I just got a call from my lawyer. He said the felons at PNNL/Battelle will ship their interrogatories to us on Monday. We should get them Tuesday or Wednesday.

Depositions start on April 12th.

I'm really looking forward to seeing their responses. Things are looking good at this point.

In New York this time:

The rampage began around 9 p.m. when Garvin went into a pizzeria, asked for a menu, then shot an employee 15 times in the back, Bloomberg said. Police identified the victim as Alfredo Romero, 35.

...

Garvin fled after the shooting, and police who heard the shots radioed information about the gunman. Pekearo and Marshalik approached the gunman, who fired at them.

One of the officers ordered Garvin to drop a bag full of weapons. He did, but then he led them on a chase before turning on them, and shot Marshalik in the back of the head.

Police released surveillance footage that showed Pekearo ducking behind a car before he was fatally shot as Garvin hovered over him.

Had Pekearo and Marshalik, unarmed police auxiliary, or any of the dozens of other private citizens present been able to shoot back Pekearo and Marshalik would likely be alive today. It's even possible Romero would have survived. But this is New York City where private citizens are not allowed to carry personal protection tools such as guns.

According to the Washington Post, which upon hearing of the decision had a small editorial seizure it called "A Dangerous Ruling," the court’s plain reading of the Bill of Rights has given "a new and dangerous meaning to the 2nd Amendment." Apparently, when the Post reads the amendment according to the ancient and safe interpretation (which goes all the way back to the 1970s) all it sees is:

The Population of the nanny State, being composed of irresponsible rednecks, rejects, and retards, must not be allowed to have Arms.

Mac Johnson
Court Rediscovers 2nd Amendment, Liberals Fear Other 'Rights' May Soon be Found
March 15, 2007
[I added nine new quotes to my quote database from this article. I love making fun of stupid behavior from people that think they are smart.--Joe]

Last week, a Federal Appeals Court overturned Washington D.C.’s long-standing restrictions on handguns — a decision that endangers all of America’s gun laws.

This case is most likely headed to the U.S. Supreme Court and we have a tidal wave of work to do before it gets there. This battle — to its very core — is the most important battle we have ever waged. We need your help today to build a strong Brady Gun Law Defense Fund to save America’s gun laws.

...

The threat to all our gun laws is truly unprecedented.

From: StoptheNRA [mailto:advocacy@stopthenra.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 7:11 AM
Subject: Activist Judges Threaten US Gun Law
[When I read "endangers all America's gun laws" I hear the equivalent of "endangers the existence of the KKK".--Joe]

The Washington Post called this ruling "radical." I suppose it is, in the sense that it goes to the root of what the Framers wanted to protect.

Jacob Sullum
March 14, 2007
Second Wind for the Second Amendment A federal appeals court revives the right to keep and bear arms.
[Yup. You are an extremist if you insist the Constitution should be interpreted literally instead of whichever way the political wind blows this week.

Thanks to S2 for the link.--Joe]

This is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. A sample:

"Nowhere does Mr Gore tell his audience that all of the phenomena that he describes fall within the natural range of environmental change on our planet," Dr Carter wrote. "Nor does he present any evidence that climate during the 20th century departed discernibly from its historical pattern of constant change."

...

Professor Easterbrook disputed Mr Gore's claim that "our civilisation has never experienced any environmental shift remotely similar to this". Nonsense, Professor Easterbrook said. He flashed a slide that showed temperature trends for the past 15,000 years. It highlighted 10 large swings, including the medieval warm period. These shifts were up to "20 times greater than the warming in the past century".

This is mild stuff compared to what I heard when I listened to the audio book version of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism). Gore isn't so stupid that he doesn't know he is trying to sell "snake oil". My guess is that he wants to use this issue to gain power for him and for the socialists of the world. Don't let him or his followers get away with it.

Yeah, I know, I shouldn't expect logical thinking from Jesse Jackson. But does he think nearly everyone will overlook the inconsistency?

This new right-wing judicial activism is yoked to the extreme right causes of the National Rifle Association, the anti-choice lobby and the corporate boardrooms. They are prepared to trample the laws enacted by democratically elected legislatures to implant their policies from the bench. The U.S. courts are now packed with these ideologues. And the decision last week shows that the civilizing advances of recent decades -- in civil rights, gun control, workers' rights, women's rights -- are now at risk from this marauding horde.

He is in favor of (some) civil rights, workers' rights, and women's rights, but not 2nd Amendment rights. And that is the only one of his enumerated set that is clearly and explicitly guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. He's got mental problems.

Interesting:

Domain Name		wmd.gov ? (United States Government)
IP Address		141.156.208.# (Brandy Campaign)
ISP		Verizon Internet Services
Location		Continent  :  North America Country  :  United States  (Facts) State  :  District of Columbia City  :  Washington Lat/Long  :  38.9042, -77.032 (Map) Distance  :  2,071 miles
Language		English (United States) en-us
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Javascript		version 1.3
Monitor		Resolution  :  800 x 600 Color Depth  :  32 bits
Time of Visit		Mar 13 2007 9:46:12 am
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Visit Entry Page		http://blog.joehuffman.org/2007/03/12/Quote%20Of%20The%20DayPaul%20Helmke.aspx
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Out Click
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Visit Number		139,990

I saw the wmd.gov domain name and wondered what that might be. So I visited http://www.wmd.gov. I looked at the bottom of the page and saw the "The Honorable Laurence H. Silberman". I thought, "Hmmm... where I have seen that name before?" Then it was "OMG!".

It was Silberman who wrote the Majority decision in the D.C. Parker case. I quoted him here and here last week. The next day I quoted Paul Helmke, who my visitor was searching for, here. Helmke is President of the Brady Bunch and had issued a news release complaining that the opinion given by Silberman was "judicial activism".

So... someone browsing from the domain wmd.gov, where Silberman is the co-chairman, did a search of blogs for the name "Paul Helmke", who criticized Silberman. It's not "proof" but it's a plausible hypothesis that Silberman visited my blog.

If the hypothesis is true I hope he was pleased with what I said about Helmke.

Michelle Malkin has the details:

"I can hear the shocked indignation of gun-toters already: It's nobody's business but mine if I want to pack heat.

Au contraire. Because the government handles the permitting, it is everyone's business."

When we pro-freedom citizens were warning about how a gun registry could endanger gun owners, we were treated to chuckles, rolls of the eyes, and comments like, "You're so paranoid, you nut!  We keep records of licensed drivers, and those aren't used against people, yak, yak, yak.."

And yet we were absolutely right, because here we are:  Gun registries used as a tool of intimidation against gun owners.

Now imagine what's going to happen if the government gets full control of the healthcare industry.  How about lists of AIDS carriers, alcohol abusers, hepatitis carriers, etc., being published in the local newspapers.  What?  Your kid came into the emergency room with a bruise to the face?  Do we REALLY know how this happened?  If the government handles it, its everyone's business, right?

That's why they've been pushing for the last 90+ years to get government to "handle" pretty much everything.

Yes, it's true. We have extremists in North Idaho. The extremist Jessica Bryan teaches English at North Idaho College in Coeur d'Alene. Here is what she is alleged to have said on the first day of class:

...Bryan said on the first day of class that "George Bush was elected president because people in this country can't read" and said Feb. 12 that "I believe in the death penalty … . First we line up everyone who can't think and right behind them, anyone who's ever voted Republican."

As former Lewiston Tribune editor Bill Hall once said about extremists in Idaho, "Just because you are tolerated doesn't mean we're glad you came."

Multicam works very well. It is the best overall camo I have ever seen.

Greg Hamilton
February 1, 2007 6:09 PM
http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/insightstraining/
Images of Multi Cam camouflage.
[Hamilton is a former Army Ranger and now trains all branches of the military (and law enforcment and private citizens) in unarmed as well as armed combat.--Joe]

Kyoto was about hobbling America's economy to give socialist Europe a fighting chance. When considers Europeans cries about Kyoto it's critical to remember the dream of the environmentalists is global governance.

Christopher Horner
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism)
[Horner makes a very good case, using their own words, that the real motivation behind Kyoto is not prevention of global warming. He also makes a good case reducing man-made CO2 cannot have any effect on the climate but can cause a lot of economic harm. Required reading for anyone that has a Gorebot to deal with.--Joe]

Xenia redesigned her website. Wow. Our little artist.

She showed me her "progress report" this weekend. It was her grades so far this semester. She got an A+ in sculpture, a couple A's, and two A-'s. Barb and I have no idea where she gets the artist stuff from. And with me being an engineer... I joked with her about that A+ in an art subject and said something like, "You've got to do something about that. I'm so embarrassed that you got a grade like that." She gave me "the look" and said, "You're not my father!" So I told her, "You're grounded for a month for getting the two A-'s."

The 2-1 decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Parker v. District of Columbia striking down the District of Columbia’s handgun law is judicial activism at its worst.  By disregarding nearly seventy years of U.S. Supreme Court precedent, two Federal judges have negated the democratically-expressed will of the people of the District of Columbia and deprived this community of a gun law it enacted thirty years ago and still strongly supports.

Paul Helmke
President of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence On DC Circuit's Ruling Striking Down DC Handgun Law
[Judaical activism? What chutzpah! He is the same type of person that would bemoan blacks being allowed to vote after a judge declared it a right guaranteed by the constitution.--Joe]

To summarize, we conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. That right existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution and was premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from abroad).

Judge Laurence Silberman
March 9, 2007 in a decision that concluded the 2nd Amendment guarantees an individual right in the case of:
SHELLY PARKER, ET AL., APPELLANTS versus DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND ADRIAN M. FENTY, MAYOR OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

Tellingly, we think, the District did not suggest what sort of law, if any, would violate the Second Amendment today—in fact, at oral argument, appellees’ counsel asserted that it would be constitutional for the District to ban all firearms outright. In short, we take the District’s position to be that the Second Amendment is a dead letter.

Judge Laurence Silberman
March 9, 2007 in a decision that concluded the 2nd Amendment guarantees an individual right in the case of:
SHELLY PARKER, ET AL., APPELLANTS versus DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND ADRIAN M. FENTY, MAYOR OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

Baby Steps:

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Friday overturned the city's extensive gun ban

The court ruled that "the bar on carrying a pistol within the home, amounts to a complete prohibition on the lawful use of handguns for self-defense. As such, we hold it unconstitutional."

Fine and wonderful, but if a prohibition against keeping a gun at home for protection is unconstitutional (which of course it is and always has been) how about saving your life while outside your home?  I guess self defense is still to be regarded as a revocable privilege in DC unless you sequester yourself inside your home?  Is human life in one location more important than human life in another, and subject to less protection??  Who is going to offer each of us a "Human Rights Map" wherein we can learn which parts of our neighborhoods allow us the right to live and in which areas we must submit to any and all criminals' demands?

Opponents of gun rights expressed disappointment and anger over the decision.

Naturally.  It means there will be a small reduction in DC area crime which in turn will further destroy their entire premise-- the idea that creating a monopoly on gun possession, reserving guns strictly for criminals, will somehow reduce crime.  The whole premise is of course insane from the get-go, that is, unless you're a criminal or a hater of mankind, in which case it makes perfect sense as a ruse.

And if a law against being armed at home in DC is once more unconstitutional (after a lengthy "Constitutional Hiatus" in which many people have had their lives ruined as a result) lets haul out all the NYC laws and have a look-see, then move on to Chicago and San Franfreako, et al.

Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes...  A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.

Abraham Lincoln
[This applies to recreational drugs and mere possession of firearms and their accessories as much as it does to recreational use of alcohol.--Joe]

According to my calculations PNNL/Battelle was due to respond to our interrogatories last Saturday. My lawyer said Monday. Yesterday I asked if they had responded. I got the following response:

I gave them a 2-week extension.  Pretty standard courtesy.  I routinely ask for extensions myself.  (You are a high-end motivation client.)

I'm not surprised. In addition to being used to working on government contracts with (sarcasm alert) all the motivation that requires they know that I'm going to be turning over all the appropriate material to federal prosecutors. I'm sure it's hard to work up much passion about delivering evidence which might earn you a honeymoon in prison with a new spouse who rents you out by the quarter hour to the person with the most cigarettes.

Hey guys, you can delay it by a few weeks but you aren't going to be able to delay it past the statute of limitations. Bend over and take it like a man.

No, this is not about following up on Captain Kirk's example of sex with green alien women--although I can see that having an exotic appeal.

Tree Hugger magazine (yes, the magazine actually exists) is advocating green sex. Check these articles out:

• How to Green Your Sex Life
• How To Buy A Green Sex Toy
• Sustainable Sex Toys: Just in Time for Valentine’s Day!
• How to Buy Green Lube

I can see how the mantra "reduce, reuse, recycle" needs some modification in dealing with condoms. And I don't have any problem with the advice to shower with a friend but they are also advocating turning off the lights. What!!!??? How are we going to see anything on the video tape afterward?

Guns don't stop criminals any more than they stop crime.  All gun owners have a fantasy in their head that whenever they're threatened with their firearm, they'll heroically pull it out, shoot at exactly the right time, and save the day.  But reality just doesn't follow that idea-- firearms are much more of a threat to everyone around them then [sic] some kind of mythical protection against evil.

Gun Guy
Guns Don't Stop Crime-- They Attract It
Email March 5, 2007
[If "Gun Guy" was really correct then police departments and the military would have no use for firearms. I can only think of three reasonable explanations for what this guy says: 1) Mental problems; 2) He's actually on our side and is mocking the anti-gun bigots; 3) He can't get a real job and has to make up this kind of crap to make a living.--Joe]

I don't know if they are opposed to it just because Republicans are the main advocates or they actually care about the facts. Regardless I welcome all to my side of this fight:

The Department of Homeland Security has postponed the demand that states join in creating what amounts to a national identification card. Congress should use the time until January 2010 to reconsider what is likely to become a multibillion-dollar boondoggle.

...

The Real ID Act mandating a national ID was rushed through Congress two years ago as part of a military spending bill. There weren't even any hearings on it. Since then, states have balked at the costs, and civil liberties groups have challenged the threats to privacy.

...

Security issues have not begun to be addressed. For example, what do states do about the millions of licenses that are lost or stolen every year?

A centralized database raises the odds that identity thieves will gain entry. The new regulations will not require that states encrypt biographical data on driver's licenses, so they will be vulnerable to unauthorized copying.

An ID system is only as reliable as the underlying documents establishing that you are who you say you are. To receive the new license, drivers will need to prove their address, birth date and legal status in the United States by submitting birth certificates and immigration records. But the databases needed to authenticate those documents either don't exist or can't talk to each other. It's a weakness that will be easy to exploit.

Most of the Sept. 11 hijackers used fake or forged driver's licenses to board airliners. Clearly, better systems to produce trustworthy identification are imperative. But Congress' solution appears to have irreparable flaws. It's time to retreat before more states revolt.

I've long been opposed to a national ID card. It fails my Jews In The Attic Test and that should be the end of the discussion. But many people have a severe lack of imagination and claim, "That's crazy thinking." Oh yeah? Brigitte Gabriel, who I quoted yesterday, reported in her book that they had a national ID card in Lebanon. Even before the civil war started the Islamic extremists would set up road blocks, stop every car, demand the ID cards, and if the card reported the people in the car were not Muslim they would be executed beside the road.

Remember when the anti-gun bigot at a National Park claimed right to carry laws don't help people protect themselves from wild animal attacks?

We may have an opportunity to educate that bigot. Also of possible interest is the DOI secretary, Dirk Kempthorne, is the former Governor of Idaho and very pro-gun. Here is a hint:

VCDL has just learned from our sources on Capitol Hill that the Department of the Interior (DOI) is **livid** over the National Park Service's (NPS) asinine rejection letter sent to VCDL concerning VCDL's Petition for Rule Making!

Follow up with letters and phone calls.

[Via Jeff at Firearms Coalition.]

I exaggerate only a little bit when I say this paint resists bombs.

[Hat tip to Jason for sending me the link.]

She definitely needs to get her terminology straight:

We went straight to their shooting range. Each of us shot a Colt-45 handgun at a target of cardboard with the outline of a person drawn on it. I was shaking when the man loaded the gun and placed it in my hand. I was so freaked out by the blast, that once was enough for me. But I was a one-shot wonder. I actually hit the target nearly dead-center.

Our shooting instructor told us they moved up to the 45 handguns because the 22s didn’t kill the terrorists fast enough.

Then two people in our group shot M-16s. It was unreal to not only be that close to those huge guns, but to hear them shot.

I could see a trip to Boomershoot 2007 being quite educational for her.

The man who prefers his country before any other duty shows the same spirit as the man who surrenders every right to the state. They both deny that right is superior to authority.

Lord Acton