Well, I personally have always been a fan of either:

or

Update: Kristopher in comments:

Ban genocide prevention devices.

Heh.

Punxsutawney Phil predicts global warming will kill us all. In six weeks.

Bill says it’s not dead yet.

Apparently, the ol’ blog was down last night due to a cut cable or some such. I didn’t notice because I was busy losing at the local satellite hold-em tournament.

The Second has started crawling. That means I get to spend this weekend installing baby gates. He did it last night for the first time. I arrive at day care this morning and tell the teacher that he’s crawling. She says Yeah, he started that this week. So, it wasn’t his first time. Kind of a pitfall of daycare that you may miss a few firsts.

In Nashville, it’s illegal to warm up your car:

Many people start their cars in the morning before a commute to warm it up before they use it, but one man was given a ticket for it, and he said police have gone too far.

Steve Hatfield said he and his business partners were warming up their cars Thursday morning in the parking lot of their Hermitage bar when a Metro police officer, they said, started writing tickets.
Click here to find out more!

“Basically, what they told me was, it’s illegal to warm your car if you’re not in it. And it is a violation, and I do have a ticket stating that,” Hatfield said.

Guys, it’s cold out in the winter. People like toasty cars. I guess Nashville has taken care of its other crime problems.

AC on the loss of the libertarian right:

Now, I’m no libertarian. I believe the ideology of libertarianism to [I assume this should be is – ed] the Marxism of the Right. However, it is an important ideology to study and reach towards with the understanding that submitting yourself entirely to the dogma will result in political, society and moral decay.

Of course, submitting yourself completely to any ideology is generally bad. A little bit of libertarianism is good. Hell, a little bit of communism can be good (roads?). I think the key to where people identify themselves is which particular thing is more important to them. I come down on the side of freedom for the individual taking more of a precedent than, say, the collective we. Hence, I tend to identify myself as libertarianish.

Kills rodents without chemicals.

The SAF has filed a motion to hold Nagin & Riley in contempt.

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.

Original post below
===============

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.

All you need to know about the alleged shake-up in Knox County Government:

On the new Knox County Commission is the son of an ex-commissioner, the father of a current commissioner, and the wife of another ex-commissioner.

The more things change . . .

Update: But if you want the long version, it is here.

Sounds like this town should have a cow season.

Been a while since I shut down my old yahoo.com email address. I logged in today just to see. 20,340 messages. I looked at the first two pages and it was all spam from the future. If you’re sending mail there, I ain’t reading it. Then, I logged into the mail server I have for saysuncle.com. Mind you, I have never set up an email address there. I had 8,553 messages. I ain’t reading those either.

Also, I guess I need to cut down on images. I get 23 gigabytes of bandwidth per month. I never really checked my bandwidth, honestly figuring it would never be an issue. But today, I am at 22ish gigabytes. I guess it’s possible that the site becomes inaccessible today and will return tomorrow.

It’s back. I always watch the first few episodes because I like the tryouts. Guilty pleasure. But to would-be contestants, here’s a tip:

I know matter-of-factly that I don’t have a very good singing voice. I have a deep voice and a limited range. Most songs are out of my range and if I try to extend my vocal capabilities beyond my range, I sound like Homer Simpson. The reason I know this is because I’ve actually heard myself sing. It’s true. I have recorded myself singing and listened to it (from my band days) and I know I’m not good. So, before strolling in front of Simon and all, listen to yourself or you may well be a laughingstock.

John Lott:

By contrast, the Bureau of Justice Statistics conducted a survey of 18,000 state prison inmates in 1997, the largest survey of inmates ever conducted. Less than 1 percent of inmates (0.7 percent) who had a gun indicated they had obtained it at a gun show. When combined with guns obtained from flea markets, the total rises to 1.7 percent. These are tiny fractions compared to the estimated 40 percent of the criminals’ guns that are obtained from friends or family and the 39 percent that are obtained on the street or from illegal sources. The numbers also had changed little from a similar 1991 survey that indicated that 0.6 percent of inmates had gotten their guns from guns shows and 1.3 percent from flea markets.

So wrong.

Denise:

Guns are used for good and evil. They don’t cause either one.

As they say, armed gays don’t get bashed. The Toledo Blade has a piece on The Pink Pistols, a gun rights group for gays and lesbians. I found this interesting:

Personally, I’m what the Pink Pistols call a “gun bigot,” someone who’s not crazy about firearms, knows nothing about them, “may never have even fired one, certainly doesn’t have any, [and] would gladly subject innocent people to defenselessness.”

Admitting you have a problem is the first step.

I first heard the term gun bigot from Joe Huffman. I suppose the term is getting legs in the gay gun community.

Via Kevin, who has one of my favorite quotes:

Basically, I figure guns are like gays: They seem a lot more sinister and threatening until you get to know a few; and once you have one in the house, you can get downright defensive about them.