Boortz Raises Another Interesting Question

Regarding the Trayvon Martin shooting . . . considering the Florida 'stand your ground' law when it comes to the decedent:

• He was minding his own business when he realized he was being followed.
• He was (allegedly) attacked

therefore(?)

• He was justified in (allegedly) being on top of and pounding the snot outta George Zimmerman
  

The report of the Grand Jury should be interesting.

23 Years Ago. Wow.

Boortz mentioned today that if you were born when the Berlin Wall fell, you would be 23 years old. That set me thinking. I was young, too young to understand what was up but old enough to realize it was a Big Deal. The televisor showed people dancing (it was a party) on top of the graffiti'd wall. Then there were people with sledge hammers, then heavy equipment cutting and pulling down gaps in the wall.

Then there were the sales of 'genuine' pieces of the wall, which may outnumber the fragments of the 'genuine' cross of our Lord.

. . . now, of course, the leftists want to erect a fiscal Berline Wall around the U.S.A., but that is another story.

Huge Victory for Human Rights

Indiana just became the latest state to stop requiring people to pay to join an organization that is not aligned with them politically and from which they derive no direct benefit, just to get a job.

Good.

More News That Sounds Like A Joke!

We must not kill the endangered species. The world stops when we threaten them, no matter the cost! Wind power will save us from the evil, evil carbon. No matter the cost! Now a joke has become an in-real-life headline: Wind turbine power plant shut down at night for killing endangered bats.

Two Clicks

Two clicks, three text boxes, and you have fought fire with fire. You remember when I pointed out that there is a blatant spam/form letter for submissions in favor of an egregious thing the ATF wants to do?

Now there's a spam/form letter for submissions against it. Please do your nation a favor: click this link, fill in your name and email address, and hit the submit button. It takes less than a minute, and can make a real difference.

Further explanation here

Don't be Surprised!

Do not be surprised at anything that comes down from the government after they elected a Socialist to President of the United States.


Literally anything could be proposed or even enacted, and it ought not to be a surprise. Socialism and America are incompatible but that does not stop the Socialists trying to "radially transform" the nation. The most extreme, outlandish proposal is barely worth mention, because they are very likely to be acting in-character.

Talking like deficit hawks while proposing record-large budget deficits? Don't be surprised.

They force you to buy an overpriced health insurance policy you don't want or need? Don't be surprised.

Labor department tells Boeing where they can build airplanes because Socialists prefer uninonists? Don't be surprised.

One could basically recite national headline news in this fashion, ending each line with the same sentence. Nothing is beyond their desire for control over the lives of men. At every new insanity, write your Elected Heroes and let them know you are still paying attention to the little things. The next chance to really make a huge difference comes in November, 2012. What are you going to do about it?

Austin Likes Railroads

. . . but not railroading people. There is a bill under consideration at the Capitol that stalled in the House after passing through the Senate last term. It has passed the Senate again and if they write it up properly I hope it flies straight through the House to the Governor's desk.

If you are convicted and there is additional DNA evidence you think may exonerate you, you get to have it tested. The results that come back "unknown" get put against the FBI's database of Goblins. No more cases of "gee, we didn't think it was necessary to test the sperm we found inside that victim." Not only does this prove more powerfully the guilt of the guilty, it helps the innocent to walk free. As a side benefit (very small compared to the last two) it also prevents a few millions-of-dollars "oopsy! So sorry for ruining your life by falsely imprisoning you for a decade or two" awards when we find someone actually was innocent after we gave them two execution dates that never quite panned out (or worse, actually killing an innocent person!).

. . . Me, Or Your Lyin' Eyes?

They gave every appearance of having officially rolled over and it looked for about two hours like Qaddafi was going to start playing nice with the people trying to take his job . . . then the reports of ongoing fighting came in. Still attackin' (or defendin', dependin' on your perspective). So, we have begun to turn his country to sand, one ten-thousand dollar smart bomb at a time. President Obama says we will not be sending ground forces into Libya. Let's hope he doesn't get any cute ideas . . . some of us still remember Mogadishu.

Meanwhile, in Egypt, they are having "real" elections. If the elections don't go our way, then what? Does the commmunity organizer in chief send the CIA to stir up another insurrection? Do we put troops in Libya AND Egypt in the next two years? It is unlikely, but I don't put very much past the incompetents at the top of America these days.

We All Worried It Would Be Iraq That Destabilized The Middle East

Saddam Hussein was supposed to be a destabilizing influence in the Middle East. We had to take him out, lest he crazy up the whole works and it all come crashing down. Now, it seems, we will have missed the call. It was liberty after all.

The statists were right . . . democracy is dangerous to the establishment . . . provided the establishment is autocratic . . . or anti-islamic (read: not a caliphate)?

Riots in Egypt against the dictator there follow unrest in Tunisia. Curiouser and curiouser. One wonders . . . do the People seek freedom, or do the muslims seek a Nation? What is the real source of agitation, and who will come out of the fray on top?

And when will the mainstream press see fit to report the story?

Faint Glimmers of Hope

The freshmen and newly-minted-conservative Republicrats in Congress are giving me reason to think that it may not be the end of the Republic just yet. They are making noises anyway about not raising the debt ceiling (now that you and I have officially reached $14T in the hole). They are proposing new rules for the House. Sure, rules (like Speaker Pelosi's Pay-as-you-Go rule) are easy enough to waive for every bill, but they sound sincere. They are even looking to poke a sharp stick in Obama's eye by staging a vote to repeal Obamacare even before his State of the Union Address.

It looks like they may actually be starting on the right track. Now if only they can avoid being bought by lobbyists, and avoid caving to calls for "tolerance and bipartisanship" from the people who shut them completely out of power for the last two years.

Okay, I Can Take A Hint!

You may recall that the National Rifle Association lost me as a dues-paying member during the recent political campaigning season. Today in the mails I found NRA membership renewal letters for my Darling Wife and me. I mentioned to her that the NRA had got the boot and I wanted to put that money into the Second Amendment Foundation instead.

Then I hit up Uncle like I do every day, and he says the SAF asked if he would link to them from his blog. Then Uncle dropped a hint even I could pick up. If you can spare some change, please donate to the SAF by clicking their logo on the right sidebar.

This Is Why We Should Elect Judges

Iowans tossed three judges out on their ears yesterday. That would be, the same three who over-ruled the will of the people and allowed same-sex "marriage" at the supreme Court of the State.

Much bellyaching ensues. Too bad. If you refuse to do what is both right AND popular, be prepared to lose your elected position.

I Agree With Stephen Broden

( . . . on this issue, at least)

The people who started our country overthrew a tyranny to do it. They recognized that it might be necessary to do the same thing again, and framed the new country so it would remain an option on the table. Stephen Broden mentioned this and has been condemned by his own political party. General (in the war against his own King) George Washington approved of violent overthrow of tyrants and disapproved of the spirit of Party in politics.

Hmm, what an amusing coincidence.

I don't know who this Broden cat is, but I do know that he has a more-realistic understanding of the use of violence than the jerks running the local Republican machine. A plain reading of the founders' writings shows an honest reader that violent, bloody overthrow of a government gone too-far awry is always an option. Those who would have us not-know this are dummies.

For the record, unless it gets quite a bit worse: VoteForDavid does not advocate the violent overthrow of the government of the United States or any of the States thereof. And I'd remind the government lackeys wondering what they can get away with doing to the people vs. what they ought to do for the people, not everyone is as reserved as I am in this.

The rattlesnake has a rattle for good reason . . .

GOA Gets a Huge Plug

Disgusted for a moment with the usual drivetime radio fare, I tuned in to National Public Radio on the way to work this morning. They were having a discussion between an almost-fair host and a couple of people from the Waco, Texas area. One was a male stereotype of the kind referred to by Neal Boortz as "abortofascist," and the other was a woman apparently heavily involved with the local Tea Party goings-on.

The host was trying to get the Tea Party lady to take a stand on social issues (vs. the economics-only the Tea Partiers are all about). She kept deflecting. The other guy was about 1.5 steps shy of actually thumping a Bible and generally managing to sound unreasonably stubborn. Speaking of unreasonably . . .

The woman got tired of this topic of discussion and started going on about what the Tea Party stands for (stop spending our money) and what it doesn't (everything else) and she said (as part of a list of places they send people interested in other causes) that, if someone asks about firearms issues, they send them to the NRA or Gun Owners of America. I was unreasonably pleased by this national publicity on left-leaning NPR for GOA. If you're not broke as a joke, please do yourself and your countrymen a favor and donate to the Gun Owners of America right now. They are quietly doing very much of the heavy lifting required to maintain your liberty.

So There Was A Rally This Weekend

Glenn Beck had a rally on The Mall in D.C. yesterday. Apparently about haffa million people showed up . . .



The rally was called "Restoring Honor" and I thought it was rather silly. I was honestly wondering how many people would show up, but I guess I am rather more jaded than your average bear. Apparently enough people are worked up this year about the blatant LACK of honor elsewhere in D.C. that this sort of event drew quite a crowd.

Good.

Extra bonus points: click here to compare the way Decent People left The Mall yesterday, and the way Obamunists left it when the President was sworn in. What does THAT tell you?

Texas Attorney General Abbot Writes Like Me? Nice.

Attorney General Greg Abbot and Dr. Bryan Shaw, head of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality are pulling no punches when it comes to the discussion about the EPA trying to crush the economy of hick cowboy redneckland regulate CO2 emissions down in Texas. The opening paragraphs:

"In order to deter challenges to your plan for centralized control of industrial development through the issuance of permits for greenhouse gases, you have called upon each state to declare its allegiance to the Environmental Protection Agency's recently enacted greenhouse gas regulations - regulations that are plainly contrary to United States Law. 75 Fed. Reg. 31,514, 31,525, & 31,582 (June 3, 2010) (hereinafter, the "Tailoring Rule"). To encourage acquiescence with your unsupported findings you threaten to usurp state enforcement authority and to federalize the permitting program of any state that fails to pledge their fealty to the Environmental Protection agency (EPA).

"On behalf of the State of Texas, we write to inform you that Texas has neither the authority nor the intention of interpreting, ignoring, or amending its laws in order to compel the permitting of greenhouse gas emissions"

And a few other highlights:

"Notably absent from your rules is any evidence that they would achieve specific results; in fact, you assiduously (and correctly) avoid ascribing what environmental benefit may be achieved by mandating permits to emit a uniformly distributed, trace constituent of clean air, vital to all life, that is emitted by all productive activities on earth."
. . .
"Your view is not enough. Applicable law provides to the contrary."
. . .
"In other words, you have asked Texas to agree that when it promulgated its air quality permitting program rules for pollutants "subject to regulation" in 1993, that Texas really meant to define the term "subject to regulation" as set forth in the dozens of paragraphs and subparagraphs of EPA Rule 51.166, first promulgated in 2010."
. . .
"EPA has shown no intention of following the Clean Air Act procedures . . . ."
. . .
"Each of these objections to EPA's demand for a loyalty oath from the State of Texas would suffice to justify our refusal to make one. Indeed, it is an affront to the congressionally-established judicial review process for EPA to force states to pledge allegiance to its rules (or forfeit their right to permit) on the final day by which states must exercise their statutory right to challenge those same rules. Texas will not facilitate EPA's apparent attempt to thwart these established procedures and ignore the law. In the event a court concludes EPA's actions comport with the law, Texas specifically reserves and does not waive any rights under the federal Clean Air Act or any other law with respect to the issues raised herein."

They also note that EPA seems to be saying they can regulate CO2 because they feel like it, because just following the law would mean they couldn't regulate CO2. They assert that the whole shebang is (to paraphrase) beside the point, because the rules the EPA put out regulating CO2 emissions were not properly adopted in the first place (and therefore void). Indeed, they come right out and say the EPA got the whole thing exactly bass-ackwards and is trying to make an end-run around Congress! It's truly astonishing stuff. It kinda sounds like the stuff secessions are made of, but Pretty Boy Rick Perry seems not to be a fan of that (yet).

The trial lawyers of America were set for the next decade or so, the moment President Obama was sworn into office. Stuff like this is going to be tying up the federal court system for years, if not generations. It is my sincere hope that Texas will lead the way (or at least be in the van) when it comes to ignoring the illegal attempts of the leftist watermelons in the Obama administration to run the country just how they like, laws to the contrary notwithstanding.

********
All emphasis is mine.

Tip of the 10-gallon hat to Uncle

ACA Litigation Blog: Read It!

There are a huge number of problems with Obamacare, and many of them have resulted in lawsuits being brought. The lawsuits are being followed by someone who apparently knows how such things work. They are writing about the legal action in accessible terms, at ACA Litigation Blog. Interested parties are advised to check it frequently (multiple articles are posted daily).

Note: you will be very surprised at some of the arguments being made, if your only source of news comes through the television. Keep reading, it gets worse.

Machines Deserve Nothing At All

[human U]sers deserve privacy and clean, generic information. Machines, on the other hand, don't deserve anything at all.

The people at www.scroogle.org have been having a little problem with script-driven searches cluttering up their bandwidth. It is being filtered by scroogle's security software, but it is a nuisance. The above quote is from scroogle's web page describing the problem, and it raises an interesting point to ponder.

People are created by God, and endowed by Him with "certain unalienable rights" which are enforceable against both the State and other people. Scroogle is a web site that allows you to search the Internet using (arguably) the best web search engine in the world (www.google.com) without being subjected to paid links, tracking of your behaviour, outright targeted advertisements, and other behaviors generally not in line with Google's "don't be evil" motto. I use Scroogle because I don't need the miscellany, I just need search results and they deliver. You should use Scroogle also, but that is not the point of this posting.

Machines are created by men. The computer you are using to read this is, at its core, nothing more complicated than a few billion switches going on and off at a few billion cycles per second. If the electrical power is cut off, the computer is reduced to a useless amalgamation of metal, plastic, and a bit of paint. It is nothing more. You owe it nothing. If it were stolen or lost, you would be sad, but only because you lost money and data. It is not a person. This is changing, probably within my lifetime, from a clear-cut answer to something slightly less intuitively-so.

Computers are only as smart as they are programmed to be. They can only do as they are told and they only do exactly as they are told. If something goes haywire, you may rest assured a software or hardware engineer, or else mechanical or electrical failure is to blame. Programs exist which can carry on basic conversations with humans, but they can only carry on basic conversations. Google can find search results you might want, but only because it is using clever algorithms written by clever people. There are also programs which can write new programs. There are people out there whose sole aim is to make a computer which can think for itself, using deductive logic and something like intuition to arrive at an un-programmed, unique, and useful response. There are, in other words, people seeking to create machines with personalities. Sentient computers. Robots with *real* minds of their own.

These people have not learned the lessons taught by the Terminator series of movies, and they are also working up a moral/ethical dilemma for the rest of us: At what point does a machine stop being merely a machine, and start being entitled to rights as a person, per se?

If you are a paleoconservative such as I am, you will say either "never" or "no sooner than a post-conception fetus". Some bleeding hearts will say, if your computer has feelings which can be hurt, you must respect them. God forbid we should have to answer this question while people like the current Democrat leadership are running the show.

So is there a point to all this, then?

No. I'm just saying, machines are machines, not persons.

Uncle Says: Stay Informed!

I get my news from several sources, some of which are not primary sources. Say Uncle is one of my favorite aggregators of headline news regarding firearms and the right to bear them. He also does libertarianish, family, and cooking stuff, etc. If you aren't hitting up Say Uncle once in a while, you have missed, in the last two days, among other interesting stories:

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Handgun ownership Violence admits you have a right to a handgun.

Typically left-leaning NPR says: "Strict gun-control policies have failed to deliver on their essential promise . . . no surprise, since gun control has always been about control, not guns."

Louisiana lets churches decide whether or not to allow patrons to carry arms in them

Getting around Pennsylvania's "may-issue" gun permitting system

. . . and a case of flagrant discrimination in a different "may-issue" jurisdiction

A man who helped lay the groundwork for McDonald comments on the lessons to be learned from the case

The groundwork to restrict our newly-incorporated rights has begun

The lawsuits to defend our newly incorporated rights has also begun

The other side is getting silly, saying the supreme Court is fomenting insurrection

. . . but neither you nor anyone you know is buying their story

Victory in the area of gun rights may be coming, but it is slow going

A few thousand good reasons why you really do "need" a rifle

As well as links to pictures of beautiful guns

. . . and even links to contests where you might win one for yourself

Pray For McDonald

The supreme Court has started announcing decisions for this term. They have not announced a decision (yet) on the McDonald v. Chicago case. There was some speculation kicking around the blogosphere about when the decision might be handed down, and who might write it.

Christians, pray. The Court has a way of taking the least-radical approach to deciding major questions, but this is THE case that will decide the fate of the majority of Americans' rights to bear arms outside of Federal districts like D.C.

Incorporation. Pray that the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution for the United States of America is recognized as fully incorporated into the 14th Amendment.