Lies get better headlines I guess

The Canadian government has made some bold statements about evil American guns and a possible lawsuit. Their claim that over 50 percent of all gun crime in Canada could be blamed on illeglly smuggled guns from the US got a lot of press. The problem is that their lies leaked out.

Mr. Wilkins said that Canadian officials admitted in meetings with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week "that that figure was just grabbed out of thin air." He insisted the Canadian government should focus on joint efforts to combat gun-running rather than pointing fingers.

The figure, which others have used previously, is not based on any statistical study that could be traced by The Globe and Mail, and police forces and other authorities said yesterday it is not verifiable.

"I think the figure that's been bandied about of 50 per cent has not been substantiated."

Mr. Wilkins told CTV's Canada AM that the Canadians admitted the figure has no basis. Mr. Wilkins declined to tell The Globe whether the Prime Minister conceded the figure was not substantiated.

Nothing more then governments hate then the truth.

Not sure if this is a real quote, but it sounds good.

"The ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination."
Voltaire

Messed up priorities

Australia has a crime problem and it's not small. This information is at best suspect as most of the numbers are government reported.

Twenty-six percent of English citizens -- roughly one-quarter of the population -- have been victimized by violent crime. Australia led the list with more than 30 percent of its population victimized.

The United States didn't even make the "top 10" list of industrialized nations whose citizens were victimized by crime.
.............
The study found that Australia led in burglary rates, with nearly 4 percent of the population having been victimized by a burglary. Denmark was second with 3.1 percent; the U.S. was listed eighth at about 1.8 percent.
.............
the International Crime Victims Survey notes that overall crime victimization Down Under rose from 27.8 percent of the population in 1988, to 28.6 percent in 1991 to over 30 percent in 1999.
.............
although lawmakers responsible for passing the ban promised a safer country, the nation's crime statistics tell a different story:
Countrywide, homicides are up 3.2 percent.
Assaults are up 8.6 percent.
Amazingly, armed robberies have climbed nearly 45 percent.
In the Australian state of Victoria, gun homicides have climbed 300 percent.
In the 25 years before the gun bans, crime in Australia had been dropping steadily.
There has been a reported "dramatic increase" in home burglaries and assaults on the elderly.

The question now is what will the police do to stop violent crime. Maybe less then you think.

Western Queensland gun owners will face a safety audit to ensure their weapons are being stored correctly.

The six-month state-wide audit will see police make appointments with randomly selected licenced weapon holders to inspect their storage facilities.

Weapons licencing branch Inspector Mike Crowley says the move is all about positive re-inforcement.

"The legislation is very clear on how firearms are to be stored, and this is purely put in place to act as a safety guideline, for not only the individual but the community at large," he said.

Checking paperwork and gun locks does not seem a crime fighting tool.

Guns Guns Guns and Gear

Sorry this months contest post for firearms and firearms related gear is late. I simply got lazy.

So with that out of the way lets get into the contests.

Concealed carry clothier is giving away a specially made vest for concealed carry. This is the Tropic vest model and worth 78$.

Stay cool but covered in warmer climates. The Tropic Vest will fit your needs with it’s strong and lightweight material that won’t weigh you down. An inside net lining allows air to circulate through the covered back vent to keep you as cool as possible. This vest is designed for a casual look with front snap closure.

Features: Partially lined with 2 inside accessory pockets: Mesh inside shoulder lining and vented back insures maximum cooling effect. The inner accessory pockets provide a finished look. Back panel unlined.
Style: Four snap front closure plus our velcro Wind Strip. The Wind Strip allows the front to be gently tacked closed at mid-point.
Vented Back: Full width for best cooling.
Material: Light-weight 4-ply Taslan. This wash-and-wear fabric eliminates shrinkage and allows easy care.
Internal Pocket: All Vests are designed to carry our unique Internal Pocket. This system provides secure, versatile carry options for virtually all handguns and other tools for personal safety. Internal Pockets are sold separately.

Gallery of Guns is giving away a New England Firearm Handi-Rifle. This rifle is valued at 284$ .

Model Handi-RifleTM
Ammo 204 Ruger
Stock American hardwood Monte Carlo pistol grip stock with walnut finish, recoil pad, sling swivel studs
Barrel 22" Bull Barrel
Sights Scope mount rail and hammer extension; no iron sights
Length 38"
Length of Pull 14-1/4"
Weight 7 lbs.

Hogue has a customer survey going on and the prize is listed as a set of hogue grips. Since they did not specify I would assume you get to pick what you want.



Now we are up to my favorite. Remington is giving away a nice rifle this month. They've been giving away to many shotguns for my liking. The model this month is a Model 700™ XCR™ in 300 Remington Ultra Magnum.

Extreme conditions call for an extreme gun. And never before has a rifle this durable and rugged been introduced to the world of hunting. The cutting edge in rifle design, the Model 700 XCR (Xtreme Conditions Rifle) uses Remington’s proprietary new TriNyte™ Corrosion Control System to make the Model 700 XCR virtually impervious to even the most extreme conditions. The TriNyte System takes firearm protection further than it’s ever been before by using proven corrosion-fighting materials and an innovative, state-of-the-art application process. The result is a finish that provides scratch and corrosion resistance far superior to stainless steel alone and better than any other gun on the market.

Designed for shooters by shooters, the Model 700 XCR is built for superior handling in adverse conditions. Its feature laden synthetic stock is not only stylish and comfortable, but a technological marvel. Features include an R3® recoil pad from Limbsaver™ – the most effective recoil pad produced today – and patented rubber overmolding technology from Hogue® – a revolutionary technique incorporated into the grip and fore-end areas to provide the surest grip even in the slickest environments. The new standard in rugged durability, the Model 700 XCR Xtreme Conditions Rifle will have you delivering your appointed rounds while the others stay home.

Membership is required.

The next one is from Mossy Oaks and it's for the hunter in your life.

Full set of Mossy Oak Apparel APX gear
PSE Bow,
Primos calls, Pentax Riflescope
subscription to Petersen's Hunting magazine
$1,000 cash.

Our next gear is a regular. Blue Press is giving away one per month a set of hearing protectors.

Enjoy your own copy of Dillon Precision's "The Blue Press." Just complete our catalog request form and we'll send you a copy with our next mailing. By requesting a copy you will automatically be registered to WIN a HP1 Electronic Hearing Protector!

The next contest is from Golden Eagle Distributors. They are giving away a nice Macho Pirze of a Special Edition Remington 700 Mountain Rifle LSS plus other items.



Next up is a new NRA contest that is to big for pictures, so I'll simply give details.

Grand Prize 10-day African safari hunting trip with Wayne LaPierre, autographed FN .458 Winchester Magnum rifle pre-owned by Wayne LaPierre, dangerous game scope, part of the trip may be televised on Under Wild Skies $30,000.
First Prize Krieghoff Classic "Big 5" double rifle, dangerous-game scope $13,000.
Second Prize Hoffman Arms rifle engraved by Rudolph Kornbrath ARV $11,000.
Third Prize Kawasaki Prairie 360 4x4, NRA outdoors package ARV $5,199.
Fourth Prize Ruger Model 77 RSM with Leupold VX-III scope ARV $4,500.

Plus many more smaller items to numerous to list. This is one of the few daily contest. As it run until January 31 2007 there is no rush.

Now going high-tech we have Crimson Trace and their monthly sweep of a set of laser grips.

Announcing Crimson Trace’s Ten-Year Anniversary Customer Appreciation monthly drawing for a free set of Lasergrips (your choice, excluding Glock system). By completing the above form, you are automatically entered into this months drawing. You must re-enter each new calendar month in order to become eligible for that month.

Winners will be notified by e-mail and posted on our website (first name, last initial, city and state) the first week of each month. You must have a valid email address to win.

Here is an example of what you could win.



This next contest offered by Savage Arms is a hunt and a chance at a custom rifle.

Register to win a new Savage American Classic and one hunt of your choice with Ron Coburn, Chairman and CEO of Savage, and Buck McNeely host of TV's The Outdoorsman. Entries received without valid AccuTrigger(tm) model serial number will not be eligible to win Build-Your-Own-Gun second prize. Only one (1) online entry per person, household, email or street address will be accepted. Use of multiple email addresses to enter is prohibited. Any additional entries will be void.

The rifle is a Savage 14/114 American Classic in the caliber of your choice.

Here is some Savage Classic eye candy to enjoy until you win.



Well that's it for this month. Sorry there are so few days left to enter them, and I promise to get them to you quicker next month.

Bad boy, bad boy, whacha' going to do? What cha' going to do when they RUN OVER you?

Talk about a crime going bad.

At 2:45 a.m. Sunday, a 33-year-old man was standing in a parking lot near N. 14th and W. Center streets. A 29-year-old man rushed up to him, pulled a handgun and demanded cash, which the victim handed over.

Meanwhile, a pickup truck - which police think was the robber's getaway ride - screeched up in reverse, but instead of spiriting the robber away, hit both the suspect and the victim, apparently by accident.

Then the pickup bolted, leaving the robber to limp away with the cash.

That's when the woman, behind the wheel of a Lexus, put the suspect in her sights, Flores said.

The woman rammed the robber with the front of her car.

Then backed up and hit him again. And again.

After the third hit, the man reached into his pocket to pull his gun, but shot himself in the leg. That's when the woman hit the robber with her car a fourth time

Now this puts a smile on my face.

I am shocked...at their ignorance.

I enjoy dropping by the Worldnetdaily website to see what they are shrieking about that day. Yesterday I read one of their "articles" and had to laugh at it. It was so scare mongering that it was not worth posting on. Then today I noticed they had a book listed for sale on their front page on the same subject.

Here is what I call the idiocy of WorldNetDaily.

WASHINGTON Was the U.S. Supreme Court fooled by a make-believe sodomy case in Lawrence v. Texas one manufactured by homosexual activists to entrap police and ensnare the judicial system in a conspiracy to change the law of the land?

That is the compelling verdict of a new book, "Sex Appealed: Was the U.S. Supreme Court Fooled?" by Judge Janice Law.

It was in the Houston courthouse where Law presided as judge that she first heard rumors that the key figures in what became the landmark Lawrence v. Texas Supreme Court case actually invited arrest in a pre-arranged setup designed from the start to test the constitutionality of anti-sodomy laws.

[sarcasm on] You mean they broke the law as a trial case to try to overturn some state rule over their body. The shock. You mean those negroes down south who sat at the lunch counters were in a conspiracy to break the law and go to court. Horror[/sarcasm off]

The shame is that WND feels that a test case they don't like is a conspiracy against Mom, apple pie, and the American way.

Liberty has never come from government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance.

Woodrow Wilson, May 9, 1912, Address, New York Press Club.

Today's blog is brought to you by the letters Q and W.

Today we are in the midst of a struggle for our rights in this country. I will have to admit that even though I knew rights in other countries were bad, even the country of nations Bush calls allies, I simply did not know how silly their laws were.

A Turkish court has fined 20 people for using the letters Q and W on placards at a Kurdish new year celebration, under a law that bans use of characters not in the Turkish alphabet, rights campaigners said.

The court in the southeastern city of Siirt fined each of the 20 people 100 new lira for holding up the placards, written in Kurdish, at the event last year. The letters Q and W do not exist in the Turkish alphabet.

Under pressure from the European Union , Turkey has improved language and human rights for its Kurdish minority, but the EU says implementation has been patchy and loopholes remain.

With friends like this who needs enemies?

The government speaks...sort of.

Blake of Nashville Files Blog did a fine post on a local band of thugs the Rutherford county Sheriffs department. In the comments he received a nice comment from a county computer and I think you would enjoy it.

Take our advice keep you dumb a-- Nashville nose out of our business.

Just your local friendly government employee at work.

Brazilian vote for self defense.

In a major blow to gun-grabbers a nation voted to keep the right to bear arms.

Brazilians struck down a proposal to ban the sale of guns in a national referendum, rejecting a bid to stem one of the world's highest firearm murder rates in a debate that mirrored the gun control battle in the United States.

Brazil has 100 million fewer citizens than the United States, but a staggering 25 percent more gun deaths at nearly 40,000 a year. While supporters argued gun control was the best way to stanch the violence, opponents played on Brazilians' fears that the police can't protect them in the campaign leading up to Sunday's vote.

"I don't like people walking around armed on the street. But since all the bandits have guns, you need to have a gun at home," said taxi driver Mohammed Osei, who voted against the ban.

With more than 92 percent of the votes counted, 64 percent of Brazilians opposed the ban, while 36 percent backed it, said election officials, giving the 'no' position an insurmountable lead.

The people have spoken. I just hope their politicians listen.

No penalty for breaking the law?

Pardon me while I laugh hysterically for a moment at the reply from the state to a judges question.

The ACLU is representing a client under a gag order due to a patriot act investigation into someone. It is what came out in the courtroom that is worth noting

In an interesting sidelight, according to testimony by federal prosecutors, the statute authorizing the NSL and gag order carries no penalty. So the federal judge asked at the Bridgeport hearing: "What can you do to this plaintiff if he or she or it spoke?" Replied the prosecutor: "That is a very good question. The statute is silent as to that."

Even without a penalty, violating the gag order might not be a good idea, according to Kevin S. Coyne of Stratford, a civil rights attorney with the law firm of Coyne, von Kuhn, Brady & Fries.

"I wouldn't advise any client to go against the law, regardless of what my personal opinions were," Coyne said. "That could be risky and has to be examined closely."

Break a gag order and get what? A five minute time out in the corner. They write laws so fast and complex that some step over the line from dumb to outrageously stupid.

The government has a good bullshit comeback though.

"There are a lot of laws that carry minimal penalties or none at all, but that doesn't mean one shouldn't comply," he said. "I agree it may make it harder to enforce such laws. What's the incentive? But if they're ignored, and must be revised to include one, that might invite harsher penalties."

"Harder to enforce"? Ha. "Stop! Or we will say Stop again" is not a good legal tactic!

I wonder how many laws out there have NO penalties? Maybe we could arrange a law breaking weekend of fun in the sun.

A sad anniversary today

Today The Gun Control Act of 1968 became a law and went into effect. This law has been claimed by many to be inspired by the National Weapons Law of Nazi Germany. So dear ATFE. Kiss my ass!

Arrest everyone?

The article linked here was basically about the police taking your fingerprints. The article is simply another support to the fact that the state is out of control. The problem for me is his mindset exposed so well by one small statement the police made.

Officials at the Maricopa County Attorney's Office said they had not been consulted about the new policy and could not comment whether it was legal.

"Of course we can take prints," Arpaio said, referring to criminal traffic violators. "We can arrest everybody if we want to."

If they want to? Working overtime putting the word "thug" back into jack booted thugs.

Paper idiocy

In another blow against logic and using your mind a school kicked three students out for folding paper.

A piece of paper folded to resemble a gun led to the brief suspension of three Dallas-area students.

DeSoto Independent School District officials later revoked the punishment.

All were suspended after eleven-year-old Destiny Thomas on Monday folded some computer paper to look like a gun.
.......
The DeSoto student code says no weapons or replicas are allowed, but officials later reviewed the interpretation and dropped the punishment for the children.

The student were later arrested when they folded a paper airplane and flew it without proper FAA clearance and pilots license.

Two logics at play in Brazil

A nice article about the upcoming vote in Brazil about a possible ban on firearms. While the attempted ban is the normal result of a high crime rate, the people are starting to think that the logic of disarming the victims may not be the best idea their government has ever had.

The government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, rights groups and the Roman Catholic church believe the argument for the ban cannot be shot down.
......
But the public is cynical and polls show support for the measure slumping.

Fifty-two percent of the 122 million Brazilians eligible to vote in the referendum will oppose the ban, according to a survey by Toledo and Associates released on Wednesday.

Before the campaign started on October 1, other polls had shown up to 76 percent of the public in favour.

But the pro-gun lobby -- arms makers and even some victims of violence -- has aired aggressive campaign adverts against a ban, one using the image of South African leader Nelson Mandela linking his fight for freedom to the argument that people should be allowed to own firearms.

The poll numbers are so close that this is going to be a Florida style election I feel.

"It will be worse, everyone will know we are disarmed," said Raimundo Moacir Felix de Souza, a 64-year-old store owner.

Smart guy.

Senators: Bloggers may not be true journalists

I can live with that easily. Some people like me do not want to be called journalists. I also would not want to be called a male whore(manwhore?) either. While some blogs have become journalistic in nature I have no intention to.

For me blogs are like the small newsletters that popped up during the 60's and 70's. They were made simply to get the opinions and views of one group across. Journalists try, in theory, to report the news without bias. Not me. I proclaim my bias and I am very happy with it. Journalists have to worry about their bosses and what the people who read them think. I don't. If you don't like my blog then go away.

Some bloggers are rightfully trying to gain journalistic protection for their speech. That's nice, but since the government is trying so hard to define what a journalist is I have a question. Do you want the government to define you? Not I.

So I'm a blogger. No more and no less. I'm not a journalist.

Another mindless government drone

In England a person was arrested for walking in public. Standard government over reaction. It's the words of one drone that says it all though.

A spokesman for Forth Ports said: “We will robustly prosecute anyone who breaches these new security measures because they have been introduced by the Government and we are obliged to enforce them.”

Best trandlated as "the government has done our thinking for us, so we react as they demand".

lets start a blog pool

There are few things in this world that piss me off more then Christians trying to tie natural disasters to acts of man. The tales that New Orleans was hit because of Gay street festivals, or abortions send me to the edge of violence. The belief that the storm Rita hit Texas because of George Bush is almost as bad.

So now we have another major storm heading for Florida. A massive category 5 beast. Ready to bring death and destruction down upon everyone there.

So now I wait. For what you ask? I wait for the fringe Christians to proclaim that Florida got hit because of the states actions during the Terri Schiavo fiasco.

So who wants to take a guess on when the first mouth-piece steps forward to proclaim this storm is God' righteous anger? I just googled Wilma(the name of the storm) and Schiavo. As of right now there are no returns with both words in the news section. Yet.

Because deep down we know there were no storms before abortion and Terri Schiavo.

I wasn't offended by this article

He asked a good question.

Are you easily offended? Does your little ego bruise easily? Do you think everyone else in America ought to give a darn about your self-esteem? Do your eyes fill with tears every time you perceive someone is being insensitive to you? Do you live under the delusional belief that you should be protected against being offended? Do you believe that anytime you are offended someone should be fired; have their life ruined or character trashed?
If you answered yes to any of the above questions you need to shut up, grow up, stop throwing your little pity parties and get a life! Frankly, you and those like you are a major part of what is wrong with America today. Your constant carping and whining are adding nothing positive to this great nation. Instead, the climate of perpetual offendedness and hypersensitivity you are creating is sapping the great spirit of rugged individualism that made America the greatest nation to ever exist in this world’s history.

Amen!

I hope they're not surprised?

A city graciously made a "small space" available for free(BULLSHIT) speech in the center of town. Of course there are a few limitation.

At the same time, commissioners approved a six-page policy detailing a rigorous selection process for groups that want to use the space.

Among other things, the county requires each group to have a $500,000 insurance policy to cover liability -- a condition that has stopped at least one local group from applying to use the space.
......
"It's a very laborious process," he said. "There's a lot of language that's in there that's hard to understand. The amount of time required (to apply), the expense that's involved . . . there's a lot of requirements."

In addition to the insurance condition, the county also stipulates that the person or group applying must pay a $50 application fee and another $100 if the application is approved to cover the county's maintenance costs.

Some groups may have also been put off by another clause in the county's policy requiring that the content of each display undergo review by county officials. Displays cannot include any profanity or pornography, commercial speech or lights or sound effects, the policy says.
.......
Groups can still use the space by applying 21 days in advance and getting approval, said Jarret.

What part of free do they not understand?

So what happens when all of this regulated free speech occurs? Nothing.

There's a new free speech zone in Bartow. But so far, nobody seems to have anything to say.

County officials say they have not received a single application to use a small space outside the county administration building for public displays, not even from religious organizations wanting to erect a Nativity scene there this Christmas.

"I have not even received an inquiry, not even a call from somebody saying they're thinking about this," said County Attorney Joe Jarret, whose office is responsible for reviewing applications to use the space

I hope they're not surprised.

You know it's going to be a bad day when you wake up with a headache

Red pill time

What's your computer printer saying about you? Surprises await at this link. I'm not paranoid when I say they are tracking us, you're oblivious to say they're not.

Tracking humans.

California has decided to track humans with GPS devices. Of course it is all for your safety.

California probation officials have gained broad authority to latch global positioning system devices onto their charges under a new law that critics call unprecedented for government surveillance.

But for now, cost, not civil rights concerns, will probably limit the use of GPS bracelets or anklets.

The bill, one of the public safety measures signed into law earlier this month by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, will add county probation chiefs to the list of officials who can strap GPS tracking devices to offenders' ankles without court orders.

They've tried this in studies and have gotten good results.

Government logic

The government threw out money left and right after 911 to "help" businesses hurt by the terrorist act. It's now time to start paying those loans off. 4 years the people with loans knew this was coming and did not prepare. So what does one of the government drones say?

Rep. Nydia Velazquez, who represents New York City and is the top Democrat on the House Small Business Committee, wants the SBA to extend the period of time before companies are required to make loan payments, hoping to ease the burden.

"A lot of these companies are just beginning to have to pay back their loans," said Velazquez. "What is the government going to tell them when they can't?"

Let me give a suggestion. "You're in default and we plan to sell your business". The 911 greed and their incompetence should not protect them.

I'm not even going to go into the rant about why the government is backing these loans in the first place. I know it's all about votes, but I'm sure their is a document called the CONSTITUTION that does not give them this power.

The article does mention one thing interesting.

The AP also reported that some businesses far removed from New York and Washington - like a Utah dog boutique and a Virgin Islands perfume bar - got loans directly from the SBA, while businesses closer to the World Trade Center were either turned down or unaware of the aid.

The SBA says that while some loans might have been made in haste, the agency is vigorously prosecuting people who obtained tax dollars or loan guarantees under false pretenses.

Ah yes. The vital dog grooming industry that keep our nation free. Many who got 911 loans did not even know they were 911 loans. The government was throwing money out there.

So looking at Louisiana I wonder if they will learn their lesson before throwing out so much money down there? Did I just say that? I need a drink.

Chicken littles

The anti-gun groups are used to screaming the sky is falling whenever a gun law they don't like is passed. Problem is that they are wrong in almost every way.

When Florida passed a law in 1987 making it easier for citizens to get licenses to carry concealed firearms, opponents predicted that blood would run in the streets. "When you have 10 times as many people carrying guns as you do now, and they get into an argument and tempers flash, you're going to have people taking out guns and killing people," one gun-control activist said.

Since the law was passed, it turns out, Florida's murder rate has been cut in half. Instead of becoming more dangerous, the state has become considerably safer.

Normally gun rights folks try to show how the laws are working to prove the grabbers wrong. Lately I've seen a new trend. They are digging through the archives of the net and showing the words spoken by the grabbers of doom and gloom and then comparing it to the reality of today.

What is being exposes is the fact that they don't know squat about guns, rights, or safety. I'm amazed that people can support and back financially groups that are wrong all of the time. Logic, and the gun-grabbers, and strangers.

After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.
Alexis de Tocqueville

Public safety

FEMA has set up a trailer park for refugees(screw you Jesse jackson) of Katrina to live in for a short term. Sounds all nice and everything except for one thing. To be allowed to live there you had to follow the rule of no firearms.

This has not amused the gun crowds at all. So with a little digging they found that the local sheriff's office had made the request. After a lot of bad PR the sheriff's office started to talk.

But a top sheriff's official said that while it was a "close decision," public safety became the most-important concern rather than constitutional rights.

"I'm a member of the NRA and a firm supporter of the NRA in most instances," said Col. Greg Phares, chief criminal deputy for the Sheriff's Office.

"But in this instance, I had to balance the responsibility of the Sheriff's Office with constitutional rights," Phares added. "I think it's the right decision. It wasn't a comfortable decision, but it is right."

A lot of rights can be disposed of in the name of "public safety". That one phrase pretty much says that public safety is less of a concern then simply keeping control of the people in that place.

He then tries again to justify what the rules are in a rather strange way.

Phares said he doesn't consider the ban on a guns a constitutional violation because tenants can decide whether to sign the lease or not.

"It's a voluntary choice," he said.

However, he did admit the evacuees who signed up for the trailers had limited choices on where to live.

"The only problem is a lot of these people don't have any other options at this point," Phares said.

He is right to a point. They did sign the lease. You sign a lease on a place that does not allow water beds, or kids, or pets then you have to follow the rules.

The problem is that you have a choice. If you do not want to live in a place with these rules then you hunt for another place that will allow your pet or whatever. As he said this place is the only choice for many. In desperation would you give up a right or two to have a roof over your head? Many would I feel.

Deeds done in the name of public safety that require "small" infringements of rights are the first steps down a long rocky road.

I'm sorry

When I was a kid and got my first record player the albums I first played were some of my mom's. She had an eclectic grouping of LP's and I remember two albums over all of them. One was a collection of Mozart piano pieces. I still to this day have a deep love for good solo piano peaces. It is the other one that has caused me to say I'm sorry.

The other was a three album set of the Woodstock event. I'm talking the best of the best. Everything from the Joan Biaz singing Joe Hill to Jimi Hendrix performing Purple haze. Even now as I shut my eyes I hear the voice of Janis Joplin. She was a musical god taken before her time.

I was over at my mom's house a few days ago and we broke out into the F song. We sang it as much as we could remember. It has been to long since I've listened to that brief glorious point in history. The problem is this time I found myself not just singing the words but finally, after 30 odd years, appreciating them more then ever, and for that I send out this apology to history.

The war was at it's height and protests were the norm. The concert was filled with anti-establishment songs one after another. Some were only so so, but that damned F song was become legend.

So here it is in it's clean version. But remember that on that stage that day they changed the lyrics. Instead of the F-I-S-H chant they had an F-U-C-K chant. That chant has always represented to me Woodstock in all of its rebellion

The Fish Cheer & I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag
Gimme an F!

F!
Gimme an I!

I!
Gimme an S!

S!
Gimme an H!

H!
What's that spell ?

FISH!
What's that spell ?

FISH!
What's that spell ?

FISH!
Yeah, come on all of you, big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again.
He's got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Vietnam
So put down your books and pick up a gun,
We're gonna have a whole lotta fun.

And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Well, come on generals, let's move fast;
Your big chance has come at last.
Gotta go out and get those reds
The only good commie is the one who's dead
And you know that peace can only be won
When we've blown 'em all to kingdom come.

And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Huh!

Well, come on Wall Street, don't move slow,
Why man, this is war au-go-go.
There's plenty good money to be made
By supplying the Army with the tools of the trade,
Just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
They drop it on the Viet Cong.

And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Well, come on mothers throughout the land,
Pack your boys off to Vietnam.
Come on fathers, don't hesitate,
Send 'em off before it's too late.
Be the first one on your block
To have your boy come home in a box.

And it's one, two, three
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Looking back into history I have had a rather negative view of the anti-establishment. They could best be described as less then upstanding citizens for the most part. The motto of Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out does not show good character.

The thing is I listened to the words I was singing and for the first time understood them for more then what they were. Here we are, as a nation, involved in a war that is causing its own sort of internal problems.

So what are we fighting for. No one can seem to answer that. No two answers that you do get are the same, all depending on the latest poll. The problem is that to many people are saying "I don't give a damn" and just pushing ahead. We tried that once. It did not work.

And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;

Now I look back at the music and energy of that generation and see something different. Deep down I think I might have just taken the step into full blown anti-establishment thinking.

To many people are saying they don't know why we are there, yet they don't do anything because they don't give a damn it seems.

So with this I say I'm sorry to that whole generation. At least you had the energy to try to stop it. You wrote songs, protested, and acted out in violence sometimes. You worked against a bad war. I see groups like protest warriors who enjoy going and mocking protestors. At first I enjoyed laughing with them. It looks differently from the otherside of the banners.

Does this generation give a damn? I hope they learn to before they end up like the lyrics suggested

And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Sorry.

I think he had an agenda.

Some people decided that the name of a pile of dirt and rocks was so important that they attempted to have it changed.

WALNUT CREEK Federal officials have rejected a request to change the name of Mount Diablo after receiving complaints that it was offensive to some religions.

The U.S. Board on Geographic Names voted unanimously this week to keep Mount Diablo's name the same, saying it "saw no compelling reason to change the name," said spokeswoman Jennifer Runyan.

He wanted it changed because the name was insulting to him and others. Now I had a small bit of sympathy for him until he put forth his alternative name choice.

He then suggested Mount Yahweh, claiming the word meant not only "God" in Hebrew but also "The Creator" in the tribal language of the Miwok tribe. But a tribe spokeswoman said the word is not listed in the Miwok dictionary.

Yep! The poor offended guy wanted to name the mountain with the Hebrew word for God. No agenda there.

It's people like this that makes me want to change the Tar and feathering laws of the nation.

Why not change it to "God is great and Pat Robertson is his only servant and mouthpiece in America" mountain? It's Christians like this that give the majority a bad name.

The are acrylamide coming, the acrylamide are coming

So once again we have the state government in California being pushed by a personal agenda. This personal agenda will likely become your regulations and laws. Of course all of it is to protect you from yourself, and french fries. This Tech Central article simply tears up their acts with hard facts.

Proposition 65 deserves to be renamed "the law of mythological food fears." It's the California act of 1986 which "requires businesses to provide clear and reasonable warning if their products expose any individual to a chemical known to the state to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity." Couched by many as the "right to know law," it has increased the number of carcinogens and reproductive toxicants subject to government regulations -- with resultant warning labels on everything -- to 367 and 179, respectively. But it's done so at the expense of regulatory relevance and sound science. Instead, it's become the vehicle used by activists to terrify us about our food -- namely "unnatural" or processed "junk" food -- by not giving consumers the full story.


This has been exemplified in California attorney general Bill Lockyer's recent lawsuit against nine manufacturers of potato chips and french fries because of the presence of the chemical, acrylamide. "All consumers should have the information we need to make informed decisions about the food we eat," said Lockyer. "Proposition 65 requires companies to tell us when we're exposed to potentially dangerous toxins in our food; the law benefits us all."

Now this stuff must be really bad to have all of this energy expended to deal with it. Right?

Wrong!

The truth of the matter is in the numbers.

Ignoring these facts, Attorney General Lockyer and the Center for Science in the Public Interest want warning labels only on fries and chips. They cite acrylamide as "another reason to eat less greasy French fries and snack chips." But people eat more bread than fries, and thus are exposed to more acrylamide in breads. Looking at other foods common in most homes, graham crackers, for example, contain about 25% more acrylamide than potato chips and toasted wheat cereal 77% more! Singling out any food is unsound. According to David Acheson, PhD, scientist at the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN), there is no food that contributes the majority of exposure. "We are talking about a fairly large spectrum of food, but no single food [is] a primary culprit," he said. "The overall mean acrylamide exposure (in U.S. and international populations) is generally in the range of 0.3 to 0.5 micrograms per kilogram per day."

This brings us to two other absurdities with California's Proposition 65 that defy good science. "Any detectable amount" is considered a "significant chemical exposure," and chemicals are deemed possible human carcinogens based on studies in special cancer-prone rats. But, according to Joseph A. Levitt, director of CFSAN, existing guidelines calling acrylamide a "probable human carcinogen" are based solely on animal studies in which cancer risk was observed in rats fed the "maximum tolerated dose" of acrylamide -- an amount just below the level the rats would be poisoned to death -- at a daily dose for their entire lives starting at 500 micrograms per kilogram of body weight.

Let's translate that. According to current National Health and Nutrition Education Survey (NHANES) data, the average U.S. adult weighs more than 75 kilograms (men and women average 180.7 and 152.3 pounds, respectively), which equates to a lifetime acrylamide daily dose of 37,500 micrograms.

A person would have to consume about 195 pounds of french fries, 142 pounds of graham crackers, or 5,350 one-ounce servings (333 pounds) of cheerios every day, for life, in order to approach the lowest level of risk observed in laboratory rats.

I'm damn near sure I could not eat that much food to get the equal amount that the rats did.

But when did logic and hard facts ever stop the government from doing anything right?

So why are they doing this? I think one line said it all.

They cite acrylamide as "another reason to eat less greasy French fries and snack chips.

They're FAT police. The same FAT police that shut down candy machines in schools across the country.

Another sad government action done for the abused reason "for your own good".

Good news hell. This is great news.

Just read about this.

Considering the drift in our nation lately, one gets the feeling that certain people -- and pretty much everyone in the Bush administration -- have forgotten that America is about inconvenient freedoms.

Convenient freedoms are easy. They cost nothing and they withstand no assault. Standing up for the inconvenient freedoms in the most difficult times is what defines you as a patriot.

Every member of the Delaware Supreme Court deserves a kiss on the cheek today for reminding us that this is America, afterall.

A lower court had held that poster's ISP, Comcast, should be compelled to release the name of the person who submitted the offensive remarks to the blog.

An interesting twist is that the protection was extended to mere comments in the blog. Even more intriguing, the remarks sent to the Smyrna-Clayton Public Issues blog run a newspaper company: the Delaware State News. The poster, "John Doe 1," was represented by the ACLU, of course.

Finally, in one of those moments that makes you happy that the world exists in all its raw peculiarity, Delaware Online alleges that pretty much everyone in Smyrna believes that the anonymous poster was none other than the mayor himself.

Oh, let this marvelous irony trickle down your cheeks like sweet peach juice on a summer day while you smile stupidly at the sheer joy of being alive. Yes, yes, yes: it might have been a public official himself who created the curse-filled rant that led to the lawsuit that clearly establishes the precedent that other public officials may be subjected to further (heartfelt) curse-filled rants from constituents. Forevermore!

Well I feel good tonight. Speech, even the unwanted type, is free.

Retreat!

In the light of day the vermin run for darkness...mostly. Seems FEMA does not like the light of bad PR, and with their recent history I am not surprised. They have decided to stall for time to let the issue die reconsider the issue

BATON ROUGE, La. Under pressure from gun rights groups, FEMA said today it is reconsidering a ban on firearms at a trailer park established to temporarily house Hurricane Katrina victims.

The dispute involves a nearly 600-trailer encampment that opened last week near Baton Rouge. Katrina evacuees will be allowed to stay there rent-free while they try to find permanent housing.

The article said that the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's office asked them to do it, but they would have done it anyway.

Getting tough on crime the wrong way

Seems Blair is streamlining the legal process in England with fixed penalties. The Sun article starts out with these lines.

TONY Blair last night sensationally vowed to end the tradition of being presumed innocent until found guilty.
The PM pledged to turn the nation’s criminal justice system on its head and hand police sweeping new powers

The only problem is that they included his statement and I do not see what they see.

If people want us to tackle the new types of crime today you can’t do it by the rules of the game we have at the moment.
There is international crime, very brutal violent organised crime, anti-social behaviour.

In every respect these types of crime are different from when I was growing up.

People can write articles about going through this process. But it’s too complicated and too laborious.

The police end up being hidebound by a whole series of restrictions. It’s too complicated. We have to put the duty to protect the law-abiding citizen at the centre of the system.

If you are a police officer patrolling the streets and someone throws a brick through a window or abuses an old lady on the way to the shops . . . If you have to take that person all the way through a long court process, you are not going to do it.

By the time you have filled out all the forms, done the statements, got them to court, three hearings, they have defence lawyers, all the rest of it, forget it.

You may say ‘yes, we should do that if we are going to charge someone with an offence’. But if that’s what you do, you don’t get the job done.

The reason I introduced fixed penalties was I said ‘we have had enough of that’. With serious crime, it takes two or three years. Heaven knows the millions they spend putting it together. We then have trials going on forever and half of them get off in the end. It’s ridiculous.

If you want to change it you can change it but not by pretending the same system can be applied with a little bit of effort, because it doesn’t work.

Fixed penalties have not worked here and will not work there.

Good question

Think about this.

Our Society has reached a point where too many people have too much to worry about, Mortgage, rent, car payments, TAXES, alimony, child support, credit card bills, TAXES, gasoline, heating oil, natural gas, cell phone, broadband cable, satellite TV, groceries, Did I mention TAXES? Oh yeah Health, death, car, homeowners, renters, flood, earthquake insurance and the almighty 401k, IRA, annuities, and add your own stuff here....
.........
I am dangerous because I can think, and work myself out of my situation without the help, acknowledment or blessing of government.

Government is irrelevant! Sure they can imprison me and take my life. It looks like they may even try.

I'll take a few of these bastards with me though.

No whining. I own my life, do you the reader own yours?

Darn good question.

Punished for their crimes?

I always thought, maybe a simplistic view in todays csociety, that you would only be punished for your own crimes. Glad I don't like in Hawaii.

Under a new policy, Hawaii officials are forcing used car buyers to assume responsibility for parking tickets left unpaid by a previous owner. The state last month began enforcing an obscure law passed more than a decade ago that states no motor vehicle may be registered if records show that there are outstanding fines against the vehicle -- not against the owner. To register the car, buyers must either pay all fines owed by the previous owner or contest the ticket in court. To contest the ticket, the buyer must pay a "bond" which is exactly the amount of the fine.

Worse, many unpaid parking tickets may not even have be issued for legitimate violations. In 2003, motorist Dwain Marlowe used a video camera to document how parking meters near the Honolulu airport were shortchanging drivers by between 5 and 15 minutes. Parking tickets generate more than $20 million a year in revenue for Hawaii.

Thanks government.

Ours, ours, ours.

In what is becoming common in modern politics one group is attempting to steal borrow another groups ideals as their own.

In These Times is a progressive online newspaper site with backers of the like of Noam Chomsky and others described as "noted intellectuals". The website throws around the word "progressive" way to much for my liking. Anyone who has to label themselves is questionable in my view.

So while looking at their site I came across an article/column that made me laugh.

Imminent Domination
Progressives cannot allow libertarians to lead the fight against the misuse of eminent domain

"Cannot allow"? How "progressive" of you.

In June the Supreme Court started the clock ticking on a potential political time bomb. In Kelo v. New London, the Court ruled five to four that local governments could use their power of eminent domain to take private property, including homes, to promote economic development. The decision broke no new legal ground, but it did stir up opposition across the political spectrum, yielding a potential windfall for the right-wing libertarian movement for “property rights.”

Now I'm right wing?

Mocking aside the article is well written. They do have the habit of using the word"right" in front of, or behind, the word libertarian in the article. I guess in their eyes if you're not "progressive" then you're part of the evil right wing machine.

What is sad is that the article does not say that a grand coalition against the Kelo ruling should occur. No working together and regaining our rights from the government. They must seize this cause and run with it. All or nothing!

Sad. So sad.

They're coming to take you away ha Ha.

My mother-in-law doesn't like Bush. As she say "Just look in his eyes. He's a megalomaniac". I don't like him because he acts like basic rights take back seat to agenda. Now I have no idea what his agenda is except screwing our rights and country over.

One of the things Bush is doing is getting his religious warrior enforcers the law enforcement to go after something really bad. Not illegal immigration, murder, or even drugs. Nope! It's all about the obscenity problem.

His religious crusade seems to have started hard this last week.

The FBI raided the home of a controversial erotic stories website owner on Friday, apparently on charges of obscenity. The website, red-rose-stories.com, posted a notice on its home page announcing the raid and warning customers that the FBI now has access to all past customer information.

I am sorry to inform all interested parties that Red Rose Stories is a DEAD site, read a statement posted on the website by operator Rosie. The FBI has suceeded [sic] in closing me down. I am being charged with 'OBSCENITIES' and face charges for having posted such stories. Our stories are NOT protected speech. Please, please, be careful out there.

and

Polk County sheriff's deputies Friday night arrested the creator of a Web site that stirred international controversy with its alleged swap of free access to pornography for pictures from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, including dead and mutilated Iraqi and Afghan war dead.

Chris Wilson ran the Web site, the name of which contains an unprintable word, from his apartment at the Glen Cove Apartment Complex on Edgewood Drive.

In September, when news reports of the site began to surface, Wilson insisted that because the site actually is hosted in Amsterdam, he was not violating any laws in Polk County.

"Nice try," Brad Copley, a prosecutor with the State Attorney's Office, who specializes in obscenity and sex crime cases, said Friday night. "He's in charge of the Web site. He lives here. He's operating from his house. It doesn't matter where his server is."

What this means is obscenity is the new McCarthy buzzword for the era.

I laughed when I heard Bush was pulling agents off of other cases because obscenity was going to be the top priority. Looks like the war against everything more exciting them an Amish life just started.

I will admit shock at one thing. Not the Bush's war on everything. I'm shocked that the police arrested the second individual even though his servers are in another country. I guess the long arm of the law knows no bounds....or limits.

The saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished liberty is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while yet there was time. — JUSTICE GEORGE SUTHERLAND (1938)

An easy lesson

Is it news to anyone out there that the government has an overwhelming desire to control you? I'm not just talking your money, your house, and even your income. No! They already have their talons well embedded into those. I'm talking about their desire to control even more basic function.

Making babies! The historical process of creating the next generation. For most it is a simple process. Take one guy, add one gal, and the sum is a screaming kid that will keep them up for the next many years until he joins a punk band and wears a mohawk.

Only problem is that some people want babies without the guy being involved as anything other then a donor. My belief is that it is your uterus and you are in control of it.

Only problem is the government. Isn't that a truer statement in this time we live in. Maybe they think they have a sublet on your privates or something. I'm sure I never loaned mine out, but who knows. But for some reason the government has decided to try to get more involved.

Now into this picture of baby making steps a politician who feels that your procreation is of interest to him. So much so that she wishes to control your procreation (I like that word. Say it with me. PROCREATION. It Just rolls off the tongue) .

Gays, lesbians and single Hoosiers would be prohibited from using medical science to help have a child under a bill being considered by an interim legislative committee.

The legislation puts Indiana in the middle of a national battle over reproductive rights and promises to be contentious.

If we're going to try to put Indiana on the map, I wouldn't go this route, said Betty Cockrum, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Indiana. It feels pretty chilling. It is governmental intrusion into a very private part of our lives.

But Sen. Pat Miller, R-Indianapolis, said Indiana law currently has no regulations regarding assisted reproduction and should have similar requirements to adoption in Indiana.

Now this bill had two parts. One defined some issues of surrogacy and adoptions. It was the second part that has done something the bills writer never intended it to do. It gave America a small lesson in the governments desire to control even basic body function. I'm sure she intended it to do what she wanted it to do, to seize and Kelo your reproductive organs if you do not fit the nuclear family model.

But the part of the bill raising eyebrows involves assisted reproduction.

It defines assisted reproduction as causing pregnancy by means other than sexual intercourse, including intrauterine insemination, donation of an egg, donation of an embryo, in vitro fertilization and transfer of an embryo, and sperm injection.

The bill then requires intended parents to be married to each other and specifically says an unmarried person may not be an intended parent.

A doctor can't begin an assisted reproduction technology procedure that may result in a child's being born until the intended parents of the child have received a certificate of satisfactory completion of an assessment required under the bill.

Yep! You have to be certified by the government to get assistance to have a baby if you need help.

What next? I just have to say there is nothing more romantic then me, Mary Jane rotten crotch, a bottle of wine, and my certification. How romantic. (sniff)

What I liked is the reaction. As the news was filled with stories of this bill what can best be called a outraged anger arose and the people set their sights on the sponsor. Her withdrawing of the bill and resulting statement was a pleasure to behold.

A controversial proposed bill to prohibit gays, lesbians and single people from using medical procedures to become pregnant has been dropped by its legislative sponsor.

State Sen. Patricia Miller, R-Indianapolis, issued a one-sentence statement this afternoon saying: The issue has become more complex than anticipated and will be withdrawn from consideration by the Health Finance Commission.

"more complex" she says. Translation "They're about to lynch my ass".

I was surprised at one thing in this story. Not the bill, it is just another government attempt to control you. I'm surprised at the gender of the bills sponsor. The first article listed the sponsor as ..

Sen. Pat Miller, R-Indianapolis

So I figured it was just another guy with way to much time on his hands. Then the second article mentioned the sponsors whole name.

Sen. Patricia Miller, R-Indianapolis

A lady! That adds a whole new side to this story.

I have little hope that most people will remember this lesson on government control past the next episode of American idol.

Guns snobs

I was living out in Kansas and I had one shotgun. A Mossberg 500 that I had purchased when I was a senior in high school. During my first year in college the barrel got damaged so it was replaced with a gunshow deal. Now I enjoyed it even though there ware a couple of items I wanted to have fixed or polished. One was the safety. The safety was to small and not made well. So I thought I would see if I could get a better one installed. I mean how much could that cost?

Now the place I lived had two well established gun shops. One was more working class, and the other was more expensive but had a rep of doing good smithing. I walk into the expensive one with the shotgun in it's case and asked them about changing out a shotgun safety. He said sure and if he could look at the shotgun.

The second he looked at it he opened his mouth and pissed me off. "Oh! A Walmart shotgun".

WTF. This shotgun was my first firearm purchase and my true love and this dipshit insults it! By asking around after I walked out I found that the shop owner was the local gun snob. He did not like "cheap" guns and looked down on them.

I would rather enjoy the company of a guy who loves his Mossberg then a gun snob with his 1200$ Franchi any day. Some people, me included, simply cannot afford the costly toys of some but that gives no one the right to look down on us poor Walmart shotgun people.

I never gave that shop a single bit of future business. When ever someone asked where the local shops were I specifically warned them about this gun snob. I figure I sent a few hundred dollars worth towards that blue-collar shop in the next few years.

So the next time you take you 1800$ pimped out AR with all the bells and whistles to the range. Please do not look down on the poor guy firing cheap wolf ammo from his cheap MAK90. He's enjoying himself as best he can and does not need to be reminded that the good stuff is out of his reach. That friend who shows you with pride his "new" arsenal refurbished BHP he just got for 300$ does not need to be one upped by you flashing your pimped out Glock with all of it's bells and whistles.

Don't become a damn gun snob.

Missing the big picture here, almost.

The main stream media is full of the story of the black man being beaten down by the officers of the New Orleans police force. While I am glad that the police in question are being charged with simple battery I think one more should be fired.

Three New Orleans police officers are facing battery charges after investigators reviewed a videotape showing two patrolmen repeatedly punching a 64-year-old man accused of public intoxication and a third officer grabbing and shoving an Associated Press Television News producer who helped capture the confrontation on tape.

After being questioned and arrested, the three officers were suspended without pay Sunday, police spokesman Marlon Defillo said. The police promised a criminal investigation.

"It's a troubling tape, no doubt about it," Defillo said.

Take a moment to watch the video and you will notice the cop on horseback who purposely moves his horse to block the camera crew. He's the one whose action I think most people missed because of the attack.

While I think there are WAY TO MANY LAWS, there is one more law that needs to be passed. It should be a FELONY for an officer to attempt to stop a camera during an arrest if they are not in the way or a threat to them.

Most of you have seen videos of cops throwing their hand in front of the camera and scream "turn that off or get arrested!". Without cameras we would not know of many crimes by cops. If they enjoy the cameras on their dashes that are their for their protection then we should enjoy the same enjoyable right to protect ourselves.

This horses ass that got in the way, the cop on the horse, not the physical rear, should have been one of the cops fired. He tried to cover the actions of other cops, he attempted to block a legal activity by the press, and he should be charged as an accomplish.

I'm going to copy this post and send it to my representatives and see if I even get a reply. I'm just a citizen, while the FOP have deep pockets. Lets see how my representatives react. I think silence will be the reply I get. Normally is.

"The People have Spoken - the Bastards"

That's what ran through my head when I read this story. A politician in Queens New York plans on letting the people write legislation that may become law.

For anyone who has ever said "there oughta be a law," a Queens politician is offering the opportunity of a lifetime.
Assemblyman Jimmy Meng (D-Flushing) is sponsoring a "Make Your Own Law" contest - inviting his constituents to write legislation with the promise that the best proposal will be introduced as a bill in Albany.

"There are so many people in the community who have many great ideas on how to make the community better," Meng said. "I would love to hear from everybody and involve the constituents in the process of lawmaking."

So far, about two dozen entries have come in, spanning a wide range of issues, from traffic to the environment to zoning regulations.

Now before you start saying how smart he is think again, then read this.

With help from local leaders, he will choose the winning idea in December, then introduce the bill to the Assembly. The winner also will get a photo with the assemblyman.

That's right. Him and some cronies will pick the one to submit. So the people write them, but the politicians pick them.

He likely is trying to avoid what happened in England not so long ago. They let people submit and pick the bills. What occurred when the people finally picked one that would legalize shooting criminals was that politician who promised to submit it commented.

"The People have Spoken - the Bastards"

He also did not submit the bill.

So here we have another politician patting the people on the head and telling them how much he cares for what they think, then will decide what they think.

Lesson learned

School work and the SS secret service. Sounds like a match made in heaven.

Selina Jarvis is the chair of the social studies department at Currituck County High School in North Carolina, and she is not used to having the Secret Service question her or one of her students.

But that’s what happened on September 20.

Jarvis had assigned her senior civics and economics class “to take photographs to illustrate their rights in the Bill of Rights,” she says. One student “had taken a photo of George Bush out of a magazine and tacked the picture to a wall with a red thumb tack through his head. Then he made a thumb’s down sign with his own hand next to the President’s picture, and he had a photo taken of that, and he pasted it on a poster.”

According to Jarvis, the student, who remains anonymous, was just doing his assignment, illustrating the right to dissent.
................
On Tuesday, September 20, the Secret Service came to Currituck High.“At 1:35, the student came to me and told me that the Secret Service had taken his poster,” Jarvis says. “I didn’t believe him at first. But they had come into my room when I wasn’t there and had taken his poster, which was in a stack with all the others.”

She says the student was upset.

“He was nervous, he was scared, and his parents were out of town on business,” says Jarvis.

She, too, had to talk to the Secret Service.

A little terror to teach the kid a lesson. Now the article implied they talked to the kid, a kid whose parents were out of town. I really hope they read him his rights. That would have taught him a civic lesson on modern politics like nothing would have.

Then they got down to his poster.

“They asked me, didn’t I think that it was suspicious,” she recalls. “I said no, it was a Bill of Rights project!”

At the end of the meeting, they told her the incident “would be interpreted by the U.S. attorney, who would decide whether the student could be indicted,” she says.

His Bill of rights privilages project likely gave him a good lesson.

The final threat was nice. "Indicted" my ass.

Question

When can we start shooting back with crap like this happening?

"Offended"?

Well God forbid that in this life something does not offend you. Similer to these poor poor people who suffered the indignation of an offensive shirt.

A Washington woman's flight home was stopped short in Reno, all because the message on the T-shirt she was wearing.

32-year-old Lorrie Heasley claims it's a freedom of speech privilege, but airline officials say it was about passenger comfort.

Heasley, "There are bigger problems in the country, I can't believe people can be so petty."

Cry me a damn river over your offended nature. Your "offended" day may be her free speech, and It was.

The shirt had pictures of members of the Bush Administration, and a phrase based on the movie "Meet the Fockers," but with one crucial vowel changed.

It was enough to cause complaints from other passengers and it's a problem the airline has had to deal with before.

Beth Harbin, Southwest Airlines, "We do get it occasionally. What someone is wearing, what someone is reading, what someone might be saying and it's very much a judgment call. But when other customers become concerned we do have to become involved in that and see what we can do to make everyone as comfortable as we can."

What is sad is that I was directed to this story by Cramer Clayton who sadly took the time to hammer the left.

This news story manages to combine both the left's love of foul language and their belief that offending people is more important than persuading them:
..........
Ever since Cohen v. California (1971), in which the Supreme Court ruled that the F-word on a jacket was a Constitutionally protected form of free speech, the left has been behaving like a bunch of 14 year olds, intent on proving how grown-up they are by throwing words like this into everyday conversation.

Ms. Heasley's insistence on wearing this shirt is also pretty indicative of the left's general level of immaturity ("Bush = Hitler" and burning the American flag are other sterling examples)--they would prefer to offend rather than persuade. I suppose that we should be glad that the left is more interested in generating disgust than agreement.

[sarcasm on]Those damn leftist and their enjoyment of free speech. What next? Freedom to travel at will without full body searches[sarcasm off]

The airline should have told those whiney passengers that free speech sometimes offends.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

America grow a backbone! Free speech offends. Honest. Just listen to Jesse Jackson sometimes and his blind ideology will offend. He has a right to offend as much as someone wearing a "Focker" t-shirt

Secrets secrets everywhere

A good read here that worried me some. It involves the possible government reaction to an outbreak of the Avian flu. Not what they will do to stop it, but what they will do to stop you from knowing certain things about it.

Amid growing concerns that avian influenza will develop into a deadly pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is under fire by some in the scientific community for hoarding data crucial for vaccine development. The allegations come as CDC has issued new and controversial rules on what data, documents and other information it will -- and will not -- share with the public.

Open government advocates are critical of the CDC's "Information Security" manual, the 34-page document that gives officials 19 categories to shield data from public scrutiny without obtaining a "secret" classification.

That runs counter to CDC's mission, says Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' project on government secrecy, which first published the leaked manual on its Web site.

The document (HTML PDF) does not directly address the Avian flu issue alone. What it does is give whom ever reads it a lot of ways to keep the information from you and I, without giving it a "secret" designation.

My wife and I have talked about the Avian flu and possible reactions to it if it does pop it's head up in our area. Dying is not one of the outcomes I wish. I worry about the government. In it's hast to keep information from us so we sheep will not panic, will they end up killing us?

I bet they would get a real mean letter of reprimand in their files for that one.

I have not one doubt, even if I am in agreement with the National Rifle Association, that that kind of record keeping procedure [gun registration] is the first step to eventual confiscation under one administration or another.
CHARLES MORGAN, DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON DC ACLU

Teaching that failure is an option

Here we are, as a nation, watching a lesson being taught to us. The only problem is that no one knows it.

The lesson that failure works and is profitable.

I'm a small government person. Let me rephrase that. I'm a small federal government person. As that very ignored constitution says.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Sounds good in theory. Shame it hasn't been allowed to work.

So here we have Louisiana. The finest example of a government in a disfunctional state. Money taken in taxes by the feds and returned to the state, after the feds take their cut, wasted. Spent on wrong projects or simply grafted off. With this giant screwup and the catastrophe what does the federal government do? Throw more money at them. Spend the nation more into debt.

What lesson will the political machine there learn?

Failure works. Failure leads to more money. The bigger the failure the more you can blame Washington. The bigger the failure the more bailout money and a better chance to stay in office.

Cut out that backbone and flop around here people. Failure equals money.

In the future Louisiana will still be there, with their lips attatched to the governments teat enjoying failure and making a profit.

After this what will motivate a state to work? Nothing.

To succed in state government you need to fail BIG.

Mixed up priorities

The mayor of San Francisco shows how mixed up priorities can be when bending to the latest fashionable trend.

The mayor wished to give free wi-fi to the whole city because it is a "It is to me a fundamental right to have access universally to information,". This little feel good project will cost a lot.

The mayor said he had no exact figures on how much it would cost to build a wireless umbrella to cover the entire city, but cited general estimates that have ranged from $8 million to $16 million for antennas and other gear.

"My intent is to have the taxpayers pay little or nothing," Newsom said of the municipal wireless project.

Now how is the mayor's priorities messed up?

Ask the people who need help fighting a fire.

For less than the price of a Noe Valley house -- about $800,000 -- San Francisco could retrofit its atypical hydrants so that departments from outside the city could better aid local firefighters in battling major infernos, according to a leading manufacturer.

While disaster experts say the modification would greatly help fight multiple blazes after a major earthquake, Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White says the cost would tax her department's budget. Besides, she says, the city's hydrants don't need changing.
............
It was a similar system that caused much confusion during the Oakland fire, in which 25 people died and 2,699 homes were lost. After many firefighters from surrounding agencies found that their hoses couldn't be attached to Oakland's 3-inch hydrants, state lawmakers required that all cities in California adopt a standard connection size of 2 1/2 inches by 1994.

So wi-fi and access to free pr0n is good, but making fire fighting more efficient is bad. Don't get me started on the fact they will likely try to filter the wi-fi "for your own good".

This is a person who makes the word politician a four letter word. When a politician starts using the word "rights" on a controversial subject you better protect your wallet and your own rights.

No good deed goes unpunished

Guy has an idea. Guy puts idea to work. Guy makes a useful product for free. Government stops him. Government asks for money. Thanks government

Beware the "bullets"

This is simply sad. Not because they did it, bit because they thought it may be important enough to deal with in written form.

13 years ago today

A task force of police executed a well laid plan to raid the house of a trouble maker. His crime? Not selling his land. By the end of the day he laid dead with a bullet to his head.

Eminient domain with a bullet.

The Donald Scott case isn't as well known as the government atrocities at Waco and Ruby Ridge. But it should be.

In October of 1992, millionaire recluse Donald Scott and his bride of two months, Frances Plante Scott, lived in a storybook wooded valley in the mountains high above Malibu, Calif. Trails End Ranch is almost completely surrounded by state and federal park land, and the neighboring government entities had made numerous attempts to buy out Scott and annex his property.

Frances Scott contends the National Security Agency and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratories have also had a less-well-known role in the attempted government land grab -- the ranch sits in the midst of a government antenna array, perfectly sited to receive data from the Pacific Missile Test Range, and, "My husband was the only local resident to testify against the placement of those antennas."

Stymied in their attempt to buy the Scott ranch, government officials hit on an alternative plan. Contending an officer had seen "marijuana plants growing under the trees" during a drug-seeking overflight, agents from various jurisdictions gathered quietly outside the locked gate to the ranch in the morning mists of Oct. 2, 1992. After greedily studying the maps of the 200 acres of prime land they were told they'd be able to grab under federal asset seizure laws should they find as few as 14 marijuana plants, they cut the chain on the gate with bolt-cutters and raced a mile up the dirt drive to the ranch, complete with police dogs.

Frances Scott was in the kitchen, brewing her morning coffee, when dozens of men in plainclothes and brandishing guns -- no badges or warrants in evidence -- came swarming in. Understandably, she screamed for her husband, still asleep upstairs.

Donald Scott, 63, came hurrying down the stairs, a handgun held over his head. The officers shouted for him to lower his weapon. He did. They shot him dead.

As normal no police went to jail for murder.

Not a single marijuana seed or stem was ever found: "All they had to show for their trouble was this body on the living room floor," reported the Los Angeles Times.

The multiple government agencies settled a wrongful death suit for $5 million.

So our tax money went to pay for the governments error in leaving a witness.

On the map of the property the police wrote BEFORE the raid.

"80 acres sold for $800,000 in 1991 in same area."

They want your land. They'll get it one way or the other.

Government. Making the Mob look lame day by day.
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QUOTE

I'm not saying Bush and his cronies are tyrants. But they seem to play the part nicely. So when I found this quote I had to share it.

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider godfearing and pious.
ARISTOTLE (384-322 B.C.), Politics, 343 B.C.