Sebastian – Page 684 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Something Has Gone Horribly Wrong

PETA and HSUS are gonna love this. For that reason, I should probably approve, but really, it just freaks me out.

Clayton Hanging it Up

This is a shame. Not that I can blame him. It’s a lot to ask someone to take on that kind of legal risk for no financial reward.

Public Shooting Range Incident

Funny, I was just talking about this topic, but a person was found dead at one of the PA Game Commission public ranges in Cumberland County. Of course, there’s a great irony in this:

The man killed at a Cumberland County gun range Wednesday was a personal injury lawyer.

At first I thought it wasÂ one of the Cletii that Tam mentioned probably did him, and decided fleeing was the wise, if not ethical move. But other stories are calling it aÂ homicide, since it’s unlikely he was shot accidentally multiple times. My guess would be robbery was the motive, since it would seem guns were missing. From yet another article:

Freed also said there was another crime on this rifle range earlier this month when a gun was stolen.

“Anybody who is going out to a gun range needs to take extra care cause we at least know that there’s somebody out there who was willing to steal a gun, and apparently somebody out there who was willing to shoot somebody today,” Freed said.

“Whether those acts are related, i can’t say, but it certainly is reason to take extra care,” he added.

It’s quite possible someone who has no regard for human life figures there’s not much risk on shooting a lone person out in the middle of nowhere to steal his firearms. Not much of a chance of getting caught. Be careful out there.

Standing up for Decency

There’s an old saying that you should never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. The modern day equivalent of that should be never pick a fight with someone who has a Google Pagerank greater than 4.

All my uses of the sue happy newspaper Las Vegas Review-Journal have been squarely and certainly within the realm of fair use, but because I do not wish to support the kind of shakedown they are doing of bloggers, I have removed all links on this blog to those sewer rats. I will be the first to admit that some blogs go over the fair use line, but I am a strong believer in trying to come up with a fair and equitable resolution before fighting with lawyers begins, and before taxpayer dollars are wasted filing lawsuits. The fact that there was apparently no cease andÂ desist letter sent, no apparent attempt to make a reasonable settlement on the fairly minimal damage likely inflicted, and the fact that this is being done in federal court, tells me they are hoping to goad people into an unreasonable settlement beyond any actual damage inflicted on them. This is dirty, even if there is a legitimate copyright claim involved.

So let me first point out some of my handy work, for the pages I’ve transformed, in the hopes of raising awareness of the Las Vegas Review-JournalsÂ reprehensibleÂ tactics, starting with my favorite:

So rather than having links back helping out the web presence of their crappy paper, they will always be associated with being the grimy sewer rats they are as far as this blog is concerned. I have always beenÂ conscientiousÂ about giving fair credit, and only posting as much of the story as I need to in order to comment orÂ criticize. I absolutely support newspapers pursuing copyright violators in good faith, with an aim to recover fair costs in proportion to the harm. But I would expect decent human beings to try to resolve the situation without resorting first to life ruining lawsuits. The Las Vegas Review-Journal is engaging in bully tactics, plain and simple, regardless of whether the law is on their side or not.

Why the Dems are Losing

Chris Byrne points out it’s because they seem to think the population is angry at them for not trying hard enough to get things done, rather than the fact that they are bankrupting the country, and misappropriating our tax dollars.

More “Gun Lobby” Accusations

Apparently the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence Executive Director, Thom Mannard, thinks McDonald was a front for corporations who just want to make a profit off selling guns. Complete denial that this is a grassroots civil rights movement. I wonder how he’d react if he knew that the gun industry was completely on board with the Gun Control Act of 1968, since the importation restrictions greatly benefited a domestic industry that was hurt by cheap surplus imports. Let’s also not forget the industries attempts in the 1990s to make nice with the Clinton Administration by accepting gun control arrangements. Hate to tell Thom Mannard, but it’s his fellow citizens, not the gun industry, that are driving this movement.

But I suppose it’s easier for him to live with himself if he believes he’s fighting some faceless “gun lobby” and dispassionate “gun industry” rather than trying to deny a retired veteran living in a gang infested neighborhood his God-given right to defend himself.

Gun Blog Sued

It was probably only a matter of time before this happened. Clayton Cramer and David BurnettÂ of The Armed Citizen, are being sued by the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

Today, The Armed Citizen received informal notice in the form of a media inquiry about a lawsuit against this website and its owners, David Burnett and Clayton Cramer. The lawsuit, reportedly filed in US District Court on July 20th, alleges that The Armed Citizen and its owners “willfully copied” original source content from the Las VegasÂ Review-Journal.

You can find the suit here. The Armed Citizen is a great chronicle of stories from around the country of people defending themselves with a gun. They do take donations, so please go kick in a few bucks to help with legal expenses. This is something that could happen to any of us.

UPDATE: I had about four links, and a few briefÂ excerptsÂ of a sentence or two on this blog from the Review-Journal. They have been removed. Not out of any far of lawsuit, because they clearly fall under fair-use, but because it would seem the Review-Journal does not wish to be linked, or be talked about. Fair enough. They can rot alone in a dark corner of the Internet where no one goes. That’s the bed they made, and they can sleep in it. They will receive no more links from this blog.

Josh Sugarmann Earning that Six Figure Salary

So now VPC is proud that they are supplementing and updating their excellent Google research with even more Google research. It’s easy to understand why. VPC increasingly has no money to spend on programs. On their 2008 tax return, of the approximately 890,000 dollars VPC took in, they spent 513,738 on salaries and benefits for employees, including a compensation package of 145,120 each for Sugarmann and Rand. That’s almost a 6% raise in compensation over the previous year. Not bad for tough times, eh? Sure, they had a better fundraising year in 2008, 7% higher than 2007. But their public support percentage dropped by 2%, from 24% to 22% meaning they are getting more big donors rather than many smaller ones. The NRA Foundation, on the other hand, has a public support percentage of 92%.

I guess it’s a good thing for Sugarmann and Rand that their donors don’t check to carefully, or don’t care what they are getting for their money. It’s a sweet gig he has going. I’m almost jealous.

Corbett Sympathetic to Free Market Wine and Liquor

Saying selling off the state liquor monopoly must be on the table has endeared us to Tom Corbett on one other issue. Bitter outlines some of the reasons why on price, noting that Hawaii’s generally expensive nature doesn’t translate to liquor prices due to their free market system. She also notes that people that have tried the PALCB’s ridiculous wine kiosk system won’t be trying it again. It’s a system only a bureaucrat would love.

Pennsylvanians are tired of having to go out of state to find a reasonable wine and liquor selection. The time toÂ privatizeÂ the state liquor monopoly is now. Corbett isn’t the firstÂ gubernatorialÂ candidate in Pennsylvania to promise it, but hopefully he can be the first to deliver.

Not Running Out to Get iPhone 4

I’m not an early adopter, and the problems with the iPhone 4 are part of that reason. I’m sticking with my 3G for now, at least until the revised versions are out. Les Jones points out Apple’s changing positions on the antenna problem, and wonders whether Apple is right that all phones have the problem, after trying the trick with his blackberry and receiving signalÂ degradation.

They are correct, but it depends on a lot of factors. The main problem is that in order to get more bandwidth, cell providers are moving higher and higher into the microwave range to accomplish communication between the cell phone and tower. This also benefits battery life. The problem with microwaves, however, is that the higher you go in frequency, the less they penetrate barriers. The iPhone uses GSM 1900, which operates from 1850 to 1910MHz. Your microwave oven operates at 2450 MHz, so you can see we’re not that far off from the ideal frequency for reheating leftovers. Microwaves are poor penetrators of materials, and they don’t penetrate metals at all, otherwise RADAR would have no theoretical basis. So yes, all phones are subject to signal attenuation depending on how you hold them, where you are, and how strong your signal is.

The problem with the iPhone is that they put the antenna on the outside where it can be touched, which changes the impedance of the antenna, causing more of the energy generated by the iPhone’s radio transceiver to end up in you rather than being radiated off to the local cell tower. This is why adding a bumper fixes the problem. It would seem it should be relatively easy to put a transparent, non-conductive coating on the exterior metal of the phone that would attenuate the problem. That way people’s grubby hands get kept off the antenna, and Steve can still feel good about his slick design. Antenna experts say FCC rules limit where they can locate it, because the FCC limits how much radiation can get pumped into your skull. Apparently bottom antennas are not all that uncommon. But how many vendors have them openly exposed?