Shall Not Be Questioned – Page 663 – The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …

Finally, Color E-Paper

Sony has unveiled color e-paper. One thing I had hoped with the iPad was that the screen would be some kind of new, advanced color e-paper, since rumors were they were going to market it as a reader.

If this works well enough, I’m pondering whether or not it’ll work well enough for digital picture frames. Judging from the display appearing in the article, it would be. I like digital picture frames, but I hate the backlighting. This makes them difficult in a bedroom, living room, or any place where you might be distracted by the soft glow of fluorescent backlighting.

At the least color e-paper will mean readers like the Kindle can host color content, for things such as magazines. I doubt Apple would want to go that route with the iPad, now that it’s out, and it’s pretty clearly a more general purpose tablet computing device. This should keep the Kindle and Nook competitive with content, like magazines, that demand color.

WordPress Upgrade

The brief outage was me upgrading to the latest version of WordPress. Feel free to unfasten your seat belts, and move about the cabin.

Campus Carry in TX

Word is that the Texas Hosue declares the campus carry amendment to the educational funding bill to be non-germane, and returned the bill to the Senate to have it removed. Campus carry probably does not happen this year, but we’ll get it eventually.

Under the Radar

Apparently Obama is working on gun control, according to one gun control advocate. But it’s under the radar. So far under the radar we don’t know what’s happening apparently. Maybe we won’t even know when it’s done.

It would be pretty amusing if the Administration is just stringing them along until the 2012 elections.

Constitutional Rights in the War on Terrorism

Good to see that some on the Islamaphobic right is willing to throw the Second Amendment under the bus for the sake of the war on terrorism. To be fair, I’m not sure the Second is the only right they are willing to throw under the bus. I’ve been pleased with how pro-Second Amendment National Review has become, but occasionally they harken back to the old days. This is one of those times.

Repeat after me, conservatives: we do not remove fundamental constitutional rights in this country without due process. The Second Amendment is now among those rights. The government can no more arbitrarily deny an otherwise eligible citizen or lawful resident the right to purchase a firearm than it can arbitrarily throw them in a brig without a trial.

Texas Legislative Update

From Howard Nemerov. Looks like SB1581, an education finance bill that includes the campus carry initiative, will be up today in the house. If you live in Texas, be sure to contact appropriate legislators. Our opponents have put a lot on the table in their opposition, and it’s important to deny them a victory here. As much as I like it that some of our opponents will spend today groveling before the Twitter gods, rather than engaging in opposition, we should not take this for granted by a long shot.

Mississippi Flooding

A reporter I follow on Twitter seemed a bit in awe of these photos from Mississippi River flooding. (Go take a look at them all, I’ll wait…)

When I think of floods, I just remember the 1993 floods. I happened to be spending some time with my aunt that summer just outside of St. Louis, right near the Missouri River. Her place was never in any danger, but it wasn’t pleasant being in that area at the time. I have memories of being in the car and looking out the windows down the side roads to see neighborhoods displaced because of water up to the eaves.

Not too far west, there’s significant drought conditions. Family members in Oklahoma are saying it’s some of the worst they have ever seen. A guy who rents some property from my grandmother was only slightly exaggerating when he said the cracks in the ground are big enough to swallow his cattle. When there’s even a few minutes worth of rain in that area, I can tell because Facebook lights up with videos & pictures from friends back there. It’s actually rather depressing when I see that rain is such huge news that it’s not only worth sharing on social media, but that it should be documented.

Not the First Time CSGV Has Been Banned

Apparently they were temporarily banned from updating their own Wikipedia entry because they insisted on flushing their past down the memory hole. Ladd Everitt proceeded to act like the unprofessional professional communications director we’ve come to know and love by abusing the Wikipedia admins.Â See the conversation here:

As for the claim that I should review the Conflict of Interest guidelines, I find that suggestion absolutely laughable coming from a member of the Wiki Firearms Project. Even a cursory look at the activity of your members on Wikipedia will reveal that you have consistently used these pages to discredit groups that wish to strengthen gun control laws and used their individual pages to disseminate your own heavily-biased and one-sided views on gun control policies and issues that, in many cases, have their own individual pages at Wikipedia.

From the admins:

your tone is highly aggressive and inflammatory. before pointing fingers further, i recommend that you review the following wikipedia core policies:Â WP:AGF,Â WP:CIVIL,Â WP:NPA. you’ve violated all of these core policies above. attacking other editors, rather than their edits, is not acceptable. frothing at the mouth about the evil wiki firearms project (of which this editor is not a member, nor is this editor a member of the NRA or the second amendment foundation or or the brady campaign or csgv or any other gun rights or gun control organization, thank you very much) is not going to persuade people that you are interested in a neutral article yourself. i have reverted all of your edits because you have a conflict of interest. i would recommend that you cease editing here, as you are violating wikipedia policy with each and every edit you make.Â Anastrophe (talk) 15:45, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I guess Ladd kept acting like himself, because it lead to this:

I will not cease making edits, and any neutral and unbiased observer will see in a matter of seconds that Wiki Firearms Projects members have used this page repeatedly to slander the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and offer heavily biased and one-sided views on issues that we advocate on (in many cases which are outright lies that are totally unsupportable).

There’s a good rule of thumb to follow, which is never to pick on admins. You will lose that argument. Admins always win.

again, bold talk, not backed up by facts. outright lies rarely survive on wikipedia, because all material must be properly sourced. are you saying that sources have been falsified? that would be quite a claim in itself. not that you care, but i’ve removed biased material from this article that was improperly sourced on several occasions – biased material that presented ‘unfavorable’ commentary or opinions about CSGV. i would again strongly recommend that you familiarize yourself with wikipedia’s core values and policies. you do notÂ own this article, regardless of your desire to do so formally. rather than slinging epithets and ad hominem, you could try detailing theÂ specific issues with the material that you feel are lies, misrepresentative, whatever, and work with your fellow editors to craft an NPOV article. NPOV does not mean that the article will present your organization favorably or unfavorably – thus, your desire to scrub the article of perceived unfavorable facts (the past name of the group, the past policies of the group) will not stand.

Finally the conflict ended with CSGV getting many of their issues address, but only after a pissing contest which was entirely started by Ladd Everitt. There’s an old saying that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. It’s a lesson to take to heart. Wikipedia won’t let their articles turn into propaganda pages for either side. It only looks biased to Ladd because truth is something not on their side, and they want to run from their past. NRA’s, for instance, is not lacking criticism.

Opinion in Puerto Rico Carry Case

Eugene Volokh has a translation into English of the opinion.

Unarmed Teens vs. Unarmed Adults

I love when the desire to editorialize against guns is so strong that they actually contradict themselves. It makes me wonder if newspapers actually have anyone edit their editorials for content.

HB 1652 lets people who hold concealed-carry permits keep firearms locked in their vehicles while on a CareerTech campus. That includes people 21 or older who have completed a training course and undergone a cursory background check.

The problem is that most CareerTech students are teenagers and thus not eligible to carry concealed weapons. HB 1652 will mean that unarmed teens will rub shoulders on campus with armed adults, a potentially dangerous mix.

In Oklahoma, the Tulsa World is arguing against a bill that will force adults to lock legally carried firearms in their cars – therefore leaving them unarmed while on campus – by saying it’s too dangerous to have unarmed teens near these now unarmed adults. I didn’t realize that concealed carry holders who don’t even have guns on their person were so dangerous in society. It would be nice if they had some facts to back that up. Oh, but wait, they don’t like when facts don’t match their view:

Advocates of concealed carry and other laws aimed at arming more Oklahomans are quick to point out that those laws have not resulted in bloodbaths, as critics predicted they might. That might be true, but, on the other hand, there is no evidence that they have prevented public violence or made the citizenry more safe.

So it doesn’t matter that these laws haven’t caused any problems. It doesn’t matter that concealed carry license holders are likely more law-abiding than their teenage counterparts on these campuses. Reason and Logic have clearly left the building there in Tulsa.