, because this is supposed to be a generation raised on social media, instant fame, and content sharing. I can only guess that this charming naivete about privacy in public and the power of social video sharing comes from a stunning sense of self-entitlement, brought to you by the campus-wide, tuition-powered protective force field that surrounds many institutions of higher learning.

Anyway, in the comments, there's a lot of posturing about private property, dire warnings of potential under-18 nudity, a complaint about wikipedia plagiarism, and even some internet tough guy "smash your camera" talk, but it really just comes down to people being upset about having video of their pasty goose-fleshed buttocks wobbling around on the Web. To which the answer is simple: Don't go naked in public. Or at least wear a mask.

* Lastly, this week's Tom the Dancing Bug comic has another edition focusing on instant instant celebrity, followed by instant nostalgia (condensed version).

Tags: celebrity, naked quad run

Annotated Proof: Rhymes With Orange Is Horribly Drawn

Previously, I mentioned how I have an intense, almost irrational, dislike of the comic Rhymes With Orange due to its horrible art.

A commenter (sorry, Conor, throwing you under the bus on this one) pointed me to the November 15th comic as a classic example of its humor, though I'll use it as an example of why I think it sucks:

"It's not you -- it's a timing thing. I just really need to focus on my cats."

For starters, the joke is kinda "meh." But what gets me is the art. (Not how the people are drawn -- I'm not even going to get into that.)

Look, the action is taking place inside a bistro, right? See #1, where the "BISTRO" lettering in the window is reversed?

So if they're inside the bistro, why do we see the outside corner of the building (#2)? And then why are they on what appears to be a sidewalk?

I don't usually care about nitpicky mistakes like that. But combined with the lukewarm joke and the bad art -- it just bugs me.

There are plenty of comics that have, shall we say, nontraditional drawing styles. That is, they're not great art, but they get the job done. I'm thinking Agnes, for one. Even Dilbert.

And other comics have art conventions just are just weird. Like how people's eyeglasses in Doonesbury are always below their noses, or how the dad's nose in Baby Blues is bigger than his head.

But Rhymes With Orange just bugs me.

Tags: rhymes with orange

Girls With Guns in Churches

The tactical ninjas and pro-gunners* are going to be all over this (as will the anti-gunners), and details are still emerging, but here's what USA Today is reporting about the Colorado Springs church shooting (Sunday's second Colorado shooting):

"...pastor Brady Boyd of the New Life Church said the security guard who shot the gunman was purposely stationed in the lobby of the church after hearing about the earlier shooting.

When the shots were fired "she rushed toward the attacker and took him down in the hallway," he said.

The attacker never got more than 50 feet inside the building.

"She probably saved over 100 lives," Boyd said.

He described her as a highly trained volunteer member of the church with a law enforcement background whose role was to provide security. He said she was not wearing a uniform and is licensed to carry a gun."

CNN's report adds more details, saying that the shooter is known, did both incidents, and had a prior relationship with the first church (which is no doubt be a disappointment to all the red-blooded, footstomping, Bible-banging tactical ninjas and keyboard commandos who saw "churches" and "skullcap" and were praying for this to be Islamic terrorism, instead of yet another maladjusted loner with a rifle.)

It's instructive to look at this shooting because:

* The guards (only one was armed) were posted by the second church specifically and deliberately in response to the earlier church shooting incident. They recognized they were a target (even a likely target), and developed a proactive response (with an evacuation plan and an armed guard), exercised self-defense, and stopped the threat. So kudos to them, even if it is the conservative evangelical megachurch that spawned the meth-sniffing, rentboy-using Ted Haggard.

* Even when the police are caring, competent, and close, they're still a reactive force. In nearly all of the recent mass shooting events, the police response didn't get there until well after the shooter had stopped. (In the Salt Lake City mall shooting, an off-duty cop returned fire until other police arrived.)

* Unless you want to live in a police state where there's a cop in every building and a metal detector on every door, you're either going to have to live with "acceptable losses" until the cops arrive, or do