Sensational headline but I don’t think it’s illegal.

Via jon.

We’re #8!

Petition in opposition to HR1022, the new assault weapons ban. 14K signatures so far. Get on it.

So, first, any readers play poker? Secondly, ya’ll gonna bitch if I start blogging about it? The local bar has two free tournaments each week. I suck at tournaments and was much more adept to cash games until the Republicans decided that poker is a threat to national security. But, I still like to play and there was a game.

This hand bugged me. First hand of the night, no reads on anyone:

Eight handed, I’m in fifth position. Blinds are 25/50. Full stack of 4,000. My hand:

J♠ J♣

Sweet. Every body limps in. To me, the pot is 275 I raise 275. Jacks are good but they’re probably only good now. I don’t want over cards flopping. Dealer calls. Everyone else folds. The pot is now 550. I put dealer on either a smaller pocket pair or over cards.

Flop: 3♥2♦7♠

I figure I’m still the best hand. Bet 550 in case he’s on a draw. Called.

Turn. 4♥. I stick with my original feeling that he has a worse pocket pair. Bet 1,500. Called. Groan.

River: Forgot but it was a blank. It didn’t scare me. All-in.

He calls. Flips over 2♠ 3♣

Two pair. I, sarcastically, said: nice hand

Him: Thanks.

Me: I didn’t mean it.

Who calls a pot sized bet with 2♠ 3♣?

Two things: 1) I suck at tournaments and should have stopped betting after the flop. 2) Only in a tournament will someone call you with a 2♠ 3♣.

Thankfully, I got an additional 1,500 in chips for buying an adult beverage. I made quite a come back and placed 9th of roughly 30ish.

This hand bugged both because I played it badly after the river, over bet the flop, and because I was beaten by bad play.

Update: Too late, done added a poker category.

Phone rings. It’s the Tennessee Department of Finance and revenue. Seems that I am delinquent in paying my 2006 professional privilege tax. See, as a licensed member of a particular profession, I must pay to the state $400 per year. Conversation went something like this:

Tax Collector: Yeah, we’ve been trying to collect this tax plus penalties and interest for several months now. The new total comes to $539.

SayUncle: Did you send me a bill?

Tax Collector: Yes and a final payment notice.

SayUncle: Where’d you send it?

Tax Collector: [reads old address from two houses ago]

SayUncle: Yeah, I don’t live there any more. Haven’t for a while. I let you guys know that via your handy little website that exists expressly for the purpose of letting you know that.

Tax Collector: Oh.

SayUncle: And I thought the tax was every two years?

Tax Collector: It’s yearly.

SayUncle: So, any way, you’re going to charge me additional money due to your inability to check your own website? Doesn’t seem right. $100 in penalties and $39 interest is awful steep. That’s like, what, 18% interest?

Tax Collector: Err, I just have a computer printout . . .

SayUncle: Isn’t that, like, usury? Or, you know, pretty close? Are there laws against that?

Tax Collector: Well, we need to collect your tax . . .

SayUncle: So, can I request a waiver? After all, you guys seemed to put forth a rather lackluster effort to actually find me. I don’t really think I should have to pay for your error. You got phone books?

Tax Collector: Well, you can request a waiver for the penalties but the state’s policy is that we can’t waive the interest. I’ll need a formal letter requesting the waiver and a check for $439

SayUncle: So, no matter what, I gotta pay for something that is, in fact, beyond my control and through no fault of my own.

Tax Collector: Err . . .

SayUncle: Unbelievable.

Seen at insty’s:

A group of lawmakers wants to make it harder for police to use “no-knock” warrants in the wake of a shootout that left an elderly woman dead after plainclothes officers stormed her home unannounced in a search for drugs.

The measure would allow judges to grant the warrants only if officers can prove a “significant and imminent danger to human life.”

The measure was prompted by the Nov. 21 shootout between Kathryn Johnston and three police officers during a no-knock search of her Atlanta home. When the officers entered without warning, police say that Johnston, 92, fired a handgun at them and that the officers returned fire, killing her. An autopsy concluded she was shot five or six times.

Bernadette Headd. In addition to suffering from an unfortunate name, she decided she’d had enough of a tailgater. So, she did what any crazy person would do and fired one round from her 9mm pistol at the offending vehicle. She also has a concealed handgun permit. Thanks to you and your one little incident of crazy, we pro-gunners will have to defend concealed carry for the next week or so. See, the anti-gunners always predict there will be an increase in road rage incidents. They’re wrong, of course, but this one incident will provide them with fodder.

Next time, just get the fuck out of the guy’s way.

Asset seizures in North Dakota will go up:

In the last four years, Highway Patrol trooper Craig Beedy has taken part in two traffic stops that netted about $200,000 in seized cash. But unlike its counterparts in many other states, his agency wasn’t allowed to keep it.

North Dakota instead require law enforcement agencies to turn the assets seized in suspected drug trafficking cases over to the state.

That will soon change.

State lawmakers this week approved a measure that would allow the Highway Patrol authority to keep up to $300,000 in seized assets every two years to help pay for equipment and overtime expenses. Gov. John Hoeven will sign the bill, said his spokesman, Don Canton.

Kit has moved.

I propose a little wager to all takers: The media took the Zumbo* story, spun it, ran it up the flag pole, and got everyone to salute. Now, Zumbo has apologized, said he was wrong and supports gun rights. I bet this gets almost no press and certainly no press from the Washington Post. I’ll bet a beer on it. Any takers?

* I am no longer stating any post about him is the last post.

The fake bomb threat sent the Boston PD into rabid dog mode. But: IN OTHER BOSTON BOMB NEWS, if you place a real bomb in Boston that kills a police officer, there’s a good chance the U.S. Attorney will screw up your paperwork and you’ll get to go free.

Yeah, yeah. I keep saying I’m done. But Zumbo has written a new piece:

Remember that throughout major firearms incidents, such as the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Bobby Kennedy, the more recent Columbine school shootings in Colorado, and the sniper shootings in the D.C. area, there have been flurries of bills to outlaw guns. Those of us who hunt and shoot, or simply own firearms for protection, could have been severely impacted by those bills had they come to pass.

As an example, there have been bills written to do away with “sniper” rifles and “semi-automatic” firearms. To those of us who hunt, that “sniper” rifle could include our Winchester bolt-action elk rifle, or our Browning or Remington shotguns or .22s. The bottom line is that to hunt with a firearm, we must be afforded the legal right to own one.

The Second Amendment, which guarantees us the right to keep and bear arms, has nothing to do with hunting, but everything to do with gun ownership.

There’s more. I believe he gets it.

Listen up, gun nuts: we’re too quick to eat our own. And the antis had a field day with it in this case. Sure, they have to lie about it to make their point but to the average Joe, there’s no truth but the one presented.

Les Jones in a comment at Knoxviews:

Even a sheep is smart enough not to graze on astroturf.

I don’t fucking believe it.

Update: Oops, forgot about WP’s auto ping backs. But Bob edited it. Are you crushing my dissent? Heh.

I’m a complete sucker for information about the ancient Greeks and Romans. It started as an obsession with Greek Myths and the Odyssey in grade school and peaked with an obsession with Aeschylus in college. I’m not quite so fanatical these days, but the easiest way to hook my attention is to hit me with a quirky ancient or midaeval. This article’s lead paragraph was made just to capture my attention:

In the Middle Ages, new mothers in Rome could abandon their unwanted babies in a “foundling wheel” — a revolving wooden barrel lodged in a wall, often in a convent, that allowed women to deposit their offspring without being seen.

The simplicity of such a device! It’s just a barrel in a hole in the wall for anonymous baby placement. And it must be effective too. Wikipedia says they were in use from about 1200 until the late 1800’s.

And today, a modern version is in use in Japan, Germany and Italy, and other countries all over the world. The newer baby hatches are not as simple as a barrel in the wall. They can run €52,000 and include medical devices and alarms so the baby isn’t left alone for long.

I wonder why America has no foundling wheels.

Looks like my home county mayor wants to enact a wheel tax. If we pass it, it’s free money, he says. I think Jerry Cunningham needs a class on economics.

We go through this every few years. As with most things government, it’s not the revenue side that’s a problem. It’s the spending.

More from R. Neal here.

Tam makes an internet news broadcast.

They listed a bunch of clothing items that can’t be worn. One is:

Logos for habit-forming drugs, tobacco or handguns

‘Cause those are similar.

Gun control is a big election issue:

One-third of voters take issue with a presidential candidate who supports gun control or has been married three times like Rudy Giuliani, a new Time magazine poll shows.

The numbers indicate potential potholes for the current Republican front-runner as his bid for president kicks into gear.

According to the survey, 30 percent couldn’t back a candidate who favors gun control, while another 35 percent have trouble with someone with three marriages.

And Obama on guns reads like a Brady Campaign wish list.

I expressed amazement that Wendy’s was using a Violent Femmes tune to peddle food. Well, Brian Ritchie (who I viewed as God-like just under 20 years ago) isn’t happy either. He left a comment about it at a Tennessee blogger’s joint. Gordon Gano sold out. Well, can’t blame the guy for wanting a buck or two.

Via NIT.

Stewart Brand, ardent environmentalist and founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, predicts changes in common environmental wisdom on four hot issues:

Over the next ten years, I predict, the mainstream of the environmental movement will reverse its opinion and activism in four major areas: population growth, urbani­zation, genetically engineered organisms, and nuclear power.

Predicting a shift in opinion in these areas is just a polite way of saying that the current thinking on them is wrong. And he’s right. The current mainstream enviromental stance has got it wrong on all four issues, especially the GMO food and nuclear power.

Interestingly, he doesn’t say why he thinks the consensus will shift on these issues. He just thinks the rational environmentalists will eventually convince the romantic environmentalists. In the long run, I think he’s right– people will eventually realize that we can achieve the great benefits of GMO food and nuclear power in (relative) safety. There’s just too much to gain. Predicting it will happen in the next 10 years, though, is probably overly ambitious.

HR1096 by Ron Paul. This bill gets rid of the sporting purpose nonsense, among other things.

I dig it but it won’t pass.

Via R. Neal, comes this bill by blogging rep Stacey Campfield called the Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act. It’s similar to a Montana bill I discussed here only it has teeth.

From the bill:

A personal firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in Tennessee and that remains within the borders of Tennessee is not subject to federal law or federal regulation, including registration, under the authority of congress to regulate interstate commerce. It is declared by the legislature that those items have not traveled in interstate commerce. This section applies to a firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured in Tennessee from basic materials and that can be manufactured without the inclusion of any significant parts imported into this state. Generic and insignificant parts that have other manufacturing or consumer product applications are not firearms, firearms accessories, or ammunition, and their importation into Tennessee and incorporation into a firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition manufactured in Tennessee does not subject the firearm, firearm accessory, or ammunition to federal regulation. It is declared by the legislature that basic materials, such as unmachined steel and unshaped wood, are not firearms, firearms accessories, or ammunition and are not subject to congressional authority to regulate firearms, firearms accessories, and ammunition under interstate commerce as if they were actually firearms, firearms accessories, or ammunition. The authority of congress to regulate interstate commerce in basic materials does not include authority to regulate firearms, firearms accessories, and ammunition made in Tennessee from those materials. Firearms accessories that are imported into Tennessee from another state and that are subject to federal regulation as being in interstate commerce do not subject a firearm to federal regulation under interstate commerce because they are attached to or used in conjunction with a firearm in Tennessee.

It excludes machine guns and destructive devices. But this means that firearms, sound suppressors, short barreled rifles, short barreled shotguns, and any other weapons would not require National Firearms Act registration per state law if they were made in state and marked accordingly.

I find it odd since Tennessee law generally mimics federal law. And, of course, Tennessee law bans sound suppressors, short barreled rifles, short barreled shotguns, and any other weapons with registration of these items as NFA items being an affirmative defense to their possession.

I think, mainly, the bill’s intent is to nip the ATF’s crackdown on do it yourselfers in the bud. Because for NFA toys, it doesn’t do much.

Update: If it passes, seems to me that one could go in the firearm business without all the red tape currently required by the feds.

Les Jones has a video of Kel-Tec’s new RFB (Rifle Forward ejection Bullpup). It’s a 308, bullpup rifle that ejects brass out the front. This eliminates the problem of brass hitting left-handed shooters in the face that other bull pups have. As an added bonus, it takes FAL metric magazines. Sweet. Here’s Kel-Tec’s info on the gun (in PDF).

They go all the way up to her ass.

Remember, gun nuts, we’re the ones that are paranoid. Not them.

And Mike Faulk says Opposition Doesn’t Mean Annihilation:

Ironically, those attacking Zumbo the hardest give the anti-gun crowd plenty of cannon fodder. It’s a shame. Surely his lifetime of advocacy for that which most gun owners hold dear, the right to bear arms, should count for something. The big picture of Zumbo’s career promoting the Second Amendment should overwhelm a mistake of expressing an unpopular opinion in a less than artful way.

Yup. We are too quick to pull the trigger some times.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership has a poll.

Via Joe.

Tam:

Poor Lefties; they’ve been playing on astroturf so long that they don’t know grassroots even when fed a mouthful of divot.

Lentil soup.

The rhetoric is kicking up on weapons that look like assault weapons.