At-Home Vacation
Having sex is like playing bridge. If you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand. - Woody Allenand:
There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 300SL convertible. - Unknown
From kaba:
I'm getting a little tired of politicians trying to prove how "moderate" and "centrist" they are by taking more of my money and freedom. Where's this center -- somewhere between Lenin and Stalin? -- Ann Coulter
Kevin Tuma - Kangaroo - cartoon commentary on the International Criminal Court. Oof.
I'm free! Sort of. My family left yesterday for places south. I'm alone for ten days with the rats and the lizards and the fish and the guns. Hoohoohoohoohoohooheeheeheehee. Maybe I'll even play my trombone.
Rick Stanley - Million Gun March Petition - You can pledge to march armed or unarmed in D.C. or unarmed at a local rally. The march will happen only if at least a million sign. You can sign on-line or print and collect 19 signatures per sheet.
Bruce S. Thornton at FrontPage Magazine - The "Cowboy Myth" - the world needs more cowboys and less intellectuals. [kaba]
As such, the cowboy myth is one of the last great expressions of the tragic view of life increasingly absent in our therapeutic world, but necessary now more than ever. We have instead adopted a weird hybrid of Enlightenment and Romantic myths that tells us people are basically good and rational, and only behave destructively because an unjust and oppressive society robs them of self-esteem and causes them to "act out." Reform society, offer therapeutic, esteem-building solace through psychological technique and sensitivity, and then we can create the utopia in which everybody is happy, evil is banished, violence disappears, and all problems are solved through reasoned discourse.
The cowboy knows better. He knows that some people are evil, and their evil afflicts the innocent. Maybe they have an excuse for their evil, maybe they don't, or maybe they're just no damn good, but ultimately what matters is keeping that evil from destroying the good. Reason, law, appeals to morality ultimately cut no ice with the bad guy. He respects only one thing-- overwhelming, devastating and, usually, lethal force. Since the legal and social structures for applying force and judging evil are usually ineffective or corrupt, that force has to be applied by the man (or the woman, like Grace Kelly at the end of High Noon) who is willing to kill for the right.
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This belief in talking evil out of its evil ways strikes me as peculiar, and one certainly not supported by the evidence of 20th century history. The two great totalitarian threats to human freedom, fascism and communism--whose collective tally of dead is at least 150 million people-- were stopped by force or the threat of force. It was Hitler after all who scorned the GI's landing at Normandy as "cowboys" his panzers would quickly teach a lesson. The next time some Eurocrat sneers about American "cowboys," he should remember that if not for those "cowboys" Europe wouldn't even exist today.
Glenn Harlan Reynolds at Legal Affairs - Gun by Gun - the courts are finally realizing that the second amendment guarantees an individual right. [kaba]
Because of recent events in law and scholarship, it's now possible to imagine reasonable gun controls--those aimed at disarming criminals, rather than honest citizens--and a reading of the Second Amendment that stays true to its original meaning. But this country might have gotten here sooner, and avoided a lot of political acrimony, had judges and academics done their jobs properly.For decades, the Second Amendment debate has been divided into two camps. One believes that the Second Amendment ("A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed") protects the right of individual Americans to own guns, in part to ensure that the government can't tyrannize them. This is known as the "individual right" theory. Members of the "collective right" (or "states' right") camp argue that the Second Amendment protects only the right of states to have militias (like the modern-day National Guard) and grants no right to individuals. The individual-right view tends to be championed by opponents of gun control; the collective-right view tends to be held by those who favor it.
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While some gun opponents and legal observers call Emerson a wacky outlier and an irresponsible act of judicial activism, the court may have pointed the way to a more reasonable approach to gun control. The gun issue is divisive in American politics largely because it is falsely treated as an all-or-nothing choice: Either homicidal maniacs will carry howitzers on Main Street, or jackbooted government thugs will confiscate revolvers at midnight. As the Emerson decision shows, however, the individual-right theory allows for neither of these extremes.
The right does bar efforts to disarm Americans as a whole and create a British-style society in which guns are limited to the military and police. But it wouldn't stop the government from passing laws to protect the safety of Americans. Regulations aimed at prohibiting criminals and people with histories of violence from owning guns will face no problems under the individual-right theory. If that view were generally adopted by the courts, a lot of political wrangling would come to an end. Gun owners confident that their rights would be protected would be less likely to oppose minor gun control as a step down a slippery slope.
