Chronicling the depravities of the State.
Via to the NRA-ILA I learned that the California Senate voted down the open carry ban. Of course the vote missed the majority needed by one and this is only a temporary victory:
Monday’s 20-16 vote fell one short of the majority needed, but the Senate will reconsider the measure Tuesday.
I mentioned that the Minnesota Legislators had a rather misleading gun related question on their questionnaire at the State Fair this year. I went to the State Fair yesterday and just thought I’d have you some time. The questionnaire is located in the back of the Education Building (if you take a right when entering the fair through the Snelling Avenue entrance it’s something like the second or third building). It’s pretty easy to spot since it’s on the center of the back wall with a big sign that says Minnesota Representatives or something along those lines.
Anyways have fun at the fair and remember to take a few minutes to find that questionnaire and fill it out.
It seems the Center for Biological Diversity didn’t get what they wanted. The EPA denied their petition based on legal issues that were brought up by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF):
Steve Owens, EPA assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, said, “EPA today denied a petition submitted by several outside groups for the agency to implement a ban on the production and distribution of lead hunting ammunition. EPA reached this decision because the agency does not have the legal authority to regulate this type of product under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) – nor is the agency seeking such authority.”
Good work everybody who wrote the EPA.
We sent our most communist-like president to a communist country to free some schmuck who was stupid enough to cross North Korea’s border.
Frankly I think we should have just left that guy in North Korea as a lesson to everybody not to enter that God forsaken country. Seriously you have to be a complete fucking moron to even venture near the North Korean border.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has public comments open on a petition submitted by some jackasses Center for Biological Diversity. The petition is to ban all lead ammunition from the United States under the Toxic Substance Control Act, which had a specific exemption for ammunition contained within it.
A lot of people are jumping onto the fact that the EPA is the bad guy here. They very well could be but from what I’ve gathered they are required to hold public comments on any petitions they receive. I could be in error on this but that’s what I’ve determined from what little research I’ve put into this so far.
The good thing is comments are being taken and you can submit your input here. We have until October 31st to submit comments so let’s inform the EPA why this petition is a bad idea wrapped in a worse idea.
You have to give the anti-gunners credit for one thing, they’re relentless. Now that the right to bear arms has been incorporated they are going after ammunition. If they can’t get the ammunition they’ll probably go after springs because somebody could poke their eye out with one. Oh and they happened to be used in firearms.
Why the heck did Gun Owners of America (GOA) get themselves involved in net neutrality? According to Mr. Pratt:
“Back in 2006 we supported net neutrality, as we had been concerned that AOL and others might continue to block pro-second amendment issues,” said Erich Pratt, communications director for GOA.
OK I get the idea that GOA doesn’t like the idea of a filtered Internet but aren’t they a second amendment rights organization? I’m a firm believer that you can’t be an expert in everything and you need to focus your resources on the most critical things. GOA does a lot of complaining that they don’t have a whole lot of money to work with and yet they are splitting that cash between two subjects. Likewise I highly doubt that GOA has any real expertise in the field of net neutrality since they did say the following:
“The issue has now become one of government control of the Internet, and we are 100 percent opposed to that,” Pratt said.
Let me get this straight. You’re an organization that generally hates government involvement in the life of average citizens and you supported the Save The Internet organization. Save The Internet’s primary purpose has always been to get legislation through that will allow government enforcement of net neutrality. As soon as the word legislation is involved it implies government control hence there was no point in the history of the Save The Internet organization that they weren’t about government control. The fact that GOA got involved in net neutrality was questionable to begin with, but then they didn’t realize the organization they were backing was asking for government control shows a severe lack of research into the subject.
Here’s my two cents of advice GOA, leave net neutrality to the experts over at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and keep your focus on whinging about the National Rifle Association (NRA) gun rights. If you get yourself involved in another fight you may very well get sucker punched because you didn’t study whom all was going to show up for the brawl.
This just came across the wire (yes I have a telegraph which is the true source of all my news). It’s a notice of this years Minnesota House of Representatives questionnaire [PDF] for suckers attending the State Fair. The first question is, ”When someone wants to purchase a firearm at a gun show, should a background check on the buyer be required prior to the sale?”
A certain “representative” here in Minnesota by the name of Michael Paymar has been trying to pass a law that would bar private sales of firearms in the state. Even though the bill has not once made it out of committee he keeps trying and trying again. The question as stated on the questionnaire is misleading and incorrectly written. It should state, “Do you believe people should be barred from selling their private property without government permission?”
Anyways if anybody is going to the State Fair make sure you get a copy of this and let the legislators know we don’t want a ban of the sale of private property in this fine state.
I’m generally the last person to buy into a conspiracy theory but sometimes there is enough evidence that I’m willing to acknowledge there is some merit. You’ve most likely heard an arrest warrant was released for Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, on charges of rape. Shortly afterward the warrant was redacted.
According to Assange Australian intelligence warned him up an upcoming smear campaign aimed at discrediting him and WikiLeaks. Normally this is where I just scoff and figured the theory of conspiracy going on is due to paranoid delusions. Alas given the current atmosphere surrounding Assange and his organization I’m actually willing to nod my head and say there most likely is a smear campaign being performed against him. The timing seemed awfully convenient that these charges would surface so shortly after our administration urged other countries to open criminal investigations against Assange and then shortly be dropped.
Anybody who has read Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA [not an affiliate link] knows that the CIA has a long history of dirty tricks, smear campaigns, and various other misdeeds.
A little over a year ago I made a post stating that accused weapons dealer, Viktor Bout, was not being extradited to the United States. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention to the story I’ll recap quickly.
Viktor Bout is a man accused of selling weapons to people our government doesn’t like. These sales take place outside of our borders but of course we like to have our noses in the business of everybody else. The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) setup a sting operation in Thailand to catch this man and catch them they did. The DEA posed as members of the Farc group of Columbia. The sting operation was a success but that’s when everything stated to go wrong for the DEA. Thailand was not willing to extradite Mr. Bout because their country sees the Farc as a political group not a criminal gang. Due to this Thailand fought extradition and won last year. The United States appealed and won this year.
I mentioned two reasons in my previous post why I don’t believe the charges against Mr. Bout are valid. Go read that to find my opinion. Either way I think Mr. Bout is completely boned now since the following charges are being aimed against him:
Mr Bout, a former Soviet air force officer, faces US charges of conspiring to kill Americans, conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to acquire and use an anti-aircraft missile.
Yes the terrorist word was rolled out. This means one of two things; he’s guilty until proven innocent (that’s how our courts seem to run the second terrorism is one of the accusation) or he’s going to be sent to Gitmo without trail. Russia is trying to get him back and maybe we can trade him for a few more of our spies, but I’m doubting that will happen.
Of course if we lost this appeal we found a way to appeal again by simply adding more charges to the list:
American authorities lodged two further charges of money-laundering and electronic fraud against Mr Bout before Friday’s hearing – if their appeal had been rejected, he would have had to remain in jail pending another decision.
Basically we were going to get this man on our soil regardless of what we needed to do.
A man in Australia has a good basic idea that would be great with a little fine tuning. Basically he claims to have a saltwater crocodile that can predict the outcome of Australia’s election:
He will put his powers to the test when two chickens of equal weight that bear photographs of the main party leaders are dangled over his enclosure.
Whichever the 5m (16ft) croc chooses will, according to his handlers, win this weekend’s election.
Overall I like this idea but believe there needs to be one change. Instead of dangling chickens bearing the pictures of the candidates over the crocodile I believe the actual candidates should be dangled over the crocodile. Whoever the crocodile chooses would be the de facto loser. This would also ensure only people who really wanted to run for office would do so, not just power hungry goons that are running now.