A Navy pilot’s tale of his first landing on the carrier in the dark.

As the last guys finish their dinner, we all look at each other with similar glances. Not a word needs to be said but everyone is thinking the exact same thing. The expressions say it all. It’s time to walk upstairs and play ball.

We’ve been preparing ourselves for this for years now, and it’s what sets a Naval Aviator apart from every other pilot in the world. If you can’t do it, the years of training leading up to this point are no good to you. As one of our paddles said, if you can’t succeed at this you’re useless to us as a Hornet pilot because we fly, and fight, in the dark. We have to go land this thing on the boat … at night.

We’ve all been behind the boat during the day. You do it in the training command in the mighty T-45. It’s nerve-wracking the first few times, but once you get over the initial nerves and start getting the hang of operating around the ship becomes a lot of fun. Day CQ in the Hornet was even better.

We’d all been here before and were looking forward to coming back. Landing on the carrier is what we do as Naval Aviators. It’s one of the most amazing things you can experience, yet it’s one of the smallest clubs in aviation.

It’s something you can do well, but never perfectly. Every single pass is critiqued by the Landing Signal Officers (LSOs), and you’re graded no matter what your rank 0r who you are. Being good around the carrier is what everyone prides themselves on. Now it was our turn. Time to really join the club, and prove that we can do this safely, with the sun down.

(more…)

We text, email, phone and make purchases in an ever inter-connected world. As our point of accessing the internet has shifted from stationary PC’s to smaller and more mobile devices, The Matrix is matching what we are looking for with where we are at the time and rending the data in the new world of Collective Intelligence, the term now emerging to describe the data trail we all leave behind, knowingly, willingly, or not.

Propelled by new technologies and the Internet’s steady incursion into every nook and cranny of life, collective intelligence offers powerful capabilities, from improving the efficiency of advertising to giving community groups new ways to organize.

…and the result? A plebe in the White House, but I digress.

Wireless and internet technologies afford consumers and businesses unprecedented freedom and productivity in the age of the Matrix. What are the consequences? Is it a fair trade?

But even its practitioners acknowledge that, if misused, collective intelligence tools could create an Orwellian future on a level Big Brother could only dream of.

Collective intelligence could make it possible for insurance companies, for example, to use behavioral data to covertly identify people suffering from a particular disease and deny them insurance coverage. Similarly, the government or law enforcement agencies could identify members of a protest group by tracking social networks revealed by the new technology. “There are so many uses for this technology — from marketing to war fighting — that I can’t imagine it not pervading our lives in just the next few years,” says Steve Steinberg, a computer scientist who works for an investment firm in New York.

Alas, I know of few that would give up their Blackberry, the aforementioned President-Elect counted among them.

In the balance, the benefits will hopefully outweigh the perils. Some will be more obvious than others.

Assisting policymakers…

a few weeks ago, Google deployed an early-warning service for spotting flu trends, based on search queries for flu-related symptoms.

Day traders…

It could see, for example, that people who worked in the city’s financial district would tend to go to work early when the market was booming, but later when it was down.

It also noticed that middle-income people — as determined by ZIP code data — tended to order cabs more often just before market downturns.

…and bar hoppers.

The consumer application, Citysense, identifies entertainment hot spots in a city. It connects information from Yelp and Google about nightclubs and music clubs with data generated by tracking locations of anonymous cellphone users.

Moving forward into the past?

“For most of human history, people have lived in small tribes where everything they did was known by everyone they knew,” Dr. Malone said. “In some sense we’re becoming a global village. Privacy may turn out to have become an anomaly.”

Like it or not, with the advent of an ever-growing array of sensory technologies, it will become difficult if not impossible to avoid the grasp of The Matrix.

BACKGROUND:  Oops.  I thought I’d posted this on Friday.  I apparently did not.  And since this piece is intended to mock the story behind this post, it’s probably only fair that I actually post this, and pronto.  I apologize for any confusion, stress or altered worldviews due to this mixup on my staff’s part). 

———-

There are plenty of conservatives who scoff at the idea of art as a noble goal in and of itself – at the notion that art can be something other than decoration or background music.

I’m not one of them.

But I’ll say this; when art becomes a creature of subsidy – a hothouse flower that can only exist when the government foots the bill – then it’s dead.

Sisyphus at Nihilist in Golf Pants details the “winners” of Minnesota State Arts board subsidies – grants from a couple of hundred bucks up to $6,000.

There are the usual predictable howlers:

Peter B. Becker Nelson, Minneapolis
$6,000 — to purchase video equipment and create a new video work that explores themes of relationships, empathy, sexuality, and gender

Wonderful. The taxpayers of Minnesota are buying this guy video equipment to explore themes of relationships, empathy, sexuality, and gender – themes that would never be artistically explored without our tax dollars. Once Mr. Nelson is done with that, perhaps he will do a video version of his mustache series (a previous work where he drew mustaches on photographs of people).

…

John S. Jodzio, Minneapolis
$5,700 — to finish his short story collection, If You Lived Here, You’d Already Be Home
Finally, someone has written a short story collection based on the popular apartment rental sign!

Now, I’m not one of those guys who’s going to mock an “artist” for producing something that reeks of smug self-indulgence – art often reflects the artists, and an awful lot of artists are smug and self-indulgent, and that’s just fine.

And I’m not one of those people who thinks art needs to be “accessible”.

I do think, however, that art benefits greatly from the struggle to create it. And judging by the almost uniformly dismal quality of the “art” produced on the public nickel…:

Arlene Atwater, Duluth
$3,000 — for time to polish two new short stories, record them in her own voice on MP3 files embracing the new literary dimension of voice-only literature, and submit them to boundoff.com and Write On Radio, KFAI

…much of what we’re funding could use a little struggle.

The goal of art isn’t necessarily to last forever – but why do I suspect the “art” we’re funding has a shorter-than-average shelf-life?

I was listening to Keri Miller’s “Midmorning” show on MPR last Friday. In the second hour, she was interviewing some sixties’ folk-scene retread (the program archive seems to have left the hour blank).

Miller asked – with a face that sounded straight (I’m paraphrasing very closely): “Now that Obama has been elected president, do you think American people are ready for the sacrifices he asked of them?”

I almost swerved into an oncoming car.

“WHAT SACRIFICES did he “ask” of the American people?” I yelled at the radio, not quite remembering that I didn’t have a mike in front of me. “When did Obama talk about sacrifice? He couldn’t even articulate the sacrifices he was going to “ask” the American people in the debates, for crying out loud? Five’ll getcha ten the typical Obama voter is thinking “Yippee! My mortgage and gas will get paid!”

Seirously – what “sacrifices” did The One “ask” of anyone?

When a young person takes his or her life it is of course a sad story. A life snuffed before it has begun.

When it happens with an audience, on the internet, it becomes national news.

…and a threat to the first amendment.

MIAMI (AP) — The father of a college student whose suicide was broadcast live over a webcam said Saturday he was appalled by the virtual audience that egged on his son and called for tougher regulation of Internet sites.

I can’t imagine the devastation and loss this father feels. Maybe it is the depth of that sorrow, looking for some meaning or utility for his son’s death that leaves him thinking that a law restricting the internet, or holding providers culpable could have prevented his son’s suicide.

Police found Abraham Biggs Jr. dead in his father’s bed Wednesday, 12 hours after he first declared on the website for bodybuilders that he planned to take his own life. He took a fatal drug overdose in front of an Internet audience. Although some viewers contacted the website to notify police, authorities did not reach his house in time.

“I think after this incident and probably other incidents that have occurred in the past, they all point to some kind of regulation is necessary,” Biggs said. “I think it is wrong to have this happen for hours without any action being taken from the people in charge. Where were they all the time?”

Bigg’s son suffered from bipolar disease and had previously threatened to commit suicide at least once before he took his own life.

Let’s hope lawmakers don’t leverage this type of event coupled with recent talk of resurrecting the “Fairness Doctrine” to restrict unfettered self expression and the free flow information on the internet.

That would also be a tragedy.

In the wake of the flap the agenda media and the Sorosphere manufactured over Rep. Michele Bachmann’s statements a few weeks ago on Tinglyball with Chris Matthews, I wondered – is it possible to question other peoples’ motivations anymore?

I’m convinced – having not only read the accounts and seen the video of Rep. Bachmann’s appearance, but having talked with Rep. Bachmann about the subject – that Rep. Bachmann meant “people who don’t have the nation’s best interests at heart”, and “people who love America exactly as it isn’t and has never been”, when she said “anti-American”.  And when she said the media should be exposing this, she meant “doing its job, and giving people some means of critically examining candidates’ views”, rather than “witchhunting”. 

Not that facts or context matter, of course.

Are there “anti-Americans” out there?  In the sense that there are people who want America extinguished from the planet?  Probably none in public life that matter, Jeremiah Wright and his invocation of the Sixth Commandment notwithstanding.

But can someone’s commitment to “American” ideals – the things that our founding fathers enshrined, things like “one person, one vote” and “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, “the rule of law”, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights – be criticized?

One of the most popular posts that’s ever appeared on this blog came out four and a half years ago, during a previous spate of demands that nobody question anyone’s motivation (“Don’t you dare question my patriotism!”).  Entitled “You Might Not Be An American If…“, it kinda summed up how I feel about Bachmann’s statement and, yes, the targets:

If You Believe: that America has problems – huge problems – then dissent is American.
But If You Believe: …that America’s problems make it an inherently rotten concept, then maybe you should think about whether you’re living in the right place. 

If You Believe: …that America’s projection of power around the world is immoral – then dissent is American.
But If You Believe: …that any projection of American power is inherely unjust because it’s America, then maybe you should be living in, say, Sweden? Just an idea.

If You Believe: …that capitalism is wrong because its inequalities are inherely unjust, then dissent is American.
But If You Believe: …that the free market is inherently, irrevocably evil, perhaps China would be a better fit? Just suggesting…

If You Believe: …that invading Iraq was wrong, then dissent is American.
But If You Believe: …that our temporary administration of Iraq is worse than Hussein’s 30 year reighn of horrors, then perhaps you should rot in hell we need to have an attitude adjustment.

At four years’ remove, I might add a few:

If You Believe: …that racism still exists, and that people (or even just White People) inflict it on others, then dissent is American.
But If You Believe: …that all of America (or just White America) makes its every decision based purely on racism (unless they vote for Barack Obama), then you might be Anti-American.

If You Believe: …the Constitution is a “living document”, then dissent is hunky-dory.
But If You Believe: …that the Constitution is itself a corrupt, vile document that never did anyone any good, then perhaps you should find a different society to live in, just on basic principle.

Wanna swat at Bachmann’s statement?  You gotta bring more game than most of her critics seem to be able to manage.

I ask my liberal acquaintances if they’re aware that the Democrats plan to muzzle conservative opinion in this country, by reinstating the “Fairness” Doctrine.

Leave aside for a moment that most people of all political stripes have not the faintest clue how the “Fairness” Doctrine worked during its heyday (until Reagan repealed it in 1987), to say nothing of how it would work in the future; the current party line on the left is “Barack Obama doesn’t favor restoring the Fairness Doctrine!”.  I’ve heard it from no less than three different local lefties in the past 36 hours.

It’s true, sort of – in the same sense that “George Bush didn’t support McCain/Feingold”.  He didn’t.  Until Congress made it clear that they did, and he opted not to expend any political capital opposing it.

Because the threat isn’t Obama himself; it’s a Congressional Democrat caucus that’s already thoroughly committed to re-instating the Doctrine, combined with a President that, at best, is going to expend no political capital opposing a Democrat-controlled Congress on the issue.

Brian C. Anderson at the NYPost analyzes the reality:

SHOULD Barack Obama win the presidency and Democrats take full control of Congress, next year will see a real legislative attempt to bring back the Fairness Doctrine – and to diminish conservatives’ influence on broadcast radio, the one medium they dominate.

Yes, the Obama campaign said some months back that the candidate doesn’t seek to re-impose this regulation, which, until Ronald Reagan’s FCC phased it out in the 1980s, required TV and radio broadcasters to give balanced airtime to opposing viewpoints or face steep fines or even loss of license. But most Democrats – including party elders Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and Al Gore – strongly support the idea of mandating “fairness.”

Would a President Obama veto a new Fairness Doctrine if Congress enacted one? It’s doubtful.

The Democrats – and their RINOid supporters on the right, the thin film of Republicans who also support them on the Doctrine – paint a rosy picture to each other and the people about what a “Fairness” Doctrine means to free speech in this country.

Anderson has the ugly truth:

The Fairness Doctrine was an astonishingly bad idea. It’s a too-tempting power for government to abuse. When the doctrine was in effect, both Democratic and Republican administrations regularly used it to harass critics on radio and TV.

Most people have at least an idea – however vague and propaganda-driven – of the “what” of the Doctrine.  Few on either side know of the “how”:

Second, a new Fairness Doctrine would drive political talk radio off the dial. If a station ran a big-audience conservative program like, say, Laura Ingraham’s, it would also have to run a left-leaning alternative. But liberals don’t do well on talk radio, as the failure of Air America and indeed all other liberal efforts in the medium to date show. Stations would likely trim back conservative shows so as to avoid airing unsuccessful liberal ones.

Then there’s all the lawyers you’d have to hire to respond to the regulators measuring how much time you devoted to this topic or that. Too much risk and hassle, many radio executives would conclude. Why not switch formats to something less charged – like entertainment or sports coverage?

That, indeed, is exactly what talk radio was before 1987 (except at those very rare stations that could support political hosts on both sides of the aisle – and by “support”, I mean even putting a 25 year old kid on weekend graveyards to talk conservative politics); at all but the stations that could afford to commit to it, the subject was avoided. 

Anderson catches what is by far the most chilling facet of this story; the Orwellian hijacking of the language that the left will need to do to make this go down the American throat:

For those who dismiss this threat to freedom of the airwaves as unlikely, consider how the politics of “fairness” might play out with the public. A Rasmussen poll last summer found that fully 47 percent of respondents backed the idea of requiring radio and television stations to offer “equal amounts of conservative and liberal political commentary,” with 39 percent opposed.

Liberals, Rasmussen found, support a Fairness Doctrine by 54 percent to 26 percent, while Republicans and unaffiliated voters were more evenly divided. The language of “fairness” is seductive.

Who wouldn’t support being “Fair”, after all?

Of course, it’s ludicrous; there is  no shortage of left-leaning points of view in any medium, other than terrestrial radio (and the left has had ample chances to try to stake out a piece of that turf).  It dominates the print medium, broadcast TV, cable news (save Fox), public TV and radio…every medium save AM radio and the blogs.

Anderson notes, correctly, that the “Fairness” Doctrine is only one of the bureaucratic chicanes – albeit the marquee effort – the left is going to attempt:

[Obama] and most Democrats want to expand broadcasters’ public-interest duties. One such measure would be to impose greater “local accountability” on them – requiring stations to carry more local programming whether the public wants it or not.

And on the surface, this looks like a good thing – after all, my program is local.  Gotta be a good thing, right?

Well, not so much.  The public votes with its feet; and while everyone pays lip service to the benefit of local radio, the market still rewards quality – and for better or worse, the best quality is usually syndicated.   And that syndicated programming – everyone from Limbaugh on down – is rewarded with excellent numbers and tons of money. 

The left wants to kill this status quo with a thousand bureaucratic paper cuts:

 The reform would entail setting up community boards to make their demands known when station licenses come up for renewal. The measure is clearly aimed at national syndicators like Clear Channel that offer conservative shows. It’s a Fairness Doctrine by subterfuge.

Obama also wants to relicense stations every two years (not eight, as is the case now), so these monitors would be a constant worry for stations. Finally, the Democrats also want more minority-owned stations and plan to intervene in the radio marketplace to ensure that outcome.

Read the whole thing.  Become informed.  Because you never know when some mindless lefty parrot is going to greet the debate with “Obama opposes the Fairness Doctrine”, and assume that’s that.

Ray Suarez – the MPR/NPR talking head responsible for making Talk Of The Nation such an unctuous bore – says asking questions about The One is…well, racist, of course, silly:

The “pseudo controversies” about Obama’s background are symbols for a “racial calculus” hard at work in U.S. politics.

“Racial calculus” is one of those terms, like “political kabuki”, that people use to make a 25 cent theory sound like a dollar’s worth of thought.

Opinions about Obama’s inexperience, his childhood in Indonesia, and the persistent but untrue rumors of him being Muslim are stand-ins for something his detractors cannot admit, Suarez said.

Ray.  Bubbie.  Get a grip.

I’m hosed if I can think of a single credible conservative commentator – one that 99% of us would claim – who’s said word one about The One’s childhood or the “M” word. 

And if talking about his palpable inexperience is “racist”, well, what’s the point of talking about Presidential candidates at all?  I mean, the man makes John Edwards look like a solid professional. 

Particularly, “religion has become a proxy for race,” he said.

And “has become a proxy for race” has become one of the many proxies for McCarthyism.

“Do you now, or have you ever found anything about Barack Obama that led you not to support him?”

Postlude:  Remember all the Ashkkkroft Libertarians – the people who joked about Libertarians before January of 2001, the ones who thought Civil Liberties were the province of Rand-sodden bearded wackoes who lived in compounds in the Rockies, but suddenly became solem civil liberties junkies the moment John Ashcroft was sworn in as Attorney General, and spent the next eight years protecting this nation’s most vital liberties (flag burning, making statues of the Virgin Mary out of poop, and getting calls for people whom there is reasonable probable cause to believe are terrorists)?

Betcha they say not one thing about the liberties that an Obama administration will try to bulldoze; the First, Second and Tenth are all at immediate risk. 

Sure enough. As predicted, black boxes in cars will be required in all motor vehicles by 2012.

The device can be used by the manufacturer to determine if the car was abused in the case of warranty issues (fair enough) but can also be used by attorneys or law enforcement to gather data that “can and will be used against you in a court of law” (no thanks).

A Florida man named Scott Weires (who is an attorney incidentally – JR) has canceled the order for his long-awaited Nissan GT-R. Why? It’s not that he was disappointed in the car’s performance credentials, far from it. The problem is that the GT-R is equipped with a ‘black box’, similar in theory to the kind found on airplanes to help determine what went wrong in case of an accident or breakdown. By the end of 2012, car buyers won’t have a choice as to whether their new car is equipped with a ‘black box,’ or Electronic Data Recorder — they will be federally mandated to carry one.

Florida man cancels Nissan GT-R order due to ‘black box’ 

That’s at least one consumer voting with his checkbook. No word yet on whether the devices will be defeatable.

I can see all sorts of great arguments in favor of lowering the drinking age to 18:  if a kid can join the military and drive a submarine or operate a cannon, they should be able to get a beer.  If someone is deemed responsible enough to sign a contract, vote, have paternity enforced or be charged as an adult, they’re old enough to drink.

As MLP notes, quite correctly, over at Casual Sundays, none of those are the reasons the university presidents are talking about pushing for a lower age:

Instead of arguing for American’s rights, and against the over reach of the federal government which put the current legal drinking age in place– raise the age in your state or we’ll cut off your federal highway funds– in what universe is that not blackmail?–they are using the nanny-state-non-argument that lowering the age will cut down on binge drinking.

No it won’t.

Kids don’t binge drink because the legal limit is 21, they do it because they are morons.  Isn’t alcohol poisoning Darwinism at it’s best?

Why is it that some people (by “some people” I mean liberals), instead of reaching for a rock solid, Constitutional truth, would rather grab at the fluffy, gossamer of ‘we’re only doing it for your own good’ ?

What’s really going on here is not a push for the liberty of  American adults but a bunch of college administrator’s who are trying to preserve as much of the nanny state as possible while avoiding the necessity of answering uncomfortable questions when their students die of stupidity.

Why yes – do read the whole thing.

The other day, I hired a plumber. When he got to he door, a couple of Code Pink harpies were waiting for him.

That was weird.

Charlie Quimby

Private contractors aren’t only in Iraq. They’re on the scene wherever public resources are deemed not sufficient to serve the needs of the wealthy.

The injustice inherent in the system is everywhere.

People whose plumbing needs fixing but have no money do it themselves. If they have money, hiring a plumber is an option.

Some people go to accountants, or to H’nR Block, and spend their “wealth” to serve their need to get their taxes done. Others, whose resources are deemed not sufficient, use TurboTax.

Companies that are wealthy enough to be able to think about things like “usability” hire me – a contractor (through most of my career) who doesn’t serve the needs of poor, struggling companies.

A relative and career forest fire fighter confirms that insurance company crews have been showing up to foam the roofs of multi-million-dollar houses in places like Big Sur. In California, public agencies trying to manage fire on a broader scale have already run through half their budgets before reaching the main fire season, which starts in August.

To some of us, that sounds like “the wealthy are taking the load off of the public agencies, allowing them to spend their resources on areas that need the help”. It’s downright civic-minded…

…or so it seems to me, a simple conservative.

I guess it’d be more communitarian if they all just let their homes burn down…

One thing about liberals; when the courts rule in their favor, they demand compliance, and to silence all opposition (see: Planned Parenthood protests).

But let them lose a case, and their weaselling looks like one of those hapless schlubs on Cops: “Officer, can you prove that was me driving the car? Just seeing me alone in the car isn’t proof…”.

And the unintended consequences…well…

Carnivore at TvM noticed this little bit:

D.C. has decided that it will only register revolvers and is refusing to register semi-automatic handguns, the type which millions of people find suitable for self-defense and in common use.

So, the Ruger Mark II pistol chambered in .22LR, with 10 shot magazine is still banned.

But the Smith & Wesson 617 revolver in .22LR, with 10 shot cylinder is not banned.

The Smith & Wesson Model 500 revolver with massive .50 Caliber cartridge (Right) is OK.

(Not to scale)

But the Beretta 950 Tomcat chambered in marginal .32ACP with 7 shot magazine is still banned.

And lest you thought Carnivore wasn’t a real gun geek – yes, he did peg the ultimate handgun trivia question:

I wonder what the police manual says to do if someone tries to register a rare Webley-Fosbery semi-automatic revolver.

That’s right – a semi-automatic revolver.

(MINNESOROS MONITOR STAFFER: “You mean they’re not all semi-automatic?”)

When you’ve been a Second Amendment activist long enough, you eventually realize something – something that is at once depressing and liberating. Depressing because you realize so many of your fellow Americans are incapable of framing a logical argument; liberating because it means you can have a life, and dispense with most of the sturm and drang that goes along with an actual challenging argument.

When lefties argue about guns, eventually, after you shred them on facts (and if you’re moderately competent, you always, always, always shred them on the facts), they revert to one of the following:

1. Spin a nonexisent penumbra from whole cloth: This, the first stage, used to be a lot more fruitful for them, when Laurence Tribe was still among the “Collective Right” orcs. But once even he got the big flamin’ clue, it became a lot more fruitless (as commenter Penigma/Leftout/maybe a few other handles demonstrates in this thread at Centrisity – whose author Flash at least has always been correct on this issue, anyway).
2. Insult your genitals: “OK, well, maybe that’s a fact, but I think the reason you gun nuts are so excited about guns is because you’re, hnyuk, hnyuk, compensating for something…hnyuk”. It’s always delivered with the little edge that makes it sound like they think they actually are the first person to use this line, but with a pacing that’s about two steps removed from Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade. And yes, when we argue impassionedly for our beliefs, we are compensating – for the fact that our votes count the same as those of the sort of pantloads that think they’re being clever with this line. Retire it, commies.
3. “The Founding Fathers were referring to muskets!”

Vide “MNob”, an alleged a lawyer (no, I do know she’s an actual lawyer, albeit one with a history of being really bad at explaining law to her readers), writing at Cucking Stool:

So in District of Columbia v. Heller the Supreme Court has found that the Washington D.C. gun control statute is invalid because it is at odds with what the writers of the Constitution had in mind when they drafted the Second Amendment.

REVERT ALERT!

No word yet on whether the citizens of the District will be limited to the single-shot, front loaded muskets that the drafters also had in mind when they wrote the Amendment

Um, no. No word on that.

Also no “word” on whether the First will be limited to the town criers, movable type broadsheets, small community churches and assemblies of white males in towns of less than 50,000 that existed when it was drafted.

Or if the Fourth will leave out international crimes unknown to the founders.

Or if the Fifth would prohibit eminent domain by corporations, which were exceedingly rare in 1789.

About the Sixth and Seventh only applying to juries made up of landed men? Still silent.

Or if the Eighth still primarily abjures things like burning at th stake and roasting over coals (common in the collective memory of the drafters) in preference for the non-cruel, non-unusual public group hangings of the day.

Also nothing on whether the the Ninth and Tenth…well, being a liberal, MNob doesn ‘t know either of those.

For that matter they were quiet on whether the whole “of the People” thing will still refer to white males who own property.

“What?”, you say? “Nowhere in the Bill of Rights is specific technology mentioned? And they provide no specific applications for principles? Why, it’s almost as if the Founding Fathers, many of whom were both the technocrats of their day and incurable optimists, knew that the technology of our society was going to change in the future, and were smart enough to write a constitution based on principles rather than niggling nit-picking about specific bits of applied science and social mores of the day? Who knew?”

Well, I know someone who doesn’t.

At any rate, MNob, I can set you up with some quill pens and parchment to help kick off your new originalist blogging career. No, seriously, don’t mention it.

UPDATE:  I still haven’t had time to read the decision – I may be taking the afternoon off and spending part of it on that.

But commenter Master of None notes that, indeed, there is “word” on MNob’s complaint.

From Scalia (quoting MoN):

“Some have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous, that only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment. We do not interpret constitutional rights that way… the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.”

Wow.

Word!

Screencapped from the latest HuffPo:

Wow.  Are our ruling elites paranoid much?

I’m going to speed-fisk the whole thing, really quickly here:

Oooh! Scary!

Yep.  I hope that’s what every criminal scumbag in the US is seeing in their heads right about now; armed, empowered citizens.  Firing hardball.

Right.  Between.  The.  Eyes.

REACTIONS… Bloomberg: Ruling Is What We Mayors Believe Is One Of Our Tenets…

Oh, Mayor Bloomberg believes it’s one of your tenets?  Well, why don’t you slip out of NYC and buy yourself a country and write  your own constitution and appoint  your own court, then, slapnuts!  You and Arianna Huffington can have a splendid time!

Obama: Ruling Provides Much Needed Guidance …

What’s the shelf-life on this pronouncement?

McCain: Not The End Of Our Struggle…

Duly noted.

Chicago Mayor: “A Very Frightening Decision”…

“Frightening”?  You mean, like the reign of gang terror on Chicago’s streets?  That kind of “frightening”?  What “frightens” you about the common citizen’s God-given rights, you elitist douchebag?

First Major Pronouncement On Gun Rights In U.S. History…

But not the last.

Strikes Down DC’s 32-Year-Old Handgun Ban…

And danced on its grave.

Decision Goes Further Than Even What White House Wanted…

So what?  We don’t look to the  White House for the final word on our God-given rights, either.

NRA Head: This Is Just The Beginning…

It had better be.

NRA To File More Lawsuits To Challenge Handgun Restrictions

Let slip the dogs of forty years of retribution.

I’m so there.

Allahpundit at Hotair, with emphasis added:

Kennedy was the deciding vote — or, if you prefer, Alito was the deciding vote. Would O’Connor or Harriet Miers have voted the same way? If nothing else, Bush at least delivered this.

Remember this.

There’ll be a couple of SCOTUS seats coming open in the next administration.  And there will be cases just as important to liberty as Heller confronting the court.

Can’t shut ’em up with reason, or in the marketplace?

Sic the government on ’em!

The speaker of the House made it clear to me and more than forty of my colleagues yesterday that a bill by Rep. Mike Pence (R.-Ind.) to outlaw the “Fairness Doctrine” (which a liberal administration could use to silence Rush Limbaugh, other radio talk show hosts and much of the new alternative media) would not see the light of day in Congress during ’08. In ruling out a vote on Pence’s proposed Broadcaster’s Freedom Act, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-CA.) also signaled her strong support for revival of the “Fairness Doctrine” — which would require radio station owners to provide equal time to radio commentary when it is requested.

And that?  That was the good news!

“Do you personally support revival of the ‘Fairness Doctrine?’” I asked.

“Yes,” the speaker replied, without hesitation

Let’s dispense with a myth here:  “The Fairness Doctrine” is about making the public airwaves public again”: Oh, goody.  Then we’ll also bring federal sanctions against the imbalances in the print media?  Academia (especially public academia)?

It’s a simple lie:

Experts say that the “Fairness Doctrine,” which was ended under the Reagan Administration, would put a major burden on small radio stations in providing equal time to Rush Limbaugh and other conservative broadcasters, who are a potent political force. Rather than engage in the costly practice of providing that time, the experts conclude, many stations would simply not carry Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and other talk show hosts who are likely to generate demands for equal time.

Let’s remember a couple of things:

1. Limbaugh, Hannity, Hewitt, Ingraham, Medved, Bennett and Savage are free to radio stations.  No radio station pays a nickel to carry their programs.
2. If  they are forced  by law to “balance”  the likes of Limbaugh and company, most stations will do what they did before 1987:  punt.  They’ll avoid politics altogether; they’ll broadcast the bland teleshrink or blander, crypto-liberal MPR-Lite pap like Owen Span and Larry King.  Or they’ll pick up on the biggest trend in talk radio in 1985-86 – “Brokered Talk”, selling airtime to real estate agents and investment advisors and nutrition supplement dealers.  That’s the way talk was headed up until the Fairness Doctrine was repealed.
3. Or they can look for successful free “liberal” talk to fill out their requirements under the Fairness Doctrine.Um, yeah.  Good luck with that.

This is a coup against the First Amendment.  There is no other explanation.

(Which isn’t to say that I don’t want my left-of-center readers to try to provide one.  Expect a spirited response).

MaryW, writing at the new District 66B GOP blog, notes an event that an awful lot of Republicans should oughtta attend:

Minnesotans for Limited Government (MNLG) is a newly established political action committee dedicated to promoting the idea that individual and economic freedom be the first consideration of any government.

We are having a kick-off picnic to celebrate MNLG and the summer! We will be grilling burgers, brats and hot dogs along with serving an assortment of other goodies.

Politics and cookout food?  It gets no better!  The party is going to feature healthcare privace expert Twila Brase, CD5 Congressional candidate Barb Davis White, gadfly Sue Jeffers, and my own candidate in the Fourth, Ed Matthews!

Of course, political and economic freedom must be joined by one other key factor; security.  Without judicious security, there is no freedom.

But that’s what picnics are for! 

I am going to try to get there!

Lileks and I were talking last Saturday on the NARNII show about the real “Two Americas” in this country. There’s a pessimistic America that believes the nation is spinning into a vortex of decay, global warming, and rich-vs.-poor civil war on the one hand – an American that thinks the rest of America needs its soul “saved” (not to name any names here). And there’s an America that is optimistic – that retains the spirit of its immigrant forefathers who came to this land to find a new, better life.

One America thinks our best days are behind us, and gets a secret tingle up their leg watching The Day After Tomorrow (“That’ll teach you to drive SUVs and ignore Mother Earth!”), and believes that we’d better quit nattering about freedom and the market and liberty and just hush up and listen to our older, wiser betters in China and India. One America sings “America: F*** Yeah!” with simultaneous comic irony and pit-of-the-gut sincerity.

One America voted for Jimmy “Malaise” Carter, Walter “Sure, I’ll Raise Your Taxes” Mondale, Michael “Look At Me In My Tank” Dukakis, Algore, John Kerry and Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, and quietly waits for the inferno to overtake them; many of them even avoid having children, either because their thoughts of the future are so dismal or, in extreme cases, because they believe the human race should voluntarily extinct itself. The other America elected Ronald Reagan, flocked to see Rambo, waved the flag at times that made that other America blanche with embarassment, bought Smith and Wesson Model 29s and dared you to pry them from their cold, dead hands, and quietly contributed to the downfall of a genuinely evil empire, leaving the world a much better place than it’d been ten years earlier.

Now, I believe a couple of things:

1. The world’s going to run out of oil. Not real soon, but eventually.
2. The free market – assuming it’s allowed to be free – will anticipate and react to that inevitability faster than government will. People will adapt their behaviors in the short run (as they are today with gas prices); as the supply of oil contracts, the market will present alternatives.
3. The market will present these alternatives long before government can mandate them. Long before the government can lay a half-mile grid of trolley tracks in every American city, industry will have developed an electric or fuel-cell car, running from something we do have in great profusion – nuclear-generated electricity, waste material, paperwork from failed Tic programs, whatever.
4. Government actions will exacerbate the problem.

Let’s go back to optimism for a bit.

James and I were talking about how crushing pessimism was one of the dominant leitmotifs of American pop culture over the past fifty years. We also noted that next week’s Minnesota Street Rod Association convention at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds (at which the NARN will be broadcasting!) harkens back to an era when America was profoundly optimistic – where the sky, and beyond, was the limit. Cars were big, brawny, cheery and optimistic.

I noted, in contrast, that this is the face of the current American car-buying public (or at least the stereotype of it):

Now, the Prius is a perfectly fine car – Toyota builds a good vehicle, yadda yadda.

But I noted that other car makers had tried their hands at building hybrids – Honda, Volvo et al – and gotten dicier results in the hybrid market; they’d made the “mistake” of merely building hybridized versions of their regular cars. In other words, their “normal”-looking hybrids failed in the market, while Toyota dealers can’t keep the dorky-looking Prius in stock.

The reason, of course, is that the people who are concerned about “global warming” today want to be seen doing the vehicular equivalent of wearing a hair shirt. They want to drive a car that looks like a rolling cockroach, thus to feel closer to the nature into which they feel we are all about to decay anyway.

My statement; America – at least, the part of America that flies the flag and hears “God Bless the USA” with a certain tingle of pride even as they cringe at the mawkishness, the America that flies the flag on June 14, right-side up, no flame involved – will take the notion of alternative transportation into their hearts only when electric vehicles look like this…:

…only when hybrids look like this…:

Only when a ride on a light rail train looks like this:

…rather than some exercise in self-abnegation and penitence to Mother Earth (like Michelle Obama envisions for us…):

Then – when the idea of “alternatives” are seen not as expressions of shame, of crabbling about after the crumbs of our betters, of finding comfort in societal doom, but rather of progress rather than decay, of skill and prowess rather than doom – then, America will embrace these ideas.

So sign me up for the first electric Porsche 914.

Er…maybe the first one in the third year of production, anyway.

Kevin Ecker over at True North and Eckernet notes that today just might be the big day:

Here is a pretty good roundup of what to expect from this decision, especially since it makes the distinction between upholding the Second Amendment for a number of purposes, most notably civic and personal. The author (Mike O’Shea) is right that there is a general consensus amongst airchair justices that the Second Amendment will in all liklihood be upheld….so the debate comes down to finer distinctions.

I fully expect this decision to essentially tapdance around the Miller 1939 decision, and come down in favor of private rights, leaving the argument for/against civic uses essentially twisting in the wind. Is I wrote previously, SCOTUS made it clear from the start that their decision would be limited to the case at hand, which is an issue of private usage.

Civic usage is likely to remain undecided, allowing states pretty wide latitude to ban “scary guns”. While SCOTUS, due to it’s non-elected state, is theoretically free from having to respond to public whims that may change from day to day, I don’t think most of the Justices want to come forward with a decision of essentially granting everyone the right to a howitzer.

The answer – to those of us who’ve been through this already (in my case, Minnesota’s ten-year-long battle over “shall-issue” carry permitting) is that the courts would do well to leave those decisions to the states; this is a battle that the howitzer-American community (hypothetically) needs to fight in the various legislatures.

This case – presuming the SCOTUS decides properly – will not win “the war”.  If Heller scuppers the District of Columbia’s racist gun ban, it’ll be analogous to getting across Omaha Beach.  It’ll be a signal that one of the most noxious effects of the gun control spree of the sixties and seventies has been reversed. But it’ll also mean that we civil liberties supporters will have to redouble our efforts.  We have a lot of ground yet to win, and  it’ll have to be won the hard way; one legislator, and one voter, at a time, before we can put the last anti-gun orc to the rhetorical sword.

I, for one, can hardly wait.

Over the past few years – perhaps because he’s been eying national office – Barack Obama has been cleaning up his act on guns.

It’s not a huge surprise; guns have been a third rail for the Dems for about a decade.  The ’94 “Crime Bill”, with its draconian, capricious intrusions into the rights of the law-abiding gun owner, mobilized the long-sleeping giant of the NRA, whose membership soared through the roof.  The gun owner was a very significant part of the Gingrich Revolution (and was probably what put Rod Grams over the top against Ann Wynia that year).  ’94 was the year Minnesota’s Gun Owner’s Civil Rights Alliance (and its child, Concealed Carry Reform Now) hit their stride, and began the most successful bit of grassroots politics in recent Minnesota history – the ten year battle of the common, bipartisan, law-abiding citizen against the soulless bureaucrat, the snivelling elitist, and the racist pettifoggers who’d bedeviled them. It’s been one victory after another since then – and if the SCOTUS’ Heller decision breaks the right way later this month, the best may yet be to come.

Against this backdrop, of course Obama is going to make nice.

Given his past history, according to James Taranto, it’s probably good that we work our butts off to keep it that way.

Back in April, columnist Robert Novak noted that Barack Obama was performing a “dance” on the topic of gun rights:

Obama, disagreeing with the D.C. government and gun control advocates, declares that the Second Amendment’s “right of the people to keep and bear arms” applies to individuals, not just the “well regulated militia” in the amendment. In the next breath, he asserts that this constitutional guarantee does not preclude local “common sense” restrictions on firearms.

The government of the District of Columbia is defending a gun ban before the Supreme Court, with a decision expected this month.

Now, I don’t mind if a guy changes his mind – in the right direction.

Of course, that which flips might eventully flop, when it becomes expedient.

As, for Obama, it once was:

The National Rifle Association Web site has a list of those “common sense” restrictions Obama has favored. One of them caught the eye of blogger David Hardy:

Barack Obama supported a proposal to ban gun stores within 5 miles of a school or park, which would eliminate almost every gun store in America.

…Five miles? As Hardy notes, the effect of this would be to “eliminate almost every gun store in America.”…

…The proposal Obama endorsed in 1999 would have banned gun stores within five miles, or 26,400 feet, of a school. Imagine the same maps with each of those circles 10 miles across. Gun stores would be permitted only in the most remote rural areas–and only if there is also no park within five miles.

The Defender article also reported that Obama proposed “to make it a felony for a gun owner whose firearm was stolen from his residence which causes harm to another person if that weapon was not securely stored in that home.”

The point, of course, is to save the flip, prevent the flop:

To be sure, these are positions Obama took as a state legislator. It is unlikely that he would stand by them today, and even unlikelier that Congress would enact them. But it does lead one to think that Obama’s instinct is to trash, rather than protect, the Constitution.

It’s all back there somewhere.

Just to set the stage for the Supreme Court’s Heller decision, which should be coming out in the next couple of weeks.

Check this out:

Wow. Lookit all those guns – most of them fully-automatic weapons. And that ain’t the half of ’em.

Here’s the other half:

Not just fully-automatic weapons by the dozen! Not just big ones – two M2HB .50 caliber machine guns, another with the WWII aerial barrel, Russian and German water-cooled Maxims, and a Pearl-Harbor-vintage Browning water-cooled M1 .50, an even dozen Tommy guns, and a few AK-series that seem downright prosaic in comparison – but a flamethrower.

Why, with all those machine guns, this guy must have killed hundreds of people out in the street!

Well, no. It’s the gun collection of the late Charlton Heston, who never killed a guy that didn’t come back to life for the second take.

I’m wondering if the estate will lend it to the MOB for “MOB Day At the Range”, coming soon to a firing range near you?

Keith Ellison (F – MN CD5) speaking at the “Media Reform” conference last week in Minneapolis: “We need a strong, diverse media”. “The problem is, you don’t have enough actors out there making sure the people know what’s going on…if[the people] get a diverse diet of news, they’ll make the right decision!”

Wow. Sounds like a good start, huh? And it’d seem like he’s gotten his wish! In a media market where anyone can set up their own outlet, where 2,000 radio stations carry talk radio, where scads of community newspapers and small radio stations (like Minneapolis’ KFAI) carry a dizzying variety of viewpoints, we sure must have that “diverse diet”.

Sadly, it was not to be.   Ellison tacitly called for the censorship of talk radio (the word seems to have gone out to to lefty minions refer to it as “hate radio” at every turn), a shutdown of Fox News, and – most incredibly of all – government subsidy of traditional, lefty-friendly newspapers (9:33 in this video).

Oh, yeah – and listen to the bit at 3:30 and tell me the whole “Media Reform” conference wasn’t a partisan Nuremberg rally.

Other howlers:

• Conservative “Think tanks” have “studios” from whence they “pump out our message” to “our media people” via “hate radio?”
• Ellison calls for speech rationing (4:30)
• claimed that Reagan raised taxes (5:40)
• claims America is an “imperial power” (7:24)
• says illegal immigration isn’t the problem – merely “trade agreements that turn people against each other!” (13:00)

Watch the whole thing.  For extra laughs, check out the crowd; as Scott Johnson notes, “Note the tepid audience response to Ellison’s inquiry at 8:00 regarding the employment status of the assembled multitude.”

Even George Soros can’t employ every leftymedia shill.
(Via Lassie and Charles)

America’s real quagmire deepens.

Only this time no surge is going to help it:

D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced a military-style checkpoint yesterday to stop cars this weekend in a Northeast Washington neighborhood inundated by gun violence, saying it will help keep criminals out of the area.

Er, wait – how can this be? They have a civilian gun ban in DC!

Starting on Saturday, officers will check drivers’ identification and ask whether they have a “legitimate purpose” to be in the Trinidad area, such as going to a doctor or church or visiting friends or relatives. If not, the drivers will be turned away.

Your papers, please.

The Neighborhood Safety Zone initiative is the latest crime-fighting attempt by Lanier and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, who have been under pressure from residents to stop a recent surge in violence. Last weekend was especially bloody, with seven slayings, including three in the Trinidad area.

“In certain areas, we need to go beyond the normal methods of policing,” Fenty (D) said at a news conference announcing the action. “We’re going to go into an area and completely shut it down to prevent shootings and the sale of drugs.”

“We had to destroy the city, and its residents’ civil liberties, to save them”.

The checkpoint will stop vehicles approaching the 1400 block of Montello Avenue NE…Police will search cars if they suspect the presence of guns or drugs, and will arrest people who do not cooperate, under a charge of failure to obey a police officer, officials said.

There’s a bit of a loophole:

The strategy, patterned after a similar effort conducted years ago in New York, is not airtight. There are many ways to get in and out of Trinidad, not just on the one-way Montello Avenue. And pedestrians will not be stopped, which is something critics say might render the program ineffective.

“I guess the plan is to hope criminals will not walk into neighborhoods,” said D.C. Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large). “I also suppose the plan is to take the criminal’s word for it when he or she gives the police a reason for driving into a neighborhood.”

Or – y’know – non-criminals, too?

I digress.

Council member Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5), who represents Trinidad and other parts of Northeast Washington, said he had informal discussions with Lanier in which she had mentioned the possibility of the checkpoint announced yesterday, but he got little notice before the news conference. Civil liberties are always a concern, said Thomas, who maintained that residents are so concerned about violence that they will be willing to give the latest program a try.

“I think the general consensus is that we have to do something because people live in fear,” he said. “What would you rather have?” he asked. “A positive pattern of [police] checking things . . . or these folks who come into the community and wreak havoc?”

Ironically, the DC Metro trains already run on time.

Ramsey County (which includes Saint Paul) sheriff Bob Fletcher is nothing if not a controversial figure in the metro and throughout Minnesota.

He’s been assailed by his deputies (for his alleged human resources practices), his political foes, his county’s Charter Commission (which came a cat’s whisker away from recommending his position be made appointed – the only one in Minnesota). 

And now, according to Doug Hester at Northern Muckraker, it’d seem his department is interfering with the issuance and renewal of carry permits.

Even though the 2003-2005 changes in Minnesota’s law instituted a “shall issue” process for issuing permits, the county sheriff still exercises much power over those who wish to apply for or renew carry permits.  Hester notes:

Nowhere do the issues of Fletcher’s spending habits and his reputation for doing things his own way come together more neatly than on his seemingly maverick policy of issuing handgun carry permits. There have been rumors for years that the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office has improperly spent thousands of dollars on over budgeted resources for the department responsible for issuing permits, has wasted even more taxpayer money by having to pay attorney fees for a significant number of permit applicants who successfully appeal their denial to a judge, and, most disturbingly, the Sheriff’s Office has been widely suspected of systematically denying handgun carry permits to a much larger percentage of applicants than the other counties in Minnesota, for no reasonable explanation.

It’s a multipart series, with much supporting data; it’s a non-trivial read.  I’ll be following up later this week.

UPDATE:  Welcome Politics In Minnesota readers.  PIM was nice enough to link to me – it’s always a day brightener! – but I direct you to Doug Hester’s Northern Muckracker, who is actually working the story – and has a new installment out today!

David “Media Ueber Alles” Brauer read the State Department of Education’s report on Tarek Ibn Ziyad Academy, and sees NO-tink, NO-think!:

The bottom line, to me, is that Kersten’s overarching concern — illegal Islamic education — is largely unfounded. TIZA’s problems come down to one 30-minute Friday break and changing after-school busing.

Things worth fixing? Definitely. A massively overblown controversy? Definitely.

Scott Johnson at Powerline begs to differ.

Yesterday the department issued its findings in the investigation prompted by Kersten’s columns. The Star Tribune reports on the findings in “State orders charter school to correct 2 areas tied to Islam.” The findings vindicate Kersten’s reportage, ordering the school to reform its practices concerning its weekly Friday prayer service and its extension of the school day. The department found that both of these practices crossed the line. (The department also found that the school’s Monday-Thursday prayer services were student-led and therefore permissible. The department does not understand applicable constitutional law in this area.)

Beyond that?

The department discussed the “after-school” Muslim Studies program run by the Muslim American Society/Minnesota, the state chapter of the national offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. MAS/Minnesota owns the building in which TIZA operates, runs a mosque in the building, and provides religious instruction at the end of the day. The department asserts that the Muslim Studies program is fee-based and voluntary. Zaman purports to be unable to provide statistics concerning enrollment in the Muslim Studies program. Zaman is not only the TIZA principal, however, he is also an officer of MAS/Minnesota. Who is kidding whom? The Minnesota Department of Education’s investigation is of the kind perfected by Inspector Clouseau.

So is Scott being overpunctilious?  Is David Brauer ingenuously taking the word of a state agency at face value (as long as it’s not Carol Molnau’s MNDoT)?  We’ll see.

Now, I don’t personally have a problem with this; I think that religious groups should  be able to start charter schools – subject to state law.  Is the Department of Education following applicable law?  I’m no lawyer – and either is David Brauer.

But Scott is…

Brauer, however, hasn’t written about this bit here yet…:

KSTP Eyewitness News sent a reporter and crew out to TIZA to get a reaction to the Minnesota Department of Education findings from Zaman. KSTP reports that its crew crew was attacked by Zaman and another school official. Its cameraman was injured while wrestling with Zaman and his sidekick over the camera. In the video of the KSTP report, Zaman goes right for the cameraman’s camera. Where is Clouseau’s servant Kato when you need him? And what is it that Zaman does not want Minnesotans to see?

We called Greiling a thug when the Star Tribune posted her letter to the editor calling on the Star Tribune to fire her. In Greiling’s case, the use of the term was metaphorical. Zaman is the real deal.

So it would seem.