I haven’t been myself for a couple of weeks. You may have noticed. I went from irrationally harsh (I think the point stands, but I was a dick about it) to all linky, no thinky on the blog. And the reason why is quitting smoking. I tried. I tried again. I stopped blogging about it because I didn’t want to feel pressured to blog about it. Quitting became too much and I was often faced with a dilemma. I could either:

1) Kill someone

Or

2)Smoke

Mind you, I cut down considerably but just could not get to the point where I laid them down completely. Something had to be done. So, I went to a new doc. He put me on Wellbutrin. I started taking it on September 12. I was to take it for one month, then attempt to quit. No problem. Wellbutrin doesn’t actually combat the urge to smoke. It’s an anti-depressant and basically ensures that while you’re trying to quit that you’re not an asshole and you don’t kill anyone.

This brings us to Tuesday. On Tuesday, I have various rashes all over my body. I also have the worst heartburn I’ve ever had in my life. Once the heartburn subsided, I had constant pain in my esophagus. And one time, I hiccuped and it felt like my insides were going to come out. I went back to the doc. He tells me I’m allergic to Wellbutrin. I’ve never been allergic to anything in my life. It was odd. He explains to me that the allergy is causing the rash and that my throat and esophagus are swollen (hence, what I thought was heartburn). He tells me to quit taking it and, at our next appointment (after the Wellbutrin is out of my system), we’ll work on plan B. Whatever that is. I found it odd that it took near ten days for the allergy to show up.

A few things on being on an anti-depressant:

I was only in it for the short-term (6 months tops) to quit smoking.

My wife said it made me less of an asshole.

It made me feel like I was more of an observer of my own life than an actual participant. Sure, I’d interact with folks and stay focused, but it seemed like the interaction just happened without me really being involved. Not sure how to describe it, really, other than the real me seemed buried underneath the doped up me.

My morning, err, friend stop showing up.

In short, I didn’t like it. I’m not sure how people can take these things for years and years.

So, back to the drawing board.

But you are from Boston.

From The Brady Campaign:

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence today issued a study which thoroughly dismantles the gun industry claim that federal law enforcement authorities penalize gun dealers for mere “trivial violations” of gun laws unrelated to public safety. Instead the study found that federal action against gun dealers typically occurs only after numerous, consistent and serious violations of the law.

The study — “‘Trivial Violations’?: The Myth of Overzealous Federal Enforcement Actions Against Licensed Gun Dealers” — was issued in the wake of House Judiciary Committee action approving H.R. 5092, a bill supported by the National Rifle Association, that would make it more difficult for federal authorities to revoke the licenses of gun dealers who violate the law.

The bill, which the House leadership has included as part of its “American Values Agenda,” is expected to come up for a final vote in the House very soon.

The Judiciary Committee relied in part on testimony from attorney Richard Gardiner, a former Assistant General Counsel for the National Rifle Association, who also represents gun dealers accused of violating the law. One of Gardiner’s clients is NRA Board Member Sanford Abrams, whose gun shop — Valley Gun of Baltimore — has been cited by the Justice Department as a “serial violator” of federal gun laws. Gardiner had asserted that the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which regulates gun dealers, focuses on “trivial, immaterial violations unrelated to public safety,” a theme echoed by other supporters of H.R. 5092.

“It is fiction that federal law enforcement officials are penalizing gun dealers based merely on trivial, inadvertent mistakes,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Center. “The gun lobby’s bill should be called ‘The Sandy Abrams Act,’ because its purpose is to protect irresponsible gun dealers like the one who sits on the NRA Board.”

Whose word would I take? An anti-gun group’s or a man who has forgotten more about gun laws than I’ll ever know. They conclude:

The new study examined every published Federal court decision over the last five years — 21 in all — in which gun dealers challenged ATF’s license termination actions. Instead of “trivial violations,” the cases are replete with frequent and serious illegal conduct by dealers, including:

— Selling guns to straw buyers, and even advising criminals to bring straw buyers into the store to fill out the paperwork;

— Selling an assault pistol with its serial number obliterated;

— Selling guns to juveniles;

— Having no record of sale for hundreds or thousands of firearms that were acquired by the dealer but were no longer in store inventory;

— Failing to conduct Brady background checks on gun buyers.

Here’s a piece on Gardiner’s findings:

Richard Gardiner, a Virginia attorney and an expert in federal firearms laws who often represents FFLs and gun owners under ATF scrutiny, argued that Lara’s case is actually closer to being the rule than the exception.

“The ATF tends to focus or has a significant focus on trivial, immaterial violations which are unrelated to public safety,” Gardiner said. “And they impose unreasonable standards of perfection which are simply not humanly achievable.”

As an example, Gardiner recalled an ATF review of 880 “Firearms Transaction Record Part I – Over-The-Counter” forms collected by one of his gun dealer clients. Of the 34,320 blocks of information collected on those documents, ATF found 19 clerical errors.

“That is a 99.96 percent perfect completion record,” Gardiner noted. “Yet ATF took the position that, because the dealer was aware — based on the fact that he had completed 99.96 percent of the forms accurately — that he committed a ‘willful violation’ with regard to the other four one-hundredths of a percent because he knew what his legal obligations were.”

The bureau revoked that gun dealer’s license and closed his business.

I guess people will blog about anything. Michael Silence has an article on Mayfield’s dairy blog too.

DefRev says Armalite (the A in AR) will introduce a line of pistols. Of course, SayUncle readers knew that 6 months ago.

Rich wants us East TN bloggers to hook up:

What: A meeting of East Tennessee bloggers, and any other bloggers who want to make the trip.
When: September 30, 6PM till we get thrown out
Where: Barley’s in the Old City
Why: To see what the folks behind the opinions look like
Who: Bloggers, commentors, husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, significant others, insignificant others

Several of my friends (and my sister!) are expecting. Naturally, the question of what to name the kids is a contentious and often funny conversation. Here for their edification is the best and most comprehensive advice I’ve ever seen on how to avoid giving your child a regrettable name.

Roll call is another thing to watch out for. Make sure it’s not worse putting the last name before the first. Ted Farr probably won’t be happy for long, neither will Lester Moll or Nick L Pumper. However, this will probably keep them out of the armed services.

This is what optimism looks like in Iraq:

Asked point-blank whether the United States is winning in Iraq, Abizaid replied: “Given unlimited time and unlimited support, we’re winning the war.”

And here’s the wikipedia definition of quagmire:

a foreign military campaign in which there is either no foreseeable possibility of victory or the objectives are unclearly defined, and at the same time no clear exit strategy has been formulated in the absence of victory.

Feeling safer yet?

When you live just a few blocks from the edge of a small island, the prospect of global warming and rising seas can be extremely scary. The worst case scenarios say the oceans could be almost a meter deeper by 2100, but I had no idea whether that meant I should buy some flood insurance. Fortunately, somebody repackaged a googlemap to show how far the seas can rise before you need to grow gills.

At 1 meter, my neighborhood’s coastline barely moves. While some major streets would flood, my personal little bit of dirt would be unaffected. In fact, it appears I’m good to 10 meters, assuming I don’t mind a flooded basement.

Seen at Jeff’s:

Nearly every home in Greenleaf would be asked to keep and maintain a firearm under a proposed ordinance being considered by the City Council.

Ordinance 208, sponsored by Councilman Steven Jett, is known as the “Civil Emergencies Ordinance.”

In addition to a recommendation that certain heads of households own guns, it authorizes planning for a city emergency operations center, authorizes development of an emergency operations plan, authorizes the promotion and support of citizen emergency response teams and neighborhood watch groups, and authorizes promotion of firearms safety and training for residents.

Jett said the primary purpose of the ordinance was to support county emergency operations planning, but realized the firearms provision would be what would “make the headlines.”

Greenleaf Mayor Bradley Holton said he supports the spirit of the ordinance, and pointed out that the proposal is not a mandate because it encourages gun ownership, but does not require it — as a similar law has done in the town of Kennesaw, Ga. since the early 1980s.

Compulsory firearms ownership, I would have a problem with.

Fûz has built himself an AK.

The Carnival of Cordite is up for your gun-blogging fix.

Joe Public:

This is just awful. Tennessee, we can do better than this.

GovTrack sorts bills by subject. It even has an RSS feed.

Via ben.

Tam has a must read:

See how much unnecessary futzing around with the pistol that involves? Every time you go in and out of the house you are adding more windows for opportunity for an ND by adding more administrative weapons handling. This is when ND’s occur

I switch weapons regularly. I have a summer gun and a winter gun. I have a jeans/T-shirt gun and a khaki pants/collared shirt gun. I just keep them all loaded all the time. And stored properly, of course.

Canada:

Why not ban guns altogether? Some would argue that they are useful for self-defence, hunting and as collector’s items. These arguments come from the minority, and as shown by the recent Ontario smoking ban, the minority does not matter when the health of the public is at stake. It is clear that public safety would be increased dramatically if guns were banned and the law to do so is past due.

MARGARET WENTE:

The other day, on a quiet suburban Toronto street, someone hacked a man to death with a machete. It’s possible you missed the story, because it got barely a mention in the local media.

Machetes are not top of mind with the public. Nobody is demanding stricter controls on machete sales. On the other side, nobody is defending responsible machete owners from meddlesome bureaucrats. Nobody is asking how the killer got the weapon, or why nobody noticed that he was a deranged lunatic, or whether he liked violent video games, or had a taste for Goth, or if he’d been bullied in high school. No one interviewed the neighbours to inquire how traumatized they are. No one has called for a machete registry, or mandatory sentences for machete murderers. In fact, not a single politician has raised the subject. That’s because there are no votes in machete crime.

Gun crime is a different matter. Last week’s shooting spree at Dawson College was barely over before the politicians opened fire. Spewing rhetoric randomly in all directions, they left the impression that innocent college students were being mowed down by the hundreds.

She ends with:

Personally, I hate guns. I don’t see why anyone should have one in the house unless they hunt for food — especially 25-year-old males with serious anger-management issues. But I also know that tougher gun laws don’t seem to make a difference.

Even antis see when their side is full of it. That, or our side has wised up and started doing the opposite of the I’m a gun-owner but hooey of the anti-gun crowd.

Here in New York, our local telco is Verizon, a monopoly provider of traditional telephone service. For the last three weeks, my phone hasn’t worked and neither has my DSL.

Both Verizon and my new DSL provider have been incredibly incompetent throughout, and I still don’t have service. I won’t list my travails here, but suffice it to say that all my problems started when Verizon was supposed to switch me to a competing DSL provider. I believe Verizon is being purposefully uncooperative to prevent me from switching.

The hours spent on Verizon’s tech support merry-go-round convinced me to seek other options, and happily I have found one. Using a software package called Asterisk, it is possible to get telephone service over the internet for negligible money ($2/month for the same base services I currently pay about $40 for).

We use Asterisk at work. It’s just like using a regular phone. Every once in a while I have moments of poor sound quality and each month it will go down for an hour or so. But it’s incredibly cheap, and you never waste a whole day waiting for a tech who never shows up.

I have an old computer gathering dust. I’m going to install the software, buy the $80 bit of hardware I need to connect it to my phones, and never bang my head against Verizon’s walls again. It’s great to watch a monopoly crumble.

Over at Knoxviews, they were doing blog like Instapundit day. Reading what they wrote there reveals how they view insty’s messages. But this ain’t a post about that, it’s a post about this thread which I thought was hysterical:

Check out these jugs.

Here’s some boobies.

Nice tits.

Check out these sweater puppies.

Nice rack.

Some hooters.

Check out these headlights.

Some big ol’ knockers.

Yeah, what he said.

AC on the second amendment:

To be “pro-gun”, to be a defender of Second Amendment rights, you need not to have ever held a gun, tracked a deer, or even fired a shot. This is a philosophical debate. Do we have an individual right to preserve and protect our rights or do we not? It is that simple.

Ayup.

Chicago:

Two powerful Chicago aldermen are proposing a gun offender registry that would allow the city’s police to track people convicted of weapons violations.

The ordinance proposed by Aldermen Ed Burke and Isaac Carothers would require offenders to check in with police every six months. Unlike sex offender registries, the information would be available only to police and not to the public.

News Busters:

Media Can’t Find a Single Critic of Gun Buyback Program

Bruce:

I beg to differ.

And, by “differ”, I mean, “kick McCain in the balls”.

Teehee. That was in response to this:

So, according to these insufferable little weasels masquerading as duly-elected representatives of The People, the First Amendment (and by extension, I assume, the entire Bill of Rights?) is now but a “loophole”.

Miracle Man’s is none too happy:

I am not surprised that the NRA would endorse Bob Corker over Harold Ford, Jr. What surprises me is the “A” rating that they gave Corker. I would have thought that an unrated endorsement would have been just as effective without having to do the mental gymnastics required to give Corker an “A” rating.

Speaking of A ratings from the NRA, Blogger and TN Senate candidate Bob Krumm scored one too:

I am pleased to announce that the National Rifle Association’s Political Victory Fund has awarded me an “A” Rating for my ”positive responses” to their candidate questionnaire, and my “strong and vocal support of the Second Amendment.”

Time for us to go. Seven prominent conservatives say the GOP should go in 2006:

With Republicans controlling Congress and the White House, conservatives these days ought to be happy, but most aren’t. They see expanding government, runaway spending, Middle East entanglements, and government corruption, and they wonder why, exactly, the country should be grateful for Republican dominance.

The GOP in power has been a total and complete disappointment. The party in power is the party of big government.

Via Der Commissar.

Jay Caruso (who I thought stopped blogging – what happened to Jane, anyway?) agrees with me:

A high profile prosecution such as this is something that could get such a stupid law changed, but in NYC, District Attorney’s are elected, not appointed. Therefore, there is no way a DA that is also a politician is going to allow this woman to be prosecuted. That’s good, but what’s bad is that chances are, she’ll never see this gun again and will have a hard time trying to get another one.

I started watching it but was interrupted. David Hardy notes that it is not accurate, in the same way that The Path To 9/11 is not accurate:

I watched Assault on Waco on the Discovery Channel last night, having sent the producers some footage and audiotapes…. I gave up after the first 20 minutes or so. There were too many areas where it was just plain invented.

Docudramas are often more drama than docu. I’ll probably still watch it.

Yeah, the site was down for a while. Everything seems back to normal now.

According to the folks at subguns (and the law), you cannot pledge NFA weapons as collateral on a loan. Apparently, that is considered a transfer even if they don’t take possession.