Quote of the Day - Reality Edition

Unix-Jedi put the last part of this into a comment, and I liked it so much I went searching for the source. The original is, apparently, old enough that the source is unknown, but it's still accurate today:

Reality is the murder of a beautiful theory by a gang of ugly facts.

Theory and reality are only theoretically related.

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.

In practice there is.

I may make this the new official motto of TSM!

Guns. Is There ANYTHING They Can't Do?

- there we all were, an amputee librarian, a gay man from the Northwest, a retired globehopping Navy guy, a Lear jet pilot, a Texan in a kilt, a couple of Nerds from New Mexico, and a young woman who castrates calves - all brought together by the most unlikely of things, an apparatus designed to hurl little lumps of lead at high speeds. - Breda, community

Oh, and blogging.

Farther Down the Road to Hell

(Bumped for the addendum at the bottom.)

Back in 2004 I wrote the post The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions about the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals' decision in U.S. v. Gould. That case was an en banc re-hearing in front of a panel of 15 judges. A majority of 11 voted to reverse the previous decision. The title of that original post came from one of the dissents, written by judge Harold DeMoss, one of the pair of judges on the three-judge Emerson panel who found in favor of the right to arms being an individual one in that case.

Gould was a case about when police officers could enter the dwelling of a suspect without a warrant. Here's the pertinent portion of Judge DeMoss's dissent:

In summary, the Fourth Amendment is the keystone that holds up the arch of our Bill of Rights which in turn is the unique contribution of our founding fathers to our system of government which has now survived longer than any other representative government in the world. In his famous dissent in Olmstead v. United States, Justice Brandeis called privacy - which he defined as: "the right to be let alone" - "the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men." Justice Brandeis argued that the framers knew that Americans wanted protection from governmental intrusion not only for their property, but also for their thoughts, ideas and emotions. Take away the Fourth Amendment and the right of privacy disappears.

The deputy sheriffs here in Gould made no attempt to develop a sworn affidavit in writing from the purported informant, Forehand, and they therefore made no attempt to get either a search warrant or an arrest warrant from an independent third party magistrate on the basis of probable cause. I have no doubt that the deputy sheriffs believed that they were acting reasonably and with good intentions. But the old adage warns us that "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." In my judgment, that is precisely where the majority opinion wants to put us - by unhooking the "protective sweep" from its connection with the execution of an arrest warrant in a home, which is where the Supreme Court framed the concept. In my view the gambit of getting permission to enter a citizen's home in order to talk to someone and then conducting a protective sweep search under the guise of sensing danger to the investigating officer will effectively eliminate the need for complying with the Fourth Amendment and at that point we will all be, literally and figuratively, on the road to hell.

At that time I also quoted 9th Circuit judge Alex Kozinski from his inspiring dissent to the denial of an en banc re-hearing of California's Silveira v. Lockyer:

Judges know very well how to read the Constitution broadly when they are sympathetic to the right being asserted. We have held, without much ado, that "speech, or . . . the press" also means the Internet...and that "persons, houses, papers, and effects" also means public telephone booths....When a particular right comports especially well with our notions of good social policy, we build magnificent legal edifices on elliptical constitutional phrases - or even the white spaces between lines of constitutional text. But, as the panel amply demonstrates, when we’re none too keen on a particular constitutional guarantee, we can be equally ingenious in burying language that is incontrovertibly there.

Gould was another example of that.

Gould depended on a judicial perversion of a precedent-setting case, the Supreme Court's Maryland v. Buie. Judge DeMoss had this to say about how the 5th Circuit's judges misread that decision:

We decided to review en banc the Gould case to determine: (1) whether the rule established in Wilson that a protective sweep of a home was limited to an arrest situation, as defined by the Supreme Court in Buie, was correct; and (2) if the protective sweep exception to the search warrant requirement is not limited as Wilson and Buie indicate, whether the warrantless search of Gould's bedroom was reasonable.

The majority characterizes the rule outlined in Wilson as a "bright-line" rule; Wilson, however, directly follows the precise language used by the Supreme Court in its definition of the protective sweep exception in Buie. The protective sweep exception as outlined in Buie requires the following three elements. First, the officers must be executing an arrest warrant in a suspect’s home. See generally Buie, 494 U.S. 325 (mentioning over 65 times the concept of arrest in a home when defining a protective sweep). Second, the officers must perceive some danger from another person or persons. Id. at 332-36 (indicating that not every in-home arrest will justify a protective sweep and listing several factors that are used to validate the reasonableness of the perceived danger, such as the nature of the crime for which the arrest is being executed, the likely presence of cohorts, and the time and place of arrest). Third, the search may only be a quick and limited cursory inspection of those places another person might be hiding. Here, the majority has ignored the first two elements and only addressed the third.

Of course, there is good reason for the limited definition as outlined in Buie and tracked by this Court in Wilson. Such a definition avoids the quagmire that the majority finds itself in after rejecting the language in Buie and Wilson. The majority is forced to fashion a new exception with alternative elements that are vague; and as such the new exception swallows the rule that a warrant is generally required for an in-home search.

The latest slide down the slippery slope comes from California's U.S. v. Lemus, and it is objected to by, again, judge Alex Kozinski, and he too decries a deliberate misreading of Buie:

The panel approves the entry of a team of police into Lemus's home by relying on Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325 (1990), but Buie is nowhere on point. Buie was a case where the police were already legitimately inside the home when they arrested the suspect. The question was whether they could look in the area immediately adjoining the arrest where someone who could ambush them might be hiding. The Court recognized that police inside an arrestee's home are peculiarly vulnerable because they are on the suspect's turf—a place where someone dangerous might be hiding. The risk is present in every case because a suspect's home is inherently dangerous for police who must enter to make an arrest. But Buie says nothing at all about police who conduct an arrest outside of the home. It does not authorize police to enter a home for the very purpose of conducting a search. That is the situation we have here.

Lemus was in his side yard when Detectives Longoria and Diaz called out that they were there to arrest him. Two patrol officers arrived at the scene just as Lemus started to back slowly towards his living room door. After he opened it, "[t]he officers were there in an instant, taking hold of Lemus and handcuffing him before he could fully enter the doorway and retreat into his living room." United States v. Lemus, 582 F.3d 958, 960 (9th Cir. 2009). Note: They grabbed him and had him handcuffed "before he could fully enter the doorway" and before he could "retreat into his living room." Instead of walking away with the handcuffed Lemus in tow, the officers entered the apartment and had a good look around. "Checked the bedroom and bathroom too." The detectives then went into the living room, where Longoria found a gun.

The panel says the police could enter the home - with no suspicion whatsoever - because Lemus's living room "immediately adjoined" the place surrounding the arrest, but Buie only authorizes a suspicionless search when the police make an "in-home arrest" (and then only for a small area near the arrest, not a grand tour of the entire apartment). Here there was no in-home arrest. How do we know this? Because the opinion says so: After making the arrest, Longoria “sent” the patrol officers "in" to Lemus's apartment. Officers who are already inside an apartment don't need to be sent in.

The entire justification Buie gives for a warrantless search is that officers must be able to protect themselves when they perform an "in-home arrest." When an arrest doesn't take the police into a suspect's home, they aren't forced into the "confined setting of unknown configuration" that Buie worries about. They're outside, just the same as in an "on-the-street or roadside investigatory encounter." Yet "[e]ven in high crime areas, where the possibility that any given individual is armed is significant," the Court still requires "reasonable, individualized suspicion" before police can perform a search.

The panel's fig leaf for this clearly illegal search is that "at most Lemus was only partially outside" of his living room door when the officers seized him. So what? Under Buie, Lemus's location at the time of arrest is irrelevant; it’s the location of the police that matters. Buie authorizes a search incident to an in-home arrest because being inside a suspect’s home "puts the officer at the disadvantage of being on his adversary's 'turf,' " (emphasis added), where the officer has more to fear than in an "on-the-street-encounter[ ]." If the police surround a suspect’s home, guns drawn, and order him out — and he complies — may the police go rummaging through his home without suspicion because the suspect was arrested when he was inside? Surely not.

Surely YES, because that's what this decision implies. It's just one step farther than Gould.

But here's what prompted this piece: how Kozinski began his dissent:

This is an extraordinary case: Our court approves, without blinking, a police sweep of a person's home without a warrant, without probable cause, without reasonable suspicion and without exigency - in other words, with nothing at all to support the entry except the curiosity police always have about what they might find if they go rummaging around a suspect’s home. Once inside, the police managed to turn up a gun "in plain view" - stuck between two cushions of the living room couch - and we reward them by upholding the search.

Did I mention that this was an entry into somebody's home, the place where the protections of the Fourth Amendment are supposedly at their zenith?

The courts giveth, and the courts taketh away. Our Second Amendment rights are being given belated recognition, while our Fourth Amendment rights are, well, let Judge Kozinski say it again:

As guardians of the Constitution, we must be consistent in interpreting its provisions. If we adopt a jurisprudence sympathetic to individual rights, we must give broad compass to all constitutional provisions that protect individuals from tyranny. If we take a more statist approach, we must give all such provisions narrow scope. Expanding some to gargantuan proportions while discarding others like a crumpled gum wrapper is not faithfully applying the Constitution; it's using our power as federal judges to constitutionalize our personal preferences.

A majority of judges on the 9th Circuit wanted that search in Lemus to be legal, so they made it legal, by allowing the twisting and misinterpreting - deliberately, in my opinion - of precedent. They "constitutionalized their personal preferences," and damn the Constitution.

THIS is "judicial activism." And once again a Justice Brandeis quote comes to mind:

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.

Now, go back and re-read What We Got Here Is . . . Failure to Communicate, specifically the part about how those with the Unconstrained vision view decision-making with respect to the passage of time, about halfway down that essay.

EDITED TO ADD:

Something I forgot to mention. Back when the Ninth Circus denied an en banc rehearing of Silveira v. Lockyer, Judge Andrew Kleinfeld wrote one of the two most powerful dissents I've ever read. (The second was Judge Alex Kozinski's from that same case.) In that dissent, Judge Kleinfeld said this:

About twenty percent of the American population, those who live in the Ninth Circuit, have lost one of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights. And, the methodology used to take away the right threatens the rest of the Constitution. The most extraordinary step taken by the panel opinion is to read the frequently used Constitutional phrase, "the people," as conferring rights only upon collectives, not individuals. There is no logical boundary to this misreading, so it threatens all the rights the Constitution guarantees to "the people," including those having nothing to do with guns. I cannot imagine the judges on the panel similarly repealing the Fourth Amendment's protection of the right of "the people" to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures, or the right of "the people" to freedom of assembly, but times and personnel change, so that this right and all the other rights of "the people" are jeopardized by planting this weed in our Constitutional garden.

Well, they didn't do it through arguing that the right was "collective," they just found a different way to accomplish the same thing. I'm curious as to whether Judge Kleinfeld was among the majority here.

If You Want More of Something, Subsidize It

I've told this story before, but the mother of one of my previous co-workers is employed by the Federal government. She works for the Census Bureau. According to him, for about two and a half years at a stretch, she doesn't have much to do - to the point that she'll take novels to the office to read. For about eighteen months her job is @ssh*les and elbows, but still, it's not all that demanding. In addition to her 30 months of, essentially, loafing, she gets several weeks of vacation, sick time, all the national holidays off, excellent medical and dental insurance, a generous retirement plan, penultimate job security - all the perks of working for Uncle Sugar.

During one holiday dinner, as the family was gathered around the dinner table, she said in a fit of enthusiasm, "I don't know why everyone doesn't work for the government!"

It was quiet around that table for a moment, then my co-worker replied, "We do, for about the first five months of every year."

I saw one of the headlines on the front page of USAToday this morning this story:

Federal pay ahead of private industry

Federal employees earn higher average salaries than private-sector workers in more than eight out of 10 occupations, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data finds.
Accountants, nurses, chemists, surveyors, cooks, clerks and janitors are among the wide range of jobs that get paid more on average in the federal government than in the private sector.

Overall, federal workers earned an average salary of $67,691 in 2008 for occupations that exist both in government and the private sector, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The average pay for the same mix of jobs in the private sector was $60,046 in 2008, the most recent data available.

But wait! That's not all!

These salary figures do not include the value of health, pension and other benefits, which averaged $40,785 per federal employee in 2008 vs. $9,882 per private worker, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

(My emphasis. And Congress wants to tax "Cadillac" health plans?)

This bit of news certainly explains this chart from last year:



Government: Pitchforks, torches, tar, feathers, rail. Some assembly required.

Quote of the Day - Supreme Court Edition

This one comes from Tuesday's oral arguments in the McDonald v. Chicago case, argued by Alan Gura. It would have been QotD Wednesday, but I already had two in queue before it:

States may have grown accustomed to violating the rights of American citizens, but that does not bootstrap those violations into something that is constitutional.

Abso-fracking-lutely. And thank you Alan Gura for having the testicular fortitude to stand there and SAY IT. If I ever meet you again, the beer's on me.

Dan Riehl Has Had About Enough

And I've never considered him to be a bomb-thrower.

Perhaps he needs a fountain pen.

It Needs a 1911, But . . .

I think I've found my next T-shirt purchase:


Available from RangerUp.

UPDATED:

I may have to get this one, too!

Sign Seen on a Coworker's Cubicle

The Seminar on Time Travel
Will Be Held
Two Weeks Ago

That is all.

Quote of the Day - R0n P4ul Edition

As promised, QotD #3 on the same subject. This time from the comments at Unix-Jedi's place (at his suggestion, and well given):

Man is a social animal and will always have to live within a social structure, particularly once they get over the tribal limit. That social structure will consume a certain amount of time and effort and resources. It is no different than the necessity to devote time and effort and resources to securing food, water, and shelter. However much we'd rather avoid it, that's no argument against working to put roofs over our heads. This is our nature, this is our environment, this is what we have to do to live and thrive.

This offends anarcho-libertarians in the same way that human self-interest offends communists. Tough shit. Both philosophies are based on false premises and false views of human nature. I no more feel the need to justify "robbery" to an anarcho-libertarian than I feel the need to justify private property to a commie, or agriculture to a breatharian. When you choose to fight nature, nature's gonna' win.

-- ernunnos

Got 27 Minutes

Got 27 Minutes?

My Boomershoot buddy sent me a link to a speech given by new New Jersey governor Chris Christie to about 200 mayors at the New Jersey Statehouse. About thirty minutes, no teleprompters, no notes (not even on his palms) and no holds barred. He pulled no punches and spared no feelings.

As he says (at about 20 minutes in):

Now when I was running for governor I told people repeatedly, from February to November, that I was committed to governing as a one-termer. Now a lot of people thought that was political rhetoric, to try to get elected, and a lot of people thought that I didn't really mean it. I hope that when you see what I've done in the first five weeks that you know I meant it. 'Cause man, if you're looking to get re-elected, this is not the kinda stuff you do.

But it is the kind of stuff that has to be done. And it looks like the New Jersey electorate knows it.

If he manages to accomplish what he believes he needs to do, I would not be at all surprised to see New Jersey's economy rebound, their tax revenues rebound, and Christie get a second term through general acclaim.

And, of course, he'll be roundly denounced for failing on a campaign promise for doing so.

Give it a listen. It's damn seldom you hear a politician speak unvarnished truth.

Some Good News Out of Chile

Some Good News Out of Chile

My previous employer has an office in Santiago. When I started work for the company, a couple of the guys in the office here in Tucson were transfers from Chile working here temporarily. They went home at the end of 2008. On Monday I talked to someone still working at my old office and asked them to keep me updated on the situation. I got an email yesterday just before I headed home.

The Santiago office building survived the quake. It has been inspected and has been determined safe for occupancy. Eighty-five percent of the staff showed up to work on March 1. No employees or immediate family members were killed or severely injured. Obviously, they've got power, telecom, and IT problems, but other than that, they're ready to do engineering work.

Chile's going to need a lot of that in the next few years. They've got a good crew there.

Quote of the Day - R0n P4ul Edition

Quote of the Day - R0n P4ul Edition

I knew a mention of Dr. Paul here would bring out the wookie-suiters. Today's QotD comes from reader Britt who left this in comment to yesterday's QotD:

It comes down to this: If we were in a country where Ron Paul could be elected President, we wouldn't need Ron Paul to drastically shrink the size of the FedGov. We got here because a majority of the population wanted to get here, don't ever forget that. Changing it is highly unlikely, to say the least.

And tomorrow there'll be another R0n P4ul topic quote for a trifecta!

So the McDonald Oral Arguments Were Today

From the transcript (PDF):

Alan Gura:

Although Chicago's ordinances cannot survive the faithful application of due process doctrines, there is an even simpler, more essential reason for reversing the lower court's judgment. The Constitution's plain text, as understood by the people that ratified it, mandates this result.

In 1868, our nation made a promise to the McDonald family that they and their descendants would henceforth be American citizens, and with American citizenship came the guarantee enshrined in our Constitution that no State could make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of American citizenship.

The rights so guaranteed were not trivial. The Civil War was not fought because States were attacking people on the high seas or blocking access to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The rights secured by the Fourteenth Amendment were understood to include the fundamental rights honored by any free government and the personal guarantees of the --

And here he's interrupted by Chief Justice Roberts:

Of course, this argument is contrary to the Slaughter-House cases, which have been the law for 140 years. It might be simpler, but it's a big -- it's a heavy burden for you to carry to suggest that we ought to overrule that decision.

Gura:

Your Honor, the Slaughter-House cases should not have any stare decisis effect before the Court. The Court has always found that when a case is extremely wrong, when there is a great consensus that it was simply not decided correctly, especially in a constitutional matter, it has less force.

Justice Sotomayor interjects:

What is it that has -has been caused by it that we have to remedy, meaning States have relied on having no grand juries, States have relied on not having civil trials in certain money cases, they have relied on regulating the use of firearms based on us, the Court, not incorporating the Privileges and Immunities Clause in the way that you identify it.

Gura attempts to respond:

State --

Sotomayor completes her thought:

What -- in which ways has ordered liberty been badly affected?

Gura:

Justice Sotomayor, States may have grown accustomed to violating the rights of American citizens, but that does not bootstrap those violations into something that is constitutional.

Damned straight. But SCOTUS was having none of that. Justice Ginsburg roused herself from her nap:

Are you saying that the rights -- if you could clarify your conception of privileges and immunities. Am I right in thinking that to keep and bear arms would be included even if we had no Second Amendment, as you envision privileges and immunities?

I'll answer that one: HELL YES.

Gura responded:

Justice Ginsburg, that is correct. The framers and the public understood the term -

and Ginsburg overrode:

But just tell us the dimensions of what it is. I mean, we have the eight amendments, so I know you say that's included. Keep and bear arms would be included even absent the Second Amendment. What unenumerated rights would we be declaring privileges and immunities under your conception of it?

That's not the question, but it's a great diversion. As North Carolina's James Iredell noted during that state's ratifying convention, the enumeration of some rights might be mistaken for protection of only those rights, and not others. As he said, "[I]t would not only be useless, but dangerous, to enumerate a number of rights which are not intended to be given up; because it would be implying, in the strongest manner, that every right not included in the exception might be impaired by the government without usurpation; and it would be impossible to enumerate every one. Let any one make what collection or enumeration of rights he pleases, I will immediately mention twenty or thirty more rights not contained in it."

But the question here regards a specific enumerated right, not some lawyer's imaginings. This is a distraction from the point, and Gura tries to (politely) call her on it:

Although it's impossible to give a full list of all the unenumerated rights that might be protected by the Privileges and Immunities Clause, just as it is impossible to do so under the Due Process Clause, at least with respect to the Privileges and Immunities Clause we have wonderful historical guideposts. There are --

And then Scalia jumps in:

Mr. Gura, do you think it is at all easier to bring the Second Amendment under the Privileges and Immunities Clause than it is to bring it under our established law of substantive due? Is it easier to do it under privileges and immunities than it is under substantive due process?

This from a guy who really dislikes "substantive due process"? My response would have been "What does 'easier' have to do with it?" But I'm not the guy standing in front of the Supreme Court, either.

Gura:

It is easier in terms, perhaps, of -- of the text and history of the original public understanding of --

In other words, it's the right way to do it, but Scalia is having none of that:

No, no. I'm not talking about whether -- whether the Slaughter-House Cases were right or wrong. I'm saying, assuming we give, you know, the Privileges and Immunities Clause your definition, does that make it any easier to get the Second Amendment adopted with respect to the States?

Again, what does easier have to do with it? Why should SCOTUS' job be made easy? You're the ones who put yourselves in this mess by not overturning Slaughter-House decades ago.

Gura:

Justice Scalia, I suppose the answer to that would be no, because --

Scalia:

Then if the answer is no, why are you asking us to overrule 150, 140 years of prior law, when -- when you can reach your result under substantive due -- I mean, you know, unless you are bucking for a -- a place on some law school faculty --

BECAUSE IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO.

Scalia:

What you argue is the darling of the professoriate, for sure, but it's also contrary to 140 years of our jurisprudence.

If it's BAD JURISPRUDENCE, it's THE JOB OF THE SUPREME COURT TO FIX IT. SCOTUS is the court of last resort. Slaughter-House was bad law, and it spawned a lot more bad law. The Augean stables started with one horse. Cleaning that up wasn't easy either, but it needed doing.

This is another example of the fact that we don't really have a "justice" system, we have a "legal" system. I'm fairly confident that, through "substantive due process," the Second Amendment will get incorporated under the 14th, but it should be, as Chief Justice Taney described, one of the "privileges and immunities" of all citizens as it was understood and expressed in 1856's Scott v. Sanford.

And how hard that would be shouldn't even be a consideration of the Court.

Old News, but How Did I Miss THIS?

OK, today I stumbled across the fact that a couple of the stars of the now completed SciFi series Battlestar Galactica appeared at the UN for a panel discussion back in March of last year. The New York Times gave it some print, stating:

The Sci Fi Channel series "Battlestar Galactica" will be the subject of a panel discussion involving the creators of the show, two of its stars, Mary McDonnell and Edward James Olmos, and representatives from the United Nations' offices of the secretary general and high commissioner for human rights.

How a television series about interstellar travel, ancient prophecies and genocidal robots came to join forces with a terrestrial intergovernmental body relates to the Sci Fi Channel's philanthropic activities and the United Nations' efforts to become more media savvy.

Oooookay.

For the United Nations, the event represents the second effort of its Creative Community Outreach Initiative. Announced by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at last June's Jackson Hole Film Festival, the initiative is the organization's attempt to "establish partnerships with the entertainment industry to tell the U.N.'s story," said Juan Carlos Brandt, a spokesman.

Its first undertaking was to allow a television crew to shoot at United Nations facilities this month for an episode of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," about child soldiers.

Will they do another episode, this one about child-rapists and child prostitution? That's part of "the UN's story" too.

Representatives from the Sci Fi Channel approached the United Nations early this year. "They came to us and explained that there were themes common to both the show and the U.N.," Mr. Brandt said, "and that those themes could be discussed here in a serious manner."

Whoopi Goldberg will moderate the discussions.

Whoopi.

The exemplar of calm, deliberate, factual debate!

Then the following June a couple of UN representatives traveled to Hollyweird and another panel discussion took place there!

The panel featured Battlestar’s executive producers Ron Moore and David Eick; actors Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell; and U.N. representatives Steven Siqueira and Craig Mokhiber (whose actual job titles are so formidable and impressive, they would require a separate essay). Serving as moderator was L.A. Times’ Geoff Boucher. A packed house sat in anticipation of some solid political discourse, which Boucher was quick to point could not have found a more likely home that the intersection of Hollywood and Highland (what with the guy paid to wear that SpongeBob costume being just yards away…….).

SpongeBob for UN Secretary General! The denizens of the ocean are insufficiently represented in the UN!

The U.N.'s Mokhiber seemed sincere in his admission that the U.N. has come to view Battlestar Galactica as "more allegory than fiction." He cited "freedom from fear and freedom from want" as issues that fuel both the U.N. and BSG's plotlines, with enough overlap that Mokhiber insisted Battlestar must surely "owe royalties to the U.N."

"Freedom from fear and freedom from want."

Must be nice. Who provides that?

There's more you probably ought to read, but I'm going to skip to this part (hey, it's my blog):

Siqueira said that while the U.N. has at times been given a spot in big Hollywood filims(sic), it had been more of a "bit player or prop" in the past. Its recently heightened show business presence stems from the realization that the entertainment industry is "much better at communicating these issues."

Funny how that works. Music and movies and video games don't influence the public when it's something bad they're accused of, but when it's something good, well then! Nothing better for it!

This admission was interesting as well:

Eick confessed that the evolution of the show as a lighting rod for political discourse was "surreal" given that the show was initially "dreamed up in sports bars." He says it was a matter of trying to tell good stories "that were being informed by a sick world." Eick seemed less shy about pointing a finger of admonishment toward specific political figures. Especially ones nicknamed Dubya. "If we'd done this show ten years later," he said, it would have been a totally different ballgame.

And then there was this:

As Boucher optimistically posed to the panelists: What can people do to become more politically active?

Mokhiber noted there are no shortage of volunteer opportunities through organizations like Amnesty International, but even more simply than that, he relayed that people ought to "find out what the heck is going on" in the first place.

Siqueira offered up: "Care about one issue deeply, and act."

We have. It's called the TEA Party movement. But that's not what they wanted:

Eick, on the other hand, continued to serve up a more sassy partisan opinion of how to enact change. "Find somebody to beat the hell out of Glen Beck!" he insisted.

Why are Leftists such h8rs and so (vicariously) violent? (Or recently, personally violent?)

Quote of the Day - Ron Paul Edition

I saw this last week but forgot to bookmark it. Unix-Jedi points to one of the most succinct expressions of my problem with Ron Paul I've ever seen. From Attack Cartoons:

you're all familiar with the broken clock that is right twice a day. ron paul is like a strange broken clock that is right 23 hours a day. then you get to some foreign policy midnight, and in stead of chiming, it barks and smears itself with poo.

Thing is, 23 hours right is at minimum triple the time of anybody else in Congress, if not a couple of orders of magnitude better.

Unfortunately, the poo-smearing has been a deal-killer for me.

I Think I'll Buy a Fountain Pen This Weekend

And some good writing paper. I may be practicing my cursive for the first time in decades.

Bill Whittle knocks another one out of the park.

Another Moment of Zen

Another Moment of Zen



Click to enlarge.

This is Fascinating on Several Levels

SayUncle linked to this story in the Kentucky Post online edition:

NKU Awarded Grant For Patrol Rifles

Web Produced: Jessica Noll
Email: Jessica.Noll@kypost.com
Last Update: 2/25 4:13 pm

FRANKFORT, Ky. –Northern Kentucky University has been awarded $10,660 from the state Law Enforcement Protection Program (LEPP) to purchase patrol rifles, Gov. Steve Beshear announced Thursday.

Under the LEPP, administered by the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security (KOHS), appropriate agencies can seek financial help for certain defensive items essential in the course of their duties.

"These funds will help ensure that our law enforcement will not be out-gunned and increase security on campus," state Sen. Katie Kratz Stine, of Southgate, said.

In conjunction with the Kentucky State Police (KSP), KOHS derives income from sales of confiscated weapons.

KSP conducts periodic auctions – only to federally licensed firearms dealers – which generate dollars for the LEPP initiative. The KOHS then assesses needs, and after prioritization, provides whatever funds are available in the acquisition of body armor, weapons, ammunition and electronic or muscular disruption technical devices often referred to as tasers.

"Although statewide appeals for financial support always exceed resources, we place the highest priority on personal safety of our law enforcement officers," Thomas L. Preston, KOHS executive director, said.

"Decisions about other aspects of this program are based on several factors including absolute need for monetary assistance combined with overall effectiveness in combating crime through our grants," he explained.

LEPP support goes to police agencies of cities, counties, charter counties, unified counties, urban-counties and consolidated local governments, sheriff’s departments and public university police departments.

First off, a college was just given a grant by the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security to buy EVIL BLACK RIFLES. These are the rifles that the Brady Campaign swears

...are equipped with combat hardware. Combat features like high-capacity ammunition magazines, pistol grips, folding stocks, and bayonets, which are not found on sporting guns, are designed specifically to facilitate the killing of human beings in battle.

These combat features include:

• A large-capacity ammunition magazine which enables the shooter to continuously fire dozens of rounds without reloading. Many assault weapons come equipped with large ammunition magazines allowing more than 50 bullets to be fired without reloading. Standard hunting rifles are usually equipped with no more than 3 or 4-shot magazines;
• A folding stock which facilitates maximum concealability and mobility in close combat (which comes at the expense of the accuracy desired in a hunting weapon);
• A pistol grip which facilitates spray-fire from the hip without losing control. A pistol grip also facilitates one-handed shooting;
• A barrel shroud which enables the shooter to shoot many rounds because it cools the barrel, preventing overheating. It also allows the shooter to grasp the barrel area to stabilize the weapon, without incurring serious burns, during rapid fire; (I thought that was the shoulder thing that goes up? No?)
• A threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor which allows the shooter to remain concealed when shooting at night, an advantage in combat but unnecessary for hunting or sporting purposes. In addition, the flash suppressor is useful for providing stability during rapid fire;
• A threaded barrel designed to accommodate a silencer which allows an assassin to shoot without making noise;
• A barrel mount designed to accommodate a bayonet which allows someone to stab a person at close quarters in battle.

What on EARTH does a COLLEGE need with weapons like THESE?!?!

As an aside, the Brady Campaign ranks Kentucky very low on its Gun Laws Scorecard, giving it a mere two (2) points because in Kentucky "Colleges are not forced to allow firearms on campus."

Unless they're in the hands of Only Ones law-enforcement personnel.

Which brings up the second fascinating point of this story, the fact that the University feels a need for these "patrol rifles" stating that they "will help ensure that our law enforcement will not be out-gunned and increase security on campus".

Out-gunned?

Out-gunned by whom? Isn't NKU a "gun-free zone"? Aren't there signs posted to let potential bad-guys know that they aren't allowed to bring a gun onto campus? I mean, the Brady Campaign gave Kentucky a measly TWO POINTS because that's the ONLY restrictive gun law that Kentucky appears to have on the books! Who are the campus cops so afraid of that they need these spray-firing bullet hoses designed only "to kill large numbers of human beings quickly and efficiently"? And then filet them with the bayonet?

The third fascinating point is that the money to purchase these engines of destruction came "from sales of confiscated weapons." It seems that the Kentucky State Police periodically auction off - "only to federally licensed firearms dealers" - the firearms they confiscate from bad guys. In Brady parlance, these guns go "back on the street!" Horrors! You mean they don't get melted down and turned into anti-gun sculptures?

Huh. No wonder Paul Helmke and Josh Sugarmann are sad pandas.

And now the National Shooting Sports Foundation is out educating the public (and what little of the media that will pay attention) about these newfangled "Modern Sporting Rifles".

What is the world coming to?

Its senses, one would hope.

Nah. Too much to ask.

UPDATE, 3/3: Over at The Ultimate Answer to Kings, Joel points out one more fascinating point that I completely missed:

. . . my personal favorite is this:

"Although statewide appeals for financial support always exceed resources, we place the highest priority on personal safety of our law enforcement officers," Thomas L. Preston, KOHS executive director, said.

See, there's not a single word in the whole piece about student safety.

Excellent point. And thanks for catching that.

I Bet He was a Closet Teabagger

I Bet He was a Closet Teabagger!

Isn't this interesting:

The Strange World Of Dr. Anthrax

After the Department of Justice last month formally closed its probe of the 2001 anthrax attacks, the FBI released the first batch of documents detailing the years-long investigation that ended with officials concluding that Bruce Ivins, a government scientist who committed suicide in July 2008, was responsible for the mailings that killed five victims. The records, released pursuant to Freedom of Information Act requests, portray Ivins as becoming increasingly unhinged as it became clear that he was the principal target of the FBI's "Amerithrax" probe. Additionally, the memos--a selection of which you'll find on the following pages--reveal how agents examined every aspect of Ivins's life, monitored his e-mails, searched his trash, and were even surveilling his Maryland home at the exact time he was inside overdosing. Despite being an FBI target, Ivins was often forthcoming about the details of his strange obsessions and private life. For example, as seen below, when agents executed search warrants in late-2007, an FBI supervisor asked Ivins if he was worried about those raids. Ivins said he was, noting that he did things a "middle age man should not do," adding that his actions would "not be acceptable to most people." He then noted that agents searching his basement would find a "bag of material that he uses to 'cross-dress,'" according to an interview report.

And:

Ivins wrote that "Dick Cheney scares me. The Patriot Act is so unconstitutional it's not even funny." He added, "I'm voting for Obama!"

Yup, another member of "the Base!" I can't wait for the New York Times' Paul Krugman to opine!

UPDATE: Reader "el coronado" comments:

what's most interesting to me about the FBI "closure" of the matter by blaming everyhting on the dead guy, ivins - dead men can't defend themselves, and besides, he was an odd duck - is the timing of that annoucement. teh WSJ published a devastating obliteration of the FBI's "case" against ivins on 25 january of this year, written by edward jay epstein. here are the huglughts:

1) the anthrax in question waa aerosolized by means of attaching the spores to silicon, "according to the US armed forces institute of pathology. (...) if so, then somehow silicon was *added* [my emph.] to the anthrax. but ivins, no matter how weird he may have been, ***had neither the set of skills nor the means*** to attach silicon to anthrax spores." {again, my emph.]
2) "at a minimum, such a process would require highly specialized equipment that did not exist anywhere in ivins's lab - or, for that matter, anywhere at (where he worked)."
3) the FBI was oddly releuctant to inform congress of the precise percentage of silicon contained in the anthrax used in the attacks. this was apparantly because...
4) (finally) "according to the FBI lab, 1.4% of the powder in the leahy letter was silicon. 'this is a shcokingly high proportion', explained stuart jacobson, an expert in small particle chemistry.'it is a number one would expect from a deliberate weaponization of anthrax.'"
5) the FBI stuck to their story: hadda be ivins. maybe he did it at home! so, "to back up their theory, the FBI contacted scientists at the lawrence livermore national labs to conduct experiments in which anthrax is accidentally absorbed from a media heavily laced with silicon. [the results of those tests) effectively blew the FBI's theory out of the water. the livermore scientists had tried 56 times to replicate the high silicon content without any success. (...) they never came close. most results were an *order of magnitude lower* [me again] with some as low as .001%.(!)"
6) therefore, "since ivins had neither the equipment or skills to weaponize anthrax with silicon, the some other party MUST HAVE done it."

the FBI later responded in a WSJ letter to the editor in which they argued, paraphrased, "huh-UHHH!!!!". they offered no other details.

and now, a mere month later, the "case" is "closed". so who do we believe here? a large federal bureaucracy well-known for its belief that maintaining its image supercedes all other priorities, including "truth" and "law enforcement"? or a man respected worldwide as a meticulous and accurate researcher? and if you choose to believe the FBI is lying, as i do, for whatever reason, what else might they have lied about? hm.....think, think.....coughhoriuchicough....

Interesting . . .

As commenter "TheSiliconGraybeard" notes,

There seems to be an attitude that shows up in law enforcement, something along the lines of "we got somebody for it". It sometimes doesn't seem quite so important that they got the right somebody, just that they got a warm body arrested and/or jailed.

I've noted that in this blog. We don't have a "justice" system, we have a legal system, and the metric seems to be "did we get a conviction or at least close the case?" So if the WSJ is correct, it would appear that the FBI hounded a not-very-stable man into suicide, and then said "HE DID IT!"

I guess it MUST'VE been one of us "cultists!"

Quote of the Day - Ann Colter Edition

Quote of the Day - Ann Coulter Edition

“Isn't food important? Why not "universal food coverage"? If politicians and employers had guaranteed us "free" food 50 years ago, today Democrats would be wailing about the "food crisis" in America, and you'd be on the phone with your food care provider arguing about whether or not a Reuben sandwich with fries was covered under your plan.”—Ann Coulter

From John Hawkins' new Self Help Quotes page.