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Sunday, June 29, 2008

In 1994 I resigned from the American Bar Association.
I'm a person who has taken an oath to uphold the constitution, and it seemed to me the ABA was actively working to undermine the constitution by its position that the second amendment doesn't protect any individual rights.
After Heller, they still take this position.
http://www.abanet.org/gunviol/secondamendmentissues/home.shtml.
Instead, I belong to the AHBA, the American Honky-Tonk Bar Association.

Papa Spanno's Hummus
Ingredients:
2 cans garbanzo beans
1/2 cup Tahini
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup warm water
3 teaspoons chopped garlic
1/2 cup lime juice
2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
1 teaspoon sea salt
Frank's Red Hot (just a shot or two)
Cayenne pepper
Directions:
1. Dump everything but the cayenne pepper into a blender and blend until smooth.

http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/ From http://www.smartenergyviews.com/ via instapundit.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

When Heller came down a few days ago, I only read the majority opinion. I'd been warned the dissents were vomit-inducing. So I'm just dipping into them now. Turns out Justice Stevens thinks it's a case about duck hunting.
Whether it also protects the right to
possess and use guns for nonmilitary purposes like hunting
and personal self-defense is the question presented by
this case.


The question presented by this case is not whether the
Second Amendment protects a “collective right” or an
“individual right.” Surely it protects a right that can be
enforced by individuals.
So that's 9 on the side of an individual right.

The text of the Amendment, its history, and our
decision in United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174 (1939),
provide a clear answer to that question.
In legal writing we were taught that the word "clear" is a tipoff that something's murky or just plain wrong.
Breyer:
I take as a starting point the following four propositions,
based on our precedent and today’s opinions, to which I
believe the entire Court subscribes:
(1) The Amendment protects an “individual” right—i.e.,
one that is separately possessed, and may be separately
enforced, by each person on whom it is conferred.

Linda Greenhouse for the New York Times calls this Scalia's most important case ever.
Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion, his most important in his 22 years on the court, said that the justices were “aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country” and “take seriously” the arguments in favor of prohibiting handgun ownership.
She's probably right.

One thing I'm still wondering, what about the legal fees for the case? Will the district court entertain the fee motion, or how does that work?

The list of towns that have backed down from gun bans in the last few days include Wilmette IL and Morton Grove IL, but not DC.

Solar sail to launch next month. Welcome slashdot readers.

NASA to Launch Solar Sail
Posted by timothy on Saturday June 28, @01:31PM
from the cue-bad-brains dept.
NASA Space Technology
arbitraryaardvark writes "Physorg reports that NASA will launch a solar sail around the end of July. It'll be the first of its kind; a previous attempt blew up. It's a small proof-of-concept gizmo, not a full-on spaceyacht. Solar sails operate on photon pressure from sunlight. They are well known to science fiction readers, otherwise not so much." C-net has coverage, too.
[+] nasa, space, technology (tagging beta)

Thursday, June 26, 2008

constitution-in-exile-dept:
DC v Heller was announced today. 5-4, Scalia gets it right and upholds a right to bear arms (although apparently he will then give away most of the right - so far I'm just at page 52 of 157.) It's a nice opinion, if overly long, citing great minds like Volokh and Lysander Spooner.
I have a minor quibble though:
Miller did not hold that and
cannot possibly be read to have held that. The judgment
in the case upheld against a Second Amendment challenge
two men’s federal convictions for transporting an unregistered
short-barreled shotgun in interstate commerce, in
violation of the National Firearms Act, 48 Stat. 1236.


He's factually wrong here, just as he was factually wrong in Crawford about whether Indiana offers free IDs.
Miller had not been convicted. Charges against Miller had been dismissed. The dismissal was reversed. Before an evidentiary hearing could take place (to establish that a sawed-off shotgun is a militia weapon, which it is), Miller was gunned down by his enemies, because his sawed-off shotgun had been taken from him and he only had a pistol.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Ape's rights recognized in Spain.

Not sure if I want to go to Chicago this weekend for Wizard. Would require gas money that I really haven't earned, but there might be furries. and Jen. This would be a good time to thank the websnark for turning me on to how cute Jen is. The cartoon one anyway; cartoonists tend to be less cute in person than their avatars are.



I had the door open to move some boxes, so now there is a cloud of mites buzzing around the screen. (My veganness doesn't extend to insects.)

S.C.R.A.

A comic about me.

Sunny now, but apparently another storm on the way.
photo credit

article in indiana lawyer about my voter id case.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Saw a couple of smart cars downtown yesterday. They are small and cute, relatively cheap, spozed to get good mileage, 33 city and 41 hwy. Not that I'm going to run out and buy one - I'd rather get an old geo metro. But it was nice to see.

While I was downtown I happy to finally find these - I've been looking for them since 2004. Tasty cheap and vegan.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

I hadn't even heard of the drudge retort, till this AP thingy. may have to blogroll it. and http://www.indymojo.com

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

oh hai! cheezburger
is cheezy. srsly.
nom nom. kthxbye.

Haiku #41237, by Anonymous Poet
June 13, 2008 9:28 pm ET

one two three four five
one two three four five six more
one two three four five

Bad Haiku site. Via boingboing.
I was offline, modem trouble, for about a week.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/6/4/

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Tea-and-strumpets-dept: SATC [Sex and the City] is so definitely not my cup of tea that, for me, it is not tea at all, and does not come in a cup. - Roger Ebert.

World leaders are meeting at a UN sponsored summit on hunger.
The menu includes vol au vent (I had to look it up, a puff pastry appetizer) stuffed with sweetcorn and mozzarella, followed by a pasta dish with a sauce of pumpkin and shrimps, and then veal (baby cow) meatballs and cherry tomatoes, with a fruit salad and vanilla ice-cream for dessert. The wine was Orvieto Classico....cheese mousse, pasta, green beans and pineapple with ice-cream, Nero d'Avola Cabernet, courgette tart, parmesan risotto, ragout of veal (more baby cows) with sautee potatoes, and lemon mousse for dessert with a strawberry sauce, with Pino Grigio.
This is toned down from their last meeting, after criticism about the foie gras and lobster. London Times.

a film adaptation of the libertarian writer Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged” is planned for release next year starring Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, both of whom are said to be Rand fans. NYT

word for the day: jurisdynamics. which among other things is a blog, with an article on the personal life and 4 wives of william o douglas. suggestions of domestic violence, alcohol. wonder how he got along with lbj. same article appears in ratio juris blog, may 15th, brought o my attention by Widener's professor Lipkin.
Jurisdynamics also has an article on the sequencing of the platypus genome.

Monday, June 02, 2008

A story about a magic trick.
http://www.theparisreview.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/1338
The Famous Torn and Restored Lit Cigarette Trick
Elizabeth Gilbert
Issue 141, Winter 1996
found here, via scalzi/wheaton.
Somehow related is this blog by a stuffed bull, Bully.

OBama at Rushmore: "I don't think my ears would fit." Video.

Warning poster re bears online.

Sunday, June 01, 2008

The Supreme Court will announce something this morning.
Maybe the gun rights case?
Nope. 3 cases, two common sense rulings on money laundering and one on legal fees.

Slashdot | Explosion At ThePlanet Datacenter Drops 9000 Servers.
Maybe that's why both Volokh and stripcreator went offline yesterday?
I'm jonesing.
Looks like I'm right: instapundit:
WHERE'S VOLOKH.COM? I emailed Eugene and he responded: "Thanks for asking . . . our hosting provider has had a fire, but it looks like we'll be up late tonight or early tomorrow. If you could post something about that, that would be great." Done! Volokh is back, stripcreator still down.

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