Sebastian tells us there will be live blogging from the SCOTUS Blog.
Expect the NRA to update their Heller page.
Expect Countertop to give us an early report also.
Bitter is outside the Supreme Court and feeding info to Sebastian.
Update: The SCOTUS Blog appears to be one of the best places. Here is a picture from outside:
Not that #9. Keep your mind out of the cat house (or the governors office).
Uncle says his state is #6. And in the comments Kevin says his state is number #5. So where is Idaho? We are in the top 10 at #9. But wait, Uncle and Kevin were counting from the opposite end of the scale.
Idaho, as a state, is the 9th safest state in the U.S. That is up from number 12 in 2007.
Sometimes there are no compromises possible. This is one of those times:
“I don’t think freedom of expression should mean freedom from blasphemy,” said Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade, the chairman of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference. “There can be no freedom without limits.”
Here is the picture the New York Times has of Spitzer’s playmate:
Here is the picture found elsewhere:
I wonder why the cropping of the picture. Was it just for space or was there some other reason?
As a side note the above pictures reminds me some of Barb and I can’t help but think she would have made a lot more money had she not married me when she was 21. Here is a picture of her at about age 18:
I keep wondering if disgraced New York Governer and anti-gun bigot Spitzer was aware of the book Mayflower Madam when he booked a room at this particular hotel:
As recently as this past Valentine’s Day, Feb. 13, Spitzer, who officials say is identified in a federal complaint as “Client 9,” arranged for a prostitute “Kristen” to meet him in Washington, D.C.
The woman met Client 9 at the Mayflower Hotel, room 871, “for her tryst,” according to the complaint.
The book was a true story and a very good one. If he hasn’t read it already maybe he’ll have time while he is in prison.
Showing questionable restraint Israel fired a few missiles recently:
Israeli aircraft fired missiles at the office of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza City, escalating an offensive aimed at halting Palestinian rocket attacks.
Israel says the attack is a message that it is now targeting the political leaders of Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza. Hamas refuses to renounce violence or recognize Israel.
Had Cuba been firing multiple rockets into Florida every day for months do you think we would have just fired a few missiles back? I can’t imagine people expecting anything less than encouraging non government leaders in Cuba to find refuge with friends and relatives elsewhere while our military exterminated all the vermin and started rebuilding with the only communists allowed back on the island being members of the MSM.
Instead Israel tried to get in a rational discussion with those that are irrational:
“Nothing will prevent us from striking at the terrorist organizations responsible for rocket attacks,” Mr. Olmert said. “He said that no one has the moral right to preach to Israel for exercising its legitimate right of self-defense.”
Responding to the bloodshed, the internationally-backed Palestinian government in the West Bank suspended peace talks with Israel.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas described the Israeli actions in Gaza as a “holocaust.” Mr. Abbas has suspended Mideast peace talks in protest at Israel’s military offensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
No, it’s not a holocaust. But if they do not get the message (see the first quote above) they are inviting a demonstration of the difference between their current situation and a true holocaust.
As you should already know:
The ATF Special Agent doing the talking in this video about Cavalry Arms is no stranger:
I’ve blogged about him before.
His cell phone number and email, as of last month, are 602-859-6317 and Thomas.mangan@atf.gov.
Here are some other times he has appeared in the news and what he said:
”These are, quite frankly, weapons of war,” ATF special agent Tom Mangan said as he picked up an assault rifle and examined it. “These are military-type weapons. This is firepower you would expect to see on the battlegrounds of Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Agents said Thursday they found the 42 weapons in a storage locker about 10 days ago. The guns were worth $250,000 in all: Belgian-made ”FN” handguns, semiautomatic AK-47 rifles and other pistols. They also found four olive boxes loaded with .50-caliber bullets – ammunition that’s big enough to take out an airplane.
”The type of firepower you’re seeing here is on the increase,” he said. ”You’re seeing sophisticated weapons, military weapons, assault-type weapons, assault pistols, very expensive pistols. This level of fire power gives criminals options they haven’t had before.”
Put him on your list of people to be charged with violation of 18 USC 242.
ATF Seizes Weapons At Gun Warehouse and the talking head says:
It’s still not clear if the nature of the investigation is as serious as the evidence implies.
Except the only evidence is that the licensed gun dealer, Cavalry Arms Corporation, had guns in a warehouse which the ATF put out on tables to show the media.
The serious part of the evidence is the ATF and the media cooperated to demonize gun possession.
First, my opinions are not those of my employer.
Second, I point you to the article titled EU fines Microsoft record $1.4bn.
Third, I bring your attention to a comment about the fine following the article:
Microsoft MUST be brought to account for its’ practice of dominating by exclusion. If the company, Microsoft, continues to practice in a manner which refuses to be competitive, then it should be excluded from the EU. Nicholas Carton, USA
Nicholas Carton, Saint Louis, Missouri USA
Fourth, my opinion:
If people only knew how much time and effort MS spends groveling and trying to please these socialist jerks…
I am sometimes (and this is one of those times) of the opinion MS should tell the EU, “Then do without any of our products. Not only will your languages not be supported but all future versions of our software will not run without having at least intermittent Internet access and will not run if said Internet path traverses any part of an EU country.”
But that’s an emotional response without looking at the cost/benefit numbers. Rational analysis will require looking out for the stockholders best interests on a number of fronts. I know such a response would allow competitors access to a cash cow as well as cutting off MS income from this source. I just can’t help wondering at what point the EU will push MS too far and the numbers no longer add up to continue trying to please the greedy socialists.
I wish MS were in a position to demonstrate to the EU they need MS more than MS needs them and had the courage to follow through on a very forceful demonstration of that.
Headline: Court to address: Do you have a legal right to own a gun?
As far as media coverage goes it’s excellent. They got the Miller decision mostly wrong but otherwise they did very well with it. This is very good to see. Most MSM coverage of guns is more opinion than news coverage.
This restriction has directly impacted me for years. Barb and I love visiting National Parks. If we get this through then our visits will be far less stressful:
Reading the fine print what this really means is that a major offensive has been opened in our battle against the anti-gun bigots on one front. We probably will win but we still have work to do. This is just a commitment to go through the process, including public input, to change the policy. Barb and I have a rule regarding good news. We’ll believe it when “the check clears the bank”.
Thanks go to former Idaho governor Dirk Kempthorne (currently Secretary of Interior), Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID), and NRA-ILA.
When will they ever learn that gun free zones weren’t, aren’t, and can’t be? How many people must die before they let the victims fight back? It happened again:
A gunman killed five students and wounded 16 others in a Northern Illinois University lecture hall on Thursday afternoon in DeKalb before killing himself, according to university and police officials.
I’ve long ranted about the futility of restricting explosive materials. Most of the time I’m a little circumspect on the details but after this massive explosion some news sources aren’t so circumspect:
Sugar dust is just one of a variety of forms of dust that can, under the right circumstances, combust and cause an explosion.
Explosions are not uncommon in places like grain silos, but have been known to happen in sugar factories in the U.S. and abroad, much like the one in Georgia Thursday.
The dust itself can be created in a variety of ways during the refining process.
Anything from sparks from machinery to a lit cigarette could have ignited the blaze.
The dust also has to have a certain concentration to support combustion fast enough to maintain the explosion.
Those are 100 foot high silos in the picture below.
Lets see them restrict access to sugar! It’s for the children…
Jeff Cooper is gone and now so is Chapman.
[Heavy sigh]
The only way that I can put into context that you might understand is that my brother went to war tonight with the people, the government that was putting torment and strife into his life. He has spoke on it as best he could in the courts, and they denied all rights to the access of protection and he took it upon himself to go to war and end the issue.
Gerald Thornton
Six Dead In Missouri City Council Shooting
[Also of interest is this from the NYT:
In an interview with a local television station, Mr. Thornton’s mother said that Kirkwood officials had kept after her son, “giving him tickets for everything they could.”
I’m not sure of the source and validity but one commenter said the shooter had $18,000 in parking tickets in the previous three years. My previous post may be applicable here.–Joe]
We’ve all head the news about the satellite that’s going to make reentry some day soon. They say it’s a spy satellite and that it contains hazardous materials. I don’t know what that tells most people, but to me, even the term “spy satellite” says, “nuclear power on board”. So, is that uranium or plutonium? I guess it would have been too much trouble to go and either refuel the bird’s rockets, or at least remove the fissionable material?
In the past there has been some criticism of the NRA’s response to the current administration’s brief in the Heller case. Some thought it was a bit tepid. The latest alerts from the Apex of the Triangle of Death will quiet most critics. Here are some of the points they make:
This post was brought to you by a wheelbarrow full of cash from the Apex of the Triangle of Death.
Lots of people are having fun with this (video):
Of course nearly everyone is thinking this is a good thing. So maybe we should make this sort of thing more likely to happen. Urge your legislative critters to pass holster control instead of gun control laws. Only the good guys should have holsters.
Of course expect the anti-gun people to put this accidental shooting in the “bad thing” column.
In high school and college I played a LOT of chess. I still have the records of hundreds of games I played and dozens of books and magazines. I had thought maybe my children would be interested in chess but kids seem to develop interests in things other than what their parents are interested in.
In any case I was a big into chess before Bobby Fischer became the first American world chess champion. Fischer winning the championship made chess in the U.S. popular for a while. And I remember walking into the high school cafeteria on the first day of school in the fall of ’72 shortly after he had won and my friend Lance Jones yelling across the room, “Yea Fischer!”.
In later years after I was most of the way through college my electrical engineering classes started sucking up the desire for challenging intellectual stimulation and I mostly dropped out of the chess scene.
Fischer made the news again a few years ago and I wrote about him then. The news about him made me sad and now that he is dead at the age of 64 it’s like another milestone in my life. A childhood hero is gone.
It’s probably because I’m “different” but Sebastian’s statement here just strikes me as odd:
The gun vote was a primary driver for making sure Bush won the White House in 2000 and 2004, and the NRA endorsements he received played a big role on that. The Heller case is arguably the most important struggle gun owners have ever faced, and I don’t think its unreasonable to demand something greater than lukewarm support from The Administration on this matter.
The first thought that crosses my mind is, “Did someone think we got a receipt when we gave Bush our votes?” In other words, are people irritated because Bush was “paid off” and didn’t stay paid off? But that is probably just because I think differently than most.
Bush said, essentially from day one, that he would sign the AWB if it came to his desk. Yet gun owners voted for him because he was better (much better) than the viable alternatives. So what should we expect? He didn’t say he was our lover, he just said he wasn’t our enemy.
I’m not happy with the DOJ brief, but I can’t say that I’m at all that surprised or even particularly unhappy with it. It’s better than the alternative had Gore or Kerry been elected.
And via local (Troy, Idaho) IPSC/Steel shooter Mike Brown is a lawyer and offered these thoughts on the DOJ brief:
The Solicitor General here is defending the interests of his client (the US Government). While the brief explicitly reaffirms that the Justice Department’s position is that the 2nd amendment guarantees an individual right they are apparently concerned that the DC circuit opinion establishes a two pronged “categorical” test for whether a weapon is protected:
- if it bears a “reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia,” and
- is “of the kind in common use at the time” the Second Amendment was adopted.
Their fear is that if the Supreme Court adopts this test then ALL federal gun control could be struck down especially where it concerns weapons that are especially suitable for militia service (i.e. full auto M4 carbine). The Solicitor General is arguing for a more wisy washy standard to be applied so that “reasonable” regulation of firearms are allowed.
As a sidebar on this topic: the Oregon Supreme Court adopted the same kind of standard for determining which weapons are protected under their state constitution- that is why switchblades are legal in OR: they are the “modern analogue” of swords which were in common use at the time of the adoption of the state constitution.