This Case Won’t Die

Seriously this is getting ridiculous, when you think the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit is dead it rises again from the dead. For those of you who don’t know SCO sued IBM back in 2003 for the sum of $1 billion because SCO thought they owned the rights to UNIX. See Linux killed their business and IBM was one of Linux’s largest supporters as well as a supporter with lots of money so they became target one. Well things became fortunate when a court ruling stated Novell owned the rights to UNIX and Novell was more than happy to let other people use it.

That ruling has now been overturned allowing what is left of SCO to continue going after IBM. The worst part is SCO never once provided proof that it owned the rights to UNIX nor that Linux contained any code from SCO’s UNIX. They also kept changing their claims and tactics which dragged the case one for many years while draining SCO’s small amount of money. Of course Microsoft, who Linux has been steadily chipping away at, eventually floated SCO some money to keep the lawsuit going. Even that money wasn’t enough because after it was ruled Novell owned the rights to UNIX SCO had to file Chapter 11.

Sadly it seems as though this case will rise from the dead. Cripes!

This is How We Do It

Via Joe Huffman’s blog comes a story of how we pro-gunners do things. If you are an anti-gun mayor you’re going to be voted out. That’s what happened to Seattle’s own anti-gun mayor who was also conveniently a member of Bloomberg’s purposely deceptively named Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Don’t mess with us:

“When the mayor announced last year that he would ban legally-carried firearms from city property when he knew it would be contrary to the state’s preemption statute,” Gottlieb recalled, “it made tens of thousands of Seattle gun owners furious. Nickels insulted their intelligence by promising to ban guns by executive order, which is the height of municipal contempt for the rights of citizens under the state Constitution. He literally threw away their votes.”

CCRKBA Projects Director Thomas McKiddie, a West Seattle resident, said he and his gun-owning fellow Seattleites had simply had enough of the mayor’s condescension toward their rights to be safe on city streets, in parks and on other public property.

That was a bad idea because then this happens:

“I don’t know a single gun owner in Seattle who voted for Nickels,” McKiddie said. “After he threatened an executive order, he lost the nerve to actually issue one because he knew he would lose that fight in court. Instead, he included gun prohibitions in use contracts for the Seattle Center and other venues. He knew a citywide ban would be unenforceable, and his ouster demonstrates that Seattle gun owners were having none of it.”

Yup we aren’t shooting people like the anti-gunners claim, we are legally ousting those who would stand against us and our constitutional rights. Now if we can repeat this for a majority of the mayors in Mayors Against Illegal Guns we’ll be sitting well.

Media Bias, I Don’t Believe It

Man I find a treasure trove of great articles on Says Uncle. For instance apparently the media only feel those who oppose them and carry guns are worth shitting bricks over. Take a look at this article on MSNBC. From the article:

Holding anti-health care reform signs, soliciting car honks; the tenor of the shallow sea of signs the same.

Except for one counterprotester, apparently the only one within shouting distance. The man would only give his first name as he stood alone, wearing a Yankee baseball team shirt, a handgun on his hip, holding a contrary sign.

Oh shit he’s got a gun, PANIC! Well not so much:

“Part of my passion as a Democrat is the right to bear arms,” Josh said.

A veteran, and from a long family history of veterans, the man who was very much alone in the small crowd of protesters said he believed in fighting for the less fortunate.

“I am a firm supporter of health care for every American,” he said.

Wasn’t there panic and hysteria because people opposing government health care control brought guns to a protest? Shouldn’t there be equal panic and hysteria over a man for government health care control carrying a gun? I mean I thought the reason people were carrying guns to these protests was to intimidate the other side, that’s what the media said. Funny how they are outraged when people don’t agree with them and completely meh when people do agree with them.

Britain Proves Once Again They are THE Nanny State

Wow Britain I have to hand it to you, when it comes to being a nanny state no other can touch you. The Home Office commissioned a new design for pub pint glasses. Well glasses will no longer be the word since the newly designed ones are made of shatter resistance plastic. The reason? They don’t want pint glasses to be used as weapons:

The Home Office has commissioned a new design, in an attempt to stop glasses being used as weapons.

Official figures show 5,500 people are attacked with glasses and bottles every year in England and Wales.

Yes that’s right now that there are no guns to be scared of and the anti-knife campaign is well under way they are looking at the next available weapon. Broken glass appears to be it. Next they will require all beer to come in shatter resistance bottles, house windows will have to be replaced with plexiglass, and owning crystal drinking apparatuses will be illegal.

But remember they are doing all of this to protect you.

More on Consumer Product Safety Act

Remember my post a while back about many children’s books being banned due to poorly worded points in the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act? Well via View From the Porch we have another story of government abuse using this act.

Federal agents are visiting garage sales looking for children’s toys that could fall under the above mentioned act. From the article:

The initiative, which targets toys and other products for children, enforces a new provision that makes it a crime to resell anything that’s been recalled by its manufacturer.

That’s right not only are objects made primarily for children that contain lead banned but any product that has been recalled by its manufacturer is also banned. Of course who here knows what products they own have been recalled? With the rare exception of some items like automobiles most products aren’t tied to the person who bought them and hence manufacturers can’t contact people who have bought their product when they do a recall.

Further Research

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. (PDF)

Overstepping Bounds

Sorry about the slow news day here. I promise the project I previously mentioned will be good and will be dealing with gun rights. Anyways back in the world of overreaching government power I bring you a story obtained from Says Uncle.

Apparently Michelle Obama likes to eat food, no surprise we all do. Like most of use Americans she like burgers and hence was found in Spike Mendelsohn’s Good Stuff Eatery. As the chefs made the burgers Secret Service agents towered over them. Once again nothing surprising going on here as it is their job to ensure the protection of the President and the President’s family. The overreaching power comes with this statement though:

Fellow patrons had their cellphones temporarily confiscated to prevent pictures from being taken.

Yes the Secret Service confiscated the cellular phones of people in the restaurant so they couldn’t take pictures. Of course in this country there is no expectation of privacy when out in public and hence it is legal to take pictures of anybody in public. Well almost anybody apparently. I think a statement involving code dead hands should go here.

Slow Day

Hey I’m just posting to let everybody know today is probably going to be a little slow here. I’m working on a major project which I’ll announce when it’s ready to go. I’ll probably get some news updates going here later today.

Just Stop, When the Author Dies Just Stop

For those of you coming here for gun news this post isn’t gun news. In fact it’s more of a rant and a post dealing with a comedy/science fiction series. OK disclaimer done, onto the rant.

Those of you who partook in any form of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series most likely came across the books at some point. Douglas Adam’s, who sadly died passed away (you can’t say somebody died anymore, it’s too harsh apparently) in 2001, was a comic genius. He had a very eloquent way with words that could make almost anybody laugh. Because of this his series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy became quite a hit.

Sadly after his passing his widow authorized some chump to continue the trilogy of five. And not surprisingly it’s not up to snuff with the late Adam’s works. Of course this doesn’t surprise me since nobody to my knowledge has successfully picked up a late author’s series and did it any form of justice. This makes sense considering nobody is going to be able to fully get into the mind of another person and hence can’t hope to replicate what was once done.

Just look at the examples. After Frank Herbert died his son has picked up the Dune series and ran with it. The problem is his son isn’t nearly as good at writing. What Herbert could fit into a 300 to 400ish page novel his son needs far more pages. That’s not to knock his son in any way but he’s just not doing Dune justice. He would do far better to establish himself with a unique series and let his late father’s work stand on the pedestal of greatness it deserves. Likewise countless people have tried to continue the Sherlock Holmes series. But nobody has the required skill set of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (before he started injecting his newfound religion into his later works) to do the characters of the series justice.

It’s not to say another author can’t make a good series based on another author’s previous series. They just can’t make it in the same way and hence it doesn’t feel as good. When you read an author’s books you get a feel for their writing style and method of story telling. If you like the series you often don’t realize that how the author does things makes up as much of your opinion as the story itself. So when the author dies and somebody else continues you end up finding the continuation to be lacking and not as good. It’s not always because the new writer isn’t good, instead it’s often because the new author’s style isn’t the same and hence things don’t flow like they originally did.

This is why I wish people would let the works of dead authors be left alone. Face it you don’t have the same world experience and outlook on life to form your opinion as any other person. You can’t match that person’s ability exactly. Hence if you try to continue their work the fans are going to feel it’s lacking.

The Badge Doesn’t Give +1 to Accuracy

People who are against citizens carrying firearms always like to point that the police will protect us. They said only law enforcement should have guns because they are the only ones trained properly. Well thanks to Says Uncle I can point at another story where the police don’t seem to be very good shots.

Police in London shot at a robbery suspect 19 times without hitting him even once. That’s a lot of rounds flying around. In fact that’s very irresponsible in my opinion. Each one of those bullets could have hit an innocent bystander which the police are supposed to be trained not to do (that’s what the anti-gunners say). And how far away was he? Well:

O’Connell estimated he was less than 10 metres and possibly as few as six metres away when the officer opened fire.

That’s somewhere between roughly 20 and 33 feet. If you can’t hit a man at that range you probably shouldn’t be carrying a gun on your person. Just remember police officers aren’t better shots than other civilians, that badge does not give +1 to accuracy.

A Holiday I can Get Behind

The things you find on the NRA ILA news site. Louisiana is having it’s annual Second Amendment Sales Tax Holiday from September 4th to the 6th. What is this holiday?

Well it’s a holiday where the purchase of firearms, ammunition, and hunting supplies are exempt from local and state sales and use taxes. I hope Minnesota tries this out, I certainly wouldn’t mind purchasing a firearm without having to pay for part of a Twins Stadium that I’m never going to use (nor get free admission to if I did use it).