Towson, Md. (August 14, 2008) - Baltimore County's Department of Public Works is alerting homeowners to an illegal and unnecessary house number painting service which is being advertised door-to-door through official-looking green notices. 

For a fee of $20 Community Curb Painters (a company of no known address and reachable only through a toll-free, leave-a-message-after-the-beep number) promises to paint a resident's address on the fronting curb - ostensibly to help police and fire personnel locate the property if summoned in an emergency. The advertising implies that Community Curb Painters is working in cooperation with local police and fire departments. It is not.

Such curb painting is illegal. Curbs are public property, in the public right-of-way, and unauthorized painting is prohibited under the County code.(1) Moreover, this house number "service" does not satisfy the code requirement for posting addresses required for police and fire protection in Baltimore County. On logical grounds alone, note officials, the painting makes little sense since parked cars frequently block the view of curbs. (2)

Notes: (1) If something is "public property," it belongs to everyone/no-one, and thus a member of the public ought to be able to do what he damned well pleases. To say that painting "public property" is illegal is to imply that everything not specifically permitted by law is an illegal act. While that is rapidly becoming the case in Baltimore County, we have yet to see a Charter amendment that makes it so. The more rational explanation is that curbs are county property (as are road signs), and that there is a specific law that prohibits defacing county property. This law, for example, would prohibit me from spray-painting "Jim Smith is a jackass" on the wall of the county office building.

(2) If we are attempting to argue logically that curb numbers are useless because the view of them is frequently blocked, it makes sense to ask whether having them ought to be an illegal act. If I've painted something on my curb and no one can see it, what earthly difference does it make to Towson?

This little veiled threat from the county also neglects to take into account that in many HOA-governed subdivisions, and nearly all condominiums, the sidewalks, curbs, gutters and streets are owned by the homeowners' association, not the county. In which case, a resident is not answerable to the county, but to the local arbiters of good taste.

I can't help wondering whether this curb-painting deal became an issue only because the outfit doing it has not paid the requisite licensing and registration fees to the county, and is presumably not coughing up county, state and federal taxes on its income.

Since there are existing curb numbers all over the county, and since Mr. Smith and his cronies have declared them "illegal" (without citing chapter and verse of the law), some other entrepreneur needs to pop up and offer to bring residents into full compliance with the law by sandblasting away the illicit curb numbers. As long as they pay the mandatory tributes to the government, they should be OK.

*Smith's surgery occurred more than a month ago, and he is yet unable to get fully back to his job, which seems to be making grip-and-grin appearances while fobbing off bad-news announcements to his henchman Don Mohler. Yet I know of people engaged in hard physical labor who have gone back to work the week following bypass surgery. Draw your own conclusions.

If nothing else, it's comforting to share complaints with others, and occasionally something useful and actionable is learned about a particular caller. For example, one thread on this site revealed that it is possible to "spoof" a caller-ID system into reporting a number other than the one from which the call originates; that equipment to perform this task is commercially and readily available; and that no law or FCC regulation forbids this particular form of fraud, i.e. sending false data over a telephone system. Perhaps the rules will catch up with the technology, and this is one area where yet another government regulation might actually be useful, as there is no legitimate purpose for sending fake phone number data. You can block all unidentified, blocked or unidentifiable incoming calls; you can block calls from specific phone numbers; but you as a consumer have no way to defend against this practice.

Recently Julia Forte, the proprietor of 800Notes reported thus:

27 Jun 2008

Last week we received a letter from Thomas Georgianna, mynutritionstore's lawyer, in which he demanded the removal of unfavorable postings to avoid a costly lawsuit against 800Notes.com.

Apparently, our user received a call from the company and reported a bad experience. A few more consumers expressed their dissatisfaction. Although, the positive comments in the thread outnumber the negative ones, we have discovered that many of the “positive” responses appear to be posted by mynutritionstore itself.

When we replied that 800Notes.com cannot be held legally responsible for the posted material (such protection is provided by the Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act), Thomas Georgianna responded that in this case if we don't remove the postings they will sue the owners of 800Notes. He apparently hoped that the threat of expenses involved would drive us to comply with his demands.

In response to the threat Paul Alan Levy, a Public Citizen attorney, sent an open letter to Thomas Georgianna where he outlined the many reasons why this theory of forcing the website to shut down by increasing its legal expenses will not work.

This particular flavor of extortion is known as a SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) lawsuit. Heretofore, this practice has largely been confined to real estate developers attempting to shove through unwanted projects, by making it impossibly expensive for community associations to complain. Wikipedia defines the SLAPP thus:

A Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation ("SLAPP") is a lawsuit or a threat of lawsuit that is intended to intimidate and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition. Winning the lawsuit is not necessarily the intent of the person filing the SLAPP. The plaintiff's goals are accomplished if the defendant succumbs to fear, intimidation, mounting legal costs or simple exhaustion and abandons the criticism. A SLAPP may also intimidate others from participating in the debate.

According to New York Supreme Court Judge J. Nicholas Colabella, "Short of a gun to the head, a greater threat to First Amendment expression can scarcely be imagined." A number of jurisdictions have made such suits illegal, provided that the appropriate standards of journalistic responsibility have been met by the critic.

The acronym was coined in the 1980s by University of Denver professors Penelope Canan and George W. Pring. The term was originally defined as "a lawsuit involving communications made to influence a governmental action or outcome, which resulted in a civil complaint or counterclaim filed against nongovernment individuals or organizations on a substantive issue of some public interest or social significance." It has since been defined more broadly to include suits about speech on any public issue.
 

It's a damned shabby process, and in all but a tiny number of instances, unwarranted. (I would not object to a SLAPP being filed against a jump-up "community association" opposing something on disingenuous grounds, as has occurred in the case of a Muslim school proposed for a location about two blocks from my home. I have been following this matter for nine months. The community objections, specious and unrelated to the proposed school's operation, were dismissed by the zoning board. Unfortunately, the decision has been appealed to the next higher administrative authority, even though no new facts have been revealed since the hearing, and the community is not alleging any mistake or procedural fault on the part of the zoning commission. They are simply running up the costs for the property owners, who have already invested more than a million dollars in this neighborhood of modestly priced houses.)

It's worth your while to follow the two links in Julia Forte's dispatch. The first link is to the original thread that prompted the SLAPP threat. Scanning the messages, you will find a number of them appearing to defend the company in question. They are easy to find, as they are written in all-caps, a breach of internet etiquette. Forte did IP address traces on these messages, and learned that they all came from the company being complained about. The second link takes you to a letter in response to the threat, written on behalf of Forte and 800Notes.com.

I think this form of threat is of genuine concern to anyone who uses the 800Notes site--or to anyone who contributes reviews to sites such as ePinions and Amazon, blogs, or moderates a political listmail group. Hell, sooner or later you might find yourself SLAPPed for giving someone bad feedback on eBay!

I do all these things; have done so for at least three years. Of the nearly 1,000 blog entries I have published, only one has resulted in even a veiled threat. Reconsidering how I wrote that thread, I pulled it until I can re-write it in a way that does not specifically identify the parties involved, parents of a young murder victim in Baltimore whom I criticized for not having done a good job of protecting their teenage child.

As the fighter pilots remind each other, "watch your six."

In an ideal world, we would go back to the beginning of the primary campaign and start all over, with an entirely news set of candidates. Now that we are approaching what appears to be Hobson's Choice, I had to answer Sherry in these words:

Cute aside: In one neighborhood where I had a small business, there was a neighborhood business association. The president was a man we will call "Freddie," and his wife/business partner a woman named "Marcy." Without fail, at every meeting Freddie would make an impassioned (and occasionally sensible) statement about some problem or another in the neighborhood. This would be followed, almost as if by parliamentary procedure, by Marcy seeking the floor and starting her own speech with the words, "Freddie didn't exactly say what he meant. What Freddie meant to say was..." (at which point she would thoroughly discredit every word of his little speech. Now, at the neighborhood level, it's funny--in a kind of cruel way--to watch a man being regularly emasculated by his wife in public. God knows, the two of them deserved each other, being a couple of pretentious jerks. But in national and international politics, we cannot afford this sort of entertainment.

That sucking sound you've been hearing all week is what's left of your privacy and freedom, circling the drain.

Monday the postman brought a "privacy policy" notice from Verizon, our internet service provider, that reveals this company has granted itself the permission to monitor everything that passes from my computers through their servers, on the suspicion I might be a terrorist or child pornography collector.

Tuesday the postman brought another such notice, from a company with which I have a few dollars invested. This notice revealed that if the company asks a consumer-reporting agency for information about me, that agency "may keep it and share it with others who use their services," with no limitation upon who these others might be. More tellingly, it revealed the presence of something called the Medical Information Bureau. This outfit, which usually goes by the more innocuous monniker MIB Group, Inc., justifies its existence thus:

"...persons whose health problems or hazardous avocations pose greater insurability risks should pay more than those who present a lower risk. (emphasis added)

Persons who unknowingly, or in some cases knowingly, withhold or give incomplete or erroneous information on insurance applications, cost the insurance-buying public billions. MIB serves in the role of an "advocate" for those persons who fairly and accurately report their information with the insurance companies and who are being penalized by, and are indirectly subsidizing, those who would intentionally or unintentionally defraud the system."

The existence of this shadowy group explains (although without adequate justification) why when I go to Walgreen's to buy prescription medicine, the pharmacy tech can pull up a list of every other medication that has been prescribed to me over the last five to seven years. Oddly enough, another federal regulation called HIPAA required my family doctor to get my written permission to have his office staff leave a message on my answering machine merely confirming an appointment, and to have the office nurse take my temperature and blood pressure behind closed doors (instead of in an anteroom to the reception area), on the off chance she might inadvertantly utter my vital signs as she's writing them down, and that someone with malicious intent might be lurking around the corner to write them down and use them against me. (By reporting them to the Medical Information Bureau, for example.)

Wednesday's mail brought another notice, this one from MetLife, which issues my paltry pension check. This notice, among other things, said that "We may also need...information about finances, employment hobbies (emphasis added) or business conducted with us...or with other companies." This little bomb was followed by a statement that MetLife reserves the right to get information form "other sources," including "adult relatives."  That opens the door to a world of mischief from estranged spouses and participants in other forms of family feuds (none of which, blessedly, exist in my own family.) MetLife also mentions, in passing, that "Other reasons we may disclose what we know about you include...Doing what a court or government agency requires us to do; for example, complying with a search warrant or subpoena."  Nowhere in the reassuring document does the company promise that it will inform me that a Government Agency has inquired about me.

Finally, an email received Thursday pointed me to an article in PC World revealing that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has asserted that it can search laptops and other electronic devices owned by U.S. citizens returning to the country without the need for reasonable suspicion of a crime or probable cause. (emphasis added, but read that again!) This news article has drawn some comments, among which appear to indicate that people have missed something important:

• The laptop search will become pointless. Anything illegal that can be put on a laptop can also be emailed across the border.
• Do you have any idea how many laws are on the books that aren't enforced simply because they're pointless? What difference does it make whether or not they're allowed to do something if it's a waste of time to actually DO it? Before long they'll realize they don't have the manpower to waste time doing the ineffective. Tell that to those TSA screeners at the airport.
• It is a great tool to aid the officers who are fighting to keep this country safe. You might not like it but there are some bad people out there. From child rapists, molesters, spies and yes terrorists trying to smuggle in all sorts of illegal digital work or images. Men who go on sex tours have come back with child porn on there digital devices. Think of it as a way of keeping the honest man honest when he travels abroad. I am sure you would agree that every effort should be expended to protect our children from these predators?
• Customs officers searching your laptop is no different than Customs officers searching your bags, books, or paper records. So much for that antiquated notion that "The People...shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects" unless someone in the executive branch (law enforcement) can demonstrate to someone in the judiciary branch (a judge) a damn good reason for snooping, and what exactly they are hoping to find.

 In short, the readers of PC World seem more concerned about being inconvenienced than about being violated.

Now if you will excuse me, someone is banging heavily on my front door...

The June 2008 issue of America's First Freedom carries an interview of McCain conducted by Chris Cox (Executive Director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action) and the redoubtable Wayne LaPierre (Executive Vice-President of NRA). If you are unfamiliar with this pair, they are the two most highly paid officials of the NRA who are not elected by the membership, and presumably cannot be fired.

I skimmed the article until I found a reference to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, more familiarly known as the McCain-Feingold Act. Yes, that McCain. Here's their question and the Senator's feckless answer, as published:

Senator, you were the chief sponsor of “campaign finance reform” legislation—legislation that, when passed, included a provision that restricts the NRA’s ability to run broadcast ads lobbying on legislative issues in the 60 days before a federal election. Many gun owners believe that this provision severely restricts their ability to participate in the legislative process, and in fact, many believe it to be unconstitutional. Would you explain your motivation behind campaign finance reform, and why the broadcast restriction was included in the final bill?
 
   I fought for campaign finance reform because I strongly believed that prior to the enactment of this legislation, our system of financing campaigns was seriously broken and in need of repair. I genuinely worried that legislative provisions were being passed or defeated based on the size of “soft money “ contributions made by affected interests. I can assure you that my motivation in this effort was directed at these out-of-control amounts of “soft money” that seeped into federal campaigns—not a desire to restrict the ability of gun owners or any other group of citizens from making their voices heard in the legislative process. I am fully committed to defending the constitutional right to petition the government for the redress of grievances. 
 

Interestingly, the cutline under the photo heading this article claims that Cox and LaPierre asked McCain some "direct questions," while the table of contents even says they are "tough questions." Damn shame they did not bother with a follow-up.

Compare this against NRA's strong statements over the last few years:

NRA FAX Alert March 22, 2002

On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate joined the House in assaulting free speech when it passed H.R. 2356—the Shays-Meehan Campaign Finance "Reform" bill—on a vote of 60-40. Congressional opponents to this attack on the First Amendment have vowed to challenge it in the courts, and U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), one of the most vocal opponents of this bill, has already assembled a team of attorneys, including former independent counsel Kenneth Starr, to mount a legal challenge. NRA also remains committed to protecting its ability to exercise free speech and ensuring the privacy of its members, and your Association will fight this assault on the First Amendment all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, if necessary. (emphasis added)

 NRA First to File Constitutional Challenge (Press release Dated March 27, 2002)

JOINT STATEMENT BY WAYNE LAPIERRE , EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA and JAMES JAY BAKER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NRA`S INSTITUTE FOR LEGISLATIVE ACTION

(Washington, D.C.) --"Early this morning, President Bush signed into law the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act ("BCRA"). When the federal courthouse opened for business today, NRA was there – we have filed suit to invalidate this unconstitutional infringement on the First Amendment rights of the NRA and our four million members nationwide.

We are proud to be the first plaintiff to formally ask the federal court to invalidate these new limits on the political speech of ordinary citizens because we believe that this law cannot be allowed to stand – not even for a moment.

Sen. Paul Wellstone said on the floor of the United States Senate during the campaign finance debate that it was his intention to silence the NRA. As a direct and intentional target of this law, NRA has no choice but to protect our right to be heard.

NRA has been mentioned by name – but the authors of this law have delivered a clear and straightforward message not only to NRA but to all American citizens. That message is this: ‘Keep your mouths shut.` ‘Stay out of our political debates.` ‘Be quiet.`

Our response is this: the First Amendment protects us from such directives from the government. The First Amendment does not allow Congress to make laws which deny us the right to speak out on issues, the right of our members to associate together on public policy issues and the right to petition our government for redress of grievances. That is what this lawsuit is about.

Through this law Congress has essentially granted speech licenses to giant corporate conglomerates such as Viacom, Disney Corporation and General Electric Company by allowing those corporations unlimited rights to spend money talking about issues and candidates, while silencing the voices of ordinary citizens and citizens groups such as NRA.

Why should corporations such as these media conglomerates, all of which own multiple non-news business enterprises and spend millions of dollars lobbying Congress—why should those corporations be allowed to spend whatever they wish, whenever they wish, saying whatever they wish regarding any issue or candidate – when a non-profit citizens organization such as ours is prohibited from even responding via the broadcast media?

The law imposes severe civil and criminal penalties on citizens who have the audacity to speak out on issues of concern – and we do not believe that the Constitution of the United States of America and the U.S. Supreme Court can possibly allow such a result."

The above, reprinted in part in "Grassroots Alert" volume 9, number 13, March 29, 2002

...under the headline "NRA Files Suit Against Sham Campaign Finance 'Reform' "

Quiet Time Campaign Muzzle (April 1, 2002)

"John McCain is an enemy of the First Amendment." 

Soft Money, Hard Feelings (May 16, 2002)

Links to a George Will column, quoting it thus:

"The document`s title is bland: 'Reply of Senator John McCain, Senator Russell Feingold, Representative Christopher Shays, Representative Martin Meehan, Senator Olympia Snowe, and Senator James Jeffords in support of their motion to intervene as defendants supporting the constitutionality of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.' But the document`s message is fascinating. "File the document under: 'Give them enough rope,' "

Foreign to the First Amendment (July 2, 2002)

Later this year the Supreme Court will be asked to consider the most recent attack on editorial issue advertisements that deal with the conduct of elected officials. The proponents of this new assault are elected officials--namely, Congress. The issue advertising ban in question is contained in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002--frequently referred to as McCain-Feingold, for its legislative sponsors in the Senate. Because this newly minted restriction is inconsistent with the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and a free press, the court should reject it.

Free Speech in the Twilight Zone ( November 2, 2002)

A few excerpts:

Americans are facing an Orwellian nightmare--a bottomless pit of regulation and rules, all designed to cut off collective free speech....

This is a ban on a major aspect of grassroots lobbying and has nothing to do with purely political activity. It has nothing to do with directly exhorting the public to vote for or against a candidate....

there is a major exception to the contributor disclosure, granted under two FEC Advisory Opinions in 1996 that "allowed the Socialist Workers Party to withhold the identities of its contributors and persons to whom it had disbursed funds because of a reasonable probability that the compelled disclosure of the party`s contributors` names would subject them to threats, harassment or reprisals from either government officials or private parties."

So the NRA-PVF has to cough up the names and addresses of contributors who give it more than $200, while the Socialist Workers Party`s funding sources are sealed.

Additionally, the commission boldly took powers never even intended by Congress--powers to regulate what state and local candidates are permitted to say in their paid political advertising....

In his "declaration" filed with the court, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre made the case succinctly.

"The Second Amendment and the NRA are at the center of a culture war LaPierre said. "The Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act effectively cedes the entire battlefield in this cultural war to the broadcast media corporations and politicians. It allows federal candidates and the big media conglomerates to say whatever they want about the NRA in the months before an election and shields them from any effective response by prohibiting the NRA from tittering the name of its attackers . . ."

The First Amendment on Trial (December 2, 2002)

...At issue is the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA, alias McCain-Feingold), by which the just-adjourned 107th Congress followed in the footsteps of the 5th Congress, which enacted the Sedition Act of 1798.

An Appearance of Corruption (5/23/2003)

The Weekly Standard`s David Tell closely examines "the bogus research" undergirding the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.

A Sad Day for the Constitution (December 12, 2003)

...So noted NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre when, on December 10, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision to uphold the major provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act...

Wayne LaPierre said, "You`re going to have to put an asterisk by the First Amendment, and a footnote, because for many months of the year it`s no longer in effect."  Wayne went on to say, in no uncertain terms, that NRA still has many ways to make its position known in federal elections.  "They didn`t say we couldn`t mention the U.S. Congress, or the Senate. And we will run advertising directing the American public to information sources as to where they can find the truth, and the facts, and who`s for them and who`s against them.  This is a sad day for the Constitution, but the 4 million members of the NRA will continue to be heard.  That I can promise."

In addition to expanding NRA-PVF`s fundraising activities, this, no doubt, will also mean an even greater reliance on the grassroots efforts of our nation`s 65 million gun owners who have answered the call time and again.  One clear advantage NRA has over virtually every other group in America is a large, passionate, and active base of grassroots support that is willing to not only vote on Election Day, but actively work on the campaigns of pro-freedom candidates.  The engine that drives the NRA machine is our grassroots, and you can rest assured in the months ahead, we will refine, improve, and expand our grassroots operations to meet the challenges that now lay before us.  Please keep an eye out on future Grassroots Alerts to find out how you can take on an even more active role in our grassroots activities in this new day and age of campaign restrictions.

Summed up in five words: "Wayne says, 'send more money.' "

Amending an Amendment (Dec. 22, 2003)

Introducing a Rich Tucker commentary at TownHall.com:

...political parties hardly matter anymore, because of another provision of McCain-Feingold. The law also bars them, and unions, interest groups and corporations from running TV ads that mention a specific candidate in the 60 days before a federal election. But if they’re not allowed to engage in politics during the two months before election day (when people might actually be paying attention), why should any of these groups bother engaging in politics at all? Or, maybe, that’s what the incumbent politicians want.

Democrats' Magic Number: 527 (March 10, 2004)

Introducing a MSNBC story:

With the unlimited “soft money” contributions to national political parties ostensibly banned by the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA, also known as the McCain-Feingold law), Democrats are counting on their 527 groups, organized under section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, and bankrolled by billionaire currency speculator George Soros, Real Networks CEO Robert Glaser, labor unions, and others.

Standing Guard: A Win for free speech (September 7, 2007)

When Congress enacted this oppressive law, the National Rifle Association, as a grassroots corporation, was singled out for censorship. Our highly acclaimed infomercials were labeled "sham ads" and were targeted for broadcast speech bans.

Without this new ruling, NRA's running an educational broadcast alluding to any candidate for federal office anywhere in the nation during the pre-election blackouts could amount to a federal crime. A broadcast expressing NRA's staunch opposition to a gun ban could be seen by FEC enforcers as indirectly urging Americans to vote against a candidate favoring a firearm ban--say, Hillary Clinton.

So, Wayne & Chris, if I might be so familiar--and as a Life Member of NRA I think it's my right--what's the source of this sudden failure of courage on your part?  If I recall correctly, right after the BCRA was signed into law--and before NRANews.com was created, in the hope it would be considered a legitimate media outlet and therefore unaffected by BCRA--Wayne LaPierre wrote an impassioned letter published in all the NRA monthlies, saying that by God, he'd anchor a ship with a TV transmitter in international waters and broadcast the Truth, if that's what it took.

So why all the kowtowing to McCain in this interview? Unless there is some secret deal being cut, McCain has more to lose by being criticized by NRA than NRA has to lose by not endorsing McCain, or any Presidential candidate in November.

I have been saying for the last month or two, the "Stimulus Check"  would have been spent on more ammo. If asked by media or in a survey, that would be my answer.

Think of "Buy Back" in reverse. Think of the positive press it could make. Think of how folks can pull together on this one.

1) Publicize the "Stimulus for Freedom" with an Anti-Buyback.

2) Encourage Ammo and Firearm dealers to offer their own additional "Stimulus", such as a discount for anyone presenting the check in payment (or if by e-mail credit card order if invoking "Stimulus Day" event).

How might you use your returned hard-earned cash?

• Sign up for a shooting instruction course.
• Sign up for Women On Target or Refuse to Be A Victim
• Join the local gun club and get a membership for a friend.
• Join or contribut to the NRA, GOA, JPFO, VCDL, MSI, or Second Amendment Sisters.
• Sign up for a firearms instructor or range safety officer course.
• Buy AMMO and then take friends shooting, especially if you can invite an an anti-gun friend for a positive first-experience on a firing range.
• Volunteer at the Camp Perry matches, and use the money to pay your transportation.
• Contribute to the election or re-election campaign of a gun-friendly legislator
  

Do you have additional ideas along these lines? Please comment.

Dear Ms. Dorsey:

I am in receipt of your postcard that says there are some communications from Johns Hopkins that I am not receiving.

I have had several discussions with representatives of the Office of Annual Giving, which heretofore have been of the most amiable nature. Please consider this my final, and non-negotiable answer to that postcard. There are but two chances of my giving money to JHU: (1.) Slim  (2.) None The institution collects upwards of 3/4 billion per year in Federal tax money.  I consider my involuntary contribution, as gobbled into the gaping maw of the IRS and excreted through the cloaca of Congress to be more than sufficient. Moreover, JHU openly and willingly accepts hundreds of millions of dollars in donations from the Soros clan, and Michael Bloomberg, among the wealthiest of the USA's ultra-wealthy parlor socialists, and enemies of Consitutional freedom.  I will not voluntarily have my hard-earned dollars commingled with those of such execrable people. Out of concern for your student volunteers, I suggest that you be certain any and all of them refrain from telephoning me, now or in the foreseeable future. I assure you that any such telephone calls will be met with the most vile insults I am capable of dredging up, and we wouldn't want to hurt the little darlings'  feelings, now would we? Wishing you absolutely everything you deserve, I remain,  

 

Stan M------- 

In 2002, near the end of his five years as president of the NRA, Heston disclosed he had symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's disease.

The disclosure was soon followed by an unflattering appearance in Moore's 2003 best documentary winner "Bowling for Columbine," which took America to task for its gun laws.

Moore used a clip of Heston holding aloft a rifle at an NRA rally and proclaiming "from my cold, dead hands." The director flustered the actor in an interview later in the film by pressing him on his gun-control stance. Heston eventually walked out on Moore.

Moore's Web site, http://www.michaelmoore.com, on Sunday featured a photo of Heston, the date of his birth and death and a note from the actor's family requesting that donations be made to the Motion Picture and Television Fund in lieu of flowers.

There was no other reaction on the site from Moore about Heston's death.

Saturday's news of Heston's death was accompanied by some footage of an interview he gave--I forget to whom--in which he was asked whether he had any fear over the Alzheimer's diagnosis. The gist of his reaction was no, it's just another part of this big adventure called life.

It struck me as I watched that bit of footage, with the actor in his late seventies, that if ever there were an actor suited to portray Ronald Reagan during his Presidential years, it would have been Chuck Heston.

Among this morning's email was a transcript of a speech that Heston gave at Harvard Law School a few years ago, before his illness. The speech contained a few bon mots that bear repeating here:

I fear you no longer trust the pulsing lifeblood of liberty inside you . . . the stuff that made this country rise from wilderness into the miracle that it is. ...

As I have stood in the crosshairs of those who target Second Amendment freedoms, I've realized that firearms are not the only issue.

No, it's much, much bigger than that.

I've come to understand that a cultural war is raging across our land, in which, with Orwellian fervor, certain acceptable thoughts and speech are mandated.

For example, I marched for civil rights with Dr. King in 1963 - long before Hollywood found it fashionable. But when I told an audience last year that white pride is just as valid as black pride or red pride or anyone else's pride, they called me a racist.

I've worked with brilliantly talented homosexuals all my life. But when I told an audience that gay rights should extend no further than your rights or my rights, I was called a homophobe.

I served in World War II against the Axis powers. But during a speech, when I drew an analogy between singling out innocent Jews and singling out innocent gun owners, I was called an anti-Semite.

Everyone I know knows I would never raise a closed fist against my country.

But when I asked an audience to oppose this cultural persecution, I was compared to Timothy McVeigh.

From Time magazine to friends and colleagues, they're essentially saying, "Chuck, how dare you speak your mind like that? You are using language not authorized for public consumption!"

But I am not afraid. If Americans believed in political correctness, we'd still be King George's boys - subjects bound to the British crown.

In his book, The End of Sanity, Martin Gross writes that "blatantly irrational behavior is rapidly being established as the norm in almost every area of human endeavor. There seem to be new customs, new rules, new anti-intellectual theories regularly foisted on us from every direction.

Underneath, the nation is roiling. Americans know something without a name is undermining the country, turning the mind mushy when it comes to separating truth from falsehood and right from wrong. And they don't like it." ...

If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist.

If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you sexist.

If you think critically about a denomination, it does not make you anti-religion.

If you accept but don't celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a homophobe.

Don't let America's universities continue to serve as incubators for this rampant epidemic of new McCarthyism.

But what can you do? How can anyone prevail against such pervasive social subjugation? The answer's been here all along.

I learned it 36 years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., standing with Dr. Martin Luther King and two hundred thousand people.

You simply ... disobey.

Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely.

But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don't. We disobey social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom. ...

In that same spirit, I am asking you to disavow cultural correctness with massive disobedience of rogue authority, social directives and onerous laws that weaken personal freedom.

But be careful ... it hurts. Disobedience demands that you put yourself at risk. Dr. King stood on lots of balconies.

You must be willing to be humiliated ... to endure the modern-day equivalent of the police dogs at Montgomery and the water cannons at Selma.

You must be willing to experience discomfort. ...

So that this nation may long endure, I urge you to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the great disobediences of history that freed exiles, founded religions, defeated tyrants, and yes, in the hands of an aroused rabble in arms and a few great men, by God's grace, built this country.

Powerful words. Words that I suspect will be omitted from the eulogizing that all the neocons will indulge themselves in, thinking they know something of this man.

As reported in the Washington Post, [comments added]

...the Safe Homes Initiative, [is] aimed at parents and guardians who know or suspect that their children or other relatives have guns. Under the deal, police target areas hit by violence* and seek adults who let them search their homes for guns, with no risk of arrest. The offer also applies to drugs that turn up during the searches, police said.

*i.e., low-income black and Latino neighborhoods --ed.

Of course, the police chief says it will be a no-fault/no-foul operation, aimed at "getting guns and drugs off the streets."

 "If we come across illegal contraband*, we will confiscate it," Lanier said. "But amnesty means amnesty. We're trying to get guns and drugs off the street."

*Anyone with the slightest clue what might constitute legal contraband is urged to send me the details, a.s.a.p.

Fenty (D) and Lanier announced the plan as part of a new strategy to deal with the prevalence of firearms in a city that has one of the strictest gun control laws in the nation*. The Supreme Court will hear arguments next week in a case challenging the constitutionality of the D.C. law.

*Eureka! Might this be a clue that those strict gun control laws are not enforceable and do not work?

Counting on the reader's being so brain-dead as to have forgotten what was written a mere two paragraphs earlier, Post reporter Allison Klein adds,

Residents who agree to the searches will be asked to sign consent forms. If guns are found, they will be tested to determine whether they were used in crimes. If the results are positive, police will launch investigations, which could lead to charges.

So, according to Lanier, "amnesty means amnesty," except when it doesn't. Apparently the Post has conditioned its reporters not to ask embarrassing follow-up questions.

Meanwhile, over at the Washington Times (you know: that mouthpiece of the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy) reporter David Lipscomb attended the same press conference, and came away with a slightly different version of the story. As Lipscomb reports it, the police department spokesperson appears not to have been Chief Lanier, but "police spokeswoman Traci Hughes."  Hughes, not Lanier, is quoted directly in the Times piece. You don't suppose the police department held two parallel press conferences, or sent out two different sets of press releases, do you? Me either.

Lipscomb adds a fact omitted in the Post story, which is that the program will begin March 24 to coincide with D.C. Public Schools' spring break and will run indefinitely...

If Lanier really meant "amnesty means amnesty," why wait until children--who are apparently the prime targets here--are home from school, especially if the program is meant to help parents/guardians who are actually afraid of the children in their homes (as the police spokesperson has asserted)?

I have not found any hard data, but a quick check on the web suggests that NATIONALLY around 14 percent of the children between the ages of 5 and 12 are so-called "latchkey kids,"  home alone after school. Nothing I could easily find estimates the percentage of children under 18 who are at home alone after school, and presumbly will also be home alone during spring break.

Presumably, a person under the age of 18 cannot legally give consent to a search, and the potential pandemonium caused by police officers stomping into houses where no adults are home should not be underestimated.

Under the best of circumstances--that the door is answered by a person over the age of majority--what's likely to be the police response if the request to search the place is denied, especially if the refusal is delivered with hostility and profanity? Can we expect that the police will simply apologize for the intrusion and go on to the next house? Or will this be considered a motivation to seek a formal (i.e., legal) search warrant? Or, will the cop on the doorstep simply take two steps back and unholster his Taser, figuring that a convienient cover-your-ass lie can be dreamed up later?

Apparently the only person not 100 per cent on board with this program is the head of the police union, as Lipscomb reports:

Officer Kristopher Baumann, head of the union that represents the city's police, said the group "supports any well thought out plan to reduce violence*."

However, he hopes the department has considered potential problems with advertising amnesty while checking for guns connection to crimes.

*But evidently with no regard to whether or not such a plan is Constitutional. Just as a little refresher, that dusty, outmoded old document (or "living" document, depending which flavor of liberalism you espouse) says the following:

ARTICLE IV: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmations, and particularly describing the place to be searched, andd the persons or things to be seized.

Alan Gottlieb, of the Second Amendment Foundation quickly responded to Fenty's announcement thus:

Calling this project the ‘Safe Homes Initiative’ is an insult to our intelligence... If District residents allow this to happen, no home will be safe from warrantless fishing expeditions by police, because that’s exactly what this thinly-disguised program is really all about. We think Congress should step in immediately and stop this from happening.

The entire Gottlieb commentary comprises only a few paragraphs, and is well worth reading. Find it here.

(03-07) 04:00 PST LOS ANGELES --

A California appeals court ruling clamping down on homeschooling by parents without teaching credentials sent shock waves across the state this week, leaving an estimated 166,000 children as possible truants and their parents at risk of prosecution.

The homeschooling movement never saw the case coming.

"At first, there was a sense of, 'No way,' " said homeschool parent Loren Mavromati, a resident of Redondo Beach (Los Angeles County) who is active with a homeschool association. "Then there was a little bit of fear. I think it has moved now into indignation."

The ruling arose from a child welfare dispute between the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services and Philip and Mary Long of Lynwood, who have been homeschooling their eight children. Mary Long is their teacher, but holds no teaching credential.

The parents said they also enrolled their children in Sunland Christian School, a private religious academy in Sylmar (Los Angeles County), which considers the Long children part of its independent study program and visits the home about four times a year.

The Second District Court of Appeal ruled that California law requires parents to send their children to full-time public or private schools or have them taught by credentialed tutors at home.

Some homeschoolers are affiliated with private or charter schools, like the Longs, but others fly under the radar completely. Many homeschooling families avoid truancy laws by registering with the state as a private school and then enroll only their own children.

Yet the appeals court said state law has been clear since at least 1953, when another appellate court rejected a challenge by homeschooling parents to California's compulsory education statutes. Those statutes require children ages 6 to 18 to attend a full-time day school, either public or private, or to be instructed by a tutor who holds a state credential for the child's grade level.

"California courts have held that ... parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children," Justice H. Walter Croskey said in the 3-0 ruling issued on Feb. 28. "Parents have a legal duty to see to their children's schooling under the provisions of these laws."

Parents can be criminally prosecuted for failing to comply, Croskey said.

"A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare," the judge wrote, quoting from a 1961 case on a similar issue.

Union pleased with ruling

The ruling was applauded by a director for the state's largest teachers union.

"We're happy," said Lloyd Porter, who is on the California Teachers Association board of directors. "We always think students should be taught by credentialed teachers, no matter what the setting."

A spokesman for the state Department of Education said the agency is reviewing the decision to determine its impact on current policies and procedures. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell issued a statement saying he supports "parental choice when it comes to homeschooling."

Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, which agreed earlier this week to represent Sunland Christian School and legally advise the Long family on a likely appeal to the state Supreme Court, said the appellate court ruling has set a precedent that can now be used to go after homeschoolers. "With this case law, anyone in California who is homeschooling without a teaching credential is subject to prosecution for truancy violation, which could require community service, heavy fines and possibly removal of their children under allegations of educational neglect," Dacus said.

Parents say they choose homeschooling for a variety of reasons, from religious beliefs to disillusionment with the local public schools.

Homeschooling parent Debbie Schwarzer of Los Altos said she's ready for a fight.

Schwarzer runs Oak Hill Academy out of her Santa Clara County home. It is a state-registered private school with two students, she said, noting they are her own children, ages 10 and 12. She does not have a teaching credential, but she does have a law degree.

"I'm kind of hoping some truancy officer shows up on my doorstep," she said. "I'm ready. I have damn good arguments."

She opted to teach her children at home to better meet their needs.

The ruling, Schwarzer said, "stinks."

Began as child welfare case

The Long family legal battle didn't start out as a test case on the validity of homeschooling. It was a child welfare case.

A juvenile court judge looking into one child's complaint of mistreatment by Philip Long found that the children were being poorly educated but refused to order two of the children, ages 7 and 9, to be enrolled in a full-time school. He said parents in California have a right to educate their children at home. [Yet no one is held personally accountable when a child is "being poorly educated" in a public school. Examples abound.]

The appeals court told the juvenile court judge to require the parents to comply with the law by enrolling their children in a school, but excluded the Sunland Christian School from enrolling the children because that institution "was willing to participate in the deprivation of the children's right to a legal education."

The decision could also affect other kinds of homeschooled children, including those enrolled in independent study or distance learning through public charter schools - a setup similar to the one the Longs have, Dacus said.

Charter school advocates disagreed, saying Thursday that charter schools are public and are required to employ only credentialed teachers to supervise students - whether in class or through independent study.

Ruling will apply statewide

Michael Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association, said the ruling would effectively ban homeschooling in the state.

"California is now on the path to being the only state to deny the vast majority of homeschooling parents their fundamental right to teach their own children at home," he said in a statement.

But Leslie Heimov, executive director of the Children's Law Center of Los Angeles, which represented the Longs' two children in the case, said the ruling did not change the law.

"They just affirmed that the current California law, which has been unchanged since the last time it was ruled on in the 1950s, is that children have to be educated in a public school, an accredited private school, or with an accredited tutor," she said. "If they want to send them to a private Christian school, they can, but they have to actually go to the school and be taught by teachers."

Heimov said her organization's chief concern was not the quality of the children's education, but their "being in a place daily where they would be observed by people who had a duty to ensure their ongoing safety." [In short, the we are expected to believe that duty of the government of California towards children trumps that of their biological parents and/or legal guardians.]

 

Thus, it is hardly surprising to learn, from WTVQ, Lexington, KY that a state legislator wants to make anonymous posting online illegal (in the words of reporter Kellie Wilson). Wilson continues,

"The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site.

"Their full name would be used anytime a comment is posted.

"If the bill becomes law, the website operator would have to pay if someone was allowed to post anonymously on their site. The fine would be five-hundred dollars for a first offense and one-thousand dollars for each offense after that."

The first problem with this proposal is its naïve oversimplification. "The Worldwide Web" (remember, that's what those letters "WWW" mean?) is not the entire Internet. E-mail is an almost entirely separate operation, and there remain other, less well-known portions of the 'net such as Usenet, Telnet, and all manner of private servers. So this bill, if indeed reporter Wilson has recounted it accurately, would be the equivalent of making it illegal to swear while you are in a Starbucks shop, but leaving matters entirely unregulated in all other coffee shops and convenience stores.

"Representative Couch says he filed the bill in hopes of cutting down on online bullying. He says that has especially been a problem in his Eastern Kentucky district.

"Action News 36 asked people what they thought about the bill.

"Some said they felt it was a violation of First Amendment rights. Others say it is a good tool toward eliminating online harassment.

"[And even the lawmaker who introduced it] says enforcing this bill if it became law would be a challenge."

Then, of course, there are the tiny matters of jurisdiction, legal conflict, and unintended consequences.

My wife operates her computer in a basement office, two floors downstairs from where I sit as I write this. But if I send her an email--even though we share an account with the same ISP--it's not the same as shouting down the stairwell to her. Emails sent between us are routed through a server in Columbia, MD, more than 20 miles away. If I get a message from my next-door neighbor Robbie, who could shout fifty feet across the side yard, her message arrives here via Sunnyvale, California! This is generally true of all "internet" communications, as well as most telephone communication. If Robbie phones me via landline, it's possible--although not a dead certainty--that the message traveled from her house, a half-mile down the road to the nearest AT&T switch and directly back. But if one or the other of us uses a cell phone, the call could end up bounced off several orbiting satellites before arriving here. Of course, none of the Deep Thinkers at the TV station thought to ask Couch how he would deal with this perennial problem with online communication--if a legal offense takes place, WHERE has it happened?

Then too, the content of the message might matter. Let's say I am looking at a web site that's a support group for some medical condition. For the sake of argument, let's not think sexually-transmitted diseases; assume I am seeking information about emphysema, or sleep apnea. Nowadays we occupy a world in which a federal law called HIPAA dictates who knows what about someone's medical condition. For example, we've had to sign waivers with our family physician, expressly permitting his receptionist to leave a message on our answering machine to verify an appointment. When the nurse takes your vital signs, she no longer does it in her anteroom, but has to do it in the privacy of an exam room, behind a closed door, lest some snoop learn that my blood pressure was 115/70 on that particular occasion. If HIPAA is to be taken that seriously, anyone who had to disclose his identity to ask a medical question, or participate in an online support group, might be violating the federal law.

Last but not least, there is the potential for squelching discussions--perhaps nothing more sinister than inquiring about a want-ad--due to the necessity of immediately identifying oneself.

Regarding "online harrassment," I gather that this is a problem existing mainly with children below the age of 18. The resolution would seem simple enough. If my child were being harrassed via web sites, text messages, emails, the technological appliance enabling the harrassment would simply go into the nearest dumpster. In any event, people would do well to teach their children to be a bit less emotionally fragile. Life only gets more angry and difficult with adulthood.

Arguably the Super Bowl story might be the most popular piece in the latest edition, but the most interesting one is Alan's observation that the mainstream media failed entirely to cover the annual SHOT (Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade) show in Las Vegas. Apparently the rationale is that to say anything about the show would reveal the paucity of all their stereotypes about the firearms industry, gun dealers and gun owners. Alan writes thus (emphasis added):

The lamestream media told you:

Nothing.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

Seven hundred thousand square feet of space, tens of thousands of attendees from all over the world, nearly two thousand exhibitors in five halls so big you can't see one end from the other, indoor exhibits built two stories high, mountains of weapons and arsenals of every description -- high powered, rapid fire, extended capacity -- assembled once again at the SHOT Show in Las Vegas, and no controversy of any kind was evident.

No lamestream media was evident either, though trade press was abundant. Lamestream media could not cover the event, because it would show the shooting, hunting and outdoor trade (SHOT) industry as a regular business just like any other, which would violate news-media policy.

It's a little smaller than the Consumer Electronics Show, and few items are as big ticket as the Barrett Jackson car auction, but it's a multibillion dollar business with multimillion dollar deals on the floor, and no news coverage, unlike other big-time annual shows.

The most expensive item seen, aside from armored vehicles, helicopters, 18-wheeler self-contained ranges and stores, military miniguns and some of the women, were a set of four matched Perrazi shotguns for $440,000. The Uninvited Ombudsman actually held one in his hands. Carefully. Very carefully. Hey, it's just a shotgun, I'd rather buy a house with that kind of money.

The most unusual exhibit was samples from a find in a Nepal arsenal, remnants of the British East India Trading Company, with 55,000 firearms. They're now all in the U.S. after several years of effort, including piles of original U.S. colonial-era Brown Bess muskets, all available for sale.
http://www.ima-usa.com

Among the most clever new products was Shock Knife, a combat-training tool shaped like a knife with a zapper for an edge. Blackwater Int'l., reviled in the "news" media but saving lives in Iraq and around the world, had a huge booth and recruitment videos on big screens, which switched over to the big game just in time when the beer kegs arrived. Artist Wayne McLoughlin offered to paint your name onto a poster for "America's Cheapest Ammunition -- It Usually Works." In the background, a bear is chewing on the remnants of a hunter's clothes.

Here was American enterprise at its finest, new products of incredibly clever design and advancement, entrepreneurship in unbridled fine array, the buzz and hustle of free markets unlike anywhere else on Earth, and no news media.

All these guns and there's no crime, no death, no controversy. It's just good healthy business, and after incessant media pounding, that was just plain weird.

The picture painted by the media is so perverse, so negative, so deadly and crime ridden, that to see this show with so many fine upstanding people, from business suits to gilley suits, casual dress to corporate uniforms, babes bursting from show costumes to your basic bubbas shopping for their businesses, the disjoint between the publicly promoted image of guns and the reality was hard to reconcile. The bias and distortion of the media shined from a brightly lit pedestal.

The show themes are familiar and pervasive -- law enforcement, personal safety, hunting for food, military protection, convenience in the outdoors, high performance for competitors, gear for everyone, every manufacturer's entire handgun and long gun line out in the open for touchy feely examination, and no media.

That's probably a good thing. Because knowing their sorry ways, they would use this show as a way to make everything look bad. Despite the obvious reality to the contrary, they would immorally make us seem evil instead of righteous, ignoring the fact that guns are why America is still free.
http://www.shotshow.com

Korwin's dispatch neglected to mention that 58,769 people attended this year's show, which is open to the trade (manufacturers, wholesalers, firearms dealers, journalists) only. 

I highly recommend Alan's blog, which is available as a RSS feed: http://www.pagenine.org

You will find several interesting articles about the Super Bowl, if that's what floats your boat, and a recent piece in which Korwin coins the word "muzzling" to describe the nasty retaliations against some of us who refuse to limit ourselves to the politically-correct lexicon.

-30-

 A Baltimore police officer shown on a YouTube video berating and roughly handling a skateboarder at the Inner Harbor has been suspended.

Sterling Clifford, a spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department and the mayor's office, says the incident involving Officer Salvatore Rivieri, a 17-year-old veteran, is the subject of an internal affairs investigation.

The video, apparently shot last summer, shows Rivieri putting the youth, 14-year-old Eric Bush, into a headlock and pushing him to the ground.

Rivieri told The Sun on Sunday that he did not know that the incident had been recorded or posted on the Internet. He acknowledged having encounters with skateboarders at the Inner Harbor, where skateboarding is banned, last summer, and told a reporter that he would watch the video on YouTube.

After he was suspended yesterday Rivieri said he had no comment.

Paul Blair, head of the police union, had not seen the video but he warns that videos show only part of a story.

Mr. Blair is right, of course. What we see in the video is a policeman whose anger is disproportionate to the situation. He's dealing with a handful of pubsecent skateboarders, not a dangerous felon. So, why all the anger? You will note the Rivieri carefully avoids using profanity, so it is difficult to determine whether we are dealing with a man who is as out-of-control as he appears, or a carefully crafted act of bullying.

As a fairly conventional (albeit outspoken) 60-year-old, I am more than a bit frightened by armed people running around with this level of anger inside them. Even (or perhaps especially) if they are sworn peace officers.

Having a number of friends who are police, active and retired, I understand the difficulties of the job. This guy's anger seems far out of proportion to anything that might have preceded it in this incident, or anything muttered by the kids that was not picked up by the microphone.

Irrespective of this particular story, the city and counties need to do something about skaters. They are NOT going away, especially now that skateboarding has become an Olympic sport. It does absolutely no good to marginalize and verbally abuse young skating enthusiasts, simply because nobody will provide a place for them to pursue this athletic endeavor.

We have, on the one hand, public health mavens who complain about the so-called epidemic of obesity in the USA, especially among children. And on the other hand, we have people--property owners, politicians and others who complain about the children who are physically active. Watch these skaters, next time you see them somewhere. They display a great deal of focus, dedication and athletic (if not acrobatic) skill, beneath their often carefully-crafted offputting appearance.

Rarely do these (mostly) guys get any encouragement from adults. Is it any wonder they feel alienated and disaffected? I grant you, even I have found the skaters frustrating at times, but as adults, do we not bear some responsibility to guide and encourage the young, rather than simply condemn them?

 

Mississippi legislators this week introduced a bill that would make it illegal for state-licensed restaurants to serve obese patrons. Bill No. 282 is the brainchild of three members of the state's House of Representatives, Republicans W. T. Mayhall, Jr. and John Read, and Democrat Bobby Shows. The bill, which is likely dead on arrival, proposes that the state's Department of Health establish weight criteria after consultation with Mississippi's Council on Obesity. It does not detail what penalties an eatery would face if its grub was served to someone with an excessive body mass index.

I have spent several winters in Mississippi, and eaten some mighty fine vittles there. I've also learned that the average Mississippian is a no-bullshit individual with very little tolerance for being bossed around.

So I certainly would not want to be the employee at The Shed who had to disqualify a too-fat customer for a BBQ sandwich, or deny a pizza to a hungry customer at Mama Roni's in Vancleave. And I pity the server at Aunt Jenny's Catfish House who was stuck with telling someone they'd had their limit on an all-you-can-eat order of fried shrimp or catfish.

Much less being the poor copper who would be called to pick up the pieces after the irate customer had busted up the joint.

These three jokers, Mayhall, Reed and Shows must be transplants from New York City.

KIRKWOOD, Mo. (AP) - A gunman with a history of acrimony against civic leaders stormed City Hall during a council meeting Thursday night, killing two police officers and three city officials before law enforcers fatally shot him, authorities said. The mayor was critically injured in the rampage.

The victims at the meeting in suburban St. Louis were killed after the gunman rushed the council chambers and began firing as he yelled "Shoot the mayor!" according to St. Louis County Police spokeswoman Tracy Panus. Two people were wounded before Kirkwood police fatally shot him, she said.

... the wounded included Mayor Mike Swoboda, who was in critical condition late Thursday in the intensive- care unit of St. John's Mercy Hospital in Creve Coeur...

...[A city hall reporter identified the shooter] as Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton, whom she knows from covering the council. Thornton had previously disrupted meetings, she told the Post-Dispatch.

Thornton was well-known at City Hall, often making outrageous comments at public meetings, according to a 2006 article in the weekly Webster- Kirkwood Times.

The newspaper quoted Swoboda as saying in June 2006 that Thornton's contentious remarks over the years created "one of the most embarrassing situations that I have experienced in my many years of public service."

Swoboda's comments came during a council meeting attended by Thornton two weeks after the man was forcibly removed from the chambers. The mayor said at the time that the council considered banning Thornton from future meetings but decided against it.

"The city council has decided that they will not lower themselves to Mr. Thornton's level," Swoboda said at the meeting. "We will act with integrity and continue to deal with him at these council proceedings. However, we will not allow Mr. Thornton, or any other person, to disrupt these proceedings."

Thornton said during the meeting that he had been issued more than 150 tickets.

He was arrested twice and later convicted for disorderly conduct for outbursts at two council meetings in 2006, convinced the city was persecuting him. When allowed to speak during one meeting, he approached the podium with a posterboard with a picture of a donkey and began making harassing remarks about Swoboda.

In a federal lawsuit stemming from those meetings, Thornton, representing himself, insisted that Kirkwood officials violated his constitutional rights to free speech by barring him from speaking at the meetings. But a judge in St. Louis tossed out the suit Jan. 28, writing that "any restrictions on Thornton's speech were reasonable, viewpoint neutral, and served important governmental interests."

Kirkwood is about 20 miles southwest of downtown St. Louis. ...Despite its reputation locally for serenity, Kirkwood has grappled in recent years with crimes that have brought it unwanted attention.

Just down the street from City Hall is the Imo's pizzeria once managed by Michael Devlin, the man who kidnapped Shawn Hornbeck when the boy was just 11 in 2002 and held him for four years before authorities rescued him from the home in January last year. Also rescued was Ben Ownby, another teenager Devlin abducted just days before Devlin's arrest.

... City Hall also is about a block from a park now named for former Kirkwood police Sgt. William McEntee, who was a 43-year-old father of three when he was slain in 2005 by a man who witnesses said blamed police for the death of his 12-year-old half-brother two hours earlier.

 

You can check the last year’s worth of Kirkwood City Council minutes on the web at http://www.ci.kirkwood.mo.us/meetings/COUNCIL.htm

Have a look, and see how many times public comments from other residents, however petty they may be, are recorded in excruciating detail. And compare that to the number of entries that simply note there were comments made by Charles Thornton, with no details whatsoever. I'm certain it's also no coincidence that whenever Thornton made public comments, he was liste dead-last among the public participants.

It's also noteworthy that the city council enacted a detailed set of rules for public comments last August. By all appearances, the rules were specifically aimed at squelching Thornton. In particular, one rule says that "The Mayor has the right to stop any speaker from making comments on any subject that is not presently pending before the City Council after that speaker has made the comments more than 10 (ten) times cumulatively on the same general topic at prior council meetings." In plain language, this means that they can ignore someone trying to bring up an embarrassing subject until they gain the right to bar him outright from making comments on that matter. Representative government at its best...

There are those among us who can only tolerate being ignored by the governments for so long before committing some violent act that finally gets someone’s attention, and almost always results in multiple deaths.

This is hardly the first time such a thing has happened, and it will surely not be the last, no matter what citizen disarmament laws are enacted.

Whether it is justifiable or forgivable, I will not attempt to argue. But when people feel they are left out of the governing process, or mistreated by government, this can be one of the consequences.

In Thornton’s case, you have to wonder why 150 “tickets” (presumably traffic/parking citations) did not lead to some sort of hearing in which he was afforded the opportunity to air his grievances, and in which some permanent solution to this obviously ongoing problem could have been reached. Even if that solution meant jailing Thornton. One hundred fifty citations, in the absence of any further action by the government, constitutes harrassment.

You ignore someone, or categorize him as a crackpot at your own peril. This has been shown time and again, as Vin Suprynowicz has noted in his books The Ballad of Carl Drega and Send in the Waco Kilers, yet governments never seem to learn anything useful from these violent outbursts.

Three years ago, Mary Jo Pletz of Walnutport, Pennsylvania — about 70 miles north of Philadelphia — learned her 6-month-old daughter had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. To care for her child, Mrs. Pletz, 33, had to give up her job as a dental hygienist and look for some kind of home-based employment that would help her husband pay the bills.

She started selling stuff over eBay. When she ran out of her own stuff, she offered to sell other people’s items, for a commission. [n.b.: this is a common operation on eBay, which refers to the practice of being an eBay Trading Assistant. You have to qualify for this status, and there is some oversight.] She ran the operation out of her garage.

Then, right after Christmas, 2006, the state regulators came calling. In what many view as a test case designed to put the fear of God — of the state, at least — into other such entrepreneurs, the state agents contended Mrs. Pletz was running an auction house without proper licensing. They proceeded to shut down her business, forcing her to spend thousands of dollars in lawyers’ fees as she fights their efforts to fine her, well … thousands of dollars.

Who’s behind the crackdown? Greedy politicians hoping for a new stream of tax revenue aren’t too far in the wings. Eight states have considered new regulations for Online sellers, though The AP reports all have backed down in the face of opposition, mainly from eBay.

But other online sellers think the pressure to crack down on such electronic sellers comes from the established auction houses, whose proprietors may believe they’re losing market share

“We feel it’s important that they be regulated, so consumers have peace of mind,” says Chris Longley, a spokesman for the National Auctioneers Association, based in Overland Park, Kansas. “Public trust is being lost because of the fraud involved in Internet auctions.”*

Oh, please. Pennsylvania auction licensing rules require anyone entering the auction-house business to either work as an apprentice for two years or to take 20 credit hours’ worth of auctioneering courses at the college level. Think that’ll help an online seller determine whether a piece of carnival glass they’re handling really dates from 1912 (if it’s light blue, it’s probably new), or whether that Hardy Boys mystery was really printed in 1933? (Copies printed 20 years later still retain their original copyright dates — look for a glossy frontispiece.)

Has state regulation ended fraudulent practices in “brick-and-mortar” auction houses? Of course not. National headlines periodically reveal bid rigging, fixed appraisals, collusion, and other manipulations even in the largest auction firms. Regular attendees at small local auctions know the many operators who want to “play it straight” do so despite the absence of any visible state regulatory presence, while auctioneers who want to accept “shill” bids, or to drive up bidding by accepting phantom bids “off the wall,” still do so with impunity. They can also go out of business without notice just like anyone else, leaving owners of consigned merchandise struggling to regain their property regardless of any state “license” hanging on the wall of that locked office.

Most such regulatory schemes have a lot more to do with limiting competition and producing registration and licensing fees for state bureaucrats than with any effective effort to “eliminate fraud.”

Are Internet auctions subject to chicanery? Of course. Sellers can ask their friends to place phantom bids in order to drive up a price. They can also send merchandise not as described, or simply fail to deliver — for a short time.

But ironically — given these claims — independent firms like eBay have set up electronic buyer complaint and rating services light years ahead of the horse-and-buggy complaint offices of state regulators.

Many believe the nation is entering hard economic times. They certainly know THEY are entering harder economic times.

The porkmasters in Washington have been warned they can’t support both expansive foreign wars and booming domestic “entitlement” programs, forever. They merely respond “Print more money!”

With the money supply growing at an annualized rate of about 15 percent — and even more inflation now promised in the name of an “economic stimulus” to bail out those who made bad real estate loans — there’s little doubt the carefully massaged “official” 6 percent rate of inflation considerably understates the rate at which a typical paycheck’s buying power is being eroded.

But Americans are a hardy and resourceful lot. Yes, some go whining down to the government “relief” office for a hand-out, claiming to have some newfangled “disability.” But most simply tighten their belts and look for a second source of income to help keep food on the table.

In this electronic age, selling things over the Internet is a peaceful entrepreneurial activity that beats setting up a lemonade stand on the sidewalk, or hawking newspapers downtown. (I note in passing another story in Monday’s newspaper, reporting police in Seattle are threatening $1,000 fines and 90 days in jail under their “panhandling” ordinance for homeless men selling copies of the weekly activist newspaper “Real Change” for 65 cents a copy.)

And what is the politicians’ answer as these tax-strapped citizens struggle to find a second source of income to keep their families fed? Do they praise that “can do” attitude?

No. Tipped off by already ineffectively regulated businessmen jealous of the new competition, they crack down on Mary Jo Pletz, in an attempt to frighten us out of trying to make a few bucks selling our old Flintstones lunch box over the Internet.

I hope they’re proud.

* A personal observation: I have worked for several auctioneers, and been both a consignor and buyer at many other "bricks and mortar" auction houses. Most of these guys would cheat their own mothers if there was a dollar to be made. One guy in particular sold counterfeit Roseville pottery pieces without warning the bidders, and often made wild assertions about other unmarked pottery pieces. ("Could have been made by George Ohr.") Others, I have seen cook the books to cheat a consignor who was not present for the sale, blatantly ignore bidders and close the selling when the high bidder was some regular customer, fail to list valuable items when compiling an inventory of an estate. The list goes on.

In the City of Baltimore, to get an auctioneering license you must make application to the Board of Auction Supervisors. As it happens, the board is made up from among the existing licensed auctioneers in the city.

This is "rent-seeking" behavior at its most blatant, and unfortunately it is the normal mode of operating for most state and local governments.

While most of the other 49 states are enacting sensible legislation that recognizes a citizen's right to defend his person, family and property, here in Maryland things are moving in the opposite direction. Our governor (may he rot in Hell) has expressed the intent to abolish the death penalty for criminals here. At the same time, he is doing nothing about the death penalty so often imposed upon crime victims.

Worse still the National Rifle Association of America, although hated by many as an extremist organization devoted to encouraging wholesale bloodletting in our cities, has badly dropped the ball here in Maryland. NRA's political arm, the Institute for Legislative Action, periodically emails a briefing on the status of legislation, nationally and state-by-state. The Association has become so intent upon money-raising to perpetuate itself that it has taken to skewing these news briefs, and the latest one is a prime example.

Friday, Maryland NRA members received an e-mail with the breathless title "Maryland House of Delegates to Consider Four Pro-Gun Bills!"  The little fly in the ointment is that one of these four bills is not "pro-gun." In fact, it's not a paranoid delusion to imagine how it can be used as a further means of oppressing legal firearms owners. And worse still, the NRA news releases have completely ignored a handful of egregiously anti-gun bills in the hopper.

Start with the bill NRA-ILA promotes as "pro-gun", HB-1061. This bill would "require the Secretary of Police to refund the application fee for a permit to carry, wear, or transport a handgun to an applicant whose application is denied. Because Maryland is a 'may-issue' state, the police are not required to give law-abiding citizens a permit to carry, yet under current law people are not allowed to recover their denied application fees."

The NRA news release completely ignores the existence of HB-2, which would turn Maryland into a "shall-issue" state. This is the holy grail of the pro self-defense community. Instead, NRA thinks we should congratulate ourselves if we persuade the authorities to refund our application fee when they arbitrarily deny a concealed-carry permit. Not only is that ridiculous, I do not think it's paranoia to consider 1061 a back-door registration scheme, or worse.

Consider the following scenario:

Many pro-RKBA activists have been urging Marylanders to apply for a CCW permit, knowing it is likely to be denied. The rationale behind this is sound: at the moment, the Maryland State Police report that they deny relatively few permits. This is because the average gun owner knows he's not going to get a permit, and has enough sense not to waste the application fee, which runs more than $100. If this refund-upon-denial law passes in the absence of a shall-issue provision (HB-2) the number of permit applications is likely to increase exponentially. And while that may prove the activists' point about the difficulty of obtaining a permit in Maryland, it will provide a bigger data bonanza for the state government.

As far as I know, there is nothing prohibiting the MSP from maintaining a list of people who have applied for and been denied handgun permits. The police departments already have at their disposal a little-known tool called the "M-Gun" database. Adding to the database the names of those who unsuccessfully apply for a permit, provides the police a handy list of people whom they might suspect of carrying a concealed firearm without the permit. M-Gun is available on the in-car computers of police officers. Once your driving license information has been entered, a few more key strokes provide access to information about the guns you own and whether or not you have a CCW permit. (Just how much information it provides is a closely guarded secret.)

Now imagine this: you are pulled over for a burnt-out tail light. In the process of checking to make sure you are the legal owner of the vehicle, the cop sees that you applied for a CCW permit but were denied. Now he has "probable cause," or at least "reasonable suspicion" (which is the reduced standard they are now using) to search your vehicle and person, figuring you are packing without a permit. Whether or not you are in possession of a firearm at that moment, you will have been subjected to a search that was hitherto not permitted. In short, one more bit of freedom and privacy down the dumper.

And there are yet other anti-self-defensebills in the hopper. There's HB-108, which would prohibit the possession of an "electronic weapon." If you're näive enough to think that would simply prevent "civilians" from owning Tasers and stun guns, think again. Once such a law is on the books, anything, including a loud battery-powered noisemaker, could be added to the list of prohibited electronic weapons.

There's HB-640, which would require anyone placed under a temporary restraining order to surrender any firearms he or she owns. Aside from the obvious problem this creates for the subject to re-acquire his guns at some future date, it does nothing to protect the potential victim from attack by knife, automobile, blunt instrument, incendiary device, poison, or an endless list of other readily available means.

HB-655 would deny youth hunting licenses to people under the age of 13, thus depriving parents of the opportunity to pass along this sporting tradition to their children at the earliest practicable age.

But the worst of all the bills ignored by NRA-ILA is HB-517, the "encoded ammunition" law. Among the provisions of this bill are requiring each shell casing and bullet base to be stamped with an "indelible" serial number that can be traced, requiring all non "encoded" ammunition to be destroyed or surrendered by a certain date, and imposing a tax of 5 cents per round on the "encoded" ammo, assuming that any manufacturer is willing to produce such stuff, and without regard to the increased cost of producing this ammo, which will be passed on to the consumer.

Now, if you are a recreational shooter, this tax becomes a big burden. Cowboy Action shooters, for example, may attend two, or even three matches each weekend. The average cowboy match consists of six stages, in the course of which about 120 rounds of this more expensive ammo is used. So, without even considering how much Winchester, Remington or CCI is going to sock you at retail, every time you take those cowboy guns out of their cases to use them, it's going to cost you six dollars more than it does now. For an active cowboy shooter, the tax alone will add up to $500 a year or more.

Even this isn't the entire story about the 2008 legislative session in Maryland, but in the interest of (relative) brevity, it should be enough to frighten you into action.

First order of business: log on to the Maryland Shall Issue web site for a comprehensive look at what the lawmakers are trying to do to us. If you have more time on your hands, have a look at the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership web site, or that of Gun Owners of America, to gain a perspective on the way the NRA is neglecting its members in Maryland, which we still jokingly call The Free State.

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) - A jury on Monday convicted a millionaire couple of enslaving two Indonesian women they brought to their mansion to work as housekeepers.

Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, 51, and his wife, Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, 45, were each convicted of all charges in a 12-count federal indictment that included forced labor, conspiracy, involuntary servitude, and harboring aliens.

Prosecutors said the women were subjected to repeated psychological and physical abuse and were forced to work 18 hours or more a day.

The Sabhnanis, who have four children and who operate a worldwide perfume business out of their Muttontown home on Long Island's Gold Coast, could face up to 40 years in prison, although attorneys predicted the punishment would be considerably less.

Isn’t this always the case in the USA? The wealthier the perpetrator, the more odious the crime, the more likely it becomes that some bargain will be struck.

On the other hand, the governments will want to take that sandwich-shop operator in PA who put up a “speak English” sign, and nail him to a tree.

Any bets on whether Sharpton and Jackson will show up to protest this modern case of slavery? Or will it be outside their purview because there’s no way for them to extort money out of it.?

A clever turn of phrase to be sure, but hardly fair, or original. Through most of my adult life, I have entertained audiences of octogenarians (and beyond) by playing the music of their youth. Nobody has ever been heard accusing them of narcissism, immaturity or excessive nostalgia. But to someone as callow as West, my audience comprises The Greatest Generation, while Zeppelin's  was merely a flock of over-indulgent, embarrassing grandparents who were not acting their age.

This morning, I was privileged to take part in an event where I saw but a single person under the age of 45--the Wreaths Across America observation at a cemetery nearby. For those unfamiliar with the event, it all started a few years back when the Worcester Wreath Company (a for-profit commercial business in Maine) began a tradition of placing wreaths on