Monday, 30 June 2008

Linkage

Making their little heads explode is so much fun


Can you say “cognitive dissonance,” boys and girls?

In San Francisco, the NRA was joined by the Washington state-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and a gun owner who lives in the city’s Valencia Gardens housing project as plaintiffs.

The gun owner, who is gay, says he keeps the weapon to defend himself from “sexual orientation hate crimes.”[1]   He was not identified in the complaint because he said he fears retaliation. - AP story posted at Fox News, June 28, 2008: “NRA Sues to Overturn San Francisco's Handgun Ban”
Wherein the lefties get to decide whether gun control is about “protecting the victims” or “keeping the proles under control.”

Via:  Roberta X, who was busy reading the web on Sunday so I didn’t have to.
Elsewhere:
-----
[1] “...In SAN FRANCISCO???!!” - comment by “Tony737” at Hot Air.  Well, yeah...

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Saturday, 28 June 2008

The Press

Glenn Reynolds for assignment editor


How pathetic is it when a blogger knows the journalism business better than the journalists do?

What you do is, you start staking out this space every week.  And you have a second (concealed) camera covering what's done to the guy with the open camera.  Then -- since the security guards threw out an accredited journalist with a right to be there -- you sue everybody in sight; doesn't matter if you win (though you should) because it's more publicity.  And you start tailing the MEPs on Friday to see where they actually are on Fridays after having signed in.
Maybe they never saw The Front Page.

Posted by: Old Grouch in The Press at 22:04:59 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Clipfile

Clipfile: June 28, 2008

“Any day that starts with the phrase ‘I gave my cat a pill’ is doomed from the outset.” - “snarkatron”

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In Passing

Wow! I didn’t know that...


...the Army offers a marksmanship qualification badge for flamethrower.

Kewl!

(I wonder if flamethrowers qualify under Heller?)

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 16:37:20 GMT | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Friday, 27 June 2008

In Passing

Heller 4

Outrageous.

“Staghounds” (at Tam’s place):
“Gun-Control Supporters Show Outrage”

Outrage?

Who KNOWS what they might do if they had guns!


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Linkage

World Cup Quagmire!


“Neil D” at Harry’s Place notes that some “things have gone terribly badly in Iraq.”

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In Passing

Heller 3

The issue behind the issue.

Carl Bogus, in an online debate at The Federalist Society:
I read Justice Scalia’s opinion with both great interest and trepidation to see whether he embraced insurrectionist theory, that is, the argument that the Founders adopted the Second Amendment as a check against governmental tyranny.  What’s more repugnant to constitutional democracy and the rule of law – not to mention traditional conservatism – than the idea that the people should be armed to potentially go to war with their own government?  Nonetheless, this theory has animated much of the individual right literature.  Its popularity has undoubtedly disturbed the sleep of giants on both sides of the Atlantic.  Surely, insurrectionism has had both James Madison and Edmund Burke spinning in their graves.

Clearly, Justice Scalia tried to be careful not to expressly embrace insurrectionist theory.  Yet he alludes to it gingerly – a sort of toe in the water. He writes that “when able-bodied men of a nation are trained in arms and organized, they are better able to resist tyranny.”  Call me foolish, but I was hoping that the conservative Court would expressly repudiate insurrectionist theory.  Somewhere, Robespierre is smiling.


“AnonLawStudent,” in a comment at Volokh:
The irony of Bogus citing Robespierre in support of the idea that “a check against governmental tyranny” is “repugnant to constitutional democracy and the rule of law” is just too much.  I also note that he conveniently omitted Thomas Jefferson from his not-so-carefully plucked list of historical figures.


The Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.


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In Passing

Heller 2

“God protects fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.”

Bill Quick:
The brutal truth is that the Second was saved today thanks to the actions of conservatives who rebelled against George Bush and forced him to put Roberts and Alito on the court.  Had his preferred nominees, Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers, been nominated and ratified, the decision we would have seen today would have been 5-4 in the opposite direction, with Gonzales joining with the other four liberals to respect the Bush administration’s request that the DC law not be overturned.


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In Passing

Heller 1

The American Experiment

Roberta X:
The United States just got uniquer  (footnote: Yes! Not a word and not even a logical notion. Work with me here!).  We were already just about alone in the world with respect to firearms; and now we’re the only nation I know of where previous restrictions of the inalienable, inherent right to self-defense and the keeping of arms have been rolled back.

Think of it for just a moment: your shooting hobby -- let alone carrying for self-defense -- would be nearly impossible in most of the “First World” countries save Switzerland, utterly impossible in a few; and hardly easier in the next tier of nations.  Nope, the States are just about alone in this wonderful idea that you have a right to defend yourself against aggression using the most effective means the human mind and hand has yet produced.  Here, even The Fed’ral Gummit has admitted your life has value and you’ve a right to the best tools to protect it.  Everywhere else, well, y’might be dog food.

The baddie you stop in Britain may get you haled up on criminal charges for preserving your own life in your own home...  I like a place that doesn’t prevent me stopping rapists and strongarm robbers right at the source.

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 16:10:17 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Thursday, 26 June 2008

In Passing

More end-of-term cluelessness


Becoming Bill Clinton II?

President Bush said Thursday he will lift key trade sanctions against North Korea and remove it from the U.S. terrorism blacklist, a remarkable turnaround in policy toward the communist regime he once branded as part of an “axis of evil.”
Question:  Has North Korea suddenly satisfied all of the previously announced requirements for getting sanctions lifted?

Answer:  No.

Question:  Then why...?


Via: Daily Pundit
Previously.

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 14:57:19 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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