Frank Beamer won ACC Coach of the Year for the second year in a row. And to think, the ACC originally didn't want the Hokies.

Virginia Tech travels to Jacksonville to defend their ACC Championship Title against FSU this weekend.

Senator Arlen Spector, R-PA, thinks the federal government should regulate football. He claims the suspension of NFL loudmouth Terrell Owens is unfair, and suggested that he might want to bring the issue before his own antitrust subcommittee.

The senator said the league and the Eagles had effectively blacklisted the all-pro wide receiver by forbidding him from playing and by banning other teams from talking to him. He called such treatment "vindictive and inappropriate."

"It's a restraint of trade for them to do that, and the thought crosses my mind, it might be a violation of antitrust laws," Specter said. "The NFL can have whatever rules it wants on authorizing suspension or keeping you on the team for the balance of the year, but they can't violate the law."

Spector is apparently confusing football with baseball, the country's only professional sport with a legal monopoly. He's apparently never heard of the USFL, XFL, CFL, or World League. Other teams are forbidden from talking to Owens because he's under contract to the Eagles. The player's union may take it to arbitration, but the Eagles will likely be stuck with having to pay Owens for not playing. The initial four game suspension is legal under league/player rules, but Owens must be paid for any other games he misses.

Tennessee is asking online retailers to voluntarily tax their customers and send them the money. Why not just flush your money down the toilet?

Then there's this quip from Say Uncle:

And, since I'm known to pick a nit or two, this is a stupid statement that I see all the time:

University of Tennessee economist William Fox issued a recent study estimating that state and local governments will lose $18 billion in sales tax revenues this year because of online purchases.

Stupid economists. If expenses is greater than revenue, that is a loss. Not collecting money that you're not entitled to is not a loss. It's called not collecting money you're not entitled to.

To the government, it's all semantics. Maybe Tennessee would like to start soliciting Voluntary Tax Refund Forfeitures.

If you see a photo of terrorists and critique their gun safety, you might be a gun nut. If I owned an RPG (rocket propelled grenade), I'd probably unload it while in the house. And pointing your machinegun at the guy waving the RPG around, also not a good idea.

The NRA or the Brady Campaign? Will Malven breaks it down.

A high school English teacher in Vermont is coming under fire for using his classroom to express his personal political beliefs. Thirty-six year old Bret Chenkin says he isn't shy about sharing his political views with students. He claims that questions he put on a student quiz are being taken out of context.

One example: "I wish Bush would be (coherent, eschewed) for once during a speech, but there are theories that his everyday diction charms the below-average mind, hence insuring him Republican votes." "Coherent" is the right answer.

Well, we can't all be as brilliant as high school English teachers.

New Orleans is set to become the first city in America to provide 'free' wireless internet access. The city, which flooded after an undermaintained and delapidated levee system failed, hopes to "jump start" economic recovery by providing a tax-payer funded internet service. Hopefully looters were able to stock up on WiFi devices.

The system, which Mayor C. Ray Nagin [of Houston] is scheduled to announce at a news conference today, also will be used by law enforcement and for an array of city government functions, such as speeding approval of building permits...

Cities around the country are studying or have deployed "wireless fidelity," or WiFi, networks, because they often provide more affordable Internet access than private carriers and can help bridge the digital divide in low-income areas or because high-speed Internet access is not provided by either telephone or cable companies.

Telephone and cable companies oppose the moves as unfair, taxpayer-funded competition and have successfully lobbied several states to prohibit or restrict the networks.

Louisiana is one of those states, prohibiting any locality from offering Internet connection speeds of more than 144 kilobits per second, about twice the speed of dial-up but one-tenth to one-twentieth of what is typically provided via digital subscriber line (DSL) or cable-modem services.

The New Orleans system will feature 512-kilobit-per-second speed, which city officials said is the most the network can handle efficiently at first. Because the city is under a state of emergency, it can skirt existing law.

Wow, apparently you can do just about anything as long as you declare a "state of emergency" first. And by putting the WiFi access points on top of light poles, they're less likely to be disrupted by the next flood. Am I the only one who thinks that a city that has money to blow on 'free internet' doesn't need federal assistance?

Previous scientific estimates have dated the dawn of Man back to no more than a few hundred thousand years ago. But new evidence suggests that people started screwing up the environment hundreds of thousands of years earlier.

Scientists are looking back to a time when "greenhouse gases" were not the problem they are today, and it is giving them a clearer picture of how people are making it worse.

A team of European researchers analyzed tiny air bubbles preserved in Antarctic ice for millennia and determined there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than at any point during the last 650,000 years.

There are also more SUVs now, so the two must be related.

300GB disks are coming next year.

Chocolate Dress: Melts in your mouth, not in your hands

Gun grabbers even want to disarm off-duty cops, for their own safety. In voicing their concern, proponents cite anecdotal scenarios like the death of Sgt. Cornel Young in 2000. Young, an off duty cop trying to break up a bar fight, was shot by police who mistook him for a bad guy. Earlier this year a plainclothes officer was shot and killed by a fellow officer while investigating underage drinking outside the Citrus Bowl. The officer got into a scuffle with tailgaters and fired a shot into the air. An Orlando officer shot him.

In 2001, two uniformed officers shot and killed an undercover detective when he pointed his gun at a suspected car thief in Oakland, Calif.

In 1994, an off-duty police officer in New York City shot and seriously wounded an undercover transit officer who was chasing armed suspects through a subway station. The transit officer survived.

Then there's this:

The International Association of Chiefs of Police has called "always on duty" policies a costly tradition. The group, which has more than 20,000 members, recommends that off-duty officers who witness a crime call for assistance rather than pull a weapon.

According to the FBI, 43 police officers have been killed since 1987 by friendly fire. Some were caught in crossfire, or killed by firearms mishaps. A handful, like Young, were mistaken for criminals and shot by fellow officers.

So even cops aren't allowed to defend themselves anymore.

The Student Body President of one of America's premier party schools is pushing to punish students for exercising their Constitutionally protected freedom of expression. The Saudi Arabian national would make posing in Playboy a violation of the honor code.

Undergraduate Student Government President Yaser Alamoodi is hoping to pass a rule that would prohibit males and females from posing in magazines he believes are damaging to ASU's reputation.

"I was concerned to see logos and the name of ASU being associated with such magazines," he said. "I don't want the name of ASU to be a joke anymore, and I think the Playboy association is a big reason why the ASU academic reputation is not up to what it should be."

Under the proposed rule, students who posed would be punished by the rules set forth in the student code of conduct.

According to the code, any student who is found to violate the rules is subject to expulsion, suspension, probation, warning or payment of restitution.

Now, I haven't read *cough* a Playboy magazine in more than 10 years. But from what I remember of the magazine, the photos would only erect their reputation and show off ASU's valuable assets.

(via Taranto)

UPDATE: It looks like women are still free to show their goodies in Playboy, they just can't use the University logo, because that would reflect poorly on the University.

Cartoons are no stranger to political correctness. Many of the Looney Tunes are kept off the air or trimmed down when shown on TV. Now political correctness is even entering your home by way of the DVD sets you buy.

...I stopped to buy the third boxed set in the ''Looney Tunes Golden Collection.'' Loved the first two: Daffy, Bugs, Porky, beautifully restored, tons of special features. But, for some reason, this new set begins with a special announcement by Whoopi Goldberg explaining what it is we're not meant to find funny: ''Unfortunately at that time racial and ethnic differences were caricatured in ways that may have embarrassed and even hurt people of color, women and ethnic groups,'' she tells us sternly. ''These jokes were wrong then and they're wrong today'' -- unlike, say, Whoopi Goldberg's most memorable joke of recent years, the one at that 2004 all-star Democratic Party gala in New York where she compared President Bush to her, um, private parts. There's a gag for the ages.

I don't know what Whoopi's making such a meal about. It's true you don't see many positive images of people of color on ''Looney Tunes,'' but then the images of people of non-color aren't terribly positive either (Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam). Instead, you see positive images of ducks of color, roadrunners of color and tweety birds of color. How weirdly reductive to be so obsessed about something so peripheral to these cartoons that you stick the same damn Whoopi Goldberg health warning on all four DVDs in the box. And don't think about hitting the "Next" button and skipping to the cartoons: You can't; you gotta sit through it.

And of all the people to carry the message of decency and goodness, they pick Whoopi Goldberg. I guess Howard Stern was busy.

At least according to Jeremy Robb's cynical mind.

After San Francisco voters banned guns in the most recent election, city officials say they are struggling to keep up with the massive amount of guns being voluntarily turned over by gang members and other criminals.

"When I proposed this ballot initiative, I knew we'd rid the city of guns," said Supervisor Chris Daly. "I guess I wasn't prepared for the massive turnout by local gang members so eager to give us their guns. We're having to take away from resources in our pot farming initiative that passed in the last election in order to handle all of these guns."

Gang members were lined up for several blocks outside of a San Francisco police station in order to turn over their guns. "It's the right thing to do, yo," said a gangbanger known as Fizzle. "Da peeps in Frisco said no to guns, so we got no choice but to hand over that shizat. Now I gots to go be an organic farmer or some shit like dat. It ain't right. I stole this .45 two years ago, and now I have to give it to the police. It just ain't right."

This video from the "gun free" U. K. is a sad depiction of what happens when law abiding citizens are disarmed. Basically, an unarmed jewel thief attempts to grab the goods and run only to be met with a locked door. The owners refuse to let him out and a fight ensues. The alarm was triggered, but cops still take a full 20 minutes to show up. The shop owner and store employees are left to fight off a desperate thug.

Meanwhile, in "gun free" Chicago, robbers need little more than a ham sandwich. (link via reader Robert G.)

The Washington Metro Authority skews their crime statistics. The Washington Post reports that the only crimes that count are those reported by the Metro Police.

Metro transit officials undercount serious crime at the region's 86 rail stations, leaving dozens of assaults, robberies and other major incidents off the official tally they report to the system's board of directors and the public.

That practice stems from a long-standing policy not to count crimes handled by law enforcement officers other than Metro's Transit Police, even if the crimes occur in a station or on a subway platform.

For the 18 months ending in June, for example, Transit Police recorded 73 aggravated assaults at rail stations, but they did not include the 21 aggravated assaults reported by other police departments, which brings the total up by nearly 30 percent, according to a review of records by The Washington Post.

Some anti-smokers apparently think so:

Rob Reiner is opposing a California ballot initiative that would raise money for hospitals through a $1.50-a-pack cigarette tax hike. Reiner is worried that the initiative will threaten his pet project, the First 5 California program, a preschool enrichment boondoggle that relies on a 50-cent-a-pack tax hike approved by voters in 1998. "If the state increased cigarette taxes as proposed by the hospitals," the Associated Press notes, "purchases would inevitably decline as smokers shop elsewhere for lower prices or give up the habit. If fewer cigarettes are sold in the state, tax collections will decline. In turn, First 5 would receive less money."

Keep on smoking, folks. It's for the kids.

(Via Bitch Girls)

When I was a young lad, my father was a Navy chief. Since he was away for six months out of the year, my mother never bothered to celebrate Thanksgiving. In fact, it wasn't until my sister first attended grade school that we had even heard of Thanksgiving. Apparently she came home one day and asked my mom what this "Thanksgiving" thing was that she'd been hearing about at school.

Last year we had four generations celebrating Thanksgiving together. My grandfather drove up from down South, and my sister, brother-in-law, and 6-month old nephew flew in from the Left Coast. This year my sister's family can't make it, and my grandfather has since passed on. But I'll still make the journey home to celebrate with my parents.

I am a kind overlord. The Staff Writers have been let go early and Ravenwood's Universe will be shutting down over the holiday. No new content will be posted until at least Monday morning.

But don't fret. Rather than reading websites, you should be spending time with your family and being thankful for everything that is good in your life. Personally, I encourage everyone to live by The General's motto.

Live the good life. Drink, smoke, gamble, feast, joke, fornicate and be tolerant of those who do. Take risks and thrive for the good challenge. Work hard and play hard without going over the edge. Live in the moment. Believe in moderation in all things, including moderation. Live it up!

Life is finite, so you might as well enjoy it while you can. Here's to you and yours. Thank you for reading Ravenwood's Universe, now go eat some turkey.

Regards,

Ravenwood

Now this (3.4 MB Video) is how you do Christmas lights.

(Hopefully this won't completely kill my bandwidth.)

UPDATE: Snopes can't debunk the video, so it may be real. They also link to another video to a different song.

The Texas Supreme Court ruled that state mandates placed on local schools have forced local governments to raise property taxes to the state maximum. They said that its effectively a state-wide property tax, which is illegal in Texas.

Money for the $30 billion Texas school system comes primarily from local property taxes and franchise taxes. But both rich and poor school districts contend the system is unfair.

The high court found that overall school funding is adequate and that rich and poor districts have equal access to money. But the justices ruled 7-1 that the funding system amounts to a statewide property tax, which is unconstitutional in Texas.

The plaintiffs argued that the state contribution for local education is insufficient and that in order to meet all state and federal education mandates � such as the 22-student per class limit and minimum teacher salaries � they must tax at the limit prescribed in Texas law. That, they said, amounts to a single statewide property tax.

The money WILL come from somewhere, so it's only a matter of time before the law of unintended consequences will rear it's ugly head.

Gun safety rules are there for a reason. They should be taught early and often, and should be ingrained in the mind of all shooters, so that bad things like this never happen. Experience can't make up for complacency.

A trip to the restroom resulted in a trip to the hospital for a Bloomington man who accidentally shot himself in the hand over the weekend at a gun show.

Faribault Police Sgt. Richard Larson said the 59-year-old man shot himself while removing his gun from a hook in a bathroom stall while attending the 31st annual Faribault Rifle and Pistol Club gun show on Sunday morning.

Remember, treat every gun as if it were loaded, always point it in a safe direction, and keep your finger off the damned trigger.

A small town paper in Massachusetts is asking "how many guns is too many?" Life long gun owner, 66-year old Chris Tietgens, has an extensive collection. He doesn't understand the gun grabbers who wax rhetorically about why people need so many guns, need certain types of guns, or need any guns at all. But then living in the middle of the cuckoo's nest that is New England, he probably scratches his head a lot.

The ability of people to sit around and casually discuss firearms has disappeared during the last few years, said Tietgens.

Someone please rescue this man. Then there's this:

His comments come two weeks after Templeton Police arrested Scott Tardiff, 37 , after he turned over 16 firearms, ammunition, and an expired license to police when they served him with a restraining order.

Tardiff was charged with firearm possession without an firearm identification card, possession of a large capacity firearm, improper storage of a firearm, and improper storage of a large capacity firearm.

None of that is illegal in Southern states like Virginia (or what I like to call Free America). FOID card? Don't have one, don't need one. Large capacity firearms? I've got several normal capacity magazines (with 30 to 40 rounds being normal). I don't have any of those 100 round beta mags, but that's not what they mean. They mean anything over 10 rounds. Improper storage? In my book that means storing it unloaded. (An unloaded handgun is a rock, an unloaded rifle is a stick.) Improper storage of a large capacity firearm? How can you charge a guy for improperly storing something he's not allowed to have to begin with?

Tardiff, a former Leominster resident, was arrested within yards of Baldwinville Elementary School.

GASP!! How many yards; one, ten, a thousand?

This concerned many parents, who said they were upset by the fact that the guns were not locked away...

Heh. And I get upset when children are not locked away.

And while state gun laws regulate the sale, the possession, the carrying and the types of guns a person can own, they don't regulate the number of weapons someone can own.

I'm sure some Massachusetts lawmaker is busy figuring out a way to regulate that. 'Arsenal' laws have been on the Brady wishlist for years.

For those of you who like to flame each other over spelling and grammar (and you know who you are), in New Jersey a freshman college student was subjected to a lengthy anti-war diatribe from one of the professors. But rather than take the English professor to task for his moonbattery, Mike Adams wonders why the hell can't he spell.

But the real question for Professor Daly and his boss ([email protected]) follows: Why can't English professors spell?

The answer can be found in Daly's biography/teaching philosophy, which is posted on the WCCC website:

"Often linguists do not use their skills to teach grammar and writing, but Professor Daly finds that linguists have a special view on language that may help students�particularly students who have had trouble in these areas in the past. English courses generally are taught from a rule-based perspective. Students become overwhelmed with these rules and often find the exceptions make them impossible to manage. Linguistics [sic] view language from a descriptive point of view�that is they understand language in the same way you might organize a sock draw [sic] � by dumping the contents on the ground and seeing what goes together until finally ending up with a super-efficient drawer (or deeper understand [sic] of grammar and writing). Students often respond to this approach."

For those who do not understand the above statement, I am delighted to offer the following translation:

"English is a really hard language with a lot of confusing rules. So when you take my class, you don't have to follow rules at all. I do not try to bring you up to a higher standard. Instead, I am committed to lowering myself to your standards � even to semi-literacy, if necessary. That way, we can all avoid judgments and keep everyone's self-esteem intact. And, best of all, when I am not teaching English I have plenty of time to talk about my political views. "

I don't know what's more astonishing; that it took 5 years for a chick to participate in the World Cyber Games, or that she's looks like a total hottie. Eleven more and they can finally put together a pinup calendar. And please, no jokes about joysticks.

UPDATE: More pics courtesy of Gadget Review, and other various sources:

We're approaching stalker status now...

Trial lawyers are in a feeding frenzy over Sony BMG, after it was revealed that their digital rights management software opened up security holes on unsuspecting user's computers. Lawyers in California and New York have already filed class-action lawsuits. Now the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, has filed a lawsuit against the company alleging violations of the state anti-spyware and consumer protection laws.

"Sony has engaged in a technological version of cloak and dagger deceit against consumers by hiding secret files on their computers," Abbott is quoted as saying in a press release on his official Web site. "Consumers who purchased a Sony CD thought they were buying music. Instead, they received spyware that can damage a computer, subject it to viruses and expose the consumer to possible identity crime."

Abbott's suit seeks civil penalties of $100,000 for each violation of the law, attorneys� fees and investigative costs.

In 2004 after more than half a decade of illegal price fixing, the music industry sent yours truly a check for $13.86 as part of an anti-trust music settlement. Ironically, it wasn't even enough to buy a music CD.

Beginning this week, bars in London will be able to stay open 24 hours if they so choose. Naturally the temperance crowd has their panties in a bind.

Mr. Blair and his ministers hope the relaxation of the drinking laws will lead to a European-style cafe culture in which patrons linger for hours over a bottle of wine as in Paris or Rome, or a couple of steins of beer as they do in Berlin.

But police, judges, doctors and other critics fear they will, instead, get a quantum leap in the binge drinking that -- along with loutish behavior, street fighting and related crimes -- already plagues the land.

I've always thought that people will drink and drive regardless of bar hours. (Does Las Vegas have more DUI convictions, and if so is it related to 24 hour operations?)

What's more, by not forcing people out the door all at the same time you'd think it'd actually make the roads safer on Friday and Saturday nights. Regardless of whether or not personal drink-driving choices are impacted by bar hours, the pleasure police will always push for more restrictions. Some colleges are actually banning alcohol from football games and tailgating.

Tradition is getting repeated tweaks almost everywhere. From such football and basketball powerhouses as Southern California and Kentucky to other Ivy League schools and lower-profile, lower-division institutions, college athletics is wrestling with its longstanding relationship with alcohol.

A USA Today survey of the 119 schools in the NCAA's major football-playing Division I-A found that nearly half (54) allow the sale of alcohol - through public concessions, in private suites or both - at one or more playing venues. Eighty-five of those schools have designated tailgating areas, and barely one in 10 tries to keep those zones alcohol-free.

Nor should they be trying to keep tailgating areas "alcohol-free". Someone needs to tell these people that not everyone drinks to get drunk, and those that do are not necessarily driving.

If you're dissatisfied with the service the next time you're out to lunch, don't call the police because they don't want to hear about it. Thirty-year old Sharita Williams of Houma (LA) allegedly dialed 9-1-1 to complain about her cold onion rings. She told the operator that the waiter at the Malt-N-Burger in Thibodaux refused to replace them. The police showed up, but it was to arrest Williams for wasting police resources. She is due in court next month.

Just last week Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha implied that surrender was a valid option by suggesting that U.S. troops immediately withdraw from Iraq. Now media outlets like the Seattle Times are reporting that Republicans have branded Congressman John Murtha as a coward for couragously voicing his opinion.

The tone only grew angrier the next day on the House floor when freshman Republican Jean Schmidt of Ohio accused Murtha of being a "coward."

Such nuance. What Schmidt actually did was read the letter of a U.S. Marine on the ground in Iraq. The Chicago Tribune reports:

He was asked about comments Friday by freshman Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio), who said on the House floor that a Marine reservist "asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message: that cowards cut and run, Marines never do."

I don't know what your definition of the word 'coward' is, but perhaps it should include someone who suggests a course of action, claims to have the support of the majority of America, and then lacks the courage to support it.

House Republicans on Friday pushed for a vote on a nonbinding resolution to pull out the troops after Murtha's comments. It was rejected 403-3, but Democrats said the quick call for the vote was a political stunt designed to undermine Murtha's comments.

So Democrats are blaming Republicans for putting a Democrat proposal to a vote. What's more, Rep. John "don't call me coward" Murtha voted against it. Supporting the resolution to withdraw from Iraq were Robert Wexler, D-FL, Cynthia McKinney, D-GA, and Jose Serrano, D-NY.

The NCAA continues to ban Indians from post-season play. The Indiana University of Pennsylvania Indians, from Indiana County (PA), were told that they could not use their nickname in the NCAA post season because Indians are considered offensive under the NCAA's "hostile and abusive" standard.

...the NCAA said in a statement: "The staff committee believes that even in the absence of specific imagery, the term could be construed as a stereotypical reference to Native Americans as opposed to a derivation of either the university's name or the name of the town or county."

Collegiate Athletics is filled with lots of "hostile and abusive" mascots including but not limited to: War Eagles, Screaming Eagles, Gamecocks, Tigers, Lions, and Bears. And many of the mascots honor people rather than ferocious animals: Gaels, Irish, Scots, Saxons, Spartans, Trojans, Senators, Statesmen, Scarlett Knights, Mountaineers, Cavaliers, Buccaneers, Privateers, Pirates, Marauders, Crusaders, Vikings, Warriors, Rebels, Royals, Monarchs, Saints, Cardinals, Quakers, Patriots, Colonials, Colonels, Captains, Majors, Miners, Mariners, Mavericks, Mounties, Highlanders, Cowboys, Titans, Sun Devils, Blue Devils, Aggies, Pioneers, and Boilermakers. The only mascots that have been banned are those honoring Native American Indians.

I'm shocked, I say, shocked that some adventurous Hokies vandalized Scott Stadium this weekend. UVA's stadium staff had to feverishly scrub the field to remove the 'T' that had been added to their logo the night before the game.

This sort of behavior [snicker] should not be [snicker] tolerated.

Say Uncle illustrates the need for tort reform:

A jury has ordered the Ford Motor Co. to pay more than $61 million to the family of a 17-year-old boy killed in a roll-over accident when his friend fell asleep while driving an Explorer.

Ford was liable in the accident because it sold a vehicle with poor handling and stability, the jury said Tuesday.

The company planned to appeal, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.

The family of Lance Crossman Hall claimed Ford knew the Explorer was prone to roll-overs and failed to warn consumers about the vehicle's defects.

Ford blamed defective Firestone tires for the Explorer's handling and stability problems, and the company knowingly continued to produce unsafe vehicles, Bruce Kaster, an attorney for the family, said Wednesday.

Yes, Ford vehicles (like all vehicles) are unsafe if you drive them while sleeping.

* Take your foot off his head.

Lesson #1: Hiring illegal immigrants is no big deal. They are just doing jobs that Americans don't want to do. Unless you're Wal-Mart:

A raid by federal, state and local authorities at a Wal-Mart Stores construction site in Pennsylvania netted about 125 arrests for alleged immigration violations.

The illegals were actually working for a subcontractor, not Wal-Mart.

Lesson #2: Price gouging is wrong. Making people pay higher prices that the market will bear is evil, and should be illegal. Unless you're Wal-Mart.

But the study did not address some of the most trenchant criticisms of the company. It did not compare Wal-Mart's benefits policies with those of its competitors, nor did it look at whether Wal-Mart's low-wage jobs lead employees to seek out government programs such as Medicaid. That issue was the catalyst for legislation passed earlier this year in both Suffolk County and New York City to force the big-box retailers to pay a greater share of their employees' health benefits.

Wal-Mart's study also largely avoided hard-to-quantify social concerns, such as whether Wal-Mart diverts sales from downtown shopping districts and, in doing so, damages the character of America's small towns and neighborhoods. Even less tangible effects -- such as the retailer's using its market dominance to pressure musicians into changing lyrics and CD cover art that it deems objectionable -- are not addressed in Wal-Mart's study.

It's being reported that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been killed by explosions in Mosul.

UPDATE: I went to the gun show this weekend and saw lots of guns I wanted to buy. There was a nice Marlin Camp Carbine but it was in 9mm, not .45. I also had my eye on a 9mm upper for my AR-15, and a cowboy action .45LC revolver. But with the holidays coming up I was good and stuck to just my ammoday purchase. This year's purchase was 500 rounds of Winchester 'white box' .45 ACP. I would have liked to buy more, but I already have more ammo than I'll probably ever need.

Last year Camden, New Jersey was ranked as America's most dangerous city by a Kansas research firm. This year gun grabbers are playing down the rankings by pre-emptively blaming Pennsylvania.

Law enforcment efforts to curb crime in Camden will be undermined as long as guns remain easily available in neigboring Pennsylvania, gun control and community activists argued today.

At a news conference in the Fairview section, Brian Miller, executive director of Cease-Fire New Jersey, called on New Jersey elected officials to pressure their counterparts in Pennsylania to tighten their gun laws.

Gun laws in New Jersey are far more restrictive than in Pennsylvania, where permits are not required to buy handguns. Officials have said more and more weapons used in crimes in Camden were originally purchased in Pennsylvania

In the spirit of James Taranto, check out this metaphor alert:

Houston County commissioners essentially killed a proposed firearms ordinance Tuesday after it had been gravely wounded in October when several residents took verbal shots at its restrictions.

Staggering and stumbling from one commission meeting to another for more than a month, the proposal was finally cast aside Tuesday and allowed to die on the table when none of the five commissioners would make a motion to vote on it.

Judi Werthein, a San Diego shoe designer, is aiding and abetting illegal aliens with her sneakers. She's handing out comfortable hiking shoes to Mexicans about to cross into the U.S. illegally. Among other features, the shoes even have a map that shows illegals how to get into the country.

To research the best design over two years, Werthein interviewed shoe designers, migrants, aid workers, even an immigrant smuggler. She joined the Mexican government's Grupo Beta migrant-aid society on long border hikes. She heard from a Salvadoran woman in Tijuana who said she was kidnapped and raped by her smuggler.

Based on those interviews, she added a pocket - migrants told her they were often robbed. She also added the flashlight - many cross at night.

Some get lost - hence, the compass and map.

"If you get lost," she told the men at the shelter, "just go north."

[...]

On recent evening in Tijuana, after giving away 50 pairs at a migrant shelter, Werthein waved the insole and pointed to Interstate 8, the main road between San Diego and Phoenix.

"This blue line is where you want to go," Werthein, 38, said in Spanish.

Werthein, herself an Argentine immigrant (legally), claims that Mexicans are going to jump the border any way so she doesn't think she's doing anything wrong. I wonder if she'll still feel that way when someone dies in the desert wearing a pair of her sneakers.

"Good people shouldn't be afraid. If you're a good person and you're not doing drugs, walk with confidence." -- Mary Wolf, the Mayor of Williamsport (PA) after a rash of shootings in October. Her words inspired the T-shirt warding off attackers.

Former Marine and Pennsylvania Democrat Rep. John Murtha, is calling for the U.S. Military to unconditionally surrender in Iraq. While most Democrats have made the claim that they support the troops but not the mission, Murtha is calling for an immediate withdrawal.

"U.S. and coalition troops have done all they can in Iraq," the senior lawmaker said. "It's time for a change in direction."

He said he believes all the forces could be redeployed over a six-month period.

Murtha, a former Marine Corps colonel and veteran of the Vietnam war, is the first senior lawmaker to call for an immediate withdrawal. Other critics of the war have asked President Bush to set up a timetable for withdrawal...

"Our military has accomplished its mission and done its duty," he said. "Our military captured Saddam Hussein, captured or killed his closest associates, but the war continues to intensify."

Wasn't our mission to win the war? If so, then how could our mission be accomplished?

Global Warming is killing 150,000 people each year and turning poor countries into a teenage wasteland reports the WHO.

Earth's warming climate is estimated to contribute to more than 150,000 deaths and 5 million illnesses each year, according to the World Health Organization, a toll that could double by 2030...

Health and climate scientists at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who conducted one of the most comprehensive efforts yet to measure the impact of global warming on health, said the WHO data also show that rising temperatures disproportionately affect poor countries that have done little to create the problem. They reached their conclusions after entering data on climate-sensitive diseases into mapping software.

So they plotted malaria cases against a map and discovered that poor equatorial countries are afflicted more than the United States. (Yes, they actually get paid to do this.) Ironically, since most of these "climate-sensitive diseases" are spread by insects this probably has more to do with the environmentalist wackos and the EPA ban on DDT than anything else. But at least somebody gets it:

"Wealth is the number one factor in determining vulnerability or adaptability of a country to any of the threats out there," said John R. Christy, a climatologist who directs the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Christy, who lived in Kenya in the mid-1970s, added, "Thugocracies and other non-democratically accountable governments . . . have no real incentive to create a healthy populace with free markets and therefore free people."

In other words, spreading freedom and capitalistic free markets would be the most effective way to rescue people from third world threats like malaria and diarrhea. Of course any global warming trends that may be occurring are not caused by carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases. It's caused by THE SUN, which has been at the highest level of solar output in the last 1100 years. And everyone seems to have forgotten that the globe has been warming for 20,000 years...

Louisiana State Representative Steve Scalise, R-Metairie is pushing a resolution that calls for the government to give hurricane victims their guns back, and plans to introduce legislation to remove the emergency powers statute that "authorized" gun seizures during a crisis.

Citing a 36-year-old state law that conflicts with the Louisiana and U.S. constitutions, law officers seized weapons from hurricane victims, particularly in the New Orleans area. Although a court has ordered the return of the weapons, some people haven't gotten back their guns, Scalise said Wednesday.

"I don't think it's good policy that we keep this on the books, but the session did not allow us to address that," he told the House Criminal Justice Committee.

"I brought a resolution to at least bring it to people's attention that this is something we want to state, as a matter of public policy, that we don't agree with that law. We also want to repeal that law. And I (will) have a bill to (do) that in the next special session or, at the latest, in March."

Remember the Atlanta area woman who was body slammed at the Atlanta airport for not moving fast enough? Well, she's received a $350,000 settlement from the city, but thanks to the local labor union, the city has been unable to fire the officer. (emphasis mine)

News of the settlement comes just a few days after Atlanta's civil service board ruled that there was not enough evidence to fire Officer Terrance Alexander for his treatment of Dietrich-Barnes, despite the images videotaped on Nov. 2, 2004, and broadcast nationwide....

At the time of the incident, Alexander was not officially assigned to the airport but was working a second job there, directing traffic.

Dietrich-Barnes had circled the airport several times looking for her 78-year-old mother, who was arriving from Houston, when she stopped her vehicle at the curb to check her itinerary. Alexander told Dietrich-Barnes to move, and the passenger-side outside mirror of her SUV bumped him when she started to back up, she said.

That is when Alexander pulled her from her car, threw her to the pavement, and handcuffed and arrested her.

Alexander's supervisors let her go after reviewing the tape and soon the APD opened an internal investigation of Alexander, who had been either reprimanded or suspended without pay 13 times for violating departmental rules since 2001.

Alexander, who could not be reached Tuesday, was fired in May for using unnecessary force, but successfully appealed the decision by Police Chief Richard Pennington.

Alexander remains on suspension. (11Alive still has the video online if you really must see him scoop her off her feet and slam her to the ground.)

When Senator Strom Thurmond turned 100, Majority Leader Trent Lott, a Republican, complimented him as part of a birthday party toast. Thurmond was a former Dixiecrat and segregationist, and the ensuing media furor resulted in Lott losing his Senate leadership position.

We'll wait and see if a similar furor erupts over Senator Hillary Clinton's fawning of Robert Byrd, an ex Klansman, at the historic home of a civil rights pioneer.

"It's outrageous and shocking that Senator Clinton and her Democrat colleagues would choose Frederick Douglass' house to honor Senator Robert Byrd, who has a history of involvement with hate groups and has used racial slurs publicly," [New York Senate candidate Jeanine] Pirro spokeswoman Andrea Tantaros told the Associated Press...

Byrd joined the Klan in 1943 and rose the level of Kleagle before being unanimously elected to the office of Grand Cyclops. He claims to have resigned a few months later. But in 1946 Byrd wrote the Klan's Grand Imperial Wizard to express his support.

"Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth," the top Democrat urged.

Byrd led the filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and called notorious white supremacist Sen. Richard B. Russell, who was chiefly remembered for blocking anti-lynching legislation, "my mentor." In 1972 Byrd sponsored legislation to name the Senate's main office building after Russell.

As recently as 2001, the West Virginia Democrat was still using the N-word in television interviews.

Check out what passes for normal in France.

Fewer than 100 vehicles torched overnight as calm returns to France

Police in France report 98 vehicle torchings and 33 arrests overnight Wednesday, which they say means the country is now "totally normal" after three weeks of turmoil.

Via Say Uncle

Scott Norvell notes that even art isn't spared by the anti-smokers.

Reuters reports that an actor on stage in Italy was forced to put out a cigarette he was smoking after a member of the audience complained loudly in the middle of the performance.

Sebastiano Lo Monaco was smoking, as per the script, during a peformance of Henry Miller's A View from the Bridge at at a theater in Mestre when the woman complained. After a 15-minute break, the performance resumed with a a non-smoking main character.

In January, Italy banned smoking in all enclosed public places.

I concede that they had to put out the cigarette to comply with the law. But I would have also thrown the bitch out for talking during the performance.

The GOP is using the Democrats words against them. They've released a video (9 MB) showing Democrats as far back as 1998 saying that Saddam had WMD and that we must act now.

1. Breaking up would be a lot easier. A smack to the ass and a "Nice hustle, you'll get'em next time" would pretty much do it.

2. Birth control would come in ale or lager.

3. Valentine's Day would be moved to February 29th so it would only occur in leap years.

4. On Groundhog Day, if you saw your shadow, you'd get the day off to go drinking. Mother's Day too.

5. St. Patrick's Day, however, would remain exactly the same. But it would be celebrated every month.

6. Garbage would take itself out.

7. Regis and Kelly would be chained to a cement mixer and pushed off the Golden Gate Bridge for the most lucrative pay-per-view event in world history.

8. The only show opposite "Monday Night Football" would be "Monday Night Football from a Different Camera Angle".

9. Instead of "beer-belly", you'd get "beer-biceps".

10. Tanks would be far easier to rent.

11. Two words..."Ally McNaked".

12. When a cop gave you a ticket, every smart-aleck answer you responded with would actually reduce your fine. As in:

Cop: "You know how fast you were going?"
You: "All I know is, I was spilling my beer all over the place."
Cop: "Nice one, That's $10.00 off".

13. People would never talk about how fresh they felt.

14. Daisy Duke shorts would never go out of style again.

15. Every man would get four, real Get Out of Jail Free cards per year.

16. Telephones would cut off after 30 seconds of conversation.

17. It would perfectly legal to steal a sports car, as long as you returned it the following day with a full tank of gas.

18. Instead of a fancy, expensive engagement ring, you could present your wife-to-be with a giant foam hand that said "You're #1!".

19. When your girlfriend really needed to talk to you during the game, she'd appear in a little box in the corner of the screen during a time-out.

20. Nodding and looking at your watch would be deemed as an acceptable response to "I love you".

21. The funniest guy in the office would get to be CEO.

22. "Sorry I'm late, but I got wasted last night", would be an acceptable excuse for tardiness.

23. At the end of the workday a whistle would blow and you would jump out of your window and slide down the tail of a brontosaurus and right into your car like Fred Flintstone.

24. Lifeguards could remove citizens from beaches for violating the "public ugliness" ordinance.

25. Hallmark would make "Sorry, what was your name again?" cards.

Shamelessly stolen from I don't know where...

In case you missed it, publicity whore Michael Newdow who sued to prevent others from saying the Pledge of Allegiance in school is coming for our wallets. Well, our currency that is.

Michael Newdow, the atheist who continues his fight against the Pledge of Allegiance, will open a new front this week in his campaign to purge references to God from government.

He plans to file a lawsuit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, Calif., challenging the national motto: "In God We Trust."

Newdow wants to remove the phrase from U.S. paper money and coins because he believes it represents a government endorsement of religion.

"We are the nation that gave to the world the establishment that government should not endorse religion and everybody should be what they want," Newdow said. "And of all the possible choices, we go with the motto of 'In God We Trust,' which totally contradicts that tradition."

Newdow needs to get laid. If any of you ladies volunteer to do the deed though, just be careful not to scream "Oh God".

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." - Bill Cosby

The Washington Post is trying to imply that there was hanky panky going on between Dick Cheney and "Big Oil". Apparently when developing energy policy, Cheney and his Halliburton cronies had the nerve to meet with energy companies.

A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001 -- something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress.

The document, obtained this week by The Washington Post, shows that officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated.

And if not energy companies, with whom should Cheney meet? Environmentalist wackos? Big Media?

The task force's activities attracted complaints from environmentalists, who said they were shut out of the task force discussions while corporate interests were present. The meetings were held in secret and the White House refused to release a list of participants. The task force was made up primarily of Cabinet-level officials. Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club unsuccessfully sued to obtain the records.

Why would the Sierra Club be permitted to discuss our energy policy? Shouldn't they be out burning SUVs?

And everyone seems to have forgotten Clinton's meetings with oil companies and producers. Despite questions about human rights abuses, he pushed through a Caspian pipeline that was sure to enrich "Big Oil".

Howard Dean wants to keep the voters on a need to know basis, and he tells Tim Russert on Meet the Press that right now we don't need to know.

Russert: But there's no Democratic plan on Social Security. There's no Democratic plan on the deficit problem. There's no specifics. They say, "Well, we want a strong Social Security. We want to reduce the deficit. We want health care for everyone," but there's no plan how to pay for it.

Dean: Right now it's not our job to give out specifics.

I really enjoy stories like this...

Does this sound like someone we would have wanted running the War on Terror?

"What changed in the US with hurricane Katrina was a feeling that we have entered a period of consequences and that bitter cup will be offered to us again and again until we exert our moral authority and respond appropriately," [Former Presidential Candidate Al Gore] says. "I don't want to diminish the threat of terrorism at all, it is extremely serious, but on a long-term global basis, global warming is the most serious problem we are facing."

Late last month editorialists at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentenel made the claim that
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas shouldn't count as being black because all black people think alike and he's doesn't think like them.

In losing a woman, the court with Alito would feature seven white men, one white woman and a black man, who deserves an asterisk because he arguably does not represent the views of mainstream black America.

"Arguably" indeed. Well this week they're standing by the editorial, and making the claim that it's no longer even arguable that Clarence Thomas doesn't represent "mainstream black America". Gregory Stanford (who is black) claims to be the author and defends the editorial by claiming that it's a matter of fact that Thomas conflicts with "mainstream black America".

A recent Journal Sentinel editorial touched on Thomas' record and in so doing raised a firestorm. In an aside, the editorial said that, as far as diversity is concerned, Thomas deserves an asterisk because his views lie outside the mainstream of African-American thinking.

I wrote that editorial, reflecting the consensus view of this paper's Editorial Board - a view that remains unchanged despite the furor...

To my dismay, what I believed to be a mere statement of fact drew charges of racism. Conservative talk radio and the right-wing blogosphere fanned the flames... [Heh, that's me.]

The aside merely stated a fact we best recognize: The views of Clarence Thomas lie outside mainstream black thought.

Stanford goes out of his way to cite examples of "mainstream black thought", and show ways that Clarence Thomas differs from that view. What he's missing though is the point.

To say that Thomas or other black conservatives aren't black because their views conflict with the majority of black Americans is elitist and prejudicial. He presumes that blacks should prescribe to certain ideals, and any blacks who don't are traitors to their race. I wonder how Stanford feels about racial profiling, because that's precisely what he's doing.

From Ireland, comes this tale of woe about Barry Duggan, who suffered from a coma and was hospitalized for 25 days after being savagely attacked.

Mr Duggan was knocked to the ground and kicked on the head repeatedly. As a result he suffered severe brain and head injuries; he sustained a fractured skull as well as a broken jaw and eye socket. For five months after he was discharged from hospital he continued to require the support of a speech therapist, an occupational therapist and a physiotherapist.

Duggan's attackers plead guilty to the assault and were sentenced to three months.

Judge Donagh McDonagh actually imposed three-year sentences, but suspended two years and nine months on the basis that the pair had clean records and were unlikely to come to the attention of the gardai again. The judge added that he did not wish to "destroy young men's lives".

Well, that's a relief. Too bad he wasn't presiding over the case of 61-year old Padraig Nally. Nally was sentenced to 6 years in prison after he shot and killed John Ward.

During the trial it was claimed that Mr Ward entered Mr Nally's isolated home through a back door uninvited when the farmer was in an outhouse. Mr Nally fired a shotgun at Ward when he emerged, hitting him in the hip. He then beat him with a piece of wood about 20 times. When Ward tried to flee the area Nally reloaded the gun and shot him in the back, killing him.

Nally had no prior offenses and was not viewed as a danger to society. Granted he apparently followed Ward for a short distance as he was fleeing and shoot him in the back. But it's doubtful that Ward was just out for a midnight stroll like they're implying. After a LOT of searching, it was revealed that "Mr Ward had 12 previous convictions for burglary, possession of stolen goods and other offences, and had been facing charges of attacking garda officers with a slash hook at the time of his death."

How apropos:

"Stop the Violence," read one banner draped on the Wall of Peace near the Eiffel Tower. Some of the 200 demonstrators - a small turnout in protest-friendly France - waved white flags.

Via Say Uncle

Ricky asks:

Anyone seen these guys [Kerry and Edwards - Ed.] in black churches since November 2, 2004?

No time for that with all the hunting I'm sure they're doing.

That sucks:

Virginia Tech freshman A.D. Vassallo tipped a missed shot into his own basket just before the buzzer to give Bowling Green a 72-71 victory on Saturday in the NABC Classic and its first win over an Atlantic Coast Conference opponent since 1967.

It looks like a lot of Columbus (OH) citizens became criminals last week, reports BuckeyeFirearms.org. Only a handful of people have registered their evil black guns by the city imposed deadline. The Columbus Dispatch reports:

Gun owners could register guns that the law defines as assault weapons through Wednesday. The ban took effect yesterday.

"As of today, buying or selling an assault weapon in the city is illegal," Ralph Jones, a city licensing officer who handled the registrations, said yesterday. It�s also illegal to own the guns unless they are registered.

Only those who registered, members of the military or police officers may own guns that the city defines as assault weapons, Assistant City Attorney Joshua Cox said yesterday.

Though 115 people registered, some registered more than one weapon. One person registered 45 weapons, Jones said. City officials said it�s hard to say if 115 was more or less than they expected, because no one has estimated how many assault weapons the city�s 730,000 residents own.

The weapons most commonly registered were militarystyle rifles such as the M-16, AR-15 and Chinese-made SKS, Jones said. There were several shotguns and only a few pistols.

The city loosened the definition of 'assault weapon' to include many more guns than were banned by the 1994 Clinton Gun Ban. Today's definition of the marketing term has been expanded to include any rifle with a detachable magazine and ONE other evil cosmetic feature like a pistol grip, bayonet lugs, flash hider, or folding stock.

One of my pet peeves is when stores post a guard by the exit that tries to grab your receipt or look through your bags. I mean I just paid for everything within plain view of the door. Why then do they feel the need to see/check/mark my receipt? I don't shop at CompUSA any more after I almost came to blows with a grabby employee who failed to identify himself.

So I was more than a little upset when I left the checkout line at Target yesterday afternoon only to see a uniformed security guard waiting to stop me. I had a cart with two large heavy items in it, and wasn't really in any mood to root around my pockets for a receipt. So when the guard tried to stop me, I couldn't help but get a little rude.

RENT-A-COP: How are you doing today sir? Would you please let me see your receipt?

RAVENWOOD: No. [Kept on walking right by him.]

RENT-A-COP: Okay then, have a nice day.

I don't know if the guy was too shocked to object, made a quick judgement call given that I was struggling to carry my large heavy items out to my car, or if Target has specifically instructed their guards that showing your receipt is voluntary. Regardless, I've pretty much decided that no matter what store I'm leaving, once the sale is tendered the purchases are my property as is my receipt. If they suspect me of shoplifting they should detain me and call the police. Otherwise I'm just gonna keep on keepin' on.

I had a similar experience a few years ago leaving CostCo (or maybe it was Sam's) with my father. He stopped to show his receipt, while I ignored their request and just kept walking. Outside he asked me what the deal was, and I told him it's my stuff now and I'm not letting them paw through it.

If any stores have a problem with this I can shop elsewhere.

Publicity whore and football commentator Jesse Jackson released a statement saying that the suspension of fellow prima donna Terrell Owens by the Philadelphia Eagles was too severe.

The civil rights activist said the level of punishment could have been warranted if Owens had been caught shaving points, selling drugs, carrying a gun or fighting fans without sufficient restraint.

"This does not warrant a one-year ban from the game," Jackson said, adding that the Eagles should release Owens to the open market or free agency if they no longer want to associate with him.

Ralph Nader, a consumer activist and former presidential candidate, has already called for the suspension to be rescinded.

Neither Jackson nor Nader - who (I think) were rejected as Monday Night Football hosts - made the claim that the suspension was racially motivated. One is left to wonder why they released statements at all. Jackson apparently has no comment on the suspension of defending NASCAR champion Kurt Busch (who is white) for the remainder of the season.

Mary Mapes was on Larry King Live last week discussing the forged documents scandal that got her fired from CBS. Let's just say she has an interesting journalistic philosophy.

KING: But there's nothing about the story you would change? In other words, even though they've said the documents were forged and...

MAPES: But no one has been able to prove they were forged...

[snip]

KING: Do you believe right this moment they were not false?

MAPES: I believe no one has proved to me that they were false after more than a year.

KING: So you believe they were true ...

MAPES: I believe -- I know. It's an odd situation. I'm perfectly willing to believe they're false if somebody will just prove it.

KING: No one has proven it to you?

MAPES: No, they have not. Their criticisms last year really didn't reach the bar of proof at all.

Is this the standard CBS uses for all of it's news coverage? They put allegations out there unproven and see if anyone can shoot them down. If they can't, than it must be true. I wonder how many other CBS stories used this journalistic formula. How many other networks?

And back to the subject of the documents, how could you believe they aren't forged? I realize it's been a year, but doesn't anyone remember this comparison of the CBS document to a MS Word document created with default settings? (via LGF)

Sony is suspending production of CDs with anti-piracy software, after it was discovered that the software was being installed without the user's knowledge and transmitting information back to Sony without the user's knowledge. The announcement came after Homeland Security "official" Stewart Baker cautioned copyright owners about being too aggressive.

"It's very important to remember that it's your intellectual property, it's not your computer," Baker said at a trade conference on piracy. "And in the pursuit of protection of intellectual property, it's important not to defeat or undermine the security measures that people need to adopt in these days." [...]

Security researchers have described Sony's technology as "spyware," saying it is difficult to remove, transmits without warning details about what music is playing, and that Sony's notice to consumers about the technology was inadequate. Sony executives have rejected the description of their technology as spyware.

It was also discovered that hackers have been able to exploit Sony's anti-piracy technology to avoid detection. Sony cloaked their anti-piracy software to prevent the user from detecting it, and hackers were able to piggyback on that to avoid detection as well.

(click to supersize)

This is the long awaited World War II Memorial.

This gentleman is a Filipino WWII veteran. He was kind enough to pose for a photograph, and snapped a salute for me. Afterward, he actually thanked me and all of America for liberating the Philippines during World War II. I was dumbfounded.

I tried to get his entire flag in the picture, but it required backing up so far that it would be hard to see him. Plus I wasn't sure how long he would hold the salute, and I risked losing the Lincoln Memorial in the background.

This is the Korean War Memorial. This photo is a reflection of the memorial off the granite walls. I thought it was an interesting look, and the lighting was perfect.

Here is a more traditional view of the Korean War Memorial.

Gee, I wonder why they're targeting Wachovia...

UPDATE: Apparently the police can't figure it out either.

Police don't know why only Wachovia branches have been targeted...

Why would a criminal prefer a "gun free" bank to one that doesn't disarm their customers?

There's a reason they call it Taxachusetts. Democrats in the legislature voted to retroactively raise the state's capital gains tax rate and send out bills for additional taxes owed from the 2002 tax year.

The Boston Globe reports that in the middle of the 2002 tax year, the Massachusetts legislature raised the capital gains tax to 5.3%. Taxpayers affected by the tax hike paid a higher rate for the second half of that year. Well in 2004, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that mid-year tax hikes were illegal, and that the state had to either raise taxes effective January 2002 or January 2003 but not in between. Well not wanting to refund the 6 months worth of higher taxes that were paid in 2002, Democrats in the legislature voted (in 2005) to make the tax hike retroactive back to January 2002. Tax bills for the difference owed were sent out this week, and taxpayers will have 30 days to remit payment.

But the news isn't all bad.

Yesterday, seeking to blunt the political fallout of the unusual tax increase, House Democrats approved a Senate measure to waive interest on the new capital gains payments and to exempt any taxpayer who owes $100 or less. That bill would shave about $45 million off the $150 million to $205 million that the tax hikes will reap, LeBovidge said. It would also reduce the number of people who owe money from 48,000 to 40,000, he said.

That's right the generous Taxachusetts legislature isn't going to charge interest or penalties on back taxes from 2002 that they just this year decided were owed.

Bruce over at mASS BACKWARDS is shocked by a suggestion in Boston to randomly search cars looking for guns and other illegal contraband. Via the Boston Herald:

Pointing to the rising number of shootings in Boston, Mayor Thomas M. Menino is calling for a "handgun summit" in New England and raised the possibility of random police searches of cars crossing into the state to intercept illegal weapons.

Michael Scheuer, a former covert CIA agent and first head of the CIA's 'bin Laden unit' was on Hardball last night with Chris Matthews. When prodded by Matthews, Scheuer claimed that we'd all be better off with Saddam Hussein back in power.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Just to think outside the box here, would we be better off with Saddam Hussein still running tyrannically that country... If Iraq right next door to Jordan, would Jordan be more secure in that environment?

MICHAEL SCHEUER: No doubt about it sir.

MATTHEWS: No doubt?

SCHEUER: There would be many more dead.. many fewer dead Americans and we would have many more resources available to annihilate al-Qaeda which is what we have to do. Without a doubt in the war against al-Qaeda Saddam Hussein was one of our best allies.

Yes, he actually said that "without a doubt in the war against al-Qaeda Saddam Hussein was one of our best allies." The problem is that just a few years ago, Michael Scheuer wrote this:

Regarding Iraq, bin Laden, as noted was in contact with Baghdad's intelligence service since at least 1994. He reportedly cooperated with it in the area of chemical-biological-radiological-nuclear (CBRN) weapons and may have trained some fighters in Iraq at camps run by Saddam's anti-Iran force, the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK). The first group of bin Laden's fighters is reported to have been sent to the MEK camps in June 1998; MEK cadre also were then providing technical and military training for Taliban forces and running the Taliban's anti-Iran propaganda.

Other laboratory and production facilities available to bin Laden are reported in the Khowst and Jalalabad areas, and in the Khartoum suburb of Kubar. The latter facility is said to be a "new chemical and bacteriological factory" cooperatively built by Sudan, bin Laden, and Iraq, and may be one of several in Sudan. In January 1999, Al-Watan Al-Arabi reported that by late 1998, "Iraq, Sudan, and bin Laden were cooperating and coordinating in the field of chemical weapons." The reports say that several chemical factories were built in Sudan. They were financed by bin Laden and supervised by Iraqi experts.

Drilling for oil in the section of ANWR that was set aside for drilling for oil has been dropped by the House of Representatives. The measure had already passed the Senate. We will continue to be slaves to foreign oil, thanks to spineless Republicans in the House.

The decision to drop the ANWR drilling language came after GOP moderates said they would oppose the budget if it was kept in the bill. The offshore drilling provision was also viewed as too contentious and a threat to the bill, especially in the Senate.

Last week, the Senate included ANWR drilling in its version of the budget, so the matter will have to be thrashed out in negotiations between the Senate and House if the budget is approved by the House.

Protection of the Alaska refuge from oil companies has been championed by environmentalists for years. The House repeatedly has approved drilling in the refuge as part of broad energy legislation, only to see their effort blocked each time by the threat of a filibuster in the Senate.

Budget bills are immune from filibuster, so including it in the budget lowered the Senate votes required from 60 to 50.

In an interview with NBC's Jamie Gangel, rapper 50-Cent defends his constant use of the N-word.

Gangel: You use the N-word constantly.

50 Cent: Oh, see, but that � that is not �

Gangel: That makes parents crazy. I'd kill my kids �

50 Cent: Oh, if they said that.

Gangel: If that ever came out of their mouths.

50 Cent: Well, I understand that, 'cause your culture is different. Like when I'm saying that it isn't � I'm not using that as a racial slur. You know, in � in the neighborhood, they'll say, �What's up? That's my n-----. Yo, come here.� They're not offended by it when you say that. You just � it's just the slang that we use where we're from.

Gangel: Isn't it demeaning to use that slang?

50 Cent: No, I � it depends on the actual person and how they actually using it.

Gangel: You can get away with it.

50 Cent: I do. All the time. [Laughter]

Even after examining his medical records, prosecutors still can't determine if Rush Limbaugh committed a crime. Now they want to do more fishing by compelling his doctors to break their confidentiality agreement to gather evidence against him.

Assistant State Attorney James Martz said he needs to put basic questions to Limbaugh's doctors to investigate if there was a crime.

"I have no idea if Mr. Limbaugh has completed the elements of any offense yet . . . unless we can ask several pertinent questions," Martz told Circuit Judge David Crow.

If only we had a Constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Its hard to believe we live in a country where company executives can be hauled before Congress to explain why they are making too much money for their shareholders and employees. The United States Senate is making a political show trial by grilling executives from Big Oil. (CNN/Money who once took financial advice from singer/economist Billy Joel actually used the term "Big Oil".) They want to see if the companies are earning just a little too much money (as if there were such a thing). Unfortunately, a majority of Americans seem to agree that the oil industry should be punished for being too profitable. What they don't realize is that corporations don't pay taxes, they collect them. Any "windfall profits" tax would be paid by either shareholders, employees, or the customers (likely all three). Congress wants to force "Big Oil" to donate to charity (by using the threat of lethal force), but those donations will likely be paid at the pump.

If it weren't so sad, the situation would be laughable. "Big Oil" is one of the most heavily regulated industries out there. Oil companies are told where they can and can't drill, how much they can drill, how they ship it or pump it, who they can buy it from or sell it to, and how they refine it into other products. And with the regional blends they are forced to produce, product destined for one region of the country can't be sold in any of the other regions. Despite having massive government intervention at every stage of the process, and despite risky capital outlays, they still managed to turn a profit. Now Congress wants to take that away too.

Liberal Democrats seized the political opportunity to stump for economic redistribution.

"To my constituents, today's hearing is about shared sacrifices in tough times versus oil company greed," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. "Working people struggle with high gas prices and your sacrifices appear to be nothing."

"In the midst of pain, in the midst of suffering, the public sees headlines about record profits," Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, pointed out.

So 'Big Oil' fat cats don't do any work, don't take any risks, and simply get rich off the misery of others. Well if the oil thing doesn't work out, they could always make it as a career politician.

San Francisco residents passed a sweeping gun ban on Tuesday. The manufacture and sale of all firearms and ammunition are banned, and currently owned handguns will have to be turned in for destruction. The AP notes that the only other cities in America to pass such sweeping gun bans are Washington D.C. and Chicago. The two cities compete annually for the Murder Capital title. The NRA plans to file suit.

San Francisco residents also passed a ban on the military.

Measure I, dubbed "College Not Combat," opposes the presence of military recruiters at public high schools and colleges. However, it would not ban the armed forces from seeking enlistees at city campuses, since that would put schools at risk of losing federal funding.

Instead, Proposition I encourages city officials and university administrators to exclude recruiters and create scholarships and training programs that would reduce the military's appeal to young adults.

So they're banning self defense, while at the same time cutting job opportunities for young folks. Are they trying to cater to street gangs?

The County Council of Prince George's County (MD) unanimously voted to overturn property rights this week. They are mandating that business owners kick smokers out into the street. Next the anti-choice temperance movement will set their sites on the entire state of Maryland.

With the vote, Prince George's becomes Maryland's third county -- joining Montgomery and Talbot -- to pass such a ban. Howard County and the District will take up similar measures in the next few weeks. Proponents say yesterday's action could be a "tipping point" in the movement to secure passage of a statewide ban when the General Assembly reconvenes next year.

I had thought that people were generally pro-choice. But for some reason, when it comes to smoking there is no choice. If you want to enjoy a cigarette or cigar after a nice expensive meal, too bad. Smokers don't have any rights, and neither do business owners who want to tap that market.

As we slide down the slippery slope, future smoke bans will include cars (where children are present), private homes (where children and/or employees may be present), and eventually outdoors (where smoke is free to roam where anyone might be present).

So why should a non-smoker care what happens to smokers and their stinky habit? Well, here is just a sampling of my reasons:

This is my body. There are many like it, but this one is mine. And any sort of nagging bullshit about what I can and can't put into it is wrong. This week it's smoking, next week it'll be drinking and fast food. These whiny little piss-ants aren't man enough to walk up and tell you to your face, instead they use the police power of the government to try to run your life. If you think I shouldn't have that extra roll, why don't you come over and try taking it off my plate? I'd like to see you try.

It's all about freedom of choice. People have a wide selection of smoking and non-smoking restaurants from which to choose. But that's not good enough for some people. They want all restaurants to be non-smoking, just in case they some day want to eat there. Never mind what the property owner wants, his rights don't count.

Temperance leads to crime which leads to death. In New York City where a single packet of cigarettes cost $7, gangs are killing each other over the selling of buttlegged cigarettes. It's big business on the street, and fights can break out over selling on the wrong street corner or at the wrong price. Teenagers just trying to make a buck have been gun downed for undercutting the prices of the local street thugs.

Temperance leads to crime which leads to bigger government. Many of today's gun laws can trace their roots right back to the temperance movement. Prohibition of alcohol lead directly to the National Firearms Act of 1934, and the horrible RICO statutes wherein nearly anything can be prosecuted as a conspiracy to commit organized crime. Then there's the whole Drug Enforcement Administration which was stood up 30 years ago to arrest people for violating the various temperance laws. Currently the DEA has offices across the globe and costs Billions (with a B) of dollars to maintain.

Temperance leads to crime which leads to terrorism. With a huge profit motive and all these dollars flowing around, much of the money eventually finds it's way into the hands of terrorists. You may think that buying bootlegged smokes is a victimless crime and that you're only sticking it to the government, but you may be inadvertently funding the next terror attack. Terrorists need money to do what they do, and they aren't above using our own temperance laws against us.

Over-regulation leads to under-regulation. When prohibition of alcohol took affect, your average Joe didn't think twice about civil disobedience. Speak-easies popped up and alcohol was available for anyone with the money to buy it. The price went up, the quality went down, and any of the laws that controlled product quality or safety were moot. As neo-temperance takes hold people will gradually start to ignore anti-smoking laws. That is, when cigarettes are outlawed only outlaws will have cigarettes. When that happens, the government will be powerless to control what goes into cigarettes. They could become more harmful, even deadly depending on how cheaply they're produced. Laws governing the nicotine, tar, and carcinogens produced from tobacco will be worthless. And what about the children? There will be no way to limit access to cigarettes. All those age-limits that anti-smokers pushed through a few years back will be negated once cigarettes are sold in mass quantities on the streets. By over-regulating the product, they'll actually increase it's overall availability. The only thing between a child and a cigarette will be the conscience of the dealer.

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One tragic loss in Virginia is that of Delegate Dick Black. Though he's not my Delegate, I took a special trip out to Loudoun County for a VCDL picnic a year or so ago just to meet Mr. Black. He's a staunch conservative, and a true friend of gun owners and the 32nd District. He'll be sorely missed.

I'm not sure why Black lost, though if I had to guess I would say it's shifting demographics. Loudoun is one of the fastest growing areas in the country and they are constantly fighting over community planning. Lots of urbanites from liberal Arlington and Alexandria have been moving outside the beltway and into Loudoun. Farm land is being bought up and turned into condos, and Delegate Black may be a victim of urban sprawl.

But then again, what do I know? I live inside the beltway.

As was expected, Republican Jerry Kilgore lost Virginia's race for Governor. Analysts are all saying that turnout was key, but the results tend to say otherwise. Democrats won the Governorship, while Republican Bill Bolling won Lt. Governor. If you look at the totals, both races have about the same overall number of votes and there appears to have been a significant number of people who voted for Kaine and Bolling both. That is, they split the ticket between a Democrat and Republican. Republicans also have a slim lead in the too close to call race for Attorney General.

I'm sticking with my theory that the race was Kilgore's to lose. He made a few crucial errors that probably cost him big. First of all, he talked tough on immigration which pisses off a lot of people in Northern Virginia including a lot of immigrants. He also used a veiled nazi reference which people considered over the line. His assertion that Kaine wouldn't support the death penalty even for Hitler seems innocuous, but it appears to have really turned a lot of people off. Actually it probably wasn't the ad itself, so much as it was the Washington Post and other media outlets incorrectly implying that Kilgore had called Kaine a nazi. Remember, a lie told often enough... (who said that again?). Kilgore is also wishy washy on guns and went so far as to alienate VCDL members and chastise their leader as an extremist. Not good.

Most of all, I think Kilgore didn't play up the tax and spend angle enough. Mark Warner pledged "I will not raise taxes, I will not raise taxes, I will not raise taxes." He then helped pass the largest tax increase in Virginia's 400 year history. As Lt. Governor, Kaine took credit for this on the campaign trail. One month after passing the tax it was "discovered" that Virginia was actually running a huge budget surplus. Perhaps Kilgore was afraid of alienating Republicans in the legislature who helped pass the tax hike, but playing up the fact that Mark Warner lied to Virginians about looming budget shortfalls could have helped his campaign. Instead he ran on the gas tax and a negative campaign that consisted mostly of trying to label his opponent as a "liberal".

Now we get to hear 3 years of stories about how this vote was all about Mark Warner's popularity and George Bush's low poll numbers. Its funny how the race is being sold as a showdown between two people who aren't on the ballot and couldn't run even if they wanted to.

My own personal ballot included Republican Kilgore (begrudgingly), Republican Bolling, and Democrat Creigh Deeds for Attorney General. Deeds is a rural Democrat who is likely more Conservative than Kilgore. He had a better rating on guns, that's for sure. I also voted against the $250 Kagillion local bond referendum "for the children". We already spend a ton of money on public schools, and I don't support borrowing more without some sort of voucher program to go along with it. I'm sure the referendum will pass though, as most parents turn out in droves to make sure little Timmy's soccer league is properly funded by their neighbors.

The other interesting thing about this election was the poll watchers. Seated behind the poll workers was a line of election observers. They were each labeled Republican or Democrat and sat two to a poll worker. When I gave my name and address, the Democrat and Republican worker frantically flipped through their own voter registration lists to make sure I was on there. The comedy act continued as the poll worker marked me off the list with a pair of scrutinizing partisan eyes peering over each shoulder to make sure she crossed me off her list correctly. It made me wish I had worn one or two of those "I Voted" stickers on the way in, just to mess with the election observers.

So, we've got 4 more years of a Democrat at the helm. It doesn't bother me that much considering Virginia Democrats are usually more conservative than RINOs like Bloomberg or Schwarzenegger. And as much as I hate Mark "I will not raise taxes" Warner (who passed the largest tax increase in Virginia history), they can't do anything without the inept Republican legislature helping them out. They share just as much of the blame for increasing taxes in the midst of a budget surplus. As long as Kaine doesn't live up to his F-rating and start vetoing pro-gun bills, I'll survive.

South Africa replaced one gun control act with another, and those that haven't yet renewed their gun licenses under the new law could face prison time. Nearly half-a-million gun owners could face 10 years in jail and a fine if they don't renew by the end of this month.

The registration isn't an easy process either:

In another new twist to the process, people who have given themselves as references in support of firearm licence renewal applications have to answer a barrage of questions from Designated Firearm Officers (DFO).

Setati said extensive interviews will have to be physically conducted with the two people listed as references by licensed firearm owners applying for renewals.

With close to 500,000 gun owners affected, that means nearly 1 Million face to face interviews that must be conducted in three weeks.

And just how will they know which people to go after for violating the new law? With the registry lists from the old one, of course.

Via Taranto comes this CNN transcript of anchorman Carol Lin describing the impetus for the two weeks of rioting in France:

...it's been 11 days since two African- American teenagers were killed, electrocuted during a police chase, which prompted all of this.

I've always known that news is nothing but entertainment. Their job is to keep you glued to your TV set so that their advertisers and sponsor can make money. But you rarely see anyone in the news media admit that. They always talk about a higher purpose, and other holier than thou bullshit.

But their actions show that they face a definite conflict of interest. For instance NBC's the West Wing used NBC News logos and branding to make their televised debate seem more realistic.

An on-screen NBC News identifier for a fictional debate on "The West Wing". . .shows how fuzzy the lines between news and entertainment have become.

An NBC News "bug" was kept on the screen Sunday night during the live debate between presidential candidates portrayed by Alan Alda and Jimmy Smits on "The West Wing." [...]

The news insignia was requested by "The West Wing" episode's producer, former real-life Washington insider Lawrence O'Donnell, to help make the presidential debate seem more realistic. Jeff Zucker, the NBC Universal executive who has run NBC's entertainment division and produced "Today" for NBC News, gave the OK.

ESPN pulled a similar stunt by "interviewing" a fake BoSox executive on ESPN. Then there's this:

By 2-to-1, Sunday's viewers told Zogby that they preferred watching a fictional presidential debate to the real thing.

Well, who wouldn't enjoy watching their favorite TV program more than an actual political debate. The bigger question though is whether or not people are willing to educate themselves on the issues prior to pulling the lever for any particular candidate. It's sad to think that more people know who Madonna is sleeping with this week, than know the name of their Congressman.

Quote of the week goes to he whose name shall not be spoken:

You know, this could qualify as one of those "You know you're a Gun Geek when..." statements: when your girlfriend says, "Let's do something you enjoy this weekend," and your first thoughts are about teaching her to shoot, instead of licking whipped cream off her naughty bits.

Hokie Pundit points out hypocrisy at Virginia Tech. When a campus group tried using the words "Virginia Tech" and a bible verse on the same literature, they got the smack down from school administrators. Apparently they consider mentioning "Virginia Tech" and "God" in the same sentence as an unConstitutional establishment of a national religion.

But 'tis the season for Rocky Horror, and the university apparently looked the other way when logos and trademarks were used to promote a pre-Halloween screening of the cult classic film. Virginia Tech logos were not only altered from their original appearance (you gotta click through to see the photo), but the fliers were handed out at student dining halls.

In their guidelines, they say that the � symbol must accompany any university marks and that the use of university marks should be tasteful. The � is certainly missing, and I think it'd be pretty hard to say that the Hokie Bird in a black teddy with fishnet stockings is "tasteful."

Women's public restrooms must be A LOT CLEANER than men's. I don't care how drunk you are, having sex in a bathroom stall of a nightclub is gross, and apparently frowned upon in Florida.

Two Carolina Panthers cheerleaders were charged after their arrest at a bar where witnesses told police the women had sex in a restroom.

Renee Thomas, 20, of Pittsboro, N.C., and Angela Keathley, 26, of Belmont, N.C., were taken to Hillsborough County Jail early Sunday.

Witnesses said the women were having sex in a stall with each other, angering patrons waiting in line to get into the restroom at the club in the Channelside district.

But the trouble didn't stop there. Ms. Thomas was charged with battery for allegedly hitting a bar patron as she left the restroom. She then got into even more trouble when she gave police officers a driver's license that was not hers. Thomas faces charges for "giving a false name and causing harm to another", a third degree felony. Keathley faces misdemeanor charges for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

UPDATE: Images shamelessly stolen from The Nose on your Face, who no doubt stole them from someplace else.

I've never been one to bitch about gas prices. But then I'm not blind to them either. One thing I did notice was that gas in Blacksburg this weekend was $1.979 with your Kroger Plus Card ($2.009 without). I don't remember seeing it less than $2 in more than a year.

"North Korea propaganda fails to crush humanity" -- Reuters headline, November 4, 2005.

James Taranto points out this hilarious post on Democratic Underground. (link contains some profanity)

Sometimes I just get so mad that my country is committing mass murder. What power have I to stop it?

I am going to start reading up on Ghandi. This is the breaking point. I have to do something drastic, like go on a hunger strike chained to a light pole next to the NBC building in Chicago. But it's starting to get cold and I have my thesis to work on and classes to finish up this semester.

When I graduate in May, if we are still at war, I will honestly be about doing this. I can go for weeks on a diet of a handful of rice per day. If it's Summer, I won't die of cold, either. I wish I had done this this last Summer.

Maybe I can get 20 or so people to do this with me. Maybe we can lie on the street covered with cow blood for weeks at a time and say we are calling attention to the murders of our own troops and Iraqi civilians. And only until the war has ended will we feel good enough to eat again. I could surround myself with pictures of dead soldiers and Iraqis.

Do you think it would work? Do you think the Chicago police would arrest me and take me in? Would you be willing to join me in May?

While this is of little comfort to those who will be murdered by George Bush between now and next May, it's refreshing to see that some young people out there are still willing to sacrifice themselves for others; as long as it's not too cold outside or doesn't get in the way of homework.

Special interest groups are pushing for same-day voter registration in New York. They want people to be able to show up the day of the election and vote, regardless of their registration status, reports the New York Sun. That would be a logistical nightmare for election officials. It's hard enough just counting the votes, without having to worry about registering people on the spot.

This may also have interesting timing for Hillary in '06 and '08.

Today is Election Day, and Virginians will choose a new Governor. The good news is that the no-good lying son-of-a-bitch Mark Warner will no longer be our Governor. The bad news is that his gun-banning tax and spend protege, Democrat Tim Kaine is likely to take his place.

Kaine has been leading in all the polls (if you believe the polls), and Republican Jerry Kilgore has been inept in appealing to swing voters, while alienating the Conservative base. A poll last Friday put Kaine at 49% and Kilgore at 45%. One saving grace for Kilgore may be that Conservative and undecided voters are finally getting motivated. When the poll was taken last week, I was completely undecided and not likely to vote for either candidate. Today I've decided (begrudgingly) to go ahead and hold my nose and vote for Kilgore. Personally speaking, it's not so much a vote FOR Kilgore as it is a vote AGAINST Kaine.

Of course politicos from inside the beltway and political anal ysts are reading much more into the race. The New York Daily News reports that the Virginia Governor race could have 2008 Presidential implications and that Hillary Clinton will be watching closely.

The President is finally putting himself on the line for Kilgore, stopping in Virginia for an election-eve rally before returning to the White House after his Latin America trip.

A late come-from-behind rally by Kilgore will give Bush something to cheer about amid the worst slump of his presidency, many prognosticators agree.

I must have missed something. Is Bush running again in 2008? And what would we do without "many prognosticators"?

And while [Hillary] Clinton's camp has made it clear they are rooting for Kaine, his win will launch term-limited Warner onto the national political stage to join other Democrats vying for the "anti-Hillary" mantle in 2008.

"If Kaine wins, it's because of Mark Warner's popularity, and if Kilgore loses, it's because of President Bush's unpopularity," contends University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato.

Sabato has his head up his ass. First of all his "Kaine wins-Kilgore loses" scenario sounds like he's calling the race with a two headed coin. Yeah Kilgore is behind, but it is possible for him to win. If Kilgore wins, would Sabato think it's a wholesale endorsement of President Bush and his policies and that Virginians hate Mark Warner? No, more than likely it would be because Kilgore has finally given Conservatives enough motivation to show up at the polls. The reverse is likely true if Kilgore does lose. Bush may have agreed to stump for Kilgore (for a single day), but I would hardly blame Bush or the War in Iraq for a Kilgore loss. The two seem completely unrelated.

If Kaine wins I don't think it's an endorsement of Warner as much as it is an endorsement of Kaine. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think political scientists give too much weight to coat tails and not enough to the candidate themselves. Would it launch Warner to national prominence? Only time will tell. But Warner's name has been whispered as a Hillary challenger for more than a year now.

Maybe (just maybe) when Virginians pull the lever today they're actually voting for Kilgore or Kaine, and not deciding the results of the Bush/Hillary/Warner Presidential race of 2008.

Via the Bitch Girls, Miami is requiring a waiting period for the 'non-lethal' self-defense devices known as stun guns.

Miami-Dade commissioners approved a new set of rules that will require a five-day mandatory waiting period for people who want to buy a stun gun.

The five-day layover gives time for individual background checks to be performed and training conducted for everyone who buys a stun gun.

If that's not a barrier to self-defense, I don't know what is. Interestingly, Florida only requires a 3-day waiting period for handguns. Then there's this:

Florida has come under fire from anti-weapons groups such as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence because the state does not require background checks at gun shows and recently passed legislation allowing people to carry handguns in public for self-defense.

Actually, Florida passed 'shall issue' way back in the 1980s (1987, I think). The recent change in the law just means you don't have a duty to run away if confronted by a bad guy.

Another note, Florida's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner, who oversees gun permits is delightfully named Charles Bronson.

Bitter finds this a little amusing:

A drunken firefighter plowed a stolen truck yesterday into the Chelsea set of Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone's controversial film about 9/11, police said.

Pirates boldly attacked a cruise ship off the coast of Africa. The ship was able to elude and outrun the pirates, but Publicola suggests an alternate defense: return fire.

Even with small arms (i.e. rifles) it could have been effective. Why?

"The British news agency Press Association said passengers awoke to the sound of gunfire as two 25-foot inflatable boats approached the liner."

Inflatable boats? I'll grant that some of the sturdier ones use multiple compartments of air filled cells & are quite seaworthy, but a clip from a Garand in each would have caused enough damage to slow them down if not sink them.

Even if they were using unsinkable Boston Whalers, active resistance is always preferred. Thugs prefer easy prey, and a hail of bullets might be enough to convince pirates to look elsewhere.

The neo-temperance movement marches on, and there is little anyone can do to stop it. The Washington Post reports that the D.C. lawmakers are smoking ban is imminent and soon all of Maryland will be "smoke free".

As a non-smoker, I have no problems with smoke-free restaurants. But I do take issue with the government mandating property owners to outlaw smoking. Business owners should be allowed to decide for themselves whether or not they want to cater to smokers. And non-smokers are free to choose whether or not they want to eat a restaurant based on it's smoking preferences. The idea that all restaurants should be smoke-free just in case they may some day want to eat there, is absurd.

Being a free state (and a tobacco state) the neo-temperance movement has thus far spared Virginia. Yet we still have a good selection of smoke-free restaurants to choose from.

In Virginia, where tobacco interests have long held political sway, a statewide ban on smoking in bars and restaurants seems unlikely anytime soon. And because the state's constitution generally forbids counties from passing laws more restrictive than the state's, local jurisdictions are hindered in efforts to pass anti-smoking measures. Still, in Alexandria, more than 50 restaurants have voluntarily agreed to ban smoking on their premises, according to city officials.

The free market works, imagine that. In the liberal la-la-land that is Maryland, misery loves company.

Even some Maryland restaurant and bar owners. . .tell lawmakers they'd be willing to live with a statewide ban if the District follows through with its own legislation, eliminating that competition.

So control only works when it's tried everywhere. That sounds a bit like the gun grabbers. In some parts of Maryland, business owners face a smoking ban yet again, even though they've already invested thousands of dollars to cater to non-smokers.[Howard County] Council member David A. Rakes (D-East Columbia) intends to submit legislation that grandfathers in establishments with sealed-off smoking areas.

"They've already spent so much money to comply with our old law that we shouldn't now change the rules on them," he said.And therein lies the slippery slope. When you allow lawmakers to take away a few of your rights, you have no guarantee that they won't soon be back for more.

The anti-smoking campaign started with airplanes. It has morphed into telling property owners that they cannot allow people to smoke on their property. Soon smoking bans will include private homes and vehicles, in the name of protecting the children.

And just like the alcohol prohibition of the 1920s and 30s, it will lead to more crime, more violence, and more limits on the law-abiding. Let's not forget that gun control was borne largely from the temperance movement.

Reader HighDesertDog sends this link about the anti-hunting and anti-gun crowd. As is typical they have a solution searching for a problem, and the "problem" is underage hunting. Recent photos of 8-year olds hunting has set the pleasure police out on a crusade.

When an 8-year-old girl made headlines last month by bagging the first black bear of the season, many Marylanders were surprised to learn the state has no minimum age limit for hunting. But for some families in rural areas such as Garrett County, learning to handle firearms is as much a part of childhood as losing one's baby teeth.

Hunting opponents aim to change that. The Humane Society of the United States is talking with state legislators about establishing a minimum hunting age of perhaps 16, said Heidi Prescott, the society's senior vice president of campaigns.

"A deer rifle can kill someone up to a mile away, and young adolescents lack the experience, judgment and emotional maturity to handle that kind of firepower safely," she said. "To send someone into the woods with a long-range weapon who�s not even mature enough to drive a car is an invitation to tragedy."

Of course the whole idea is to kill interest in hunting and guns altogether. Letting the animals become overpopulated is hardly humane, and it's dangerous to hunters and non-hunters alike. On the 240 mile drive back from Blacksburg this weekend, I saw no less than 10 dead deer that had been hit by cars.

Not to mention that waiting until your kid is 16 to teach proper gun safety is another kind of danger.

This would be reality TV worth watching:

The mayor of Las Vegas has suggested that people who deface freeways with graffiti should have their thumbs cut off on television.

"In the old days in France, they had beheadings of people who commit heinous crimes," Mayor Oscar Goodman said Wednesday on the TV show "Nevada Newsmakers."

Goodman said the city has a beautiful highway landscaping project and "these punks come along and deface it."

"I'm saying maybe you put them on TV and cut off a thumb," the mayor said. "That may be the right thing to do."

Metro rail authorities are pushing ahead with their new seating plan which comes off sounding more like a standing plan. The Washington Post reports that "The Metro seating proposal would offer riders more standing room."

The plan -- which received preliminary approval yesterday and will begin in the spring if the full board approves it this month, as expected -- calls for installing cameras on two dozen test cars to study how three seating arrangements with up to 32 fewer seats and 40 percent more handrails could accommodate more riders and allow them to move on and off trains more quickly.

If you live in Illinois, I suggest you move out now. Give up on the Stalinists and relocate to a free state. I hate to be rude, but Say Uncle just set me off with his report that Illinios Gov. Alphabet is crowing about his anti-gun veto not being overturned.

Gov. Blagojevich applauds members of the Illinois House for upholding his veto of dangerous legislation that would undermine local gun laws [bans]...

From the outside looking in, Illinois appears to be nothing more than a third world socialist dictatorship. Let's talk about dangerous. One the one hand you have law abiding citizens who want nothing more than to provide security and safety for their family and loved ones. Respecting their freedom to own, purchase, possess, and carry guns does not deprive anyone else of life, liberty, or property.

Then you've got this bunch of deep blue socialist assholes who pardon or parole a bunch of murderers and rapists, while setting up barriers to (or just plain outlaw) self-defense for the law-abiding citizenry. Then they're shocked, I say, shocked when the crime rate goes up. To them, that's a sign that they aren't doing enough to violate the rights of the law abiding. (Rope, tree, politician, some assembly required.)

I will not live in Illinois, I will not visit Illinois, and at this point I doubt I would even pass through Illinois. If I ever have children, I won't even teach them to spell Illinois. If they'd be fool enough to take it, we should give it to Canada. Freedom lovers need to get out now, while you still can.

The Mudville Gazette cites several specific instances where the New York Times has deliberately Dowdified quotes to twist their meaning. In one glaring example, a Marine Corporal was posthumously turned from a hero into sounding like a coward. He wrote a farewell letter to be released should he be killed in Iraq. The Times cut it down so much he comes off sounding like a scared draftee.

Make sure you check your bloodpressure before you read the rest.

When I first saw the movie 'Panic Room', I thought the storyline was a big joke. The idea of having a fortress-like safe room in your home just seems dumb. But apparently panic rooms are becoming a big hit over in the U.K..

So far around 25 victims of domestic violence in Islington have had one of the re-inforced safe rooms fitted by security specialists.

If they fear they are about to be assaulted by their partner or ex, they can flee to the room, lock themselves in and then call the police.

The rooms - which cost up to �2,800 each - are fitted with dedicated emergency phone lines connected direct to the police. The solid wooden doors are often strengthened by metal doors and also fireproofed to protect against arson attacks.

The idea comes from the United States, where panic rooms have become popular with the rich and famous since the September 11 terror attacks and because of increasing levels of gun crime.

That's almost $5,000 USD, funded by U.K. taxpayers no doubt. An inexpensive shotgun, however, cost about $200 and would take about 1 or 2 days to learn how to use effectively. It also prevents recidivism.

Senate Democrats and Republicans are suggesting that 'Big Oil' profits should be seized (at the point of a gun mikem) and handed over to the poor. Democrats went so far as to propose a 50% tax on the price of oil.

Lee Raymond, chairman of Exxon Mobil Corp., Jim Mulva, chief executive of ConocoPhillips Inc., and John Hofmeister, president of the U.S. unit of Royal Dutch Shell PLC, will be among the industry executives to be questioned at a Senate hearing, according to congressional and industry officials.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because a final list of witnesses is not complete.

The three companies together earned more than $22 billion during the July-September quarter this year when crude oil prices soared to $70 a barrel and motorists were paying well over $3 gallon at the pump after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the Gulf Coast...

There is growing distress among both Republicans and Democrats in Congress about the huge profits reported by oil companies last week.

On Tuesday, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Finance Committee, said oil companies �should do their part� and donate some of their third-quarter earnings to low-income families and senior citizens having trouble paying energy bills, including high heating bills this winter...

Meanwhile, Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Chris Dodd, D-Conn., renewed their call for passage of a windfall profits tax on oil companies. They hoped to put such a proposal � a 50 percent tax on the sale of oil over $40 a barrel � into a tax bill later this month, they said. The revenue would be given to consumers in form of an income tax rebate.

Just who do they think pays taxes? Taxes are not paid by nameless, faceless corporations. Corporations COLLECT taxes, not pay them. The money must come from either the shareholders in the form of less shareholder earnings and equity, the employees in the form of decreased wages and benefits, or the consumers in the form of higher prices.

What's more it amounts to nothing more than government price controls which will end up causing shortages and gas lines.

But then politicians have always preyed on the masses' economic ignorance. Alan Reynolds points out that the oil profits are nothing more than inventory profit.

The Ninth Circus Court of Appeals ruled this week that parents do not have a 'fundamental right' to control their children's sexual education.

A federal appeals court Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit by parents who were outraged that a school district had surveyed their elementary school-age children about sex.

The three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the parents' claim that they have the exclusive right to tell their children about sex.

In upholding a lower court ruling against the parents, Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt said "no such specific right can be found in the deep roots of the nation's history and tradition or implied in the concept of ordered liberty."

And isn't that an interesting development. Next time I'm on the Left Coast I think I'll swing by some schools and start surveying the kiddies about sex. I dare not try that in Virginia, where it's "implied in the concept of ordered liberty" that a parent could beat me down with a baseball bat.

Let's talk about sex, baby
Let's talk about you and me
Let's talk about all the good things
And the bad things that may be
Let's talk about sex

A joke:

A man and a woman are having drinks and the topic of discussion eventually turns to sex.

"Come on," the man says. "You mean to tell me that you wouldn't have sex with a guy for a million dollars."

"No," she claims.

"You mean, I pull out a suitcase filled with money, tell you that you can have it all and all you have to give me is one night of love, and you walk away. I mean, we're talking about a million dollars here."

"Okay," she admits. "For a million dollars, yes. If nobody else had to know about it, I'd have sex with you for a million dollars."

The guy says, "Okay, how about $100."

"WHAT!? I'm not a prostitute."

He fires back, "Well, we've already established that you're a prostitute, now we're just haggling over price."

What does that have to do with anything? I dunno. For some reason, this just made me think about it.

Countertop says what I've suspected all along. Kaine is not only anti-gun, he's rabidly anti-gun and has been lying to "sportsmen" and shooters throughout the whole campaign. In the last week of the campaign, the gun grabbers are lining up to support Tim Kaine.

USC Coach Pete Carroll and tailback LenDale White pulled off a Halloween prank that had players and coaches believing White was thrown from the roof after quitting the team.

Phil Taylor wonders if Notre Dame's decision to throw bags of money at Charlie Weis after only 7 games was motivated by race.

So why invest so heavily in Weis when you wouldn't do the same for [Tyrone] Willingham? Well, that gets us thinking thoughts that we don't want to think, thoughts about how Willingham's skin color is several shades darker than Weis'. Though it would be easy to cry racism -- and it's certainly likely that race is involved on some level -- it's not quite as simple as that. It's hard to accuse the administration of racist thinking when it was color-blind enough to hire Willingham in the first place.

I don't know if Willingham's bar was set too high or not, but at the time I did think that firing him was a huge mistake.

The media consensus seems to be that Weis was considering returning to the pros, and Notre Dame wanted to secure him for the long term. Given that they seem willing to sell their soul for another national championship, this could turn out to be another huge (and expensive) mistake.

So, Scooter Libby discussing the not-so-secret agent Valerie Plame is a breach of national security, but the Washington Post revealing actual CIA secrets is no big deal.

Of all the dumb risks I could take in my life, catapaulting a hundred feet into the air ranks right up there with do-it-yourself laser eye surgery.

A UNIVERSITY student died after being hurled 100ft through the air by a medieval-style "trebuchet" catapult, an inquest heard yesterday.

Kostydin Yankov, 19, an Oxford University student, suffered multiple injuries and serious spinal damage when he fell short of the safety net.

The incident actually took place a few years ago. The court threw out manslaughter charges against the builders of the trebuchet due to "lack of evidence" which sounds like a legalese way of saying that the dumbass knew what he was getting into.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentenel apparently thinks that all black people are the same. They also stopped just short (barely) of calling Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas an Uncle Tom.

In losing a woman, the court with Alito would feature seven white men, one white woman and a black man, who deserves an asterisk because he arguably does not represent the views of mainstream black America.

Keep in mind that if a Republican had said this, it'd be hate speech.

Check out the wahoo in this class photo.

Australian police are being advised to easy on Muslim men who beat their wives.

The Australasian Police Multicultural Advisory Bureau has published and distributed 50,000 copies of an 82-page handbook for Australian police officers, directing them on how to deal with people from all the unfamiliar cultures that an Australian policeman may encounter. A Sikh, for example, may receive a three-day reprieve from arrest if the arresting officer happens upon him while he is reading his holy scriptures - a practice that takes fifty hours, and must not be interrupted. And Muslim husbands who beat their wives must be treated differently from other domestic violence cases, as a matter of cultural sensitivity: �In incidents such as domestic violence," says the handbook, "police need to have an understanding of the traditions, ways of life and habits of Muslims."

Democracy isn't for everybody, and apparently neither is civil rights.

Couldn't happen to a nicer group of environmentalist wackos.

Environmental group Greenpeace has been fined almost $7,000 for damaging a coral reef at a World Heritage site in the Philippines, according to BBC news.

Their flagship Rainbow Warrior II ran hit Tubbataha Reef Marine Park, in the Sula Sea, 650km (400 miles) south-east of Manila.

Park officials say almost 100 sq m (1,076 sq ft) of reef had been damaged.

Greenpeace agreed to pay the fine, but blamed the accident on outdated maps provided by the Philippines government.

Meanwhile the AP spins the fine as Greenpeace "has agreed to compensate the park".

Say what you want, but this guy's got cajones.

It looked like a crime scene, but no charges will be filed after Wayne Goldsberry killed a buck with his bare hands in his daughter's bedroom.

The engagement lasted an exhausting 40 minutes, but Goldsberry finally subdued the five-point whitetail deer that crashed through a bedroom window at his daughter's home Friday.

When it was over, blood splattered the walls and the deer lay on the bedroom floor, its neck broken.

That national average for absentee ballots is 14 percent. The average percentage of absentee voters in Detroit constantly hovers above 30 percent, and it appears as though most of the ballots are filled out by election officials.

Among findings by [Detroit] News reporters were ballots cast by people registered to vote at abandoned and long-demolished buildings; a master voter list with 380,000 incorrect names and addresses -- including people who have died or moved out of the city; and a practice of hand-delivering ballots from senior citizens and disabled voters that were filled out in private meetings with Currie's paid election workers.

Recounts are also a big problem.

When two separate recounts were requested by losing City Council candidates, county canvassers deemed 40 of 107 precincts selected for recount couldn't be recounted due to irregularities such as broken ballot box seals and numbers of ballots not matching the number of votes recorded on election night...

Different witnesses in different lawsuits have testified that they've seen election workers filling out absentee ballots themselves after the polls had closed. Other findings included a fire that made a recount of ballots impossible, and incapacitated voters who have no knowledge of the Mayor and no memory of voting in any election.

President Bush's tax advisory panel was charged with creating a simpler tax code. If their suggestions are implemented, it could mean that mortgage interest and other deductions that taxpayers have come to expect may disappear.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. But expect howls of discontent, nonetheless.

The Knoxville police chief wants to stop the practice of letting retiring officers keep their guns, and has not ruled out confiscation. (Entire AP article quoted below)

The Knoxville Police Department no longer will allow retiring officers to keep their service handguns and is considering confiscating guns from past retirees. The city's new police chief has reversed an existing policy.

Chief Sterling P. Owen, IV says the law and finance departments of city government say the police department doesn't have the authority to give away city property.

Owen says the department simply revised a previous form the clarify the property belongs to the city. He says the initial intent wasn't to give away the guns, but to offer the weapons for personal protection if the retiring officers wanted them.

About 125 officers are immediately affected.

Next Tuesday Virginians will go to the polls to pick a new Governor. The good news is that the no good lying fucktard Mark Warner will be gone. The bad news is that both Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Jerry Kilgore are likely to be sorry replacements. Tim Kaine is pro-taxes, pro-illegal immigration, anti-gun, and anti-death penalty. Kilgore is tip-toeing around the issues and refusing to take a stand. It's like he's gotten ahold of the Kerry playbook and is trying to appeal to liberals as well as conservatives.

The American Spectator reports that the race is Kilgore's to lose.

For the past few weeks, I've heard some Virginians and assorted politicos questioning Kilgore's conservative credentials. Such remarks were easy to dismiss as hand-wringing on the right or Democratic attempts to split Republicans.

But in October the race shifted from Kilgore's to lose to a toss-up...

Kilgore also hasn't committed on taxes. Americans for Tax Reform said last week that Kilgore has not signed "the pledge" not to raise taxes as governor. Grover Norquist told TAS Friday, "He has left the door open to some tax increase. Ten years ago, that'd be a pretty good line in the sand. When you're running against a guy who raised taxes by a billion dollars, you gotta be pretty clear. He's not gonna raise taxes. He should say it. The tax issue is the one that wins elections for Republicans -- period." Kilgore's campaign argues that taking the pledge four years ago is sufficient. "Jerry has given his word," said spokesman Tucker Martin.

Last year Virginia Republicans and Governor Mark 'I will not raise taxes' Warner passed the largest tax increase in the 400 year history of the Commonwealth. As Lt. Governor, Tim Kaine is going around crowing about the tax hike as some big accomplishment.

As a conservative, I'm disenchanted with both candidates and don't really know for whom to pull the lever. I think that if Virginians end up supporting Kilgore, it's more of a vote against Tim Kaine.

In their quest to purge society of all things 'men', the feminazis have gotten the term 'freshmen' expelled from one New Hampshire high school. Ninth graders will now be referred to simply as 'ninth graders', reports the Concord Monitor.

ARHS Assistant Principal Marta Guevara, who spearheaded the change, said the decision to move away from 'freshman' was a result of conversations among faculty that began after the controversial production of The Vagina Monologuestwo years ago.

"We want conversation, we want for kids to bring forward their thinking," said Guevara. "It's a great conversation to make them aware of the possible misogynistic, oppressive or non-inclusive language."

Guevara said such conversations could eventually mean doing away with all class terms, such as "junior,""senior," and "upperclassmen." These changes are not under discussion at this point.

[snarky] Yeah, and the Vagina Monologues certainly is inclusive of the male point of view. [/snarky]

A 77-year old woman helping Hurricane Katrina victims get back on their feet was apparently murdered by her wards. I like to think there's a special place in hell for those kind of people, right next to guys who drive too slow in the fast lane.