Signs it’s Been too Long Since You Cleaned

When vacuuming under the sofa with the hand attachment, you hear the catch something with the suction. Pulling it out you realize it’s the phone you haven’t seen for a while. Every six months or so, I detail strip the house for a thorough cleaning. Since Bitter is away, and I am bored, now is one of those times. I’m hoping my missing Fenix LD10 flashlight shows up at some point.

NY-23 Gets Very Interesting

The Republican candidate in the NY-32 race has dropped out, according to Jacob. The interesting thing is that NRA had endorsed the Republican early on, before Doug Hoffman had any real momentum. It’s probably not too late to switch the endorsement, but I don’t know if a orange card mailing could be prepared in time. I’m going to guess that Scozzafava will remain on the ballot. I hope this doesn’t effect Hoffman’s chances of taking the race. The Republican in this race was more liberal than the Democrat, so there’s a chance she was taking votes away from Bill Owens too.

Bringing Law to the Masses

Dave Kopel has an interesting piece in the Denver University Law Review on using blogs to bring law to the masses. Law is not a subject I knew much about until I started reading legal blogs, and then once I got into Second Amendment law, I devoured as much on the subject as I could read.

I think law is something that comes rather easily to engineers, since it’s basically just boolean logic system, but written in plain English. If (A || B || C) && !D && !E is true, you’re violating the statute. There is a system to it, and legal structures are less complicated than even simple microprocessors. Law also has obscure exceptions to generally given rules, which is something you also come across a lot in computer engineering. Computer engineers deal with bugs, just as judges must deal with poorly drafted legislation that yields absurd, clearly unintended results.

To a thought process that’s heavily oriented towards systems and logical structure, law provides, in many ways, much more interesting puzzles and conundrums. Unlike with circuits, where there’s just a right way and a wrong way to do things, law provides much more opportunity for philosophical exploration.

Guns as Smut

Eugene Volokh refutes a line of reasoning that tried to argue that guns rights could be limited only to the home by making first amendment analogy to obscenity laws. Having lost on the big question, those who disagree with the Second Amendment will now try to do their best to limit its scope. Folks like Eugene Volokh will be important for our side in fighting that battle within the legal community.

Can You Shoot a Pumpkin a Mile?

A group of local enthusiasts of squash artillery are going to try to find out when they attempt a world record. These things are generally really big air guns. They are making their attempt in Utah, in hopes of taking advantage of the thinner atmosphere at elevation to get better distance. I guess that’s what they have to do now, is go for elevation, since at 700mph, you’re pushing the sound barrier. I can’t imagine pumpkins would survive intact because of the supersonic shockwave.

Joe Lieberman Backing Away From Dems

A few days ago Politico ran a story about how Lieberman was going to block Harry Reid’s plan on Health Care, and now he says he’s going to back Republicans in the 2010 elections. Someone in the Dem leadership or in the White House must have pissed in his Wheaties for him to take it this far.

Could He Prohibit Fire Extinguishers?

The libertarian in me says that a landlord is a property owner, and ought to have pretty much plenary control over his property. But landlord-tenant law has been part of the landscape in state law for some time, and it seems to me that this kind of policy is something that directly impacts the health and welfare of residents, much like having a fire extinguisher or a smoke detector. I would think this is something the Tennessee state legislature can fix with a simple law change.