Here’s a good rundown of the pending eminent domain case that is to be heard by the Supreme Court.

Here are two stories covering the same tragic incident of a child attacked by a dog. Story one:

Investigators call it the worst pit bull attack in recent memory: an 18-month-old Cannon County girl left to fend for herself while her caretaker slept inside. Now the child is in critical but stable condition in a Nashville hospital while her mother’s boyfriend faces charges.

Her youthful resilience might spare her, but it was childlike curiosity that led 18-month-old Bre’el Thomas down a path and into the jaws of a vicious pit bull. Sheree Gregg found the little girl after the savage mauling.

Story two:

A Woodbury toddler remains in critical condition at a Nashville hospital after being mauled by a pit bulldog.

Police say the dog was chained at a home near the house trailer which 18-month-old Breel Thomas wandered from.

The child’s mother, Laura Stock, had left her in the care of her boyfriend, Jeffrey Thomas. Police say Thomas was drunk and didn’t watch Breel.

The first story opens with words like vicious and savage. The first story (only after using words to raise your hair) does conclude by stating that no one in the family blamed the dog.

Searching for a house is a lot of fun. Going to open houses, driving around scouting out neighborhoods, daydreaming about where we might end up and what we’ll do with more than 860 sq/ft. But the stress apparently really kicks in after you find a house and start the buying process.

When I bought my first house, it was pretty stress-free, except I had to make some minor “improvements” to the house myself before VA would approve the loan (it was unoccupied and in rough shape and the owners weren’t about to do anything to it). And it was only $50K.

Now we’re almost having to sign a new addendum every day and spend a lot of time waiting on people who are waiting on someone else to do something. We’re also condensing our closing down to two weeks. Our initial offer was posted on 11/9, and we’ll actually be closing on 11/24. I think that might be a record. We just got the appraisal and are waiting on underwriting to be expedited, and also waiting on the sellers to get appraisal and inspection reports back on the property they’re trying to buy to see if they can close. Any little thing that falls through will delay closing. Ugh! So we’re supposed to close on Wednesday only we don’t know for sure so can’t order refrigerators or utilities or cable…

Then in the meantime, we have to figure out what to do with our current house–sell or rent–and last night I confirmed that the new large living room windows are apparently heavier than the frame can support and so the structure is collapsing under the weight. Hooray! So who knows how much that’ll cost, and we’ll have to fix it before either selling or renting.

Not to be all bitchy, but I’m just blogging about what I know today. 🙂 The moral of this story? Ask me in two weeks. Heh… We want to eventually build, but judging from this, I’d probably wind up in an asylum before it was over.

I had to prepare a basic personal financial statement for myself for investment purposes. I have on said statement a line item under assets for Firearms. I just thought it was funny.

The City of Chicago’s suit against gun manufacturers has been dismissed.

Armchair lawyering ahead. Amendment V:

. . . nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb . . .

Yet:

The Kentucky Supreme Court on Thursday overturned a murder conviction in the 1994 sniper death of a University of Kentucky athlete, saying the prosecutor committed a “flagrant” violation of the U.S. Constitution.

The court ordered a new trial for Shane Ragland, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2002 in the killing of football player Trent DiGiuro.

The “flagrant” violation was that the prosecutor mentioned that Ragland did not testify against himself, which is also his right under that pesky amendment mentioned above.

Via the Comedian, how not to get a car out of the water.

WATE:

Around noon Tuesday, after Alan Vanhuss put an earring in his right ear his science teacher sent him to the principal’s office. “They told me it was considered a dangerous weapon and I wasn’t allowed to pierce my ear in school and it’s zero tolerance.”

An earring is a weapon? Apparently, anything is a weapon:

The principal at Clinton Middle couldn’t talk about the specific case or punishment but told 6 News the policy on weapons includes anything that can inflict injury, even a pen, pencil or earring.

Zero tolerance is a rather sorry joke. Too bad it’s played on our children.

During the push for the gun immunity bill, the Senate voted 52-47 to pass the assault weapons ban. You may recall Kerry and Edwards, who had been shirking their congressional duties, flying in just to vote on the ban. It was a pretty dark day for me knowing that the Senate was willing to sell gun rights down the river. Now, it seems, the tide has turned:

Seven of nine newly elected members to the Senate oppose the ban, and another would only support a more narrowly defined ban. They replace senators who voted six to three in favor of the ban.

If all else held true, the switches would result in the Senate rejecting the ban 48 to 52.

Good.

Buck is back to blogging. It’s about time.

Max Burns (again):

As mentioned earlier in this section, the Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) did more to hurt the Democratic Party than to help it. Crime rates resulting from the use of firearms went virtually unchanged during the time of the ban, and many moderate Democrats and swing Republicans abandoned the Democratic Party over what they saw as a completely unjust intrusion on their Constitutional rights.

The vast majority of gun owners in the United States are law abiding citizens who either own the firearm for personal and family protection or to hunt. These are valid reasons for owning a firearm, and owners should not have come under fire for owning them as they did when the AWB was passed and signed.

It is true that owning an assault weapon may worry some Democrats, but the fact that the same weapon with minor modifications could still be sold during the time of the AWB is a fact often overlooked by those seeking to argue blindly for it.

The IJ ranks Kansas and Missouri among the worst land grabbers:

You think you own your home or land until a developer comes along and wants it. The watchdog group Institute for Justice says cities in Kansas and Missouri are the worst in the nation when it comes to taking private property for another person’s private gain.

On the criteria for ED:

“Anything is blight if the city legislature says it is,” said Sherwin Epstein, an eminent domain attorney.

Epstein said blight, by Kansas City’s definition, can be found just about anywhere and is. Flink said the new federal courthouse still sits on blighted land, along with parts of the Country Club Plaza now under development.

The Institute for Justice is taking the case:

“Well, if property is being taken for someone else’s private benefit, that is not a public use. That not only mangles the words of the Constitution, but it mangles people’s basic property rights. And it’s outrageous,” said Bert Gall, of the Institute for Justice.

Triggerfinger is the source for the pending second amendment gun case that challenges DC’s gun ban.

James Rummel of Hell in a Handbasket answers a reader’s question about the source of the old saw that “an armed society is a polite society.” James also links to the Quotable Heinlein web page. That site correctly identifies the work—Beyond This Horizon—in which the phrase appears, but attributes it to the wrong character.

In the book, Heinlein posits a future society with several curious aspects. One of these is that citizens always go armed in public—because citizens meet perceived rudeness with deadly force. The famous quote appears in a discussion between the protagonist, Hamilton Felix, and his wise old friend Mordan Claude. Felix is expressing his doubts about the custom of going armed, and Mordan explains why it is a good one:

“Well, in the first place an armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization. That’s a personal evaluation only. But gunfighting has a strong biological use. We do not have enough things to kill off the weak and stupid these days. But to stay alive as an armed citizen a man has to be either quick with wits or with his hands, preferably both. It’s a good thing.”
…
“Maybe so,” Felix answered slowly, “but it does seem like there ought to be a better way to do it. This way is pretty sloppy. Sometimes the bystanders get burned.”

“The alert ones don’t,” Mordan pointed out. “But don’t expect human institutions to be efficient. They never have been; it is a mistake to think they can be made so…[b]ecause we are sloppy, individually—and therefore collectively.”

There’s a lot to think about there, and—as is typical of Heinlein—a lot to get people riled up about. In my opinion, the notion that “an armed society is a polite society” sounds nice, but I don’t know how much evidence there is either to support it or refute it.

Of course, my favorite quote comes earlier in the book, when another character, Monroe-Alpha Clifford, is approached by a scientist named Thorgsen. Monroe-Alpha works for the government, and Thorgsen asks him what the odds are of getting government funding for his pet research project. Monroe-Alpha, after hearing the details of the project, replies:

“[I]t’s very expensive, it will run on for years, and it doesn’t show any prospect of being economically productive. I would say it was tailor-made for subsidy.”

Sounds like the future is going to look a lot like today.

WATCH released its list of the top 10 most dangerous toys. The number 10 most dangerous is a toy gun. An Uzi, to be exact. Says WATCH:

In today’s world, there is no excuse for outfitting children with realistic toy weapons designed to produce dangerous and unnecessary thrills.

So, the product is not really dangerous. This is just anti-gun hysteria packaged as a consumer alert.

There’s no need to buy those fake guns when the VPC provides a handy list of guns marketed to children.

I wish the president wasn’t such a girlie-man:

President Bush used the annual Thanksgiving turkey- pardoning rite Wednesday to roast the bitter campaign for the White House, jokingly recalling fund-raising disputes, attack ads and a polarizing political movie. “Now’s the time for healing,” he said, as he ceremonially spared two birds.

Sparing the turkeys? Can we get a real man in the White House who would shoot the birds himself?

Taking advantage of the new category MX5 created, comes this story (via Justin). The bad:

When it debuted in 1999, TiVo (news – web sites) revolutionized the TV experience by wresting control of screen time from advertisers, allowing viewers to record shows and skip commercials. TiVo’s slogan said it all: “TV your way.”

Behind the scenes, though, TiVo was courting advertisers, selling inroads to a universe most customers saw as commercial-free. The result is a groundbreaking new business strategy, developed with more than 30 of the nation’s largest advertisers, that in key ways circumvents the very technology that made TiVo famous.

By March, TiVo viewers will see “billboards,” or small logos, popping up over TV commercials as they fast-forward through them, offering contest entries, giveaways or links to other ads. If a viewer “opts in” to the ad, their contact information will be downloaded to that advertiser — exclusively and by permission only — so even more direct marketing can take place.

A few reasons I have TiVo include not having to watch commercials and it saves time (I can watch a thirty minute sitcom in 21 minutes). Bombarding me with commercials is annoying and I don’t like the idea. I also don’t like how TiVo sends me the occasional T-Mail message advertising something I’m not interested in. I like TiVo but I’d switch to DVR in the event TiVo starts regularly hitting me with crappy ads that I don’t want to see. TiVo hasn’t yet figured out that I don’t like to watch TV shows in Spanish, what makes them think they can target me with appropriate advertisements?

The good:

By late 2005, TiVo expects to roll out “couch commerce,” a system that enables viewers to purchase products and participate in surveys using their remote controls.

Perhaps even more significant is TiVo’s new role in market research. As viewers watch, TiVo records their collective habits — second by second — and sells that information to advertisers and networks. (It was TiVo that quantified the effect of Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl “wardrobe malfunction,” reporting a 180% increase in the number of replays reported by viewers.)

Privacy issues aside, that is pretty cool. In the event I do want to buy something, doing it through my remote would be pretty handy.

The ugly:

But what about TiVo’s devotees, those folks who send the company fan mail and photos of their pets posed with TiVo boxes, and act as missionaries, converting their friends to the technology?

Uhm, Ok.

TiVo is on the cusp of something big. Whether that cusp is keeping my business remains to be seen.

A few safety concerns aside, I think this website is a pretty interesting concept:

LIVE-SHOT is a new concept. You can challenge yourself and compare your skills to other members with our on-line target shooting. We have developed a system where you can control a pan/tilt/zoom camera and a firearm to shoot at real targets in real time.

Online hunting and target shooting. Who’d have thunk it?

Alan Whisler in a letter to the editor:

We need to all stop saying things like “legislation to restore the right of self-defense.” We should say instead something like “…to stop the infringement of the natural right of self-defense.”

Looks like the house also voted to override the veto:

Rejecting the governor’s veto, Illinois lawmakers overwhelmingly voted to give new legal protection to homeowners who use a banned handgun to shoot burglars.

The House voted 85-30 Tuesday to override Governor Rod Blagojevich’s veto. The Senate had approved the bill earlier, so it now becomes law.

The legislation applies only in specific and uncommon circumstances, but it became a symbol in the tug-of-war over gun control.

It’s only value is as a symbol about gun control. The handguns shouldn’t be banned in the state.

We’re winning.

Eminent domain authorizes a government body to take land from private entities for public use if they pay just compensation. Eminent domain should not be used solely for the purpose of settling the disagreement over what just compensation is:

Negotiations between the city and owner Joe Zivnak of Azusa have been stuck for months, with the city willing to pay $1.75 million and Zivnak holding out for a package deal worth $2 million.

“The city budged a lot” from its earliest offers months ago, Michael Beck, the assistant city manager, said, adding that the amount was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Zivnak disagrees. “The city never budged at all,” he said.

Part of the disagreement is over cleanup costs, including the removal of asbestos and lead-based paint. The city received an estimate of $600,000, and Zivnak said it could be done for much less.

The reason the city wants the theater:

City officials envision a renovated Fox as an entertainment venue – preferably a performing arts center – that would attract thousands of people a week to downtown Riverside.

That doesn’t look like public use to me.

I don’t oppose all eminent domain. I do oppose its abuse, as illustrated above. Or as illustrated in the pending Supreme Court case involving the city of New London where the city is trying to take property from one private entity to give to a developer. However, a case like this one passes the smell test. In this case, the city is taking property to widen an intersection. That is definitely public use.

Carter Lake passed a breed ban. Do the really think a person like this would follow the ban:

A man remains in jail Monday morning, accused of a brutal practice called baiting.

Police say Terrance Freeman used a pit bull dog over the weekend as “bait” for a more aggressive pit bull to fight.

The dog that was attacked suffered some serious wounds and cuts.

If you read the letters section of the New York Times, that answer would be no. Honestly, of the many letters Kristof’s article would generate, there was only one pro-gun letter out of five?

Meanwhile, Max Burns:

When Al Gore took a leftward swing towards the end of the 2000 campaign, the chilling effect in his home state of Tennessee was clearly evident. Tennessee, like moderate West Virginia, Arkansas, Missouri and Ohio, has a delicate balance of just how much liberalism they are willing to stomach.

In reference to what the Dems could currently do:

Losing places like West Virginia must be looked at as a mistake, an error on the behalf of the Democratic Party. That mistake is a direct result of four years of anti-gun rights policy from the very liberal left wing of our party, those who are obsessed with assault weapons bans and long waiting periods. President Clinton’s Assault Weapons Ban most likely did far more to hurt the Democrats going into 2000, and continuing into 2004, than anything that has been done recently.

To begin repairing this image of Democrats as untrusting elitists who seek to take away the guns of law abiding hunters, we must acknowledge what is true for many moderates – the Second Amendment is an important part of our Constitution.

While the Second Amendment is not about hunting (don’t say that too loud, it scares the white people), the gist is that, at best, advancing gun control is a regional thing. Apologies for getting into the red v. blue state thing, but expanding gun control doesn’t fly in a lot of the red states. And, the fact is, the assault weapons ban passed by one vote and that vote was the vice president (and the NRA wanted the instant background check system). It also only passed because it had a sunset provision. The new wave of gun control (banning semi-automatics and smart guns) generally is not a winner outside the blue states.

As Gary Pace, a former Democrat, opined:

You guys just don’t get it with the old confederacy/south, plains states and Rocky Mountains. In my opinion the Democratic Party has sold these areas of the country out. There is no room in the Democratic party for anyone that is not toeing the line as a pro-choice, tree-hugging, pro-gun control, death-penalty-opposing liberal elitist. I don’t feel there is anywhere in the Democratic party for dissent or to talk about these issues. It is either embrace the far left Northeastern liberal intelligentsia or become a Republican. The Democratic party used to be the party of miners and loggers. It is viewed as the enemy by those groups now. The Democratic party used to be bottom up not top down.

I’m one of the few conservatives who actually support alternative fuels for vehicles. Well, I’m sure there are quite a few of us out there, but we toward the right get a bad rap. So, I wonder if the ESA will be adapting this technology for Range Rovers or Hummers any time soon?

The spacecraft used only 130 pounds of the 181 pounds of xenon fuel it had aboard, according to European Space Agency spokesman Franco Bonacina in Paris. That translates to more than 5 million miles per gallon.

It might take 13 months to get where we’re going, but 5 million miles is a lot to get per gallon! Oh well, I guess as long as we keep not having zero-g on I-40, those ion drives won’t be practical.

Update: Speaking of engine upgrades, the scramjet is one step closer towards an installation in my Miata…

In the event Congress passes a law stating that I am not allowed to fast forward through commercials on my TiVo, it will be cause for insurrection.

By now, you’ve no doubt heard the story of the marine who shot a wounded and unarmed Iraqi. On the surface, it seems the marine did something that was wrong. However, it is a common tactic among insurgents to feign injury and attack soldiers when they approach to offer aid. Did the marine mess up? Probably. Can I blame him? Probably not. I say that having not watched the video.

Even if we don’t value property rights, maybe we do value money:

Donald L. Correll, President and Chief Executive Officer of Pennichuck Corporation, announced today that for the quarter ended September 30, 2004 the Company earned $577,000, or $.24 per share, compared to net income of $1,022,000, or $.43 per share for the same quarter in 2003. Mr. Correll indicated that, among things, the results of operations for the three months ended September 30, 2004 were adversely impacted by nearly $250,000 of legal and other costs relating to the City of Nashua’s ongoing eminent domain efforts.

It’s not gun control, it’s gun safety:

The City Council’s Committee on Public Safety met Monday to discuss a package of gun safety legislation. Among the proposals are a bill that would limit New Yorkers to the purchase of only one shotgun or rifle every 90 days, and another bill which would create a code of responsible conduct for gun manufacturers.

A code of conduct? Seems kind of worthless to me since the manufacturers are not responsible for the guns on the street. The manufacturers sell to retailers not end users.

In the comments to this post where I stated that gun safety was a code word for gun control (and it is), I got some grief in comments from a few people for my opposition to mandating some of these safety features. First, I oppose these measures because they are, essentially, stabs at gun control. The anti-gun lobby method of operation is to pass as many gun restrictions as possible whether they are beneficial or not. You can’t polish a turd. Second, some of the features proposed in the original article simply are ineffective. Here’s a rundown:

Childproof guns: Impossible to do. Period. The best method for preventing tragic child deaths is for parents to keep guns where kids can’t get them. An ounce of prevention, and all that.

Loaded chamber indicator: This feature is available on many guns already. If you want one with that feature, I have no problem with it. What I take issue with is a false sense of security this feature and manual safeties offer. I’ve seen countless folks who have safeties on their guns practice unsafe handling. If you say something to them, their response is that the safety is on. Mechanical devices fail. Also, the chamber indicator may fail. Often times, these are just holes that allow you to see into the chamber, which you can do any way by pulling the slide back and visually checking the chamber. The latter method also has the advantage of unloading the gun if it turns out to be loaded. In the event a particle of dust should cover the hole, the gun may look empty when it is not. Then someone who relies on the safety feature instead of gun safety rules may make a fatal mistake.

Require magazine safeties so a gun cannot be fired when the clip is removed: Many guns already have this. This feature is not desirable for everyone, such as police. The reason is that there may be a need to cover someone with a round in the chamber while changing the magazine. If you change the magazine, the gun is inoperable therefore making it pointless to cover someone.

Smart guns: I do not want any electronic device on a weapon other than an optic platform. Even on weapons with optic platforms, I have backup sights. The reason for backups is because electronic devices fail. In the event the electronic device failed, the gun would be inoperable and become nothing but a paperweight. Plus, it is a device that could be rendered useless through nefarious tinkering. No thanks. This feature is the perfect example of gun safety meaning gun control. In New Jersey, a law was passed mandating smart guns. The problem is that the perfect smart gun hasn’t been developed yet. And those that are available are unreliable, expensive, and not yet generally available.

Start public safety campaigns urging families to keep guns locked up in a gun safe or with a trigger lock: No problem for me here. However, I prefer a quick access safe as opposed to a trigger lock where I would have to potentially fumble with keys during a high stress situation.

Encourage doctors to counsel depressed patients not to keep guns, and to advise new parents on storing firearms safely: No problem there, either.

Make gun serial numbers harder for criminals to remove: And how the Hell are you going to do that?

Create a national database for gun deaths: No problem here other than to the extent that such information would be used by the usual suspects to mislead regarding gun deaths. But they do that already.

Then you weren’t paying attention:

Secretary of State Colin Powell has told his colleagues he is resigning and the White House is expected to make the announcement on Monday, a U.S. official said.