The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
According to TheNewspaper.com, some very patriotic citizens in Washington decided to decorate their town. Or rather, their local red light cameras.
Seeing the red, white, and blue flying is usually enough to make me smile. Seeing red, white, and blue used this creatively to get in the way of government revenue sources that do nothing for “public safety,” well, that just warms my heart.
That past few weeks, the officially licensed version of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner has become available for X-Plane. They won’t go into actual service for a few more months yet, but you can fly them in X-Plane. I bought it almost as soon as I got the e-mail, but this weekend I finally got to try it out on a cross country flight from Philadelphia to Los Angeles. I’m really surprised by much of the detailed 3D modeling artistry that goes into making these planes, so I’m happy to highlight the work. I have one shot that shows the wing-flex model. The Dreamliner is actually kind of scary in that regard. The wingtips will be well over the fuselage during flight. Most of the buttons and dials you see in the cockpit you can actuate with the mouse just like you would in the real version. Here are some of the shots from the trip. Takeoff from a muggy day in Philly, ascent to cruising altitude over Virginia, Sunset over New Mexico, twilight descent and finally landing in Los Angeles at night. Gives some idea of the detail that went into the model, as well as the X-Plane experience.
I wanted to do one with sound, because I think the model designers did a really nice job of incorporating sound into their model. The radio is just random X-Plane radio chatter, which I normally leave off, though you can actually fly with live air traffic control on VATSIM. The depths of loserdom you can descend into with flight simulators these days is astounding. I think this is all part of a plot by the military to train the next generation for the future UAV wars with the Chinese. But let me say, as long as I’m listening to flying instructions from some thirteen year old Canadian kid, there’s no way we’re losing that fight. The Chinese are barely discovering flight while our kids are piloting intercontinental airliners through the virtual skies. I know which side I’m betting on in that fight.
I do all my own flying in these, which you can probably tell by some of the over-controlling and various other issues, but it’s been a long time since I killed any virtual passengers :)
Jim Lindgren is continuing to research Bellesiles news claims over at Volokh:
I have now read through every DoD casualty report from last fall for both Iraq and Afghanistan and news obituaries for most of them, and I have found none that was even remotely possible as the case that Bellesiles wrote about in the Chronicle. This post discusses the serious questions this raises for the veracity of Bellesiles account.
Go read the whole thing. Lindgren boils it down to this:
That leaves two Iraqi War deaths by hostile small arms fire during his course, one on Nov. 4 and another on Nov. 22. The newspaper accounts of both deaths do indicate a sniper as the killer, but both deaths are reported as occurring on the same day as the soldiers were shot, so they cannot be the source of Bellesiles’s tale of a wounded soldier languishing for weeks, at one point perhaps too injured to be flown to Germany.
I’m still finding it difficult to believe he’s crazy enough to still be spinning tales from whole cloth, but I don’t rule out the possibility that he is a pathological liar.
They are trying to convince Chicagoans not to buy guns. This convinces me they don’t have much confidence they are going to be able to throw up much in the way of obstacles. But it’s a free country, and Joyce is free to mislead people about the dangers of guns. The real victory is that they would seem to no longer believe they can count on force of law to do this for them, and must now fall back to how we’re supposed to do things in a free society: persuasion.
Some are upset at the $46 dollar fee our sheriff charges. Apparently they still offer the state standard license, for the state fixed price:
Both Donnelly and Ricci said they give residents the option of paying $25 for a paper license, but applicants must provide their own photographs if they choose the cheaper option.
“If you want to upgrade that license we provide another service,” Ricci said. “If you want a plastic one that looks like a driver’s license, you pay $46.”
I should note that if the end result of this is that we all have to go back to the big paper licenses, I’m going to be pissed. I’m happy to pay extra for the credit card sized plastic license. I do believe the Sheriffs need to make it clear the paper license is available, and make sure everyone knows that. They do mention it on their web site, but it seems that the satellite offices are unaware.
Looks like NRA is running an ad on the Kagan issue (warning, ad will auto play on that link):
This would seem to refute those who claimed their opposition to her would be half-hearted or insincere. Producing and running ads isn’t a cheap business.
The anti-gunners here don’t want to lose a battle, so they just keep delaying votes on bills. By not formally taking a vote, the bill stays alive. If it has a formal vote and they lose – even by the slimmest of margins – it’s done. I guess they are taking their lessons from New Jersey.
That said, fall is a dangerous time to have this come up. I would assume if the Pennsylvania legislature operates anything like our neighbors to the east, there’s a possibility for lame duck sessions. (This is my first full session living here, so don’t get angry if I’m wrong.) That’s always when lawmakers who have been booted out like to send one last “screw you” vote to their constituents. It’s one reason why we need to make sure that the pro-gun forces at all levels – federal and state – stay in office to help keep gun control off the table during those times.
Even impartial observers are noting that we dominate the Internets:
Last week’s Second Amendment ruling limiting cities’ and states’ ability to prohibit gun ownership split the Supreme Court by a 5-4 margin along conservative-liberal lines. But there was no such divide in the blogosphere where gun rights supporters dominated, applauding the ruling as a victory for both gun owners and the Constitution. Many of them also connected the split decision to Obama’s nomination of Elena Kagan, expressing fear that the president would be able to tip the Court’s makeup and reverse similar rulings in the future.
Gun control advocates opposing the decision seemed almost completely absent from the online conversation.
There’s never been any serious grass roots opposition for us. Most of what we’ve seen come and go online have been jokers or hacks. The fact that there’s never been any grass roots passion for gun control has been one of the major reasons we’ve been a able to make progress on this  issue.
Then:
Our ultimate goal-total control of handguns in the United States-is going to take time. My estimate is seven to ten years. The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition-except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors-totally illegal.
Pete Shields, July 1976, President of National Coalition to Control Handguns, which was later renamed Handgun Control Inc, and finally Brady Campaign.
Now:
It is settled law. If I were taking a law school exam today, I would say, yes, you have got an individual right to have a gun in your home for self-defense.
Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign, June 28, 2010, 34 years later.
How the mighty have fallen.
Dave Hardy notes that when you take the Heller decision and McDonald decision as a whole, focusing on the dissents, they thoroughly embrace Jefferson Davis’ view of the right.