Rob Boudrie

Reality and ideal practice are often at odds. There was a case in Boston a few years ago where the prosecutor's office secured convictions in two separate cases - by arguing two mutually exclusive theories as to who pulled the trigger. Then there's the case where a prosecutor in VA argued against DNA testing of the evidence in a case for which the death penalty had already been applied - stating that the possible outcome of "proof of innocence" could undermine confidence in the system. Or the case in CA where someone convicted of illegal possession of an AW appealed when a more expert attorney pointed out the gun was not, in fact, illegal. Instead of concurring and asking for reversal - or even seeking an AG's opinion on the weapon in question - the prosecution successfully argued that the merits of the case should not even be examined because an appeal deadline had passed. Another interesting is one where a LA inmate who wanted DNA testing was fought every step of the way - and had to agree to waive any right to sue the state for his many years of incarceration in order to have a test performed which subsequently proved his innocence. It may be a slightly jaded view, but the way I see it prosecution is a business and convictions are the product. Ever see a prosecutor bragging that "the truth prevailed" in xx% of their cases? Nope - conviction rates are what go on the resume. Many cases which were later reversed due to DNA evidence met all of your criteria - no alibi and no reason to lie. Wittnesses who are honestly mistaken give very credible testimony. Obviously, every situtation needs to be evaluated in its entirety, but current research regarding the concept of inaccurate eyewittness testimony, offered in good faith by someone who believes it to be true, should be considered. This was stolen from another show (X-Files?) where an ancient piece of pottery contained the voice of Jesus commanding the dead to rise - with potentially difficult consequences if it were to be played.

Lee has a lifetime "rebuild for 50% the current retail cost" - which is interesting when you consider that the street price of a Lee (mail order) is generally about 40% off retail. More likley that not, the 50% represents a greater amount than a new press leaves the factory for when entering the retail distribution system.

I wouldn't be surprised if a number of the people whose convictions were reversed by DNA evidence brought to light by the innocence project were convicted because a skilled prosecutor used this sort of logic to exclude jurors who whose "intellect" would cause them to be more concerned about rigorous proof than not letting a rapist or murderer go. It's not always a case where you have a guilty person, a prosecutor who is more concerned with truth than winning, and a defense attorney trying to get a guilty person off.

I'll be heading up to Harvard to paint my crew's stage in about an hour. The match is looking pretty good, but be sure to bring plenty of slugs. The slug stage is 24 rounds but you may want to have a couple of extras since two of the targets are swingers.

The first time I saw a sighting aid was ashooter who had made a wooden gun, painted yellow, with a scope mounted on the top. The real question became "where's the line?" What about a wooden gun painted black with a scope on the top? What about an AirSoft replica with the barel plugged solid rendering it inert?

I'll bet he also never heard "How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics."

Interestingly enough a certain IPSC faction feels that any change to the voting structure would necessitate payment proprotional to votes, but does not see any problem with the current system under which payment and votes are not proportional.

It is not uncommon for gun related organizations to keep membership numbers confidential for political reasons - if you tell the enemy how small your numbers really are, it becomes easier for governments and sports sanctioning bodies to ignore you - or worse yet, listen to Handgun Control, etc. if they claim larger membership numbers. For example, the Massachsuetts Gun Owners Action League (www.goal.org) has a similar policy decision, and considers their exact member count to be highly confidential. In their case, it's easier to talk about the "hundreds of thousands of MA gun owners" than the "thousands (or whatever, I don't know the number) of GOAL members".

One caveat - at this time you need MS/Access on your PC with EzWinScore to import that data. I am working with USPSA to have the import integrated directly into EzWinScore so that this will not be necessary. Also, the integration process does not at present support 3 Gun or Multi Gun. But, once you have the Palm<=>MS/Access interface configured for a match, data import is trivial. One more hint: The III xe is a decent, battery operated, cheap and fully suitable system for score collection. The battery life indicator is non-linear - if your indicator shows 50% battery life, you've got less than 50% remaining. If you're running a multi-day match, start with all new batteries and you won't have to worry about mid-match replacement.

Ask Peter for clarification as to : (1) Is there a total payment which brings you to "fully owned" with no more mission count owed? (2) I don't think he's talking about just "two copies". There are versions of the program for USPSA matches - the "full version" which can run an entire match (irrelevant for US matches, since we need various data management features provided by EzWinScore) and the "score collector version." The "score collector" version allows you to collect scores at a stage for transfer to other Palms or EzWinScore. I believe his current offering for clubs is a couple of copies of the full program and up to 20 of the "score collection" version. Don't worry about the distinction if you are going to use it to run matches. Peter is doing this so that he can offer the "full version" to individuals and not destroy that market by selling it in quantity to matches at a lower price.

This Palm scoring program has been used as the Area 7 championship for several years; was introducted to the AWARE Invitational this year; and is used by Harvard Sportsmens in MA for their local matches. The major matches uses a "hit total and time" summary sheet to provide a handwritten, signed score record. Harvard's local matches are "paperless" - and we haven't had to toss a stage for Palm issues yet (hint: if you use a III Xe, use a bit of tape to secure the battery cover). Match directors at all of these events were happyu with the results. It not only made the "back room" work easier, but resulted in better customer service. The software appears to be pretty solid, however, I have seen a Palm crash once in a while (maybe once in an area match size event). The good news is that I have *NEVER* seen this cause a loss of data - not even once. Reset the Palm, and all the scores are there. These matches have been using ASS for score collection and transferring data to EzWinScore for processing, so I am not qualified to comment on other program features such as squad management, results calculation, etc. Rob

"Websense" has extensive configuration options. Some more reasonable employers use websense to protect against actionable items (someone sees a photo of naiki wimmin and suffers psychological damage of the sort only an IV infusion of currency can cure, and contingency fee counsel points out that the defense did not use readily available protective technology) while still letting their employees check match scores and the Enosverse.

This looks like the offering from www.freedomisp.net

A few tidbit's I've learned from someone in the business: 1. If you are given the wrong medication - even one with serious adverse consequences - it will NOT be reported in your medical chart, and the hospital is NOT required to tell you. 2. If an "incident report" is filed related to an error in the care you receive, it is protected by law - neither you, your attorney, nor the discovery process may see it - and there is no requirement they even tell you if such a report was filed.

Ok, coordinates have been added to the information you can add to your club profile. Currently, coordinates may be entered in decimal form (I'll add an option to enter data using Deg Min Sec when I have some time) and are displayed on the club finder in decimal format, Deg/Min/Sec format, and as a link to Google Maps. And no, it's not necessary to take a GPS out to your club to get coordinates. If you download Google Earth you can browse the globe, find you club, and read off the coordinate. Please use the entrance to your club rather than the centroid of your property, since the intent is for this to assist in navigation. Once we have a decent quantity of coordinates, I'll add a "bulk download" feature that Skywalker and anyone else who is interested may use to import this data into other systems.

I arranged insurance for a Masschsuetts gun club from a local agent, who was able to get a liability policy if I also gave him the general policy on the building. We also needed a separate liquor liability policy since there is a bar in the clubhouse. The last time I checked NRA policy specifically excludes suits brought by club members, hunting accidents, or anything involving a firearm in a motor vehicle. The "suits by members" is the biggie - since those are the people most likely plaintiffs. Key things to check on a policy: 1. Exclusions 2. Limits - there is generally a "per claim" and "per-incident" limit 3. "Claims based" or "Occurrence based". Occurrence based does not cover you for a claim made after the policy or a continuous renewal thereof has expired for an action which occurred while the policy was in effect (for example, an allegation an omission in a safety course caused an accident years later).

Thre is a fundamental structural difference. USPSA is a membership based organization, recognized as a 501 ( c )( 3 ). If you feel inclined to make a donation to USPSA, this makes it tax deductible. All US members have a right to vote for the selection of the board member representing their area, as well as the USPSA President. USPSA also has a HQ and staff both of which have the sole mission of supporting the organization. IDPA has a different corporate structure, and members are not allowed to vote. Current IDPA board members are the only ones permitted to vote in the board elections.

I will be adding the ability to store coodriantes to your club profile on USPSA.ORG soon (probably this weekend). Once that's done, I'll set up a system so Skywalker can download the entire USP data direclty. But, there is a catch - Club data is maintained directly by the club contact, and a club profile is created only by that individual. If you want your club's coordinates on the auto-feed, and on-line in the clubfinder, you'll have to create/edit your profile. The link for this is on the classifier services page in the left menu column, and uses the same password as classifier and local match results uploading. I'll post an annoucement in this thread when I have it ready. ps to Skywalker: Would you like an FTP area on www.uspsa.org you can use for directly uploading the databases you publish?

You need to have your stats person request an upload area (email rob@boudrie.com or webmaster@uspsa.org - the former gets to me more quickly) and it will be set up for you.

The data export from the USPSA system, as well as the club display, will have all useful formats (I'll add any needed) I know the difference is tiny - I'm just consider "seconds" to be the lowest "natural resolution" for coordinates hence my preference for those as the native units. But.... I could store the XX.XXXX format as two floats rather than 6 tiny ints, so it's not obvious . I'll probably let the user enter in either, but only store in one standard form. Which form do you internally store your coordinates in? I'll use that as my storage format as well.

I'm ready to add GPS cordinates to the info USPSA clubs can add to their profile, however, I don't know enough about GPS to know which coordiate type to use. I could use Latitude/longitude in hr/min/sec, GPS coords, or decimal lat/long. I don't think I should use decimal since because of the precision issue (I like resoliution to the exact second, and decimal values can round off to fractional seconds). Obviously, data extraction can present all formats. I'm interested in which format will be easier for users to deal with when entering the data.

Please give it another try. I suggest you add comments and only one match at first to make sure it works for you before you spend a lot of time entering data.

Dang - PHP sessions are a pain. I'll do some more work on it tonite.

There is a BIG difference between allowing a business owner to order someone out of their store and allowing a business owner to make violation of a sign a criminal matter. MA business owners comonly establish rules such as "No shirt, no shoes, no service", "No shorts allowed", "Jacket and tie required", etc. - and do have the right to order someone to leave if they wish- with criminal consequences for someone refusing to vacate the premises. What business owners do not have is the ability to make entering their store in violation of one of these policies a crime for which someone can be arrested even if they agree to leave peacefully when asked. The MA CHL system is not without its problems (for example, it's discretionary, availability varies by your town, social class and connections, and the courts have upheld that a chief may revoke a license for exercising one's right to remain silent), however, the issuee is under fewer constraints than in TX - which is of particular interest if you do not wish to brief everyone in a dinner or shopping group that you have safety equipment with you. And yes, the Chappaquidick Kid is an embarassment to this state.

How do we get our match on there ? No Ohio match on the results area. Club contacts may add local matches on their own using a club password issued by Roger Maier. Local match results are organized by club and date - not "match name." Major matches use a results area which is set up in advance, and kept in a separate "major match" area. Only "Major Match Results" support the stage diagram upload feature.