A San Francisco transit agency spokesman says the city is investigating whether pro-gun ads, which an advocacy group recently purchased, should have been posted in transit stations this week.
The city’s policy on such ads is strict but clear: It says that “no advertisement” shall “promote the use of firearms.”
Have these people forgotten they live in the United States instead of someplace like Cuba or North Korea? I can’t imagine the courts siding with the want-to-be tyrants in San Francisco on this issue. Establishing more precedent for freedom is a very good thing.
Do not forget this is their goal:
Even toy guns must be destroyed. There is no common ground with these people.
It’s nice to know the money I have been donating (matched dollar for dollar by Microsoft) is being put to good use. SAF and friends haven’t been winning all their court battles but they sure have been making good progress with their objective to “win back our firearms freedoms one lawsuit at a time”.—Joe]
Over the last few months on my twice monthly visits to Idaho there has been a bunch of wind turbines being erected near the Rye Grass rest area on I-90. When Barb came west on Tuesday of this week to visit me in my bunker she told me she stopped and took pictures of the turbines. “They look like something out of a science fiction movie”, she said.
Wow! It just so happens that on my return trip last Sunday I also took some pictures:
In his 99-page article, Professor Bogus reviews wide-ranging evidence including an analysis of Madison’s original language and an understanding of how he and other founders drew on England’s Declaration of Rights. Madison’s concern, Professor Bogus concludes, was not hunting, self-defense, national defense, or resistance to governmental tyranny but slave control.
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During the panel discussion, all three experts said that “The Hidden History” has dramatic implications for the contemporary debate over gun control. Rather than applying to individual gun ownership, the three agreed, the Second Amendment is rooted in the political battle over control of militia forces and ratification of the Constitution. This history, which has been endorsed by the U.S. Supreme Court, is often ignored by modern day pro-gun lobbyists.
I am quite sure there is common ground somewhere. Can we get there? Can we talk? Can we agree on just a few things?
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Can we get together and do what’s right? Can we agree that too many people are shot to death in our country? Can we agree that some common sense laws make sense and won’t affect those who are law abiding and want to own their guns and carry their guns? Can we agree that there are actually a few places where we don’t actually need guns? Can we agree that gun violence is a public safety and public health problem? Can we agree that stopping the injuries and deaths caused by guns is a social justice issue?
What they do not seem to understand (or just a likely do not want to admit) is that any of the laws they advocate which would “prevent gun violence” are prior restraint on a specific enumerated right and have a chilling effect on the exercise of that right. We can no more find common ground on this topic than we can find common ground with someone who would demand we get government approval before buying a book, dating someone of the same sex, or marrying someone of a different race. And in fact a better legal case could be made for the last two examples because they are not specifically enumerated rights.
The guy yesterday that held people hostage at Discovery Channel making demands that they “save the planet” by having a programing agenda that advocated for the voluntary extinction of humans (thanks to Ry for sending me the link to his webpage) will be dismissed as a nut case. This is probably valid but perhaps further consideration should be given to the topic. Don’t forget that not only did this nut case base his philosophy on the work of Al Gore but so did Ted Kaczynski.
We have known for a long time that anti-gun activists have strong violence tendencies. And such things as John Cusack’s “I AM FOR A SATANIC DEATH CULT CENTER AT FOX NEWS HQ AND OUTSIDE THE OFFICES [OF DICK] ARMEY AND NEWT GINGRICH-and all the GOP WELFARE FREAKS” is not all that uncommon.
And of course all the great genocides of the last century were under leftist regimes.
My hypothesis is that at some level they know that is the only method by which they can achieve their goals. They, almost by definition, believe in the power of government to “do good” no matter what domain they enter into. They believe in central planning and “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” But as George Washington said, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master.” Government is force. It is violence. Every dictate of the government is backed up with people with guns who job it is to force compliance.
Those who want to expand government, by definition, want to expand the use of force to achieve their goals. It should therefore come as no surprise that liberal individuals and groups are inclined to use violence to further their goals even outside the domain of government.
This also might explain why most liberals are opposed to the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. It explains why they keep insisting, long after the courts have ruled otherwise, that the Second Amendment only protects the power of a state to arm itself independent of the Federal government. The explanation is that they see the willingness inside themselves and those they associate with to use violence and they fear it. They believe they, and everyone else, might use violence in an unethical manner if allowed the tools and the opportunity. They believe in the wisdom of “the central committee” to temper the violent impulses they believe the individuals to have.
This might also explain why liberals accuse the others of violence tendencies. They are projecting the worst fears about themselves onto their opponents.
These violent tendencies can be dealt with at the individual and small group level via the police and the legal system and amount to noise in the big picture of things. It’s at the governmental level that we have genocides with millions dead in the span of a few years. It is at the government level that we must enforce strong restrictions on their power to deliver violence against individuals. This is why we have a constitution that (by design, not in practice) limits governments to a small set of enumerated powers and the Second Amendment to stop a runaway government from becoming tyrannical. One might even be able to make the case that the Second Amendment isn’t only not about hunting–it’s about protecting us from liberals.
Today is the day that the Windows Phone team has been driving towards, and we’re very excited to say that we’ve reached the biggest milestone for our internal team – the release to manufacturing (RTM) of Windows Phone 7! While the final integration of Windows Phone 7 with our partners’ hardware, software, and networks is underway, the work of our internal engineering team is largely complete.
Windows Phone 7 is the most thoroughly tested mobile platform Microsoft has ever released. We had nearly ten thousand devices running automated tests daily, over a half million hours of active self-hosting use, over three and a half million hours of stress test passes, and eight and a half million hours of fully automated test passes. We’ve had thousands of independent software vendors and early adopters testing our software and giving us great feedback. We are ready.
I can’t vouch for the exact numbers but they sound about right. We have some amazing automation. And if you think the half-million hours of active self-hosting is implausible think again. I first used a Windows Phone 7 about a year ago and started carrying one as my primary phone early this year. When I went on vacation to Missouri last May I took three (the rest were loaned out to co-workers for testing) of them with me and used them for navigation (I’m on the “Location Team”), traffic, lots of email, web browsing, pictures, video, and of course phone calls. Everyone I know on the team has a minimum of two phones and some have five. That adds up to a lot of hours. I actually suspect the half million hours is an understatement.
I am more proud of this product than anything I have worked on since Direct X 1.0. In terms of my primary reason for wanting to work for Microsoft (to change the world) this is, by far, my largest contribution.
Technically it is great. It’s not perfect but it is much more than “good enough” to compete. Market acceptance is a question in our minds though.
Most of the people I associate with are engineers. We understand the technology but not people who are different from us. Will this phone be compelling for non-engineers? I’m sure I can configure one such that my wife (who always insists she just wants “a simple phone, nothing more”) can and would use it as a phone, camera, and for occasional navigation but I’m not so sure she would be interested in spending the money on one if I didn’t “twist her arm”. In many ways it is simpler to use than her current phone. Son James (also a software developer working at Microsoft) will get one. I’m not so sure about his girlfriend. I think my daughters and their spouses will give very serious consideration to one. But how does this translate into the market at large? I think it will be at least “good”. With a little bit of luck and a lot of awesome Microsoft marketing (I’ve seen some “concept ads” that look really good) it will do great.
We have some “ship parties” (not really my thing but it is nice to see others have a good time) in the next few days then we have to deliver on the next version. Yesterday I took care of four bugs on our next deliverable so don’t think we are sitting around to see how well this version does before deciding what to do next.—Joe]
Ben Franklin Also attributed to a motto found among Thomas Jefferson’s papers. [You would think that with all the datasupporting the concept of the right to keep and bear arms as a legitimate method of last resort to overthrow a tyrannical government the anti-gun people would give up trying to scare people into giving up that specific enumerated right. It didn’t work when the Democrats in the deep south tried to “scare the white folks” about all the terrible things that would happen if people with dark colored skin weren’t closely controlled after the civil war. So why would they think it would work when Democrats from the west coast and the Northeast try to scare people about the exercise of rights that have existed since before this country was created? —Joe]
