I am the lone voice of reason in a world gone mad with nanny state socialism, enviro-wingnuts and political correctness. Also news and views on the world of SEC football can be found here as well.
No, we don't suppose that's going to happen any time soon. But it should.
The 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is evidence that, while the founding fathers were brilliant men, they could have used an editor.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
If the founders had limited themselves to the final 14 words, the amendment would have been an unambiguous declaration of the right to possess firearms. But they didn't, and it isn't. The amendment was intended to protect the authority of the states to organize militias. The inartful wording has left the amendment open to public debate for more than 200 years. But in its last major decision on gun rights, in 1939, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously found that that was the correct interpretation.
A lot of liberals say that the first part, a well-regulated militia means that the Constitution allows for the forming of a National Guard. Obviously these rocket scientists at the Trib aren't students of history, because the militia was considered all of the able-bodied males. Think I'm kidding? Read on.
The early colonists of America considered the militia an important social structure, necessary to defend their colonies from Indian attacks. "They were a group of citizens who would be ready to fight in any emergency"All able-bodied males were expected to be members of the local militia, though in practice there were many possible exemptions to service including: conscientious objection, attendance at college and engagement in important business. The important and wealthy could avoid service, if they wanted, by paying others to go in their place.
Read the rest here. Doesn't sound like a National Guard (all able-bodied males made up the militia) to me. But if you don't take the militia clause in historical context, I can see where the mistake could be made.
But there's no mistaking what our liberal, gun-fearing friends have in store. In their world, only the government should be responsible for their protection. I've got news for you: it takes at least 5-10 minutes at best for police to respond to an emergency. A perp (pronounced poip if you're from New Yawk) can do a lot to you and your family in 5-10 minutes. Wouldn't it be smarter to be armed and dispatch said criminal?
I celebrate the Supreme Court's decision and I'm glad that they reaffirmed our innate right to self-defense, both against criminals and a tyrannical government (which ours is becoming by the day).
Nothing more I hate in the world than left-lane dawdlers. You know, the granny in a towncar or some idiot in a minivan doing the speed limit in the left lane, barely passing the traffic in the right lane at .5 mph faster, if at all.
Traffic builds up behind them and as we all know from watching the Daytona 500, bad things can happen when traffic is bunched together and one yahoo makes a mistake.
Police in Seattle are ticketing these dumbasses. Finally!
SEATTLE -- Even if you're going the speed limit it might not be enough to prevent you from getting a ticket if you're holding up traffic in the fast lane.
State troopers are on a mission to make sure the left lane on area freeways is used for its intended purpose: passing.
"We're doing 58, 59 miles an hour and they are just sitting there, traffic's passing them on the right hand side," Trooper Keith Leary said while pointing out a car in the left lane of Interstate 5. "That's exactly what we don't want to see happen."
The driver, Brasta Bonifcho, said he was surprised what he was doing was illegal.
"I didn't know that, I really didn't know that," he said. "I am guilty, no question about it."
Leary reminded Bonifcho that drivers need to stay in the right lanes unless they're passing another vehicle.
Everyone pulled over during Leary's patrol said they thought it wasn't a problem as long as they were going the speed limit. But the law says otherwise.
"It is a traffic infraction to drive continuously in the left lane of a multilane roadway when it impedes the flow of other traffic," the statute reads.
The reason for the law is to help keep traffic moving and to diffuse potential road rage situations.
It's a sad state of affairs in this country that the Supreme Court is out of control. More proof of it happened yesterday as a 5-4 majority overturned a death sentence for a child rapist in Louisiana. How is that cruel and unusual punishment? What about what happened to the child in question?
McCain disagreed with the decision. Even the enlightened messiah Barak Hussein Obama disagreed with it!
That there is a judge anywhere in America who does not believe that the rape of a child represents the most heinous of crimes, which is deserving of the most serious of punishments, is profoundly disturbing. (The decision is) an assault on law enforcement’s efforts to punish these heinous felons for the most despicable crime.
Genesis says it best about our friend Jimmy Johns, headed for...
This type of prison.
Jimmy Johns got busted this morning for selling cocaine. Cocaine! Read the rest here.
TUSCALOOSA | A once-promising University of Alabama football player spent Tuesday behind bars facing serious drug charges.
UA Coach Nick Saban dismissed senior linebacker Jimmy Johns very shortly after narcotics investigators charged him with selling cocaine.
Johns, 21, allegedly sold powdered cocaine to undercover officers five times.
Johns had been selling cocaine to UA students, said Capt. Jeff Snyder, commander of the West Alabama Narcotics Task Force. It only took undercover officers about a week and a half to gain his trust and make the purchases, he said.
“We were kind of surprised that we were able to buy the cocaine as quickly and easily as we did,” Snyder said. “And I’m surprised that we didn’t hear that he was selling it before we did.”
Although he is well known around campus, and wasn’t reluctant to sell drugs to new customers, Snyder said, Johns didn’t want his UA teammates to know.
“He did the best he could to ensure that none of them knew,” he said. “We believe his source was an individual outside the University community.”
Investigators with the drug task force found between 9 and 11 grams of cocaine at Johns’ home in the 2100 block of 11 Street East, Snyder said.
Johns had been working out at the UA Athletic Complex early Tuesday and had stopped to get gas when officers made the arrest. He accompanied them back to his house where they executed the search warrant and found more cocaine and eight or nine ecstasy pills.
Johns was charged with five counts of distribution of a controlled substance and one count of possession of a controlled substance.
If he is found guilty, Johns could face to 2 to 20 years in prison and be fined up to $30,000 for each of the five distribution charges. He could face one to 10 years and a $15,000 fine if he is found guilty of the possession charge.
Now Alabama's linebacking corps is thinner than a hobo's wallet. Way to go Jimmy! A guy who was once a very promising athlete, a former Mr. Football in the state of Mississippi at Brookhaven (up the road from where I worked in McComb). Now what could've been a promising life is now ruined for the want of a few dollars of ill-gotten gains. Unfortunate.
I don't like John McCain. He's a Democrat in Republican clothing who has subverted the First Amendment (the McCain-Feingold monstrosity that bans any remotely campaign-related advertising 60 days before an election), who believes in the global warming fraud and who has absolutely no clue about economics. This statement here is instructive for the latter:
I don't like obscene profits being made anywhere. I'd be glad to look not just at the windfall profits tax, that's not what bothers me, but we should look at any incentives that we are giving to people — or industries or corporations — that are distorting the markets.
Total ignorance. His whining about torture is another.
But at least he's giving folks some reason to vote for him besides his tough stances on Iran and the awful Boumediene vs. Bush decision. Here's the reason: he's reversed field on drilling.
Unlike Obama, who believes that a "windfall profits" tax on oil companies is necessary and who wants to distribute the proceeds as pork to various ethanol producers under the guise of bankrolling "alternative" energy sources, McCain believes we actually must explore and develop our OWN sources of energy.
McCain said Obama "says that high oil prices are not the problem, but only that they rose too quickly. He's doesn't support new domestic production. He doesn't support new nuclear plants. He doesn't support more traditional use of coal, either."
Instead, McCain said Obama "wants a windfall profits tax on oil, to go along with the new taxes he also plans for coal and natural gas. If the plan sounds familiar, it's because that was President Jimmy Carter's big idea too — and a lot of good it did us."
Read the rest here. Also, Florida governor Charlie Crist, who sounds like he's angling for a spot as McCain's running mate, has reversed field like his boy McCain and supports lifting the Federal ban on offshore drilling, something that idiotic Floridians have supported for years.
With $4 gas a way of life, the sooner we can drill, the better. Especially seeing that a hurricane in the Gulf, with the present volatility of the market, would drive prices up to the stratosphere. Ten bucks a gallon may be in the future, something that would be beyond disasterous for our economy. As folks have seen, when oil is through the roof, it isn't just those evil white people in the suburbs who drive SUV's and voted for Bush who suffer. It affects everything, from food prices, to airline travel to plastic prices.
Other than corn, which drives up food prices and pads the pockets of wealthy agro-corporations thanks to ridiculous Federal subsidies, Obama has no new sources of energy in his solution. No nukes. No coal. Just solar and wind power. Right...
Just the same old, same old socialistic punish-the-rich tripe that socialist scum like him have tried and retried despite repeated failures. To me, the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. In that light, liberals are definitely insane. Change? What kind of change except to the failed policies of the past?
As I like to say about Obama: My name is Barak Obama and my vagina approved this message.
Terrorists held in Gitmo are entitled to trial in civilian courts. You've got to be fucking kidding me.
Now Turn-Em-Loose-Bruce Lefty idiot lawyers will defend them pro bono. Turn-Em-Loose-Bruce Commie Bastard judges will pull more law out of thin air and probably give the terrorist bastards asylum and a pat on the back.
Unbelievable? Have we lost our collective minds? How do these people have constitutional rights in our courts? How?
The NBA is fixed. Been saying it for years. Kind of like pro wrestling.
Now we have the proof. Courtesy of Tim Donaghy, disgraced former NBA ref.
"Referees A, F and G were officiating a playoff series between Teams 5 and 6 in May of 2002. It was the sixth game of a seven-game series, and a Team 5 victory that night would have ended the series. However, Tim learned from Referee A that Referees A and F wanted to extend the series to seven games. Tim knew referees A and F to be "company men," always acting in the interest of the NBA, and that night, it was in the NBA's interest to add another game to the series. Referees A and F heavily favored Team 6. Personal fouls [resulting in obviously injured players] were ignored even when they occurred in full view of the referees. Conversely, the referees called made-up fouls on Team 5 in order to give additional free throw opportunities for Team 6. Their foul-calling also led to the ejection of two Team 5 players. The referees' favoring of Team 6 led to that team's victory that night, and Team 6 came back from behind to win that series."
According to Donaghy and his attorney John F. Lauro, two referees in 2002 deliberately ignored fouls that resulted in injuries and called "made-up fouls" to give addition foul shots to one team. Even worse, Donaghy asserts that the referees did all of it because they were "company men" who "always act[ed] in the interest of the NBA, and that night, it was in the NBA's interest to add another game to the series."
The NBA has always called games unfairly. Stars get preferential treatment. That's inarguable. But it's when the refs decide games and extend series for the purpose of filling league coffers with ratings and thus advertising dollars, that's when it becomes pro wrestling. You've got the face players (Kobe, KG, LeBron, Dwanye Wade, etc.) and then you've got the heels like Rasheed Wallace and others.
Donaghy and his three blind mice at work: Turns out they weren't so blind after all. The call came from David Stern's office. Extend the series. Or else
These are the biggest bombshells from Donaghy from Sheridan's story:
The document referenced other alleged improprieties that Donaghy disclosed to federal law enforcement officials. Among them:
• "Tim gave information on how top executives of the NBA sought to manipulate games using referees to boost ticket sales and television ratings," the letter reads. "He also described how nepotism played a far greater role than qualifications in a number of referee hirings."
• "Tim explained the league officials would tell referees that they should withhold calling technical fouls on certain star players because doing so would hurt ticket sales and television ratings," the letter adds. "As an example, Tim explained how there were times when a referee supervisor would tell referees that NBA Executive X did not want them to call technical fouls on star players or remove them from the game. In January 2000, Referee D went against these instructions and elected a star player in the first quarter of the game. Referee D later was privately reprimanded by the league for that ejection."
• In addition to game-altering allegations, Donaghy's letter claims that many officials carry on "relationships" with team executives, coaches and players that violate their NBA contracts. For example, it said, referees broke NBA rules by hitting up players for autographs, socializing with coaches and accepting meals and merchandise from teams.
"Tim described one referee's use of a team's practice facility to exercise and another's frequent tennis matches with a team's coach," the letter says.
• The letter also alleges that during a 2005 Rockets-Mavericks playoff series, "Team 3 lost the first two games in the series and Team 3's Owner complained to NBA officials. Team 3's Owner alleged that referees were letting a Team 4 player get away with illegal screens. NBA Executive Y told Referee Supervisor Z that the referees for that game were to enforce the screening rules strictly against that Team 4 player. Referee Supervisor Z informed the referees about his instructions. As an alternate referee for that game, Tim also received these instructions."
I know how David Stern, a master of spin, will play this. He'll attack Donaghy and he'll have a point. Dude is a felon. He did conspire to fix games. He does have an axe to grind since the NBA is trying to bleed a million big ones out of him.
"We welcome scrutiny here. This is something that should be scrutinized," said Stern, who called Donaghy a "singing, cooperating witness" and repeatedly referred to him as a felon as he spoke with reporters for more than eight minutes near the loading dock of the Staples Center as he arrived for Game 3 of the Finals.
But he officiated in 772 regular-season games and 20 playoff games. I think the guy knows something. And the way games are called, as even casual fans see, it definitely lends credence to what he's saying.
Besides, the NBA is gutter basketball anyway. It's a slightly better version of the And1 mix tape tour. Just dunks and 3 pointers. No fundamentals. Rules prevent proper defense.
It's little wonder that our NBA players get their asses kicked in international play on a regular basis. The stars on our U.S. team keep expecting a bailout call from friendly refs every time.
When we elect asshole, anti-capitalist politicians in bed with enviro-nuts, this is what you get.
George Will pulls no punches and calls it like he sees it. Right on target!
One million barrels is what might today be flowing from ANWR if in 1995 President Clinton had not vetoed legislation to permit drilling there. One million barrels produce 27 million gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel. Seventy-two of today's senators -- including Schumer, of course, and 38 other Democrats, including Barack Obama, and 33 Republicans, including John McCain -- have voted to keep ANWR's estimated 10.4 billion barrels of oil off the market.
So Schumer, according to Schumer, is complicit in taking $10 away from every American who buys 20 gallons of gasoline. "Democracy," said H.L. Mencken, "is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard." The common people of New York want Schumer to be their senator, so they should pipe down about gasoline prices, which are a predictable consequence of their political choice.
Also disqualified from complaining are all voters who sent to Washington senators and representatives who have voted to keep ANWR's oil in the ground, and who voted to put 85 percent of America's offshore territory off-limits to drilling. The U.S. Minerals Management Service says that restricted area contains perhaps 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas -- 10 times the oil and 20 times the natural gas Americans use in a year.
As for the environmental movement and its latest hobgoblin, global warming, it's all about the destruction of capitalism and the weakening of our country as a result. Why else would they ban us from drilling for OUR OWN OIL? Why else would they whine and cry and sue every time someone wants to build a power plant, an oil refinery (see last post) or dam up a river to produce the energy our economy requires? Why else would they bitch and moan about how Americans use up all the world's resources and how greedy we are when we feed the world and keep it afloat financially. Hurt us economically and the whole world feels it.
This is the only conclusion I can draw here. And there's no compromise with these people. None.
The only thing that will keep them from destroying everything that makes this country great is to beat them. And keep beating them with logical arguments of why their pie-in-the-sky, "solutions" are a dead end.
Apparently three days of debate was enough for what many senators called "the most important issue facing the planet."
With little chance of winning passage of a sweeping 500-page global warming bill, the Senate Democratic leadership is planning to yank the legislation after failing to achieve the 60 vote threshold needed to move the bill to the next stage. After a 48-36 vote on the climate change bill, the Senate is likely to move on to an energy debate next week.
The legislation collapsed for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the poor timing of debating a bill predicted to increase energy costs while much of the country is focused on $4 a gallon gas. On top of that, a number of industrial state Democrats like Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio were uncomfortable with the strong emissions caps that would have created a new regime of regulations for coal, auto and other manufacturing industries. Republicans, for the most part, held firm against a bill they said would cost billions in regulations while pushing the cost of gas higher. Seven Republicans, mostly moderates, voted for the procedural motion on the legislation while four Democrats voted against it.
But they will try. Again. Gotta hand it to these marxist bastards. They don't quit.
Democrats did not go into the debate expecting passage of the legislation, but they did celebrate a marginal increase in support for the cap and trade system for emissions that was the centerpiece of the bill. Similar legislation in previous years did not even come close to getting 50 votes in the Senate, so Friday morning's vote was a moral victory of sorts. Several senators who missed the vote, including John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, would have voted for the bill, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said on the Senate floor this morning.
The debate in many ways was about setting the stage for a more serious climate change effort under the next presidential administration. While President Bush would have vetoed any cap and trade bill this year, both McCain and Obama back some form of mandatory emissions reduction, so this debate will gain serious traction again next year.
Like the gas prices now? Wait until this cap and trade bullshit goes through. BOHICA, BOHICA, BOHICA. Our economy will be in a shambles and the amount of CO2 (not a pollutant!) will decrease just a tiny tad.
Or less.
But there's a fierce argument over how much the bill would affect the economy. According to a study released by the National Association of Manufacturers earlier this year, Lieberman-Warner would cause 1.8 million job losses, as much as a $210 billion gross domestic product reduction and possibly a 33% increase in electricity prices by 2020.
The bill would not have a detectable impact on the climate. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s own analysis, by 2050 Lieberman-Warner would only lower global CO2 concentrations by less than 1.4% without additional international action.
Brave voters in Sioux City, South Dakota voted to allow rezoning for Hyperion to build an oil refinery, the first new one built in the U.S. in 30 years, in their backyard.
ELK POINT, S.D. -- Flashing a smile, Joyce Bortscheller briefly hugged Hyperion Energy Center executive Preston Phillips as she greeted him in the backyard of her home here.
Bortscheller, president of the Elk Point City Council, had invited about 250 supporters to an outdoor barbecue Tuesday to await the returns for arguably the most important election in Union County's history. The big crowd didn't leave disappointed.
As midnight approached, they popped the champagne corks, celebrating a hard-fought victory that keeps alive the county's chances of landing the nation's first all-new oil refinery in 32 years.
By a solid 58 percent to 42 percent margin, county voters approved Hyperion's request to rezone 3,292 acres of farm land for a new classification, Energy Center Planned Development.
But of course our liberal, tree-hugging, soy-milk chugging, vaginal liberal friends of the Earth and all of the tiny creatures except for those evil humans object. And they shall object through their favorite tool of destruction, endless lawsuits.
While conceding defeat, opponents vowed to keep fighting the controversial project on every imaginable front, pressing on with a lawsuit it filed against the county over the zoning procedures and opposing Hyperion as it applies for a bevy of state and federal permits.
"We have strategies in place to slow or delay all the permit processes," Ed Cable, chairman of the anti-Hyperion group Save Union County, said after the vote.
Never mind the fact you lost 58 percent to 42 percent. They still intend to sue!
Ever heard that classic "Bush's policies have alienated our friends around the globe."
Uh, not so much.
Furthermore, the departure of Mr. Bush will hardly leave the nation's foreign relationships in tatters. Despite much American introspection, Euro-liberal sniping and Latin American leftist fantasizing, the quantity and quality of America's formal friendships have endured, if not actually increased, since 2001. Eighty-four governments, out of a world total of some 192, are formally allied with the U.S.
Foreign leaders such as France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel clearly see that their true interest resides in maintaining and renewing their relationships with the U.S. Few governments have prospered by severing such bonds. In Asia as well, nations are looking to strengthen their ties to America. China needs the U.S. market. India is moving toward America, not away.
The number of America's foes hasn't grown under the Bush administration. The actual number of our enemies can be counted on one hand: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela. With the exception of the latter, all these enmities predate Mr. Bush and his successor will inherit them.
Read the rest here. Timothy Lynch and Robert Singh hit the nail right on the head. And if you don't think they're credible, well both are academics at the University of London and are the authors of "After Bush: The Case for Continuity in American Foreign Policy" (Cambridge University Press, 2008.)
So either way, Bush's policies will continue. And I'm believing that this war has turned the corner. Imagine us actually winning! I can.
