Bitter – Page 76 – Shall Not Be Questioned

In Storm Deaths, It’s Mostly Bad Decision Making

I didn’t plan on blogging much more about Sandy, but then I made the mistake of reading a NYT profile of several deaths related to the storm. The headline reads like they were all simply unavoidable tragedies: “In Storm Deaths, Mystery, Fate and Bad Timing.”

The only problem is that they highlight two deaths in detail with profiles of the victims, but neither of those deaths were “mystery, fate, [or] bad timing.” They were consequences of very bad decisions.

The first pair of deaths the NYT focuses on is of two 20-somethings who decided to walk a dog. Okay, Sandy was a pretty long storm, so it’s understandable that the dog might need to be let out on the lawn at some point either before the storm really got going or as it was dying down. Nope. These two brilliant folks decided to go out at about 8pm (pretty much the worst part of the storm) and walk the dog under some really massive trees. At least the dog survived.

The second instance they profile I had initially seen reported last night as a woman who accidentally stepped in a puddle that was electrified. That would truly be an accident of bad timing. However, with a few more facts, we learn that wasn’t really the true scope of the story. Apparently, a giant power line came down in the neighborhood and was wildly sparking. The 20-something decided to grab her camera (also around the height of the storm) and run toward the sparking power line so she could get a picture. Responsible neighbors who were monitoring the situation from the safety of their homes apparently ended up witnessing a horrific sight when she ended up running into part of the wire and caught fire. Obviously, no witnesses could do anything in the dangerous situation, and it took emergency crews nearly half an hour to arrive while she burned.

Now, I’m not heartless, so I do feel sympathy for the family and friends of the victims. However, I can also recognize that in these cases, based on the facts the NYT has presented from witnesses, the loss to those family and friends can be directly attributed to supremely unwise decisions made by the deceased individuals. I’m irritated at the NYT because it doesn’t do us any good to call these deaths cases of bad timing. That doesn’t help others learn from the situations. It’s pretty clear by these deaths that there are plenty of people who need to learn that electricity is not some magic thing that you chase after for a fun picture and wind can kill.

Storm Cuisine

Since we picked up a generator earlier in the summer and have made home improvements that have drastically cut down on the amount of water that comes into the house during storms, we’re not in panic mode about the snor’eastercane as we were with Irene. It also helps that the basement has already been emptied of just about everything because of our improvements down there. (I’m still a little freaked out about the winds though.)

However, we are apparently missing out on foodie “storm cuisine.”

Don’t get me wrong, we have water and I’m planning to get even more non-perishable foods and snacks this weekend just to minimize the need to access the fridge in the event of a power outage. But outright serious foodie cuisine?

Emergency Essentials, a two-decade-old company based in Orem, Utah, that sells supplies for survival situations, now offers a line of freeze-dried meals with such gourmet and ethnic options as chicken and white-bean chili, New Orleans-style rice with shrimp and ham and, yes, beef stroganoff (replete with â€œa rich, sour cream sauceâ€). But if a hurricane survivor feels like going the do-it-yourself route, they can also consult such cuisine-in-the-rough cookbooks as Stephen Westonâ€™s â€œIn the Wild Chefâ€ and Daphne Nikolopoulosâ€™s â€œThe Storm Gourmet.â€ The latter book, released in 2005 and now going on its fifth printing, includes recipes for everything from savory ham with Dijon cream sauce to tiramisu â€” all made without the benefit of electricity.

We can cook because we do have a camp stove. We also have a smoker and a grill that don’t require electricity. However, I can’t really imagine I’d be focused on making a Dijon cream sauce or tiramisu after a storm like Sandy or Irene. Regardless, to those who make it through the storm troubles in style, good job. I think we’ll probably keep it pretty simple.

A Little Economic Liberty in Louisiana

IJ put out a release on their case representing monks who make caskets to support their monastery that has been targeted by funeral directors who are irritated by the competition.

The monks of Saint Joseph Abbey declared victory once again after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a blistering opinion stating that the five-year campaign of the Louisiana State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors to prevent the monks from selling their handmade caskets was either unconstitutional or totally unauthorized by Louisiana law. The federal appellate court took the unusual step of asking the Louisiana Supreme Court to weigh in on whether Louisianaâ€™s funeral law actually grants the state board the power to stop casket retailing. If the answer is yes, then the law is unconstitutional. If the answer is no, then the state board has been acting lawlessly against the monks and other entrepreneurs for years.

According to the release, the state Supreme Court has to get back to them by January 22, so this should move reasonably quickly. But, as I was reading this release to Sebastian today, this is where the shocking quotes come in:

The 5th Circuit left no doubt about the invalidity of the state boardâ€™s primary constitutional argument that industry insiders and government may team up to pass laws that suppress competition and clobber consumers: â€œneither precedent nor broader principles suggest that mere economic protection of a pet industry is a legitimate governmental purpose.â€ The Court was equally harsh in rejecting the state boardâ€™s argument that judges in economic liberty cases are supposed to rubber stamp whatever the government does: â€œThe great deference due state economic regulation does not demand judicial blindness to the history of a challenged rule or the context of its adoption nor does it require courts to accept nonsensical explanations for naked transfers of wealth.â€ (emphasis added)

As Sebastian said, it’s almost like the court is doing its job. I’ve posted a video that’s really just background in the case below.

Could the â€œSnorâ€™eastercaneâ€ Impact Pennsylvania Elections?

So the â€œsnorâ€™eastercaneâ€ maps are tilting a little too close to Pennsylvania for my liking, especially when some forecasters are concerned that if/when it does turn inland, it could be worse than Irene.

I got to thinking, what does this mean for the election? I realize that this is likely to hit a solid week before the election. However, we had parts of our suburban Philadelphia county that were out of power and still had trees blocking roads a week after Irene which was just rain, not snow. The more rural areas of any state that is hit could be out for quite a while since this is supposed to be a slow-moving storm.

If Pennsylvania takes the hit, then the areas that would be hit later and possibly longer are strong areas for Republicans. While this likely won’t impact the presidential race much since Mitt isn’t likely to win, it will likely make a big impact on the closer Senate race and, more importantly for gun owners, the largely ignored and unknown to many voters Attorney General’s race. This doesn’t even get into the many state representative and senate races across the state.

If it follows the bottom part of the cone and heads toward Virginia, well, that could impact the presidential race. During one snow storm that wasn’t totally crazy, but definitely heavier than average, none of the streets in my mom’s Roanoke subdivision were plowed for four days. During the 2008 primary, VDOT left motorists stranded on the overpasses that they failed to clear and treat during an ice storm for about a day – that was right near the DC line, not a rural corner. If there’s one thing I learned living in Virginia, that state does not handle snow clearing very well at all.

Last year, I saw tweets and Facebook updates from people in Connecticut who were out of power for the better part of a week because of storms. Even if they could get out of their neighborhoods, they few places around them had power. That’s not impossible to imagine, either. While Sebastian and I regularly walk up to our polling place, and we’d be willing to freakin’ shovel a path for ourselves and our neighbors up there this year if we had to, what if they don’t have power over a widespread area? How would counties handle that? More importantly, if they had only a few polling places open, how would voters be notified of the changes if few had power?

The good news for any weather issues is that the enthusiasm gap favors the candidates who happen to be pro-gun in this immediate area. However, the bad news is that the areas likely to have any damaged fixed or power restored last is more friendly territory for our candidates. It’s an interesting, and not impossible to imagine, scenario with a very large weather system like Sandy.

The Problems with Making Up Your Own Facts

Our local Congressional race is between an incumbent freshman Republican and a challenger from the Democrats who is trying to make women’s issues a key part of her campaign. Except rather than being knowledgable on the actual issue, Kathy Boockvar has decided to just make up her own facts in the midst of debates. This can backfire, something she should learn today.

For example, she was talking about birth control and said that she believed 99% of Americans use birth control. 99% of Americans. Think about that for a second. She didn’t misspeak, she made her comment very clear – she argues that 99% of Americans use birth control. Now, I assume she factored into that “fact” that any man in a sexual relationship with a woman on birth control pills is also “using” birth control. I’ll accept that. I agree with that. What I don’t accept is her assertion that children are actively using birth control.

No, I’m not talking about 16-year-olds using birth control methods. I have no issue with that at all. I’m talking about her version of statistics. 99% of Americans. The Census says that nearly 7% of Americans are under the age of 5. That means that in Kathy Boockvar’s world of made up statistics, toddlers and pre-schoolers are in need of birth control. This is why you don’t make up statistics on the fly when you’re running for office.

Of course, I don’t expect that Boockvar has any desire to actually correct her statement, even though she has tried to make such issues the highlight of her campaign. When asked in the last debate about her specific ideas for tax reforms, she refused to answer by saying that she doesn’t believe in making promises or giving those kind of answers. Today, she was asked for specifics on what votes she claimed Fitzpatrick has made to deprive veterans of support, and she just answered that he took many, many votes without being able to give any examples. In her campaign, facts are optional and accountability is non-existent. Not to mention, her made up facts are really freakin’ creepy.

Can You be a Menace on Your Own Property?

That’s part of the question in an Alabama case that the NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund is getting involved with down there. It’s definitely an interesting case based on the details provided in this news account.

A developer/landlord was convicted of misdemeanor menacing after he was merely holding his shotgun (not pointing it, from the description in the article) on his property while ordering a former tenant who owed millions in back rent off site. The former tenant was removing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of items from the property that the landlord said were considered part of the property until the back rent was paid – items like sinks, stoves, and booths that might, depending on the nature of the contract, actually be considered part of the building. In other words, the tenant wasn’t on site to grab his coat or family pictures that he left behind. He was ordered from the property, and the police were called.

The police officers at the time didn’t feel like the developer was committing any crimes in how he handled himself with the trespassing tenant. However, the trespasser filed charges later. So now there’s a question over whether or not Alabama residents may legally possess a firearm on their own property while ordering a trespasser to leave.

The “Terror Gap” Nightmare

If you listen to our political opponents, no one who gets flagged by the no-fly list can possibly be trusted with a firearm – even in the home or used for hunting. They are clearly a danger to society. We hear stories about babies ending up on the list and all sorts of other problems that come from similar names. However, here’s one that was supposedly an exact match of name, social security number, and date of birth.

Yet, he’s cleared to carry a concealed firearm based on a recent background check, he was cleared to ride on an Air Force flight on his way to a foreign country, and he was given a place to stay on the Pearl Harbor naval base while the bureaucrats took time to clean up their mess.

In other words, a guy who is no apparent danger to our country and has no record that should indicate he’s a problem should be a prohibited person according to anti-gun politicians and groups. No accountability, no recourse, just take away people’s fundamental rights. Thank goodness they aren’t going to win that fight. Instead of losing his right to own firearms, the guy in this story was just out five days of hotel expenses in Hawaii and a trip to see his wife who is serving our country.

Listen Up You “Machismo Fantasists”

Go ahead, New York Times, keep insulting anyone who believes that they have a right to defend themselves from criminal attack. It’s not like it motivates voters who realize just how far outside of the mainstream you really are or anything…

Also, did you know that your concealed carry permit is among the “worst measures” of American gun policy? The fact that guns are allowed to be sold at all is a “scourge.” In that case, I look forward to their attacks on their own lawmakers for allowing such horrors in their city. Oh, that’s right, that’s not a “worse measure” because that’s restricted to only the wealthy and politically connected in their city. That’s just fine. It’s when the little law-abiding people want to exercise such rights that the NYT is outraged.

When I see unhinged rants from the anti-gun media, I just kind of laugh. I beg them to keep going, just keep it coming. See, when they unleash their elitism through such insults, it makes gun owners and people who agree with the Second Amendment turn out and vote.

Jindal: “It’s time we protected gun rights.”

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has an op-ed on the need to pass Amendment 2 in November. I appreciate that he broke it down to explain it to those who just assume that gun rights are “protected” without really knowing anything about the legal debates:

Simply put, this amendment to Louisiana’s Constitution acknowledges the fundamental right to keep and bear arms for legitimate purposes, and it requires any restriction on gun ownership be subject to strict scrutiny.

It’s our own Second Amendment, if you will, a new constitutional provision to repair the damage done by past judicial interpretations. You see, over the years, Louisiana courts have applied a “rational basis” legal standard to interpreting our right to bear arms. In reality, that means that the state has almost unlimited authority to confiscate, prohibit or infringe on this fundamental right. Make no mistake, I have no intention of allowing such a bill to leave my desk without a veto, but our liberties should not be held hostage to whims of future legislators and governors. By applying the “strict scrutiny” test, we elevate the protections in our constitution to the same level we provide our right to free speech.

Jindal also goes into the arguments about the federal courts being only vote away from rewriting the Second Amendment and what Congress has done to try and keep some of the assaults on gun rights that happened after Katrina from happening again, but the theme is definitely that Louisiana needs its own protection of the fundamental right just in case the whims of Congress or the federal courts change. I hope that gun owners who don’t normally follow the issue closely down there get a chance to read this piece.

It Doesn’t Matter What You Think, It Matters What They Think

From the Brady Center event, I think it’s worthwhile to point out a question asked by the Center to Justice Stevens on the subject of those horribly, wrongly-informed American people who believe they have rights even though the Brady lawyers know better:

I don’t care how long I’ve been working the activism side for this issue, it will never cease to amaze me the sheer number of gun owners who believe that just because they – and likely all of their friends and family – believe something to be a right, it’s protected by the legal system. That’s simply not true. When it comes to keeping gun ownership legal, it really doesn’t matter what the founding documents actually say. All that ultimately matters is how the government interprets it and enforces any laws they pass on the issue of gun ownership.

It kind of reminds me of a story I was told by a Massachusetts gun owner who was talking to a Pennsylvania gun owner at the NRA convention in Pittsburgh back in 2004. After hearing about the variety of gun laws there and the licensing nightmare that determines what kinds of guns you’re allowed to own and how you can use them, the Pennsylvania guy just responded with, “But this is America!” Yeah, buddy, it is America. Welcome. I just hoped he started paying more attention to the issue after hearing those stories.