Amazingly, the world did not come to an end the last time the Philadelphia-area bloggers (plus one we convinced to come from Jersey City) gathered for drinks and snacks. And so, we do it again.
Year: 2010
Arlen Specter Runs on the Past
Apparently, Arlen Specter’s vision for the future of Pennsylvania includes lots of unemployed union guys drawing government checks and no modern skills. At least, that’s what you gather from his first commercial.
The company Specter highlights went into bankruptcy nearly a decade ago. It was dissolved shortly thereafter. According to Wikipedia, the company operated with substantial losses from 1982 on, with a one year exception in 1988. Their high point was in the 1950s.
Perhaps Specter wants to make Bethlehem Steel a symbol of his career. It’s high point was decades ago, and he’s been operating as the Senator everyone on both sides of the aisle loves to hate. Only this year, we have a better choice to replace him. So, Senator Specter, you can join those men in your commercial in the unemployment line come January. Although, with a little luck and some serious action by the GOP, hopefully we can turn things around to the point where the four of you can find some job training in a new field and you won’t be out of work for long.
Health Care Mandate and Privacy
Dave Kopel suggests that the mandate may violate the constitution right to privacy. I hadn’t honestly thought of that angle, but I’m sure there’s a penumbra emanating from the Constitution somewhere that would lend credence to this argument.
Miracle on the Delaware
Wyatt has a very interesting video of Philadelphia in the early 1950s. It’s amazing how quickly things went to crap after that.
Virginia More Pro Gun
Governor McDonnell just signed a bunch of laws into effect, including allowing restaurant carry, renewing carry permits by mail, and some addition rights for people seeking licenses to carry.
The restaurant carry thing is long overdue. Expect much in the way of bleating from the other side, but this means far fewer guns being left in vehicles, and that’s a good thing.
State Run Militia
Apparently Oklahoma is considering it, and some in the media are freaking out. I have to agree with Professor Reynolds that this is well within the American Tradition. Here’s an interesting thing to think about. Suppose the State of Oklahoma wanted to equip its state militia with M16s and M4s? It’s hard to see how this would be illegal, since 922(o) specifically exempts anyone possessing a machine gun under the authority of a State. It would simply be a matter of the state granting the authority and issuing letters to members of the militia for the purchase of a machine gun.
The only real issue I see with this is that Congress is given almost plenary power over state militias. The United States Code allows states to maintain defense forces, independent of federal authority during times of peace, but this is specifically at the pleasure of Congress. If a state tried to arm its militia, Congress would be empowered to stop it.
But it looks to me like Oklahoma is just considering establishing a State Defense Force. If it does so, it joins a number of other states who also have them. It’s not anything to be particularly alarmed about, because it’s not unusual.
For the Children
A long time New Jersey Assemblyman, who was one of the co-sponsors of the Florio assault weapons ban back in the 90s, apparently loves the Children a bit too much.
Shamelessly pilfered from Cemetery.
Bart Stupak Earning High Brady Praise
The Brady’s have to go digging over a decade ago to find reasons to praise Bart Stupak. I’m not sure why the Brady folks are airing out Stupak’s dirty laundry now that he’s announced he’s retiring, but I have my suspicions.
The history of Congressman Stupak for the last decade, at least on the Second Amendment, is one of working his way back to an A, and an NRA endorsement last election, from a C back in the days the Brady Campaign is speaking of. A Tiger can’t change his stripes, but politicians sure can, and often do. It’s worth noting that, despite what Congressman Stupak’s prior position was, he’s not listed as a co-sponsor on the current “gun show loophole” bill in Congress.
Perhaps the Brady Campaign believe that Stupak’s position on the gun show bill is a careful political calculation, and are hoping to influence him on his way to retirement to “do the right thing,” and join them in helping get a bill passed, or at least advanced. I think the odds of Congress wanting to pick up a major piece of gun control legislation before the 2010 midterms are low, but retiring legislators are more amenable to changing their positions than most, so it was probably worth floating a press release just to see if anyone in Stupak’s office bites.
NRA Needs to Hire Competent Web Developers
It looks like NRA has redone their web site yet again, and it is also another Flash monstrosity. If I were giving lessons on the problems Adobe Flash creates for web developers, NRA’s web portal would be my Exhibit A. Let me just review the ways this screws NRA and its membership:
- It does not get NRA message out there. It’s a giant black hole to Google. One reason NRA-ILA and Blogs rank so highly on gun searches is that we’re not a black hole to Google, because we only use Adobe Flash sparingly.
- It’s slow to load. It takes several seconds to load even on my 35 megabit/sec FiOS connection. To someone with a slower DSL connection, or, God Forbid, a dial-up or Satellite connections (something still prevalent in rural areas) it’s going to be excruciating.
- It imposes a size on the user. In my preferred browser size, I cannot see the entire page. I have to scroll, or re-size my browser in order to see the whole monstrosity. A good page design won’t impose unreasonable size requirements on a user. The total page size is gigantic. It imposes itself over most of my 1440×900 laptop screen.
- Breaks web usability standards. Browser navigation buttons fail to work, but most importantly, disabled users can’t increase the font size so they can read, nor could a blind user have the web site read aloud to them.
- Breaks analytic software. Flash breaks the ability of knowing which pages people are coming and going on. Now it’s possible this is built into the flash application, but I don’t notice anything on the front web site that loads analytics software. NRA probably has no idea, and can have no idea, how people are using their site with Flash. If you’re a webmaster, that’s a critical bit of information.
- Not linkable. I can’t link to anything that’s not a URL, and a Flash page is not a URL, but a bit of code that’s embedded into a Flash application.
- Breaks Mobile Devices. It looks like NRA’s web folks have redirects in there for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but that doesn’t help the millions of users who use alternative devices like the Droid and Blackberry. Even when these devices are Flash enabled, the site is not friendly to the small screens.
This “classic” page is a much much better home page for NRA, and would work much better as NRA’s main portal. But even this could still use some work. NRA would be wise to trash the flash monstrosity and make the “classic” page the default. At the very least, it should at least remember that a user picked the “classic” site and load that upon subsequent visits. Good web design and programming are easier than good Flash programming, so if NRA has the internal ability to do one they ought to be able to do the other. It’s just a matter of adhering to good practices.
The Daily Show on Open Carry
The Daily Show did a piece on the open carry movement last night. I have to admit I think their coverage is pretty funny, but I’m not sure, overall, it’s good for the right to bear arms.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Open Carrier Discrimination | ||||
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What made the Open Carry guys think talking to the Daily Show was a good idea? That show lampoons everyone. That they were going to be the butt of a joke was entirely predictable. I think we ought to be able to laugh at ourselves, but do we want the rest of America laughing at us too?
UPDATE: John Pierce, the subject of the Daily Show interview, responds in the comments as to what motivated them to do TDS interview. Of all the points the first one is probably the most compelling, that if they hadn’t done the interview, someone else would have. I should clarify I don’t think TDS interview is in any way a disaster, since I think it’s funny, and doesn’t stoop to the kind of fear mongering you’d get from our opponents. But I have to wonder if we really want our issue’s first introduction to a younger, more urban generation to be a lampooning by the Daily Show.