It has some.

Over at Terry Frank’s, State Senator Jamie Woodson non-explains the retarded anti-free speech bill she tried to slip by with the help of Rep Briley. Briley was either 1) a toadie, 2) incompetent; or 3) a liar. Says the senator:

The bill that Chairman Briley inadvertently filed was a working draft of legislation proposed to me by a third year student at The University of Tennessee College of Law. I received the request in November 2006, prior to the convening of this legislative session. The student’s concerns related to encouraging web-site owners to remove knowingly defamatory statements against individuals from their web-site. This appeared like a reasonable subject of legislative discussion to me.

That is a mockery of our system of law and you should be ashamed. It’s almost like saying yeah, I just throw these out here without reading them. You just take random bills from random people and run them up the flag pole to see who salutes? So, I propose the following bill and any Tennessee reps who want to file it, go for it:

BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE

Tennessee Code Annotated, section XX, is amended by adding the following language:

Senator Goodson has made a mockery of law through negligence or incompetence. As such, each citizen of the State of Tennessee is entitled to deliver one swift kick to her buttocks.

What? Someone could file it. Her response is utter nonsense or an admission of incompetence.

AC has a round up.

When domain names go bad. My favorite: penisland.net.

And a new category!

I don’t get sweater vests. I’ve never been cold and had my arms stay warm. I guess they’re like shorts for your torso, only you wear stuff under them. So, it’s like wearing shorts over your pants. The only use I see them having is to 1) conceal a gun or 2) carry stuff. And they look gay.

Heh.

Update: Good:

State Rep. Rob Briley has withdrawn his anti-blogger legislation

Update: Says Briley:

It was never my intent to file this legislation. It originated in the Senate and was brought to me by a Senator to see if I would consider filing it. While reviewing a number of bills that I had been asked to review, this particular bill was inadvertently placed among those that I had agreed to and intended to file.

So, you willy-nilly introduce bills by mistake, likely without reading them? I’m glad the process of passing laws that affect us all is such a finely tuned, efficient process with adequate controls.

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Is that libel?

Update: Aunt B. wants to know why he hates blogs.

Update 2: AC:

I’m not a big one for letter writing activism but you might want to give Big Rob a shout and tell him to take down his bill and apologize.

And, see, I can show restraint. The original title of this post was (foul language warning)

Read the rest of this entry »

I hate it. I hate dealing with the sales guys. I hate dealing with finance guys. Can’t stand it. But we grabbed a Honda Pilot (4WD just in time for the non-snow) mentioned here. We went by to finish up some paperwork and all that. This is the part where my wife became annoyed because my credit score blew hers out of the water. Hers is still great, mind you, but mine is a few points shy of the max. So, the finance guy said we’d get a better rate if I was the applicant.

I don’t know why they call him the Finance Manager since he’s really the Sell You Extended Warranties and Other Shit You Don’t Need Manager. We were, no shit, in this guy’s office for an hour and every few minutes he’d get up and go check on something (his words) while we were left to discuss some piece of junk package he wanted to sell us. The third time he left to go check on something, I looked at the wife and said This guy has 20 minutes to get us out the door or this deal is off. This is taking way too long. I’ve closed on houses faster than this. He came back and was most expeditious this time. I figure they have a microphone in the Sell You Extended Warranties and Other Shit You Don’t Need Manager’s office and he heard me.

Any way, we got the car. And dig it. But one other bit of bad ju-ju: They detailed and cleaned the car for us last night and had it looking quite spiffy. But, in case you haven’t heard, we were supposed to have a blizzard today. So, the Mrs. had the misfortune of being stuck behind a salt truck on her way home after having her brand new car detailed. So, it looks like she’s been off-roading at the beach. Bummer. And, of course, the blizzard never came. Stupid global warming

Seen at Joe’s:

A 80 year old man was shot and killed by undercover police after he told them to leave his property. He brandished a gun and they shot and killed him. Witnesses say the officers never told him they were undercover.

One difference this time is that the police are admitting their error:

Police are now conceding that Singletary was completely innocent. The Jacksonville sheriff describes him in this article as an “honest citizen trying to do good.”

Which means that two undercover officers trespassed onto Singletary’s property. They then invited criminals onto his property to engage in criminal activity with them. Mr. Singletary, recognizing the trespassers as drug dealers, then properly demanded they leave. He brought a gun along to defend himself, not an unreasonable action, given the circumstances. For this, he was shot to death.

As was seen in the Kathryn Johnston case, the blue shield usually comes up with people suddenly becoming tight-lipped. I have to say kudos to the sheriff in this case.

I figured that Biden’s comments about Barrack Hussein Obama would be defended with some righteousness from the lefty blogs. Instead, they came down on him. Good for them. Though some commenters are defending him.

But, here’s an observation: Biden basically said what the media have been pushing for a year or so now. After all, Obama is really a rather mediocre political candidate. His career has not been that long nor has it been particularly stellar. Why the love affair if not due to race, presence, and looks? Take out race, and he’s John Edwards.

Look out, he’s got righteous indignation:

Finally, and again using your reported numbers, there are 408,250 law-abiding, concealed carrying Floridians who have the means to defend themselves and their loved ones (and perhaps you and your loved ones as well) from an attack by an armed criminal. Frankly, I’m much more comforted by that thought than I am by the prospect that all I have to answer a criminal’s armed assault is your paper’s righteous indignation.

I’m not really a fan, figuring it’s a states’ rights issue. But David Hardy has the text of the Thune-Nelson national reciprocity bill. I don’t like the means but am not hostile to the ends.

Update: More on the bill here.

Paul Helmke’s (president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Ownership) record:

But in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the crime rates didn’t look as good as national rates. As writer Howard Nemerov points out in his recent column, “Fuzzy Math,” during Helmke’s last five years in office -from 1995 to 2000-the national drop in violent crime outpaced Fort Wayne’s drop in crime by nearly 10 percent. Murder, rape and aggravated assaults … all of those crimes were worse in Fort Wayne than the national average.

But in the five years after Helmke left office, just the opposite happened. Fort Wayne’s crime rate was 11 percent LOWER than the national average.

This time, at the Denver Post:

The legislation, House Bill 1011, sponsored by Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, would expand the current home-intruder law to include people who feel threatened by another person while in their cars and businesses. It creates the “presumption” that the person in the house or car or business “has a reasonable fear of imminent death or serious bodily injury” to themselves or others.

Current law places the onus on home occupants to prove they were in fear of their lives. Gardner’s bill places the burden on police and prosecutors to prove they weren’t. That’s preposterous.

And, precisely, why is it preposterous:

We’re satisfied that Colorado already has ample law to immunize potential victims of, say, carjackings and business intrusions from prosecution. Moreover, HB 1011 has the potential to expand gun violence. Colorado law allows people to carry concealed weapons in their homes, cars and businesses. It seems to us that this measure will have the unintended consequence of providing cover to criminals, including gang members, who decide to shoot from their cars.

Well, when you make shit up, it is preposterous. What the bill actually does, as stated in the article, is create the presumption of innocence. A gang banger shooting from a car should be fairly easy to prove that it’s not a self-defense situation.