The View From North Central Idaho

Grumble, grumble.  Newsgator got an error downloading Fish Or Man this morning without me noticing and I didn't get his update just before I left.  He ended up not needing to go Spokane.  Barb and I did go to Spokane and sat through the processing of several people accused of domestic abuse.  Now we are at a book store which Barb enjoys so the 2 hour drive (each way) is not a complete loss.

We do have some additional information that isn't in Fish Or Man's report.  His lawyer filed a Notice Of Appearance before start of court this morning and the next court date on the traffic stop case is in Court Room E, Spokane District Court, for 9:00 AM, January 21st, 2005.  If you are interested in attending you can keep up to date on the status by going to this webpage and selecting Spokane District Court and cases CR0070552 and/or CR0070553.

I've posted before about airport screening and wrote a fairly detailed essay on how airport screening is a complete and total waste of time and money.  Now Michelle Malkin reveals the Air Marshal program is a disaster too.  Here is a short snippet from a former Marshal that wrote her:

The entire mission is a complete failure and the American traveling public is as ineffectively protected as they were before 9-11. The end result has been a 3.7 billion dollar boondoggle which has only extended the government careers of the top managers and to ensure that their pensions have been padded another $1000 dollars a month for life.

It is my belief that the Air Marshall program could be useful.  However Director Thomas Quinn, as reported by Malkin, apparently has a severe case of cranial rectum inversion.  If Quinn and his cronies can't be dumped and decent management put in place then it's time to try my option #8 and get rid of the entire FAM program for domestic flights (option #8 isn't feasible for international flights).

Free people never beg governments for fundamental rights like free speech, freedom of association, self-defense, worship and freedom to travel.

If the government gets in the way of your ability to live your life peacefully, as you see fit, in voluntary relationships with others, then it's wrong and you're right.  Period.

Don't sit around and wait for Congress to the state legislature to "fix" violated rights.  The very essence of the government game is that legislators give you a tiny bit here while grabbing a double handful of what's yours there.  Even if you gain a victory or two, in the long run, government is a game freedom lovers can only lose.

Never, never beg or negotiate for your rights.  Take them.  If enough of us do, no government in the world can stand in our way.

Claire Wolfe
From "101 Things To Do 'Til The Revolution"

It took a little bit of time to figure this out so I'll save others the trouble if they happen to plan on attending Fish Or Man's hearing tomorrow and are an even greater procrastinator than I am on figuring out exactly where to go.

Court Name: SPOKANE COUNTY DIST
Court Date: 12/23/2004
Court Time: 09:00 AM
Court Room: 2
Court Address: 1100 W Mallon Ave
Spokane
99260-2043 WA

Directions and map

Case CR0070552   Criminal Traffic    12/23/04   09:00 AM   Court Room 2
Case CR0070553   Criminal Non-Traffic 12/23/04   09:00 AM   Court Room 2

About a year ago my wife bought three 1500 Watt space heaters at Walmart.  About a week ago my youngest daughter noticed the plug on hers was discolored as if it had overheated.  She checked the plug on her brother's heater and found it too was discolored and reported it to me.  I checked the third heater and found it was even worse than the other two.  Since the heaters were tested by Underwriters Laboratory I sent them a picture of the plug and the information they requested such as information about the heater:

Holmes Group Inc
Milford, MA 01757 USA
Model: HFH2985
Made in China
Serviced in USA
Heater 120V 60Hz 1500W A/C Only
 3403DHX
UL
Listed 11C1
E91385

Today I received a letter from UL.  So far they are “doing okay” in my book.  It's odd the return address on the email is different from the person that 'signed' the email.  And it took almost a week to send me a confirmation they received my email.  But it's Christmas time of year and I give them a pass for now.

From: Lorene.A.Seeger
Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2004 9:07 AM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: Your report - space heater

Field Report Investigation Number: 2004FR-2260

Mr. Huffman,

Thank you for contacting Underwriters Laboratories Inc. The information you submitted has been forwarded to our Field Report Department and an investigation has been initiated. We will contact you if additional information is needed during the course of this investigation.

We would like to assure you that the information you provided will be thoroughly reviewed and appropriate action will be taken as warranted.

Since the information developed throughout the course of our investigation is confidential, we cannot provide you with details or the results of the investigation. However, we will notify you upon completion of this investigation.

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention and assisting us in maintaining the UL Public Safety Mission.

Regards,

Craig M. Witt
Engineering Team Leader
Underwriters Laboratories, Inc.
[phone number and email address snipped]

-- For more information about UL, its Marks, and its services for
EMC, quality registrations and product certifications for global
markets, please access our web sites at http://www.ul.com and
http://www.ulc.ca, or contact your local sales representative. --

********* Internet E-mail Confidentiality Disclaimer **********

This e-mail message may contain privileged or confidential
information. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not
disclose, use, disseminate, distribute, copy or rely upon this
message or attachment in any way. If you received this e-mail
message in error, please return by forwarding the message and
its attachments to the sender.

UL and its affiliates do notaccept liability for any errors,
omissions, corruption or virus in the contents of this message
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Ho hum... So what did you expect?  I've been saying:

• King County is my entertainment for the day
• I stand behind my prediction
• Washington State governor's race

The AP story is all over now.  Here is one link and a snippet:

Democrats have claimed victory in the race for Washington governor by a razor-thin margin of eight votes, citing preliminary results of a hand recount they say puts Christine Gregoire in front for the first time.

...

More legal battles appeared inevitable. Rossi has said that he would consider challenging the election results in court if he loses the third count after winning the first two. Republicans have already started preparing for a possible court challenge.

...

King County Elections spokeswoman Bobbie Egan, who confirmed that both parties received the recount data on Tuesday, said official results would be released Wednesday at 3:30 p.m.

...

Seven justices will hear the lawsuit brought by King County, the state Democratic Party and the secretary of state seeking to include the 723 uncounted King County ballots.

Rossi doesn't have a chance and never did after the first count came out so close.

If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival.  There may be a worse case.  You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

Winston Churchill

Even though Stalin killed between 8 and 20 million of his own people there are people who still think of him as a great leader:

"As a leader of the country, Stalin did much," Gryzlov said. But "what I think to be his extremes in his domestic policy, they certainly did not do much for his image."

Russia NTV television said a poll of 1,600 Russians taken by the respected Levada Center showed that only 31 percent consider Stalin to be a cruel tyrant, while 21 percent think he was a wise leader. The poll had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

The poll also found 16 percent thought that "our people will never be able to do without a leader like Stalin."

I could always see, via a twisted sort of logic, how present day Hitler admirers could maintain their belief system.  If they had been raised to believe they were the “superior race”, that Jews were the spawn of the devil (blah, blah, blah...), and there was some great Jewish conspiracy to rule the world then Hitler was “just solving the Jewish problem”--the Final Solution (you know about the First Solution don't you?  Interesting story for another time).  Sick chain of “logic” and “facts”, but you can sort of see how they got from “point A” to “point B”. Then there are the faith based nut cases, “god(s) said it, I believe it, that settles it”--we must kill the infidels.  Okay.  Facts and logic are irrelevant to them.  And if you were an underling of Saddam Hussein I could see how you would either adopt his viewpoint and admire him, quit his employee, or go insane.

But what about some of the other really truly evil people such as Stalin?  Surely decades after he or his thugs could put a bullet in your head any person could see “his extremes in his domestic policy” could not be compensated for by his abilities as “a leader of the country”.  But apparently not.  I suspect there are two ways to continue to believe what is clearly wrong and one or both are at work with these people.

1. People have an exceedingly strong tendency to believe what they want to believe.  Many of the Jews walking into Auschwitz surely knew better but yet wanted to believe “Arbeit Macht Frei“ (Work Will Set You Free).  And so they believed it rather than take at least one guard out on their way in.
2. When Prophecy Fails again impresses me as a absolutely brilliant piece of research into the human mind.  Basically there is a psychological cost involved with changing your mind and you will be willing to pay a very heavy price in order to avoid it.

Now that I see people who lived under Stalin can admire him and think of him as a “wise leader” I now can fathom how Bill Clinton is admired by a similar percentage of our population and people in this day and age still clamor for more gun control.  It doesn't have anything to do with rational thought, it has to do with being human.  And as I have said before, it is irrational to expect people to be rational.

This was originally intended to be a response to one of the comments in this post but I decided it was straying far enough and was getting large enough that it deserved it's own post.

I have had numerous people tell me how obnoxious the police are and how egotistic, etc., etc. But my experience has been completely the opposite. I've been stopped numerous times for minor traffic violations and had several interactions when I was involved in an accident (both my fault and not my fault). On each and every occasion I thought I was treated fairly. Only on one occasion did I think maybe the officer had been having a "bad day" and was a bit on the grumpy side. I have always chalked up my difference in experience from that reported by others to be because I have had my interactions in Washington and Idaho as opposed to places like New Jersey or Chicago (where the horror stories came from). And that I always let the police do the talking and I listened in a polite manner. My attitude was always, in essence, "You're right. I screwed up. I'm sorry.", "I screwed up? I'm sorry, what did I do?" or "I've got problems here, can you help me?" Even when carrying concealed (and I gave them my permit in addition to my drivers license), the back of the van full of guns, ammo, targets, and explosive components (I also have a license to manufacture high explosives) the police have been professional and treated me with respect--as I did them.

Because I have no complaints about any of the police I have dealt with I am somewhat suspicious of Fish Or Man's experience. On one hand we can say, "He didn't break any laws therefore he doesn't deserve what he is getting." But on the other hand good policemen have fantastic intuition which is undoubtedly fed in part by behavioral clues from the people they interact with. If you are "sending up flares" that scream for attention to the police officer it is hard to for me to criticize the officer for giving you "extra attention".

The next few days will determine where I stand on this particular interaction.

Gun Control: Hiding Their Heads in San Francisco.  Lots of nice numbers and tables then this:

Conclusion

Certain San Francisco supervisors are choosing to ignore history. With so much evidence casting doubt upon the wisdom of banning civilian firearm ownership, they would be wise to abandon their plan. Considering all the easily-accessible information contradicting their claims of noble intent, one must pause and ponder what their true motivation may be.

Since it has been in vogue for cities to sue firearms manufacturers for criminal use of highly-regulated, non-defective products, it would seem legal ground has been prepared for similar suits in the reverse direction: that city politicians should be held accountable for death and destruction of public safety resulting from the flawed policies they enact. Perhaps we need to start a new holiday: Take a Politician to Court Day.

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.

Mahatma Gandhi
Autobiography,
Translated from the Gujarati by Mahadev Desai.
Public Affairs Press, Washington, D.C. 1948.
(Republication by Unabridged Dover, 1983. page 403.

As I mentioned on Saturday coming out of the closet has it's price.  But that price could probably have been lowered with a little bit of planning.

Fish Or Man should have found an attorney prior to coming out of the closet.  Getting funding ahead of time would have been a good idea too.  The attorney could have researched the case law related to the laws in question.  Sometimes the case law will essentially turn what the legislature wrote into something very different than what the average person would think it to mean.  Once Fish Or Man decided to actually proceed he would have had a much more accurate view of what the cops could charge him with and how to respond.  He could have had a note from his lawyer to hand to the cop saying, in great detail, this is the law and my client is not violating it.

So, Fish Or Man wasn't as prepared as he should have been.  This doesn't mean that he is totally screwed yet or that we should abandon him.  I have the 23rd off from work and if the roads are decent and I can talk my wife into a trip to Spokane (about a 2 hour drive for us) I will be there to watch what happens on his first court date.  It may be that Fish Or Man is an embarrassment to the gun community and he should be “left hung out to dry“, or it could be that he is guilty only of lack of planning and we need to support him.  We'll see and I'll report back later this week.

If not a form letter then it's probably a minor modification of one.  I doubt that they really know what to say when confronted with their own bigotry.  I can't imagine their policies “ensure the effectiveness of Google ads“.  I think it is more likely the “Google Ethics Committee“ believed they were being ethical when they banned firearms.  And once a decision is made and they defend it against critics it is hard for people to admit they were wrong.  It takes very strong character to be able to do that.  Google, as a company, is probably not much above average in character.  It's just a battle we have to keep fighting one day at a time while showing all the character we can.

Subject: Re: [#17065471] Google AdSense Account Status   
From: "Google AdSense"   
Date: Mon, December 20, 2004 22:21  (GMT)
To: Joe Huffman 

Hello Joe,

Thank you for your email. I understand that you are disappointed with our
current policies. We apologize for the inconvenience. However, we have
certain policies in place that we believe will help ensure the
effectiveness of Google ads for our publishers as well as our advertisers.

We review all publishers according to our Terms and Conditions and program
policies, and we reserve the right to decline certain websites. As we
grow, we may find that we are able to expand our program to more web
publishers with a wider variety of web content.

Thank you for your feedback, and please know that we are working hard to
make the AdSense program available to as many web publishers as we can.

Please feel free to reply to this email if you have additional questions
or concerns.

Sincerely,

Emily
The Google AdSense Team

----------------
AdSense publishers now have the option to display image ads, in addition
to text ads, through AdSense. Go to
https://www.google.com/adsense/faq#imageads to learn more.

Indeed, I am now of the opinion that a compelling case for "stricter gun control" cannot be made, at least not on empirical grounds. I have nothing but respect for the various pro-gun control advocates with whom I have come in contact over the past years. They are, for the most part, sensitive, humane and intelligent people, and their ultimate aim, to reduce death and violence in our society, is one that every civilized person must share. I have, however, come to be convinced that they are barking up the wrong tree.

James Wright
Academic researcher who collaborated with Peter Rossi on the book Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and their Firearms

With all the funerals and stuff going on here I was behind on things.  I think I'm caught up now. 

Technically this is somewhat old news but it doesn't appear to be widely distributed.  I got the first pointer to this info from Jihad Watch.  ABC News in Australia reports the following:

...researcher Saiful Mujani of Jakarta's Freedom Institute now believes Indonesia's Muslims are less moderate than governments and academics suggest.

"The rhetoric claiming that there is no problem in the society…to me that's too simplistic, that's wishful thinking," he said.

The Freedom Institute's survey of 1400 people across Indonesia, found that less than 60 per cent of Muslims disagreed with Imam Samudra and Dr Azahari's bombing campaigns.

Sixteen per cent, representing tens of millions of Indonesians, agreed with the bombers and another 25 per cent refused to disagree.

"There is a significant number of Indonesians, at least half, [who] do not have a negative reaction to that and they agree with silence at least, or protect this kind of activity," Mr Mujani said.

“The bombers” refers to the bombing of night clubs and hotels that have been killing Australians.  So at least 16% agree with the bombings and the actual number is probably closer to 40%.  If there are a billion Muslims in the world and the fraction remains constant worldwide (yes, I know, BIG assumption here) then that means worldwide we have close to 400 million people willing to kill us because of we don't adhere to their religious beliefs.  This is very, very scary stuff.  That has exceedingly powerful implications for our future and how we must respond to it.  So why isn't this a big topic for MSM in the US?  I thought maybe I just had missed it.  So I did a search on Google News.  My search terms were “Freedom Institute Indonesia”.  The only articles that referenced the study were these:

• ABC News Australia (same article as reported by Jihad Watch)
• ABC News Australia report on religious leaders meeting to discuss terrorism.
• The Australian
• Sydney Morning Herald

Nothing from anywhere outside of Australia.  Why is this?  Could this be the key (from the first article)?

 Details of the negative attitudes to America and Australia revealed in the survey have been held back by the US Embassy in Jakarta, which funded the poll.

The US Embassy in Jakarta held back the numbers?  The US doesn't want this information known?  Am I missing something here?  Was the study obviously poorly done?  Was this viewed as too encouraging news for the extremists?

We are in the middle of World War III and I think it's important to know the size of our enemy's supportors.

Update @ 21:45: I did a search on google.com, instead of news.google.com, for  ["Freedom Institute" Indonesia] and found these:

• Indonesia Media Online
• International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development
• Free Republic
• Taiwan News

Still no U.S. MSM reports.

Things just keep getting more fun to watch in King county.  Especially when you have things like “ballot 81“:

...a ballot written in for "Christine Rossi", hereafter known as "Ballot 81," was sent to the canvassing board earlier this week. This is astonishing in itself, since there is no such candidate and this is obviously a joke. But what is more shocking is that the canvassing board didn't throw it out, they cast this ballot for Christine Gregoire.

I'd like to think the democrat party is just digging it's grave deeper with this kind of behavior.  I still expect Gregoire to win.  The Republicans just don't lack enough ethics to stand a chance in a fight like this.

Thanks to Mindless Bit Spew for pointing this out to me.

I just sent Google essentially the same letter I sent to the ACLU:

-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Sunday, December 19, 2004 11:06 AM
To: 'Google AdSense'
Subject: RE: Google AdSense Account Status

Because of the U.S. Justice Departments recently released memo clarifying that 2nd Amendment, despite some misunderstanding by certain parties, is in fact an individual right other than a "collective right" I would like to suggest Google reevaluate it's policy on firearms related ads.  Please see http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/secondamendment2.htm for more details.

See also the position of Alan Dershowitz:

Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of safety hazard don't see the danger of the big picture.  They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like.

 Alan Dershowitz
 Quoted in Dan Gifford
 The Conceptual Foundations of Anglo-American Jurisprudence in
 Religion and Reason
 62 TENN. L. REV. 759 (1995)

And that of Lawrence Tribe in "American Constitutional Law", Vol. 1, pp. 901-902

If you persist in maintaining a policy of no ads for firearms or related products then you are subject to the same claims of bigotry that you would if you had a policy against ads for Christian, Islamic, or Jewish books.  The right to keep and bear arms is an individual right guaranteed by the Bill of Rights no different than the right to religious expression.

Regards,

Joe Huffman
----
http://blog.joehuffman.org
http://www.boomershoot.org

It is just a form letter.  Nothing that wasn't on their website.  I responded, see below.

-----Original Message-----
From: ACLU Correspond 
Sent: Sunday, December 19, 2004 7:13 AM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: Your Feedback (Message #120150)

Dear Mr. Huffman,

Thank you for the question about the ACLU's position on the Second Amendment. The national ACLU is neutral on the issue of gun control.

We believe that the Constitution contains no barriers to reasonable regulations of gun ownership. If we can license and register cars, we can license and register guns. The question therefore is not whether to restrict arms ownership, but how much to restrict it. If that is a question left open by the Constitution, then it is a question for Congress to decide.

You can find more about the ACLU's positions at http://www.aclu.org

If you are not already an ACLU member, we encourage you to help support our aggressive work on the issues you care about. To join please visit http://www.aclu.org/contribute/contribute.cfm or call 1-888-567-ACLU.

Sincerely,

D. Barber
Correspondence Manager, American Civil Liberties Union

-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Sunday, December 19, 2004 9:13 AM
To: ACLU Correspond 
Subject: RE: Your Feedback (Message #120150)

I had already read your web page on the topic.  My suggestion was that due to new information from constitutional scholars, which I provided references to in my email, it was time for you to reevaluate your position.

Cars are not constitutionally protected as are 'arms'.

I will not be supporting the ACLU on any issue until the ACLU also defends the right to keep and bear arms issue--by far the most important issue in the Bill of Rights because it is only through the 2nd Amendment that the other rights can ultimately be guaranteed.

-joe-
----
http://blog.joehuffman.org

Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of safety hazard don't see the danger of the big picture.  They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like.

 Alan Dershowitz
 Quoted in Dan Gifford
 The Conceptual Foundations of Anglo-American Jurisprudence in
 Religion and Reason
 62 TENN. L. REV. 759 (1995)

Other than Google, I'm think the ACLU might also be 'interested' in the Justice Department report about the 2nd Amendment being an individual right.

Many years ago I used to be a member until I found out they didn't support cases having to do with the 2nd Amendment.  So for years when they send me their junk mail asking me to renew my membership and give them donations I write on the form that I will give them $200 as soon as they support the 2nd Amendment, I would put it in their postage paid envelope and mail it back to them.  I've been doing this for years and years and I have yet to get a response.  I think it's time to give them some feedback about the news.

Following is the information you entered on the
American Civil Liberties Union site.

Home Phone: XXX-XXX-XXXX
Fax Number: 425-491-6239
Message:
Because of the U.S. Justice Departments recently released memo clarifying that 2nd Amendment, despite some misunderstanding by certain parties including the ACLU, is in fact an individual right other than a "collective right" I would like to suggest the ACLU reevaluate it's neutral position on the 2nd Amendment.  I have been a member of the ACLU in the past but let my membership lapse when I discovered the 2nd Amendent was somehow exempt from ACLU support.  If the ACLU does decide to actively support the 2nd Amendment as an individual right by providing support to someone whose 2nd Amendment rights are being being infringed upon I will send you all the years of back dues that I have not paid which I think will be about $300.  Please see http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/secondamendment2.htm for more details.

See also the position of Alan Dershowitz:

Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of safety hazard don't see the danger of the big picture.  They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like.

 Alan Dershowitz
 Quoted in Dan Gifford
 The Conceptual Foundations of Anglo-American Jurisprudence in
 Religion and Reason
 62 TENN. L. REV. 759 (1995)

And that of Lawrence Tribe in "American Constitutional Law", Vol. 1, pp. 901-902

Regards,

Joe Huffman

Just a few days ago I briefly mentioned that FishOrMan was coming out of the closet and doing things that I didn't have the courage to do. Such as this.  It didn't take long from my post about it for something to happen again.  His hearing date is Dec. 23^rd at 9 am Courtroom A, 2^nd floor of the Courthouse Annex in Spokane (I presume).

I don't really know FishOrMan and I only know the side of the story that he is telling.  But I know it's true there is no law against open carry in Washington State and the state Constitution says,  Article 1, Section 24:

The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state, shall not be impaired, but nothing in this section shall be construed as authorizing individuals or corporations to organize, maintain or employ an armed body of men.

I would like to think that FishOrMan is a modern day Rosa Parks who was punished for daring to not sit at the back of the bus, or the gays that were beat up simply for the sport of it.  For far too many years gun owners have been treated like crap and it's time we came out of the closet and demanded our rights.

Inalienable rights are not asked or pleaded for.  They are demanded and taken, by force if necessary.  The police and politicians must stop this unjustified attack on our unalienable rights.

Three goblins gain entry to house and ask maid, at pistol point, where child is. Maid says that she doesn't know. Mother walks into room. Goblins ask mother. Mother tells them same. Second maid sees goblins and screams. Crowd gathers to see what's happening. Goblins fire to scare crowd away. Big mistake - most neighbors are military or security types. Goblins retreat into house and attempt escape across roof and out into street. First goblin is shot in leg and promptly beaten to death. Second goblin is shot in leg, beaten, and left for dead. (Made it alive to hospital; unknown if he lived.) Third goblin manages to make it to police where he falls on knees and begs officers to arrest him. Neighbors unhappy about arrest since it ruined their scores on goblin catching.

Big difference in reactions between Americans and Guatemalans."

Thomas K. Graziano,
April 18, 1994,
Guatemala City, Guatemala

From Jeff Cooper's Commentaries
Vol. 2, No. 7
3 June 1994

As you can see there are now Google ads on my blog.  I decided I made a poor gamble and lost my 'bet' so now I need to “pay up”.  I can terminate them at anytime so if I get too annoyed with them I will do that.  With the latest news on the Second Amendment being considered an individual right by the Justice Department and there not being any evidence that gun control prevents crime I think I will try pushing for a removal of there no firearms or ammunition policy again.

The Justice Department just released a report that could give us a bunch of momentum in our fight to restore our lost civil rights:

...we conclude that the Second Amendment secures a personal right of individuals, not a collective right that may only be invoked by a State or a quasi-collective right restricted to those persons who serve in organized militia units. Our conclusion is based on the Amendment's text, as commonly understood at the time of its adoption and interpreted in light of other provisions of the Constitution and the Amendment's historical antecedents. Our analysis is limited to determining whether the Amendment secures an individual, collective, or quasi-collective right.

Wonderful news.  Now the not quite so good news:

We do not consider the substance of that right, including its contours or the nature or type of governmental interests that would justify restrictions on its exercise, and nothing in this memorandum is intended to address or call into question the constitutionality, under the Second Amendment, of any particular limitations on owning, carrying, or using firearms.

I haven't read the whole thing yet.  It's long, lots of history, and lots of detail. 

Now if we can use this to drive the anti-gun people into total oblivion.  I want them struggling to keep NBC (Nukes, Biological, and Chemical) restrictions.

I said Gregoire would “win“ the governors race.  It seems they just can't stop finding more ballots in King County:

With Washington state in the middle of a recount of its amazingly close governor's race, election officials in Seattle's King County entered a warehouse Friday and found a plastic tray containing 150 misplaced ballots.

The discovery brings the number of belatedly discovered ballots to 723 in the heavily Democratic county potentially enough to swing the election to Democrat Christine Gregoire.

I really, really, want to be wrong on this.  Gregoire is very anti-gun.

I'd like to believe that the anti's [anti-gun proponents] are emotional, but I'm cynical enough to think that their ultimate leadership is driven by a cold desire for power and a grandiose need to alter the architecture of society. ... The emotionalism is their rhetorical voice, which they have selected as the best way to move the public to their attitudes and beliefs.
   
Sean Flynn
5/14/98

I decided that since Google had gone public maybe they would be less openly bigoted against gun owners.  I wasn't interested in advertising with them but I thought perhaps I would feel comfortable with them paying me money to advertise on one or more of my web sites.  Boomershoot.org gets, by far, the most traffic so I applied with that site.  I got the following rejection.  Boomershoot.org apparently violates one or more of their policies (see the links below).  When I first got the rejection below I looked at the policy and it included pyrotechnics and explosives.  It no longer does.  Now the only infringement I might be violating is this one:

Sales or promotion of certain weapons, such as firearms, ammunition, balisongs, butterfly knives, and brass knuckles

Which, technically, boomershoot.org is not doing.  It promotes the use of firearms and ammunition.  But I'm not sure they see things my way.  I thought about my rejection for quite a while and considered organizing a boycott against Google (sort of like boycotting Microsoft, very tough to do).  I have helped with that sort of thing before and we were successful.  I did a quick search and found lots of other people already with the same idea for various reasons and decided it wasn't very feasible.

So I decided I would expose them for being bigots against free speech as well as firearms.  When I got around to posting a bunch of progun blog entries on my blog I sent them a message asking about putting AdSense on my blog.  To my surprise they agreed.

So now what do I do?  I had fully expected they would turn me down and I could publicly complain about them not even wanting people to talk about guns in a favorable manner.  I can't do that but I'm not entirely sure I want to help them get advertising dollars either.  I could turn them down and complain to them about their policy, but that is kind of silly because I certainly knew about their policy when I requested they consider my blog.

Comments and suggests are welcome.

-----Original Message-----
From: Google AdSense [mailto:adsense-support@google.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 2:05 PM
To: joeh@boomershoot.org
Cc: Google AdSense
Subject: Google AdSense Account Status

Hello Joe,

Thank you for your interest in Google AdSense. After reviewing your
application, our program specialists have found that it does not comply
with our policies. Therefore, we're unable to accept you into Google
AdSense at this time.

We did not approve your application for the reasons listed below. If
you are able to resolve these issues, please feel free to reply to this
email for reconsideration when you have made the changes.

Issues:

  - Unacceptable site content

---------------------

Further detail:

Unacceptable site content: Your website contains content that we do not
allow at this time. Please review our policies
(https://www.google.com/adsense/policies) for a complete list of site
content not allowed on web pages.

---------------------

For a complete list of AdSense criteria, please visit:
https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_US
https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms?hl=en_US

If you would like to submit another website for consideration, simply
reply to this email and provide us with the URL. If this new website
complies with our program policies, we will help you start delivering
Google ads in minutes.

Please contact us at adsense-support@google.com if you have any
questions.

Regards,

The Google Team

The National Academies just today announced Data on Firearms and Violence Too Weak to Settle Policy Debates.

The group that produced this work was composed of: The National Institute of Justice, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Joyce Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

Except for the National Institute of Justice and the Annie E. Casey Foundation the other organizations have a long distinguished history of being very anti-gun. I had never heard of the the Annie E. Casey Foundation so I did a little research and found these pages on their web site indicating they are at least midly anti-gun:

http://www.aecf.org/tarc/resource/show.php?object=example&id=241&topic_id=20
http://www.aecf.org/kidscount/indicator_briefs/teen_death.pdf

Yet when these organizations looked closely they had to conclude:

current research and data on firearms and violent crime are too weak to support strong conclusions about the effects of various measures to prevent and control gun violence

Of course this doesn't say “More Guns, Less Crime“.  It merely says, “We don't know what the effect of gun availability is on crime.“ 

If anyone, unless they are a top notch research scientist with unpublished work on this subject, continues to advocate gun control as a solution to reducing violent crime prior to new research coming out they are not only bigots, they are arrogant bigots. 

And the bigot posting comments under the name of MAD here and here has clearly established his or her position near the top of the list of arrogant bigots.