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The Cabinet Man Gets a Visit from the Friendly Local Constabulary

(What song is playing? “Good Things”, Sleater-Kinney)

Background: I shoot a lot. Nearly every weekend I'm at the range. My favorite weapons are my .308 MBRs and my various 7.62x39 semi-autos. Whenever I can get some ammo for these things at a good price, I'm quick to “buy in bulk”. I usually buy at gun shows, being careful to shop around and get the best prices. Anything gun-related in Maryland is expensive so I do my research and make sure I'm getting a better price than I can get at My Favorite Gun Shop.

One of the bargains out there right now is the imported 7.62x51 NATO ball ammo from Australia. It shoots very nicely in all my MBRs and I have a favorite gun-show vendor that gives me a break on anything I buy from them because (1) I'm a good customer (I buy a lot!!), (2) I'm reliable (I buy everything I ask them to bring down for me), and (3) I'm just plain handsome!! There was a gun show in Northern Virginia today and I phoned in my order after agreeing upon a great price on four cases (3200 rounds) of Aussie surplus. I cruised the show, borrowed their hand truck and loaded my trusty F350 with my prize.

When I got home – about 4:00 PM – I grabbed my four-wheeled dolly cart and stacked all four cases onto it, sparing my back and biceps. I wheeled the 250 pound load into my apartment and found a spot amongst the packing clutter to store it until I move back to CO in three weeks. I exited the apartment to tend to a flat tire I got this afternoon and I was running around outside investigating its failure. After finding a broken valve stem, I threw the tire into the back of the truck and headed back inside. Just as I entered the breezeway, I noticed a Montgomery County police car cruise past my truck and give it – and me – a long glance. I paid it little attention and went about my business.

Once inside, I glanced out the window and noticed that the patrolman was circling my truck and talking on his radio. Hmmmm... I had forgotten to get a ratchet strap out of the truck so I figured I'd get the strap and get this over with. I popped out the door at which point the patrolman asked if the truck was mine. I said 'yes' and he said, “Good, you saved me some work.”

He politely said that someone had called the police concerning some “questionable” items I removed from my truck and he was sent to make sure there were no potential threats to my neighbors. I had about two seconds to make a plan. My first thought was to put up my guard and play hard-ass. But in those two seconds, I decided not to do that. Instead, I grinned, nodded my head, and rolled my eyes. I said, “I know what caused the alarm” and motioned for him to follow me. I had put the cart just inside my door and I knew I could get thru this without dragging him through all the moving clutter.

The patrolman stood in my doorway and I pointed to the four green wooden ammo cases as I said, “Ammo.” I grabbed a case and spun it around to show the bright orange triangle that screamed “EXPLOSIVES”. I said, “I'm guessing that's what caused the alarm.” He nodded and asked what it was. I explained and he asked me if I minded popping open a case so he could confirm its contents if anyone asked. I didn't feel like getting into a 4th Amendment argument and figured, “what the hell”. My favorite gun show vendor had never accidentally given me hand grenades instead of NATO ball ammo so I took my chances. I cut open the tie wraps that held the latches closed and raised the lid. Whew!! No grenades. Just 800 rounds of 7.62x51. I opened one of the boxes and showed him the blister-packed ammo. He gave me a nod of approval and a quick smile that I suspect contained a small amount of relief. I gave him an (unnecessary) apology for scaring someone and he thanked me and went on his way. He never asked for my name (he didn't need to – he knew the truck was mine...) and I didn't get any lectures or questions I thought were founded in suspicion.

So, that was that. Part of me wanted to play hardball: deny the truck was mine, refuse to let him in, refuse to open the case, insist on a warrant, demand to know my accuser. Part of me just wanted to clear up a misunderstanding between an obviously reasonable cop and a cowering sheeple that got nervous as I unloaded ammo in the open, in broad daylight, while making no effort to be sneaky or covert. I chose the latter. Time may prove me wrong but I think I made the right choice. The cop had to believe I was on the up-and-up. I was polite but not obsequious. I was helpful but not to the point of looking desperate. I'm sure there's now a report somewhere with my name on it and a note that I had 3200 rounds of ammo stacked near my front door. Had he and I stood our ground and let his duty collide with my rights, that report would still have been made but it would say that I was uncooperative, guarded, suspicious, blah, blah, blah. Red Flag!! Instead, it might just say I was helpful and handled the situation with grace and humor. (Nah....)

But again, part of me wanted to play hardball. I'm getting ready to move and my apartment is a mass of boxes, including no fewer than 12 empty rifle boxes that were in plain site of the patrolman. I don't know if he saw them – I will assume he did. I'll be pondering this decision for many days as hindsight is always 20/20. If nothing comes of it, then I feel I made the right choice. The police can make my life miserable whether I had cooperated or not. While I drift more and more into the “question authority” mindset each day, I still hold out a small glimmer of hope for common sense from the Powers That Be, especially at the lower levels.

What would I do differently?? First, I would have torn off those damned orange stickers when I put the cases in the truck to begin with. (The heat index in Virginia had to be over 100 degrees today and I won't admit to having full use of foresight in that matter.) Without those stickers I'm sure the “concerned citizen” would have found little to be concerned about. I'll also be more discreet in the future when moving around cases of ammo. Second, I would have asked the patrolman to wait outside while I wheeled-out the cart of ammo. He wouldn't have had a chance to “glance around” and I could have accomplished the same task without being deemed uncooperative. A good friend of mine who's a military cop warned me to never let a policeman into my house without a warrant. I dropped the ball on that one. I'll do it much better next time. Hoping, of course, that there never is a next time.

What really gripes my ass is that there is some knucklehead in my apartment complex that probably thinks I'm a terrorist. (I can think of NOTHING that's further from the truth...) He/she has seen too many commercials asking citizens to narc-out their neighbors. They've read too many 1-800-123-TIPS signs. They've nothing better to do than to spy on their neighbors and call 9-1-1 when they wet their diaper. I'd love to pose a few questions to the sheeple that unleashed upon me one of Montgomery County's finest. First, if I was trafficking in explosives, why would I leave on the orange stickers?? Why would I move the stuff around in plain site, in the middle of the day?? Second, why didn't you just ask me what it was I had?? Moving the stuff around as I was, I was obviously not trying to hide anything. If you're curious, ask. Third, why don't you get a life?? Stop being a good little PATRIOT Act spy and try skipping the Two Minutes Hate every once in a while.

So that's the end of my rant. Hopefully I didn't screw up. Hopefully the cop is cool and he'll pass along that I am too. Hopefully the whole thing will come to nothing. I know that's a lot of hope but that's just me.

TCM

NOTAMS

It has come to my attention that my Air Force is lapsing into a groundless notion that addressing non-commissioned officers as "sir" and "ma'am" is somehow respectful.

For months I have failed to disabuse you of this notion. More than one non-commissioned officer struggled to become one. More than one non-commissioned officer struggled to prepare her Airmen to recognize rank, render each rank its proper respect, learn their own places, and aspire to higher rank themselves.

Every time you address an NCO as "sir" you are committing two offenses: you are showing disrespect to the place and the accomplishments of the NCO standing before you, and you are suggesting that you do not know, or do not attend to, the difference between brass and chevrons. This is one of the first things taught you when you stepped off the bus and into the Air Force; forgetting first-day material is not forgiveable.

I would argue that it constitutes a third offense, one to decorum and tradition. Some Airmen offer the rationale that "it couldn't hurt" to address an NCO as "sir" or "ma'am," that more politeness is better. I assure you it is not. Rather than being received as brownnosing, this careless form of address signals to the NCO that you literally don't know who you are talking to. Nor is it effective brownnosing to confuse an experienced, mature NCO---with humble beginnings just like your own---with a butterbar who's still finding his ass, or a squadron commander who probably knows your ass better than you do after a single glance at you.

If you want to go above and beyond, if you're convinced that more is better, then give General Jumper an extra five in the morning. Give up the cigarettes. Cut twenty seconds off your mile and a half. Finish your CDCs. Keep your genitals in your pants and keep your eyes open.

And call me Sergeant.

Quote for the day

So Teresa Heinz Kerry has been busted for telling a reporter to "shove it" after delivering a speech on the need for civility. Her mistake, in my opinion, was not to say "shove it," but to preach for civility.

Common Sense at Liberty and Power

One of Colorado's Native Sons Returns Home

(What's in the CD player??  "A Stare Like Yours", The Thermals)

Colorado, I'm coming home!!

After sixteen years in Maryland (12 + 4 = __), I've had it up to here.  (Take my word for it, the threshhold has been exceeded...)  I had some plans to partner with an old business associate at his existing company but, alas, it wasn't to be.  Too much uncommon ground as it related to salary, capitalization, and control.  He still needs a hand but he'll have to do more soul-searching before he'll be able to loosen the reins.  Most importantly, it would have left me stuck on the East coast.

So I took matters into my own hands.  Given the collective wise counsel-- and the occasional prodding -- of B-Mac, Axle, and Fuze (all CO locals), I "up and quit" my stint in the Golden Handcuffs, reserved me a rental truck, and set my sights on my former hometown of Colorado Springs.  I have yet to find a job or a house but I'm optimistic nonetheless.  I'm visiting next week, during which time I will (1) have a job interview, (2) find a humble abode for all the stuff that owns me, and (3) buy my very own piece of God's Country.

I know I'll feel -- and be treated -- like an outsider for a while.  Hopefully just a little while.  My CO friends tell me I've adopted a strange -- almost Pennsylvania-like -- accent, of which I'm not aware.  Getting rid of that will be difficult perhaps.  I spent nine years in ColoSpgs before I landed here in MD and my last serious visit was more than a bit disorienting.  I knew the road names but forgot where they went.  Landmarks I expected to be in a certain place were hidden or gone.  My favorite military surplus store jumped to the other side of the street and its emphasis on 'military' was lost somewhere along the way.  But I'll recover quickly, I'm sure.

I hope the job interview goes well.  It would be a nice change of pace from designing DSL modem software.  (DSL has paid the bills but it's as spiritually rewarding as watching paint dry.)  If the new job doesn't work out then I'll do my best to re-ignite my own engineering company, which, BTW, still exists as a CO corporation.  At least my attorney is convinced that it is, given that he bills me regularly for services that only he and The State deem warranted.

For me, the most exciting part is the land.  TCM's Hideout.  Even at 40-something, I have yet to carry a mortgage.  (I know, that's good and bad...)  I have never set down roots, due either to lack of ability or lack of desire.  Just as I have an uncontrollable "salmonic" urge to swim back upstream, I feel the need to have a place to call Mine.  I'll eventually get a Real Home Mortgage once the dust settles but for now,this piece of land I'm "jonesing" after will do just fine!!

So, sometime next month, there will be the white streak of El Puerqo Grande (my F350's moniker) and a rental truck headed West.  My ex-wife's former father-in-law has kindly offered to drive one of the vehicles.  He prefers EPG -- as do I.  It'll be an arm-wrestling match each morning.  I'd like to make the trip via motorcycle but that doesn't lend itself well to getting Stuff to CO.  So the motorcycles will be trailered and the Slow Crawl out I-70 will be my fate.

And, it can't happen soon enough.

Now I just need to find the closest rifle range to ColoSpgs.  :^)

It's all good!!

TCM

Two-tiered justice system, or a case of the rich raising the tide?

Two competing views could apply to Kobe Bryant's prosecution.

One: we have a two-tiered justice system. One tier serves the moneyed elite and delivers verdicts favorable to them, and the other handles the rest of us and dispenses justice to us in a way favorable to the State.

Other: the justice system we operate today commonly abuses defendants' rights and gets away with it. Only "celebrities" and the rich wield the resources---finances, name recognition, talented counsel---to fight back against them. If it weren't for them, fewer people would be aware of the abuses and they would be more widespread.

Of course neither view excludes the other.

What's your take? Put it in the comments.

Dennis Miller show

I actually watched one from start to finish, mainly because I knew Cathy Seipp would be there. It was worth the time.

• Cathy Seipp is hot.
  
• Lose the squirrel.
  
• The chimp made a martini. Cool.
  
• Damn, sometimes I miss private-sector business travel---the occasional martini bars, y'know? I could use the airline miles too.
  
• Dennis Miller was kinda cool too. More on that later.
  

A Cheerios ad running from local feed begged a hacking. More on that later too.

Friday muledeer blogging

Firstborn and I spotted this pair three weeks ago, along Colorado 86, between Castle Rock and Franktown. Since then I've kept a loaded Canon in the car. My patience paid off. Here they are again, last Thursday night, about a hundred meters east of Colorado 83, about a klick and a half from where we last saw them.


A friend at work says these are Boone and Crockett material. Both are at least 10-point, still in velvet.

Five of them were in the same spot this afternoon as I drove home. The camera sat at the house, empty.

RFC: blog personality sorter

After perusing the table of contents for the August 04 issue of Liberty, and comparing the obituaries for Ronald Reagan, I'm impressed with the diversity of thought. I liked Reagan, both in political deeds and political words, with some exceptions as always. I'll tolerate and hear those who speak ill of him, even want him to go to Hell. But that's not my point.

Liberty's editors and writers are polarized on Reagan, as they often are on many topics. As I scan the titles of the articles and their alternating love him/hate hims, it appears to me that I need to keep track of the writers with whom I agree and disagree, and why.

The blogosphere is infested with self-selecting quizzes that invite a reader to answer a series of questions about himself, and then return a profile that matches the reader to a famous philosopher, politician, fantasy figure, humorous character, and so forth. I'm a True Neutral Half-elf Ranger Druid by one quiz, John Stuart Mill by another, Jimmy (of the movie Pulp Fiction) by another, Boomhauer by yet another.

If libertarianism is not a single unified
philosophy but a kind of constellation of neighboring, competing philosophies, able to attract each other until we get within 1 AU and then mildly repel each other, we should start pigeonholing ourselves into them (visualize the name tags that say "HELLO! I'm Fûz and I'm a Consequentialist Jeffersonian"). A Quizilla based on Liberty Magazine's editorial staff would serve well as the sorting hat.

That way we know what to expect when we bump into one another at cocktail parties and blogger roundups, get past the bickering after the first round of drinks, and build a consensus for useful political action. The ones who want to keep on arguing can be dismissed as wankers.

Which regular Liberty writer am I?

We should be seeing a perp walk, not hearing sniffles about "quee r timing"

Americans have a traditional and healthy distrust of government. This distrust demands openness in the government's operations, so political consensus can be achieved and the will of the governed can operate.

One lonely area where we allow the government to be "closed" as it were, is in the area of national security. We allow our government to hold certain kinds of information secret because broad knowledge of that information can put us, the governed, in danger. We allow secrets to be kept from the majority of us for our benefit. This trust is tenuous. The makers and
keepers of these secrets have a unique duty to understand and earn the trust that allows us to keep them in the first place. A violation of this trust can shake the government to its foundations.

We cannot afford any incidents that are or would reasonably be construed to be politically motivated manipulation of state secrets.

The theft and destruction of these documents appears then to be two crimes: the theft and destruction of the documents per se, and the apparent manipulation of state secrets to achieve a political advantage.

The former simply makes us shrug and wonder idly whether Mr Berger's security clearance will be merely suspended, or fully withdrawn for cause; the latter should outrage us, regardless of our political preferences, for undermining the trust we place in our government to maintain the firewall between domestic party politics and national security.

We should be seeing his perp walk instead of an impromptu press conference, and we should be hearing ringing condemnation from his former boss instead of suggestions of suspicious timing of a leak.

A new lens

I readily admit that I view everything through ideological lenses. Some lenses wash out too much contrast, keeping me from seeing a difference that I either do not notice, or write off as a meaningless or even false distinction. After I begin missing too much, reality taps me on the shoulder and suggests that I try new lenses. It is not an option to remove the lenses entirely. No lenses, no filter, too much glare pours in.

Libertarianism has been my most trusted lens for perhaps fifteen years now. The prescription has needed adjustment from time to time, and now it seems that I need to do close-up work with one scrip, driving with another, so to speak. But it has done well for me, I haven't driven over a cliff or failed to heed a product's warnings or nutritional tables. The lens of libertarianism rarely leaves me feeling as if a large part of the real world is escaping my notice, nor that it shows me things that others dismiss as hallucination. It has withstood the tests of these 15 years. But it alone will not show me everything I need to see. I'm always open for others.

Im pleased to report that I've just found a new, very interesting lens and have not yet finished trying a pair and navigating with them. RKBA readers, stay with me, this isn't some maudlin fatherhood post. Gun content below.

William Strauss and Neil Howe's Generations. Hat tip to Jay Manifold writing at ChicagoBoyz.

I'm cheating by reading the closing chapter. It slices, it dices, it prognosticates:

• p. 403: "Boomers will force a dramatic turn in the politics of Social Security. In the 2010s, they will lay the terms for an entirely new intergenerational 'deal,' snapping the chain of ever-rising benefits that G.I.s insisted would never end." Yup, that's me.
  
• p. 405: "Unlike their G.I. fathers, Boomers will have little interest in a continued U.S.-Soviet rivalry." Written in 1991, dawgs.
  
• p. 406: "Great peril might arise if Boomers find themselves confronting old religious fundamentalists whose inner zeal matches their own." Are they talking about religious fundamentalists in the US, or elsewhere? On one side of the political fence, I see the hostility to domestic fundies, but a curious moral-relativistic baring of the nether cheeks to the foreign ones. On the other side of that fence, our Boomer President surrounded by Boomer and Silent staffers, unable to articulate in harmony exactly why the foreign fundamentalists are so bad and we must kill them. Is it a war against Terror, or a war against Islam, or against Islamic fundamentalism, or against a metastasizing Arabic imperialism concealing itself in Islamic fundamentalism? This has implications for how we fight them (and yes we must), so we better get all that cleared up and sing from one page of music, y'all.
  
  
• p. 407: "Make no mistake: Faced with crisis, this generation of onetime draft resisters will not hesitate, as elder warrior-priests, to conscript young soldiers to fight and die for righteous purpose." From where I sit, conscription is a non-starter. Only a minority of Boomers is calling for it, and many more Boomers are shouting it down.
  
  
• "It is easy to picture aging Boomers as noble, self-sacrificing patriarchs---but just as easy to see these righteous Old Aquarians as the worst nightmare that could ever happen to the world." Who floated the conjecture of torturing captured Al Qaeda members?
  
  
• p. 400: "A Boomer jury will resist making the community pick up the tab where it deems an individual to be at fault." Would be just if the evil-gun-marketing lawsuits would dry up and blow away. Real soon.
  

But this lens is not without its, er, chromatic aberrations. Some of what the lens tells me I will see, I don't believe. I'll give it time to prove itself, as all prognostications require:

• p. 399: "Like all Idealist generations entering midlife, Boomers will mount a relentless attack on all forms of subsance abuse. They will strike blow after blow against tobacco---taxing, restricting, and humiliating anyone involved in its production and use. The alcohol industry can expect its sternest challenge since Prohibition. The firearms industry will fare better thanks to the fact that the Boom will not dislike violence per se, just meaningless (read: '13er') violence." Emphasis in original. I can see the treatment of tobacco and ecstasy, but not alcohol. And bad evil guns? Pleeease.
  
• p. 398: "Boomer-run corporations will keep relentless focus on the 'bottom line'---not just profits, but principles about what companies should mean to their owners, employees, customers, and neighbors. . . Even well-performing companies will downsize staffs, defer dividends, or shift marketing strategies to achieve values-related goals." All of the values-based investing I've heard about has dried up, blown away, and been rolled over to, uh, tobacco.
  

Most important to me as I examine this nifty new lens, is how the writers who crafted it appear to have no political axe to grind. Had they sounded even slightly lefty or righty, I would have dismissed this book and returned it to the library at once. I haven't seen any bias of that sort yet and I will be watching.

Any other folks who have read this work or related ones (several other books are dedicated to specific generations) please comment or email me.

Two new InDenvers!

Go congratulate Walter and the Mrs for their twins, born today.

About damned time

The April 04 issue of Liberty is especially good, now that I have gotten to it.

Stephen Cox's and William Merritt's reflections on homosexual marriage frame my position perfectly. I wish I could link to them here, but I can't. Yet.

There's also a great article on how New Urban neighborhood design is associated with significant (up to five-fold) increases in crime. I was going to try to work that into one of my interests, the reform of water-wasteful residential development in the parched West. I want to write about how my proposed redesigns would either repeat this disaster, or be modified to avert it. But I can't. Yet.

Why not? Liberty's web presence has been, in a word, unusable. Their site carries selected articles from their April issue, of course. April of 2001. I can't link to their articles because the articles are not uploaded. I had given up checking it to see whether they had resumed the web edition.

For a long time I suspected that they prioritized their web content so low that they didn't maintain it. This suspicion was fueled in part by Liberty's editiorial positions on music ripping and Microsoft Windows, which lean strongly towards preservation of intellectual property, condemnation of music piracy, and championing the absolute right of Bill Gates to set whatever license terms please him for the use of his software. Why put your content on an URL if someone could read it without paying and, horrors, even copy it? There have also been disparaging comments about those pesky webloggers (though the most interesting reading in the magazine, Reflections, reads like a group blog comparable to VC or The Corner).

If intellectual property protection was the reason they had chosen to publish only in print, it was a poor one. No periodical that wants to be important, wants to be cited, wants the reputation for unique and incisive reporting, chooses not to publish an online edition. It was probably the question of affording a webmaster who wouldn't crater them.

At any rate, I can put all that conjecture aside.
Huzzah! Liberty Magazine finally is overhauling their web presence. I've cited her articles there in the past and will do much more in the future now that they will have URLs. Hat tip: Jacob Levy at Volokh Conspiracy.

They're worth the dead-tree subscription too. Go for it, you know you want to. And tell them you've chosen to subscribe now because their content is now accessible online. Network effects and all that.

* * * *

Why are you still here? Pick up the GD phone and subscribe!

Laid back Sunday

In the CD changer:

• Billy Idol's Greatest Hits
  
• Reverend Horton Heat, Space Heater
  
• Frank Zappa, Apostrophe/Overnight Sensation
  
• Fountains of Wayne, self-titled
  

* * * *
The Denver News Agency gave our household a complimentary Sunday Post yesterday (funny how they have the newspaper all planned out one day in advance, hard to call it news then, isn't it?) and it reminded me of how little indeed I miss reading a dead-tree newspaper. Scrolling through, er, paging through their Perspectives section and seeing a guest editorial promoting the scrapping of the Electoral College, plus eight or nine editorials about how primaries bring out the non-mainstream candidates, and I had had quite enough.

Barbaloot wants to do the crossword. That, I submit, an internet application cannot substitute.

* * * *
We capped the day with the last of the antelope from last year. It started out looking like this:


and it ended up looking like this:



A roast marinated in Italian salad dressing, liquid mesquite smoke, and molasses. On the side, eggplant splashed with rice vinegar, snowpeas, carrots sprinkled with ground ginger, red pepper, celery, and sesame seeds. Grilled to medium rare over Strickland propane.

253 of 300

. . . is my score today in competition with the M9 service pistol. Good thing I got that right contact lens replaced.

I've carried one in the discharge of my duties but had never fired one before. To date I've only been able to shoot the FATS version, with the inert-gas-operated slide to simulate recoil.

No, I don't like 'em. Too fat in the grip, can't hit any controls without changing my grip, and they have a bad, bad reputation for reliability.

Friday quick hits

On h0m0s3%ual marriage, I've posted some items on my Senate campaign blog. I don't have an animus towards such arrangements myself, and I am certain that with time, States will allow it and more of society will tolerate it. As I think I make clear over on the other blog, I am suspicious of many of the activists seeking to extend formal marriage to gays. Here's an alternative view that shares my Constitutional objections but not my suspicions regarding access to spousal benefits.

My limited experience with such arrangements is limited to three couples, two of whom I've gotten to know fairly well, though I remain in touch with only one today.

That relationship is badly broken, and kids are involved. I'm also confident, admittedly with limited knowledge of the relationship, that its failure was not traceable to the lack of a marriage license provided by the State.

* * * *

Much ado about the trial run of an in-flight-assembled b0mB on Northwest Airlines 327. I reassert: we have to make Uncle Sugar recognize that airline passengers are not an asset to be secured, managed, and protected but an asset to be trained, prepared, and informed, and most of all permitted to protect air travel. The biggest obstacle in the way of us protecting ourselves aboard commercial air is Uncle Sugar. First he can get out of the way, next he can actually offer help.

More on h0m0s3%ual marriage

One cause for activists on the political Right to seek a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is that the Defense of Marriage Act has not been tried in the Courts, and likely will fall. They say they must begin the long and arduous process of ratifying the amendment because the DOMA won't stand.

Eugene Volokh, UCLA Law School, on how the Defense of Marriage Act would fare in the Courts:

The Court did not clearly say or signal that DOMA was unconstitutional; the Court held that criminalizing sexual conduct [in Lawrence v. Texas] violated people's liberty, not that homosexual couples were entitled to equal access to the benefits flowing from marriage. And my sense is that most constitutional scholars (not all, but most) that have considered the issue believe DOMA would be upheld.

One step closer to the MP3-player-slash-language-trainer

I'll coin the term yoda to refer to a small device that one can clip
to oneself, and let it teach you something during times of stress. The foreign-language yoda I proposed isn't just already in development, it's in beta.

Hat tip: BoingBoing.

Quote for the day

The terrorists' motive, we dimly realize as we notice their targets (an office building in New York, a dance club in Bali, men standing in line to become policemen and protectors of their people). The fact that we would never call it genocide has little to do with our opponents' motives but much to do with their power. We can destroy them - if we wish to unleash our arsenal. Even restraining those lethal machines, our wars against the states that protect them are over in weeks. We have the ability to commit genocide; they do not. That is why we should be held to higher standards, but we shouldn't ignore their motives. We can become villains because of our power, but the terrorists are not victims because of their
impotency.

Ginny at ChicagoBoyz

Independence Day 2004

The Pundit Family were the guests of the Governor of Wyoming for fireworks at Cheyenne Frontier Park. For those of you familiar with the area, please enjoy.



M'selle Sklodovska, who normally dislikes loud noises so much that she wears earplugs for most busy restaurants, went without them for the fireworks display. She watched the display with slack-jawed wonder and applause.

Toad didn't seem to mind the racket either.

That racket, by the way, was not just from exploding fireworks. Thousands of cowboy boots were also thundering on the aluminum decks of the bleachers.