Monday, January 10, 2011

Liberal Assassins

On January 29, 2008, Ann Coulter said the following to Harry Smith on The Early Show (CBS): "… every presidential assassin -- or attempted presidential assassin in the history of the nation has either been a liberal, a communist, an anarchist, someone on the left…" (News Busters.org

I love this kind of historical generalization, and I've been meaning to do my own fact checking. This morning I heard about the attempted assassination of Senator Gifford (D, AZ), and I decided to finally work this out.

I obtained the following list of presidential assassins from Wikipedia. What I found even more interesting than the assassins political motivations was the fact that so many of them were insane. I was also interested to learn that many of them were not executed for their crimes.

  • Richard Lawrence attempted to assassinate Andrew Jackson on January 30, 1835. His politics are unclear. He believed the president owed him money. Lawrence was found not guilty by reason of insanity and confined to a mental institution until his death (26 years).
  • John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. Politically, he opposed the abolition of slavery, so I think that makes him a conservative. He was shot and killed during pursuit. I think he is the one assassin who was not insane. I also think this is the one assassination that actually made a difference politically; although, not the difference Booth intended. Booth believed the death of Lincoln would inspire the south to rise up and keep fighting the war, but instead I believe it inspired the north to be particularly hard during reconstruction.
  • Charles J. Guiteau assassinated James A. Garfield on July 2, 1881. Politically, Guiteau was a supporter of Garfield and felt cheated that he had not been appointed ambassador to France. Garfield was a Republican when Republicans were fighting to establish suffrage among former slaves, so I think that makes him a liberal. By some travesty of justice, he was denied an insanity defense. He was executed by hanging.
  • Leon Czolgosz assassinated William McKinley on September 6, 1901. Politically, Czolgosz was an anarchist. There is great debate regarding his mental state. He was executed by electrocution.
  • John F. Schrank attempted to assassinate Theodore Roosevelt on October 13, 1912: Schrank's politics are murky. He was opposed to the Roosevelt's attempt at a third term in office, so that might make him a conservative. He said that McKinley's ghost had told him to avenge his assassination. Schrank was found legally insane and was institutionalized until his death in 1943 (31 years).
  • Giuseppe Zangara attempted to assassinate Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 15, 1933. He made several statements against capitalists, so he might be categorized as a communist. It seems clear that he was mentally ill, blaming Roosevelt for his chronic pain. Zangara was executed by electrocution.
  • Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola attempted to assassinate Harry S. Truman on November 1, 1950. Politically they were dedicated to Puerto Rican independence. I believe this makes them liberals. Torresola was killed in the attempt. Collazo served 30 years in prison.
  • Richard Paul Pavlick attempted to assassinate John F. Kennedy on December 11, 1960. Pavlick's politics are also murky, but I believe he was a conservative supporter of Nixon. Pavlick served six years in prison and mental institutions
  • Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Politically, Oswald was a communist. His sanity was never examined thoroughly. He was assassinated in police custody.
  • Samuel Byck attempted to assassinate Richard Nixon on February 22, 1974. He believed the government was conspiring against the poor. This could be considered a liberal position. He was suffering from mental illness. He was killed in the attempt.
  • Lynette Fromme attempted to assassinate Gerald Ford on September 5, 1975. She was a member of the Manson family which qualifies her as liberal but mostly insane. She served 34 years in prison.
  • Sara Jane Moore attempted to assassinate Gerald Ford on September 22, 1975. Politically, she was radically liberal. Her sanity was not evaluated, but her statements and actions are so inconsistent that she seems insane. She served 32 years in prison.
  • John Hinckley, Jr. attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981. His politics are immaterial and therefore unknown. Since he attempted to kill a conservative, we might assume he was a liberal, but he also stalked Jimmy Carter. He was trying to impress a girl. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity. As of 2011, he has been incarcerated 30 years, but he is allowed unsupervised visits to his mother for nine days at a time.
  • Frank Eugene Corder attempted to assassinate Bill Clinton on September 12, 1994. His politics seem immaterial and unknown. Friends claim he bore no ill will toward President Clinton; he was attempting to increase his notoriety which calls his sanity into question. He was killed in the attempt.
  • Francisco Martin Duran attempted to assassinate Bill Clinton on October 29, 1994. He mounted an insanity defense claiming to try to save the world from aliens. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
  • Robert Pickett attempted to assassinate George W. Bush on February 7, 2001. Pickett was found to have emotional problems and employment grievances. Pickett was sentenced to three years imprisonment.
  • Friday, January 7, 2011

    Tae Guek Oh Jang

    There are many sites on the Internet which offer instruction on performing the forms of taekwondo. They vary widely, partly because instructors refer to the same techniques by different names, but mostly because people just write things differently. I am intrigued at the notion that although we are all doing these forms exactly the same way, we are all talking and writing about them very differently. It's really easier to learn forms in class than it is to learn them from written text, but I think this is helpful. I wrote this out to help me study for my test, and I offer it up to anyone who might find it useful. If you note any errors, please let me know. Thanks.

    Tae Guek Oh (5th) Jang is represented by the symbol for wind.

    From the Joon Be (ready) position:
    1. Turn 90* to the left, stepping with the left foot in front stance and perform a low block with the left hand.
    2. Turn 90* to the right, returning to ready position, look left, and perform a hammer fist strike to the left with the left hand.
    3. Turn 90* to the right, stepping with the right foot in front stance and perform a low block with the right hand.
    4. Turn 90* to the left, returning to ready position, look right, and perform a hammer fist strike to the right with the right hand.
    5. Step forward with the left foot into front stance and perform an outside-in middle block with the left hand followed immediately by an outside-in middle block with the right hand.
    6. Perform a front kick with the right foot, coming down in front stance and perform a back fist strike with the right hand and an outside in middle block with the left hand.
    7. Perform a front kick with the left foot, coming down in front stance and perform a back fist strike with the left hand and an outside in middle block with the right hand.
    8. Step forward with the right foot into front stance and perform a back fist strike to the face. KI HAP! (yell)
    9. Turn 270* to the left (so that you are facing 90* to the right) and step with the left foot in back stance and perform a double knife hand block with the left hand.
    10. Step forward with right foot into front stance and perform an elbow strike with the right hand (left hand holds right fist).
    11. Turn 180* the right and into back stance and perform a double knife hand block with the right hand.
    12. Step forward with left foot into front stance and perform an elbow strike with the left hand (right hand holds left fist).
    13. Turn 90* to the left and step with the left foot in front stance and perform a low block with the left hand followed by and outside-in middle block with the right hand.
    14. Perform a front kick with the right foot, land in front stance, and perform a low block with the right hand and and ouside-in middle block with the left hand.
    15. Turn 90* to the left without moving the right foot and slide the left foot forward into front stance and perform a high block with the left hand.
    16. Perform a sidekick with the right foot and a face high punch with the right hand, landing in front stance then perform an elbow strike with left hand (right palm holds left elbow).
    17. Turn 180* to the right and step into front stance and perform a high block with the right hand.
    18. Perform a sidekick with the left foot and a face high punch with the left hand, landing in front stance then perform an elbow strike with right hand (left palm holds right elbow).
    19. Turn 90* to the left, stepping with the left foot into front stance and perform a low block with the left hand.
    20. Perform a front kick with the right foot and leap forward into cross stance (left behind right) and perform a face-high back fist strike with the right hand. KI HAP! (yell!)

    Farmville Tips: Breeding Cattle & Horses

    Week 37: I finally have a permanent stallion! It wasn't difficult filling my five dairy barns with bulls. It's harder to find lots of females to fill the barns, but I've finally got a permanent stallion for my stable, so I've decided to get serious (sort of) about breeding cattle and horses.

    Horses:
    I don't have any truly exotic breeds, but I've decided to concentrate on breeding cream draft horses because they are pretty and they seem to me the rarer of the two possible horses I can raise in my nursery barn. Light blue ponies and cream draft mini horses are also interesting, so if come across any of those, I'll put them in the nursery barn, too.

    My stable holds 40 horses, 39 mares and 1 stallion. My goal is to fill it with 13 cream draft horses, 13 light blue ponies and 13 cream mini horses. I will get these animals from my Nursery Barn. Because it takes so long to grow a foal into a horse in the nursery barn, I don't want to waste time rearing breeds I don't want, so the only foals I can put in my nursery barn are the breeds that will grow into cream draft horses, light blue ponies or cream mini horses. Those breeds are: cream draft foals (of course), Clydesdale foals, Percheron foals, all ponies and all mini horses.

    I don't want to put in any brown foals, black foals, gray foals, white foals or any other foals because they all grow up to be black horses.

    Cattle:
    All calves will grow up to be Holstein cows or chocolate cows. Holsteins earn 12 coins per day. Chocolate cows earn 80 coins per day. My plan is to only raise the following calves in the nursery barn: fan calf, green calf, Kelley green calf, Neapolitan calf, pink calf, pink patch calf and Simmental calf. Oddly, the chocolate calf does not grow up to be a chocolate cow, but my chocolate cows will breed chocolate calves, so cattle breeding is not as sustaining as horse breeding. In order to produce one of the calves listed above, I need to purchase "special" cows.

    Multiple Harvests per day:
    I think I finally figured out how to harvest my stable more than once a day and it is simply this: fill up the stable, keep a few extra horses outside the stable. When you arrive on your farm, the stable will be ready to harvest because the stable is ready every 23 hours. Harvest the stable, share the newborn foal with your neighbors. Then, remove one horse from the stable (not the stallion), and place another horse in the stable. The other horse must be at least 34% ready. Horses are 100% ready in three days, so if you play once a day, they should be about 34% ready when you arrive on your farm. When this one horse enters the stable, the entire stable will be ready to harvest again. I haven't actually tried it yet, but I keep reading about it, and think this is what the writers are trying to describe.

    This same trick can be duplicated with the dairy barns.