Steve of the Firearms Blog has a look at this strange phenomena.
Coming to a Head in Illinois
It looks like the Daley machine, faced with the destruction of its own gun laws when McDonald is handed down, is lashing out any way it can. If I had to take a big picture look at what’s going on here, with the push in Illinois, to Bloomberg’s attacks on Pennsylvania, upstate New York and Ohio, it would be the old guard trying one last ditch effort to assert itself. Let’s hope this ends up being their “Battle of the Bulge”
Part of me thinks we’ve become unstoppable, but I try to keep that in check. Things can turn quickly. This is not a done deal yet. It wouldn’t take much for the momentum to begin to shift the other way.
Kennedy on the Campaign Trail
It’s zombie Kennedy. Fortunately for us, it’s John, not Teddy.
The JFK Library is recreating JFK’s campaign through tweets as though they were written on the trail on @Kennedy1960. If you enjoy history, politics, or just innovative uses of social media for teaching, you should follow it.
I have to say, this is one of the best uses of Twitter I’ve seen for an organization like this. It’s a very different way to bring history alive, and a great way to celebrate an anniversary that most people would understandably forget.
Remember November
This is probably the best use of the “have to pass it so we can find out what’s in it” and “we make up the rules” lines I’ve seen all year. Â I doubt it will be topped.
Bloomberg’s Gun Show Bill
Dave Kopel goes into detail in an editorial in the Denver Post on why Bloomberg’s gun show bill isn’t just about background checks. This is what MAIG Mayors are pushing. It’s real gun control, not just concerning itself with illegal guns. If your Mayor is a member of MAIG, you have to get him out. Make him understand what these people are pushing in his or her name,
Five Days Later, Still at $20 Dollars
Doesn’t look like the Brady’s are having much luck raising money scaring people with a funny parody on open carry activism. I guess Jon Stewart just isn’t scary enough to get the hysterical to open their wallets. The Brady Campaign have been pushing this via Twitter only, as best as I can tell, and so far with no luck. We’ll keep watching.
UPDATE: Forgot to mention, Starbucks Sales are up 7% too.
UPDATE: Looks like that figure is based on same store sales, and Starbucks closed 5% of their stores.
“Baseball and Pot”
Comparing Smartphones
I think this is a pretty good, and fair comparison. I have familiarity with having supported and used all of these platforms except for the Palm Pre. Surprisingly, the iPhone integrates the best with a Microsoft Exchange environment, with the Android OS being a close second. Blackberrys are generally the business standard, and they are bloody awful as far as I’m concerned. Popular Mechanics misses what to me is the biggest drawback of the iPhone, is that it’s only available on AT&T, who’s network is just atrocious.
I’ve been a Smartphone user back since the days of the early Treo’s, and was a Palm Pilot user before that. Back then, Palms used Graffiti, which completely screwed up your brain when it came to handwriting. But it was more reliable than the Newton’s handwriting recognition, which actually wasn’t too bad for what it was trying to do. The Newton was too big to carry around, however, which was its main drawback.
Palm was the real innovator in the handheld computer category early on, and I liked the Treo better than the early Blackberries, but the Blackberries quickly got better. No one really got the Smartphone genre right until Apple did with the iPhone. As much I like Bitter’s Android, and as much as an improvement as Windows Phone 7 will probably be, most of the user interface ideas had their genesis in the iPhone. Apple’s always been the big innovator in technology when it comes to designing user interfaces and devices, but stage two of that has traditionally involved everyone else copying their ideas and crushing them with cheaper products. In this market, Apple’s not necessarily going to get crushed on price, but they could be crushed on the “price” of being tied to AT&T and the restricted nature of their App Store.
One Editorial Against CA Open Carry Ban
From the Redding Record Searchlight.
That said, so far the dangers of the “open carry†crowd exist only in their opponents’ imagination. The protests — while ill-mannered and intimidating to many — have peacefully made a political statement, and Saldana’s reaction only proves their point that the 2nd Amendment is under siege.
It’s also an all-too-typical example of legislating by headline. Saldana’s bill, AB 1934, is not a well-considered law to a address pressing public safety problem, but a knee-jerk response to a few news stories and the surrounding hullabulloo.
At least someone in the media is speaking out against the silliness of this bill.
Cracking Down on Air Guns
In the UK. Â I agree they aren’t toys, but I used to run around with air guns when I was a kid, and never managed to shoot anybody, destroy property, or get accidentally shot by police.
I’m sympathetic to the notion that you don’t want a bunch of miscreant teenagers running around destroying property with air guns, but from reading the article you’d think they were talking about drugs or something.