Lots and lots of MSM stuff as well as still more blogger stuff out there about what Bradley Smith had to say in CNET about the implications of the McCain-Feingold act.  I just can’t get too worked up over it.  And not just because it’s totally unenforceable.  I’m even skeptical that they will even try to regulate the blogs.  Surely they aren’t that stupid.  And beyond that it could just be a big hoax to discredit bloggers.  Probably not, but it could be.  People believe what they want to believe.  And the bloggers want to believe they are so important that the government and/or MSM has to shut them down to get on with “business as usual“.  So the bloggers get all bent out of shape and then Smith is found to have never said any such thing or was high on crack the time he said it or suffering from a brain tumor the size of a grapefruit, whatever.  Where are the interviews with the other commissioners on this topic?

Oops.  I’m too late, others are throwing ice water on the fire already.

Well… Not really.  Although there are some people with rather high emotions about this.  Here is a snippet:

If Congress doesn’t change the law, what kind of activities will the FEC have to target?
We’re talking about any decision by an individual to put a link (to a political candidate) on their home page, set up a blog, send out mass e-mails, any kind of activity that can be done on the Internet.

Again, blogging could also get us into issues about online journals and non-online journals. Why should CNET get an exemption but not an informal blog? Why should Salon or Slate get an exemption? Should Nytimes.com and Opinionjournal.com get an exemption but not online sites, just because the newspapers have a print edition as well?

Why wouldn’t the news exemption cover bloggers and online media?
Because the statute refers to periodicals or broadcast, and it’s not clear the Internet is either of those. Second, because there’s no standard for being a blogger, anyone can claim to be one, and we’re back to the deregulated Internet that the judge objected to. Also I think some of my colleagues on the commission would be uncomfortable with that kind of blanket exemption.

So if you’re using text that the campaign sends you, and you’re reproducing it on your blog or forwarding it to a mailing list, you could be in trouble?
Yes. In fact, the regulations are very specific that reproducing a campaign’s material is a reproduction for purpose of triggering the law. That’ll count as an expenditure that counts against campaign finance law.

This is an incredible thicket. If someone else doesn’t take action, for instance in Congress, we’re running a real possibility of serious Internet regulation.

Enough to make your blood boil, right?  Except it will be impossible to enforce.  I can register a domain with a fake name and address in a foreign country, host the domain in still another country, then post anonymously to that website with an IP address from a third country, all without leaving my little town in Idaho.  Oh, and the traffic from my bedroom to the other side of the international borders is encrypted.  So how are they going to regulate that?  What authority do they have to regulate websites and Internet traffic of foreign countries?

At another dinner, a year or two ago, with the same friend from last week I had expressed my concerns about how the internet and computers could be a real threat to freedom.  The sniffing of your email traffic, the websites you browse, the things you buy, the people you communicate with, far, far too much information about you is known from your internet traffic.  He dismissed it by rolling his eyes, a wave of his hand and the statement, “Computers and the internet are a far bigger problem for the government than they are for the individual.”  Because to him this was so obvious I decided to think on it rather than push the subject with him.  In the time since then I’ve come to conclude he is right.  Yes, it’s a problem for the individual but it’s a bigger problem for the government.  Look at what bloggers have done in the past couple of years.  Look at the communication we get back from the war front.  Look at the bind the FEC is getting into trying to regulate us. 

Two lesson are important here:

1. The free flow of information is almost impossible to control now.
2. Freedom flourishes when you have the free flow of information. 

Fascists everywhere know the second lesson and are rapidly learning the first.  It won’t be long before the slow learners at the FEC, in the courts, and in our legislatures grasp both.

Update:  See also Kim du Toit’s response.
Update2: Geek with a .45 is organizing the insurrection.

I’ve long a been a critic of airport “security” measures.  But I think the Federal Air Marshal concept has a lot of validity.  I have reservations about the constitutionality of government supplied security for private enterprise, but the functionality of having highly trained, undercover, armed guards seems to be beyond rational criticism.  And of course if something should work you can probably count on the government finding a way to mess it up.  The FAM program is no exception to this general rule.  Michelle Malkin has been following the mess the program is in and reports the potential for Director Thomas Quinn to soon be fired or to resign under pressure.  My favorite option, allowing all passengers to carry defensive weapons on board any flight, isn’t likely to happen anytime soon and having an effective FAM program is probably the most politically acceptable of the various potentially effective options for airplane security.  The sooner we can get the FAM program to be effective the better.  Besides, my 18 year old daughter says she wants to be FAM.  And although she can shoot a handgun she isn’t anywhere near up to the level she needs to be; FAM handgun qualifications are the most demanding of any law enforcement agency in the country.  We are going to the range on Sunday to start her education.  I expect it will take a year to get her up to speed.  She is an incredibly strong willed person and if she really wants this I know she has the physical and mental strength to accomplish it.  We’ll see what happens in the next few months as I chart her progress.

I am always looking for better explosives for the Boomershoot and the other day someone suggested nitroglycerine.  I told him no, it’s just too hazardous to work with.  While following up on idea for something else I ran across this story which I have to share:

In the 1920’s and 1930’s, liquid nitroglycerine was used for “shooting” oil wells to stimulate production. The productive formation might have a large porosity, so it held a lot of oil, but might be relatively impermeable, or “tight,” so the oil would not flow into the small hole with sufficient speed. In limestone, hydrochloric acid was often used, but this was not useful in sandstones. By exploding from 2 to 200 quarts of nitroglycerine, the rock could be fractured for a considerable distance, greatly enlarging the surface through with the oil would flow, equivalent to making a much larger hole. The “shooter” drove alone in a Ford coupe, with the “soup” in the back where the rumble seat used to be, from his source of supply. Nitroglycerine could not be commercially shipped, of course. He poured the “soup” into tin “torpedoes” and lowered them one by one, each fitting into the top of the one below. On the top went a time fuze that ticked away and exploded the charge at a reasonable interval. Then everyone filtered back to the well from their places of refuge. Occasionally, all did not go well, but the “shooters” were well paid and their widows had insurance. There are few graves of “shooters.”

Kim du Toit just pledged the following:

When these boys come home, and I pray they will all come home, I will be there at Ft. Lewis to welcome them. 

Any of you who want to join me on that happy day are welcome to do so. No, I don’t know when it is: maybe later this year, maybe early next year—but I will be there when it happens, regardless of personal inconvenience.

These boys have become our boys, and that’s all there is to it.

I’m pledging the same with the possible exception of pressing government business I need to attend to.  Please join us if you can.

For some reason my blog comes up on top for a number of search terms with the search engines.  Due to the referrals I was seeing I noticed that searching for Josh Sugarmann on either MSN search or google puts The View From North Central Idaho at the top of the list.  It was this post that did it.

Josh Sugarmann, for those that don’t know, is the Executive Director at Violence Policy Center, is the author of this book, and was the brains behind the assault weapon ban.  Wow!  Someone looking for information on Mr. Sugarmann ends up looking at my propaganda on freedom, guns, and explosives.  I love the irony.

Stephanie has finished tweaking all the press releases now.  Please point your favorite, or even your most hated, MSM editors, reporters and bloggers to them.  Our objective is to get positive media coverage of gun ownership and use.  The explosives angle gives that extra edge to make it a newsworthy story rather than just a bunch of people punching holes in paper that you can’t see without a deep space telescope.  Our hand picked and carefully trained media specialists can keep even the most noxious gun fearing wussy reporter from gaining much traction.  Check out some of the previoius press coverage we have obtained to see what is possible if you manage the press appropriately.  We are expecting some good stuff this year too and if you can help make it happen it will benefit gun owners everywhere.

Here are some data points:

• More Than 2,000 Demonstrate at Iraqi Bombing Site
• bin Laden encouraged Zarqawi and his group to focus on attacks inside the United States
• Lebanese Cheer Collapse of Syrian-led Government
• Syria cooperating with Iraq authorities
• Democratic moves snowballing across Mideast

From this last article:

Under the combined impact of US pressure and rumblings on the home front, democratic moves have snowballed across the Middle East in recent weeks and brought in timid changes to Arab regimes fearful of reform.

Egypt has become the latest country to break with the autocratic order that has come to define regional politics and make a small concession to a cautious yet unprecedented democratic push.

President Hosni Mubarak took Egyptians and the rest of the world by surprise Saturday when he proposed multi-candidate direct presidential polls, replacing a 50-year-old system whereby a single candidate was vetted by the army before being submitted to a popular vote.

The fact that there are thousands of protesters against the terrorists in Iraq is a very good sign and I suspect this attitude is a good part of the reason why bin Laden is telling his top commander in Iraq to move his area of operations to the U.S.  They have lost the battle in Iraq and they know it.  Syria is trying to play friendly with the US and Iraq as their power wanes.  Egypt claims to be moving towards freedom.  Iran is a concern but overall it’s almost all good news from the Middle East.

I, as well as most other people that watch these sort of things, are amazed we haven’t had another attack on U.S. soil since 9-11.  That bit of good fortune may change as the extremists realize they aren’t going to win in Iraq.  But we got nearly four years of preparation in before they decided to focus their sights on us again.  I just hope our intelligence network is working well enough to stop the vast majority of the attempts on our homeland.  That reminds me–I should go visit the guy upstairs to see if the stuff I have been giving him has been ignored or put to good use.