Dear Reader,Believe it or not, I’m getting low on letters. So talk to me! What’s going on in your life? What are you thinking about? Let’s write to each other. You write to me, I write back here, for all the world to see. No problem too small! No problem too strange! No ideas too outlandish to contemplate here together! Write to me!Good Morning Mr. Tennis,My daughter-in-law is a wonderful mother — smart, fun and loves my son and their two children — a very competent person in almost all respects. She and my son live about 1,100 miles away and we have family gatherings two or three times a year. She is prone to throw screaming, crying tantrums based on minor events and always blaming someone for her distress. She is not alcoholic or addicted to any drugs but I’ve seen this type of behavior in alcoholics I’ve known. These tantrums occur at the very end of our family gatherings and occur with her family as well as with our family. She can’t be talked down or reasoned with and if ignored will escalate, often physically leaving the group (walking away). Continue Reading… … Read More
Trees Fall in Portland: A Cautionary Study in Impossible-to-Satisfy Local Busybody Regulation
There’s wonderfully infuriating first-person account out of
Portland from Tod Kelly at the League of Ordinary
Gentlemen blog ;about what happens when you cut down trees
in your yard that you weren’t legally allowed to have growing there
anyway and which presented a real danger to your and your
neighbors’ lives and property.
Read the whole thing, but suffice it to say the scenario
involves multiple thousands of dollars of potential fines,
anonymous and mistaken complaints from neighbors that must be
pursued to the bitter end, bureaucrats making things up to satisfy
their own weird preferences, and a man learning to see
libertarianism in a brighter light. … Read More
Gun Background Check Measure Dying a Well-Deserved Death in the Senate
The limp and pointless Senate
measure to extend background checks to all sales made at gun shows
and personal sales that originate with online listings appears to
be losing steam. Democratic Senators from states where people
actually care about their self-defense rights appear to be
abandoning ship as they realize they’re putting their political
careers at risk in order to win nothing more than a political fig
leaf for the president. And Republicans who might safely vote to
gut the Second Amendment face enormous push-back from their pro-gun
colleagues. Whatever is a senator to do, except abandon the
worthless measure to its fate?
As Jacob Sullum has
pointed out, licensed gun dealers always have to run background
checks, so the “gun show exception” is actually a personal-transfer
exception. Applying background checks to personal gun show sales
might scoop up a few more transactions — or just drive people to
arrange to meet where the rule doesn’t apply. And actual online
sales involving the shipping of a firearm already have to go
through federally licensed dealers, who do background checks. The
new measure would seem to require background checks for in-person
sales that originate in online classified ads. Newspaper ads and
flyers posted at a gun shop wouldn’t be covered. What happens to
people who advertise in multiple venues is anybody’s guess.
Yeah, none of that makes any sense. And none of it would have
prevented the Sandy Hook massacre, since Adam Lanza and his mom
were both capable of passing any number of background checks,
online, at a gun show, or stopped randomly on the street. That’s a
hell of a thing on which to make your political last stand. As the
New York Times puts it:
In spite of a vote last Thursday in favor of debating new gun
measures, some Democrats who are facing re-election next year in
conservative states have already said they will not vote for the
background check measure offered by Senators Patrick J. Toomey,
Republican of Pennsylvania, and Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West
Virginia, forcing Democrats to look desperately across the aisle to
fill the gaps.
Republicans, in the meantime, are bitterly torn between
moderates who feel pressure to respond to polls showing a majority
of Americans in support of some new gun regulations and
conservatives who are deeply opposed to them. …
Senator Mark Begich, Democrat of Alaska, says he will vote
against the measure, and at least three other Democrats are
expected to join him in trying to defeat it, including Heidi
Heitkamp, a freshman senator from North Dakota. Some left-leaning
Democrats may also balk because of the gun-rights provisions that
have been added to the bill to entice Republicans.
Among the 16 Republicans who joined 50 Democrats and two
independents in voting last week to proceed to consideration of gun
legislation, roughly seven have already decided not to support the
measure. Another half-dozen Republicans who voted to proceed on the
bill remain ambivalent.
The Republican Senators Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Johnny
Isakson of Georgia, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bob Corker
of Tennessee, all of whom voted to proceed on the bill, are no
votes right now, and several others are expected to also vote down
the amendment on Tuesday, the expected day of the vote.
New Jersey’s Frank Lautenberg is expected to support the measure
— if he shows up. But he’s three years older than the sun itself
and has been
largely absent from D.C. this year.
All of this is great political kabuki theater over a toothless
gun bill.
Real background check requirements would need to
deeply regulate even personal transfers and would require some sort
of registration system to be effective. They would also be
unenforceable because they would attempt to reach into personal
relationships — and would certainly land
harmless people in prison in the attempt. It’s hard to believe
such an intrusive threat
to personal liberty would pass, when the current Senate measure
stumbles even before meeting an almost guaranteed doom in the
House.
Meanwhile, Missouri, left to its own devices, is addressing
school safety issues by
allowing teachers to carry guns. So far, that seems to meet the
approval of most parents. It’s funny what states and localities can
come up with in terms of locally acceptable solutions when left to
their own devices. … Read More
Must-see morning clip: “SNL” mocks Senate gun control proposal
“Saturday Night Live” took on gun control this weekend.First, a celebration of Congress from Jay Pharoah’s Barack Obama:”As you know, over the past few months, I have made gun control legislation a top priority for my administration. Which is why I am so proud to announce that last week, the Senate voted 68 to 31 to begin debating the idea of discussing gun control. Let me say that again: They’ve agreed to think about talking about gun control.”Next, a rundown of the proposed plan and its many virtues:”Most Americans agree that we need stricter background checks. If our bill passes, no individual can purchase handguns from a private dealer without being asked: ‘Are you a good person?’ As well as the follow-up question: ‘Seriously, are you?’”More here:Continue Reading… … Read More
The kids are alright: 3 stories that will restore your faith in teenagers
It can seem like a terrifying time to be a young person: News of Rehtaeh Parsons’ suicide after an alleged gang rape and relentless harassment at the hands of her peers is heartbreaking and outrage-inducing. The shadow of Steubenville hangs heavy while yet another sexual assault case unfolds in a small town in Connecticut. Texas A&M University’s Student Senate recently voted to defund gay rights groups on campus.Awful. All of it.But there are good stories out there, too. Young people who are doing amazing things in the world, supporting one another, challenging injustice and generally proving that the violent, hateful assholes grabbing headlines right now don’t represent their generation. (Assholes rarely do.)A roundup of some stories that more people should be talking about this week.Continue Reading… … Read More
Wussification From The White House On Down
These LHW folks listen to the White House lies and misdirections on every topic, then they pass them along as though they were etchings on granite tablets. This is tearing the fabric of American character in ways that were unimaginable just a few decades ago. … Read More
Gitmo hunger strike: Pentagon remains silent
RT’s Gayane Chichakyan attended a news conference with Chuck Hagel this Thursday at the Pentagon, during which time the Defense Secretary did not mention the Guantanamo hunger strike which now enters its 52nd day.Follow RT’s in-depth day-by-day timeline on Gitmo hunger strike“As you know half of the men at Guantanamo have been cleared for release, yet they are still there, locked up, stuck in this limbo, desperate. And I was going to ask, when they will let these men go and whether this would make any difference if somebody died in this ongoing hunger strike… I never got the chance to ask that question,” Chichakyan said. This comes in contrast with the White House, which had also refrained from commenting on the protest. Officials broke their silence on Thursday, when Obama spokesperson Joshua Earnest said the White House was “closely monitoring the hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay,” and that the “administration remains committed to closing the detention facility.” The Pentagon did not follow suit. The Department of Defense recently requested almost $200 million to renovate the Guantanamo prison, which makes it unlikely the US will close down the facility in the near future.At the beginning of 2013, the State Department shuttered the office that was in charge of closing the prison. At a State Department briefing earlier this week, RT attempted to ask a question on Guantanamo, to no avail.“Either [it’s because] they watch RT or their media person there just didn’t take questions from anyone who’s not attending briefings on a daily basis, which I don’t. One way or another, our questions remained unanswered,” Chichakyan said. She added the only person who has responded to RT’s inquiries on the detainees was Guantanamo prison spokesperson Robert Durand, who can only comment on a limited range of topics: the deteriorating health of the detainees, and the latest numbers on how many detainees are on strike at the moment, which stands at 31. Eleven of the hunger-strikers are being force-fed – a highly controversial practice, as must be tied down in a restraining chair while a feeding tube is inserted into their nose. Three men have been hospitalized for dehydration.Earlier this week, the striking detainees complained to their lawyers that Guantanamo authorities were trying to halt their protest by denying them access to drinking water and keeping temperatures at the facility extremely low. A group of human rights lawyers reacted to the complaint by filing an emergency motion with a federal court in Washington detailing the alleged mistreatment. The motion has not received a response from the US government; Gitmo spokesperson Durand dismissed the allegations of mistreatment. President Obama pledged to close Guantanamo as he assumed office in 2009. However, he was unable to act on his promise after Congress imposed restrictions on Gitmo detainee transfers. The current hunger strike at Guantanamo is not the first at the facility, but is the biggest so far. It started early in February, reportedly sparked by detainee’s being mistreated by guards, including searches, confiscation of personal items and the desecration of Korans. However, the detainees’ attorneys say their clients’ are mainly protesting against being indefinitely detained, even though 86 out of 166 prisoners have been cleared for release. … Read More
