On occasion, I’ll type the first few letters of a URL into the address bar to get to a favorite site figuring the history will kick in. When coming here to saysuncle.com, I some times just hit SA and then I wind up here. And I try to hit nashvilleistalking.com by typing NA and end up here.
Just like last year, to make it easier to do your part on National Ammo Day, bring a printed copy of this post into Coal Creek Armory on Sunday the 19th between noon and 5:00 PM, and receive 10% off your ammunition purchase.
Kinda odd how this year we got John McCain, Bill Clinton, Laura Bush, Barack Obama and others coming to our fair state pimping their guy. I mean, I get phone calls at home from Rudy Giuliani and Phil Bredesen. As opposed to the rest of the time, when they could give a fuck less about me.
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday, Nov. 1, asking the FEC to investigate whether the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America are in violation of Federal Election Commission regulations and Federal Election Campaign Laws.
The Second Amendment Foundation does the same thing to The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) succeeded in ending a misleading and false advertising campaign in Missouri produced and/or paid for by the American Hunters and Shooters Association (“AHSA”) – an anti-gun group deceptively masking itself as a pro-hunting organization. The radio advertisements contained egregiously false and misleading statements regarding the NRA.
The Tennessean says that the race between Ford and Corker will be seen as racial milepost. They also state that Tennessee voters may find out whether their state is ready to send a black man to the U.S. Senate. When he loses, it’s because you’re a racist. Smarminess aside, for me, I don’t care about the color of the candidates but I have wondered if Tennessee is ready to elect a black guy. I tend to think Tennessee is because Ford, a candidate with a record that is not supportive of who he claims to be now, has pulled this race much closer than I thought he would.
A lot of people I know, who ordinarily vote Republican, have said the one thing that will cause them to either 1) not vote or 2) vote for Democrats is, believe it or not, the recently passed poker bill. Tom expressed the same thing a while back but I can’t find the post because the search feature is busted. Seriously. They don’t like nannies from either side of the aisle. Now, it looks like the poker lobby has set their sites on political races. Good.
The Allen v. Webb battle of who is more gun-nutty continues. I liked Webb’s response to the questionnaire here as it’s good to see a politician not talk about guns and duck hunting. And Allen has a strong record on gun rights, as the only thing I could find is a statement that he opposes absolute right to gun ownership. But then, who doesn’t?
The moral, of course, is that gun rights are important to both parties.
Inmates have legal right to arm themselves:
Several weeks ago a memorably strange ruling came down from our Circuit Court bench. In a death penalty case involving the fatal stabbing of one prison inmate by another, Judge Pamela North instructed the jury that a person may arm himself “in reasonable anticipation of an attack.”
Reader Bob sends a link to this Glock torture test. Sand, dirt, water, salt, they shot it with another gun, parked a car on it and dropped it 500 feet from a plane.
An earlier post of mine “Is there freedom of Religion in America?” has received a reply from a student in the same program.
A comment from ConcernedGrad is an interesting read and brings up some new questions. She defends her professor Dr. Frank G. Kauffman and suggests that Emily Brooker should be advised if she can, “not take the heat, she should have got out of the kitchen!”
ConcernedGrad’s comment expands the debate by suggesting that those who pursue social work must have a firewall between their personal faith and their professional work in social work. Her comment is listed below. ConcernedGrad, if you follow up and read this I have a question for you, are you suggesting that those who pursue social work as a career should be secularist?
My original question is what would have happened if Emily Brooker was a Muslim. I would think that if a Muslim were told they should not be in social work because of their religion there would be a great outcry and civil litigation. Would you’re advice be the same if Emily Brooker were a Muslim?
UPDATE:
You can find the legal complaint here. This looks to me to be a clear violation of Emily Brooker’s civil rights.
Say what you want about UT’s defeat last night but any quarterback who throws his shoulder into a linebacker like that has some balls.
Usually, this stuff happens on Wednesday:
On the eve of one of the nation’s most contentious and intensely watched elections, investigators have opened a criminal probe into suspected early voting fraud in Shelby County.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is reviewing reports by the Shelby County Election Commission that two people voted twice during early voting in Memphis.
“Paid Political Advertisement”Dist. Atty. Gen. Bill Gibbons said Thursday he’s referred the cases to the TBI for investigation along with other matters he declined to discuss.
Will Americans ever have faith in elections again?
There have been two Polls on KnoxViews on whether Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale should be investigated. Each Poll had over 86 percent of respondents vote that the Mayor should be investigated. You can find them here and here.
Yesterday the Knoxville News Sentinel had an Editorial entitled, "Commission should put Harber issue to rest". On the KNS Poll 74 percent of respondents disagree with the Editorial. Some of the comments from the KNS Poll are very interesting. Some of them are listed below.
Last week Metro Pulse had a similar Editorial entitled, "County Commission should stick to its legislative role, leave law enforcement to the ‘laws’". How can both newspapers be so far out of touch with what the people want?
What most people do not know is what is happening behind the scenes. Todd Cook, the Director of Probation Pre-Trial Release, has asked Knox County Law Director John Owings to investigate Knox County Commission Chairman Scott Moore concerning Cook’s allegations that Moore threatened his job unless he hired Moore’s relatives for jobs in Probation Pre-Trial Release. Similar threats of payback have been quietly issued to Lumpy Lambert. So far nothing more than threats have ensued for Commissioner Lambert.
You have to wonder if Mayor Ragsdale just enjoys the thrill? After getting off Scot free his first course of action is to open the door up again with a payback move against County Commission Chairman Scott Moore. Most people know that Scott Moore is a friend of the Knox County Sheriff. The governor’s mansion looks very far away and is fading from sight for the ambitious Knox County Mayor.
UPDATE:
You can listen to the short exchange between Knox County Commission Chairman Scott Moore and Mike Arms the Chief of Staff for Mayor Mike Ragsdale at last weeks County Commission meeting. This battle has just begun.
Seattle Nannies ban 29 brands of alcohol prefered by poor people — you know, for their own good. Poor people switch to the the 30th and 31st cheapest brands.
That’s how long it’s been since I’ve smoked. Apparently, this is the magical point where the nicotine is supposed to be out of the system (or so they say).
I highly recommend Chantix. I don’t know what it does because whenever you click on info about medication, you have to read 300 pages of side-effects before the pamphlet tells you what it does. And by page 6 of side-effects, I’m bored or asleep. I’m not a doctor but my doctor says that it levels off the highs and lows of smoking. Apparently, you have nerves in your brain that are receptive to nicotine (they love the stuff!). Well, this makes them not receptive. So, after taking the pills, you get nothing from smoking except that cool refreshing flavor. By the way, once you take the pills for about a week, you realize that there is no cool refreshing flavor and that it’s just associated with the little high you get from smoking. You realize that the cigarettes kinda taste like ass, when they’re not giving you a little spike.
And I’ve made it this far before. The difference this time is that, unlike past attempts, I’m not thinking about smoking all the time because the last three days I smoked, I got nothing from it and they tasted like ass.
A few things, Chantix is pretty pricey (just over $100 for a month’s worth – but it’ll eventually cost less than those cigarettes). And insurance doesn’t cover it. When the directions say ‘Take after a meal and with a full glass of water’, they mean it. It’s pretty hard on your stomach.
It also says to take it for a week then try to quit and, in some cases, wait longer. I waited longer. I decided that (given my past), I’d wait two weeks. Well, about a week and a half and I was just smoking less without trying and when I did smoke (seemed I forced myself too), it just didn’t do anything for me.
I’m supposed to take it for another month, maybe two.
A while back, a few of us blogs decided to stick it to the McCain-Feingold Incumbent Protection Act. I said that:
Any organization* that wants to run a political ad criticizing any politician in that window can do so here. Not only will I run the ad free, I’ll do a post on the ad on the front page.
We had many blogs agree to do the same or similar. Said movement was publicized heavily on the blogs and even got a mention in some mainstream media outlets. Well, four days until election time and, to my knowledge, not a single group took anyone up on that offer. Not. A. Single. One.
Free speech, you can’t even give it away.
Bummer.
Via Terry Frank, comes the Crystal Ball for the 2006 elections. My prediction: the senate stays red.
Wayne LaPierre takes on some other mayors. No mention of Haslam this time.
An interesting look at the international arms trade. Mind you, it’s a look from the point of view of a hoplophobe but still interesting nonetheless.
I no longer have TiVo. It was a tough decision because I love the TiVo. And it is the greatest invention since Al Gore invented the Internets Tubes. See, we moved.
When you move, you’re suddenly a different person to everyone. They forget that you’re the same person and that all you really want is to continue the same arrangement you had before. That was when everyone was happy. Instead, the opt to piss you off and treat you like you’re just schmuck off the street. Your existing contract with your propane supplier? Done (see, it’s wintertime and rates are up now and you were smart and signed up in summer, and we just can’t have that).
DirecTv decided it didn’t want my money. See, they used to support TiVo but now they pimp their own DVR device. But they no longer support TiVo even if you’re an existing TiVo customer of DirectV. Their device doesn’t have some features we wanted, like the ability to communicate with other DVRs. Also, we’d have to pay them and pay TiVo for the same service. It would cost us another $30 or so a month for DirecTv and TiVo (as a separate service). And, like every other affluent person out there, I pay $30 per month to too many people already. Seriously, have you figured out how many people you pay between $20 – $50 per month? It’s probably a lot. For me, it’s cell phones, landline (we have a fax and burglar alarm or I’d lose the landline too), burglar alarm, Al Gore’s Internets, another cell phone, gas, water, and probably more I can’t think of. I get $30ed a month to the tune of at least $240. Sorry, I got sidetracked. Oh yeah, TiVo.
We now have Dishnetwork. It has it’s own DVR system as well but, unlike DirecTv’s, they can talk to eachother. So, here’s my review of the new DVR:
Pros:
Dish Networks beats DirecTv in terms of picture quality.
Programs automatically start being recording a few minutes early and are recorded a little long. If you ever watch Fox, you know this is a pain in the ass on TiVo which defaults to starting on time. I haven’t seen the intro to The Simpsons in a year because Fox always starts early.
One receiver feeds two TeeVees. The TeeVee in the living room and the master bedroom talk to each other. The TeeVee downstairs talks to Junior’s room.
Each DVR has 100 hours of recording time, compared to TiVos 40 or 80.
No suggestions (it’s a pro and a con): No more deleting assloads of shows I won’t watch.
Better DVR player controls. It’s like a tapedeck or CD player on the remote. There’s play, stop, pause, etc. Pretty neat.
It has what TiVo always needed: A skip forward button (I like TiVo’s skip back but thought it needed a skip forward).
More fast forward options (from 4x to 300x).
I can specify from one TeeVee that I’d like a program recorded on another (hence, I could watch live TeeVee and record on the same TeeVee while the other TeeVee does the work).
You can search for shows based on their info, not just title. That’s pretty cool.
Cons:
Not used to the interface.
Not all of our TeeVees talk. Two talk but the four don’t talk to each other. So, I cannot watch any program on any TeeVee.
No suggestions (it’s a pro and a con): I don’t get the occasional hidden jewel of a program I might like. For example, TiVo is how I discovered Robot Chicken.
When you hit the pause, the little timeline doesn’t show at the bottom to indicate how much longer the show is.
No groups. I liked TiVo because you could group the same TeeVee show together (for example, the screen will show Peep (4), indicating four episodes of Peep – if you don’t know what Peep is, you don’t have small children. So, all my Peeps are all over the place).
Overall, I like the new DVR and think it’s better in terms of features. But I’ll miss the old TiVo and it’s warm sounds.
Stossel, the media’s token libertarian, on the myth of gun control:
I’ve always been interested in Catherine MacKinnon’s work. She had a lot of interesting theories and novel approaches to social problems. Unfortunately, she based huge chuncks of her theories on conjecture and assumptions, and little of the evidence rang true to me (or anybody else I can find that wasn’t a victim of violent rape).
Regardless, I’ve read a lot of her work and thought a lot about her approach to law and women’s issues, so I read with great interest an article that actually manages to measure the correlation between rape and porn. MacKinnon said porn leads to rape. Her opponents said porn and rape are unrelated.
It turns out both camps were wrong. There is a correlation. Unfortunately for MacKinnon, the correlation is negative. As it turns out, exposure to porn makes you less likely to commit rape.
The methodology here is also interesting. Rape statistics can be broken down state-by-state, and so can internet access. And since internet access is the same thing as porn access, you can see how internet adoption correlates with rape stats. The best part is, you can see this correlation 50 times over, once for each state.
There’s a lot of potential gaps in the chain of logic here, but these 50 data points are the only real data points we have. Everything else is just anecdotes and fear.
Via NIT, News 2 videojournalist Jerry Barlar is asking for advice on a 5 year-old’s first gun:
While talking to my son, on the way to school this morning, I asked him what he would like for Christmas. To my suprise (sic), and delight, he asked for a real gun that he could carry and hunt with.
I suggested a Crickett if a 22 would work for what he was hunting. Or, if not, a Handi-Rifle in any number of calibers. Both are inexpensive and durable. You want kids to learn the fundamentals first (gun safety, sight alignment and trigger squeeze) so tricked out ARs aren’t the way to go (save those for later). So, I’d get a single-shot or bolt action. And remember: kids, like adults, love reactive targets.
Guess who (answer below the fold):
“Students who bring guns to school are hardly ever detected,” the researcher wrote. “This is shocking to most parents and even other students since it is just as easy to bring a loaded handgun to school as it is to bring a calculator.”
One problem was “junk guns,” the expert cautioned, citing “The fact that these guns are small and inexpensive implies that [they] can be found and purchased easily by students.”
The solution? “Some [shootings] can be prevented, some can not,” the writer admitted. Still, he asserted, “metal detectors and more police officers are a great start to the fight against guns in schools.”
Ultimately, “a school is no place for a gun,” he concluded.
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
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