Bicycle = Magical

(It must be magic, it makes my old jeans fit again!)

No, really. Magical. I go riding in the evening and glide past and through sparkles and patches and clouds of fireflies, sometimes blinking in sync, big, fat, bright ones that float through the air at the approximate angle of the "little people" from a children's book. It's remarkable in the green twilight of sunset along the well-wooded trail. It's almost too pretty to believe in.

Another bit of "magic" is the effect riding regularly has on my metabolism. It is as if the exercise reminds my body what do do with caloric intake, stepping everything up, leaving me more energetic for having done some honest perspiring rather than tired. And maybe that's exactly what happens. All I know is, Sherlock Holmes had more fun than Mycroft.

(Update: Typo corrected thanks to commenter).

Linguistic Patrol

Every tenth person who misuses "decimate" should be taken out and shot.

That is all.

Marry A Voter, Have Many Children

...If you want to try changing things via the ballot box and soap box: late word is that there's a genetic component to political involvement. While I nurse a secret suspicion it's the yammerheadedness gene, it could be I'm mistaken.

NRA vs. SF: Oh, Heller Yeah

NRA and CCRKBA found themselves a gay gun-owner who lives in a San Franciso Housing Authority-run condo apartment building for their firearms-rights lawsuit in the City By The Bay. It's a little brain-puzzle for the Mayor and lefty press to cope with -- and the guy's reasons (not wanting to be a helpless victim when bashers come to call) make perfect sense.

A Photo I've Got To Op

Separation of Church and State, Indy-style: Downtown doing the engineering side of covering this idiocy for the Big Giant Old Media Company, I noticed that the large, impressive City-County Building sits catercorner to the Disciples Center, HQ of a major Protestant denomination; from Court Street (one of the city's named alleys, supposedly a bizarre byproduct of Indiana's early, local-option approach to Prohibition*) they appear back-to-back across the alleyway. They've worked out a fine deal: the Disciples of Christ don't arrest anyone and the Police and Mayor don't preach. Some of the City-County Councilbeings have a little trouble with not-preaching part, while others seem to be having trouble with both Godliness and abiding by the law...

I hope my little camera can catch the same view my eye found Friday afternoon; the image is striking. And, for the more frothing-at-the-mouth one way or t'other, perhaps it might be a reminder that these institutions can and do co-exist quite smoothly.
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* I can't substantiate it but supposedly Indianapolis's ban of saloons included language courts held to imply forbidding them only along named streets, so the bars nailed up the front doors and hung signs out back. There are a few left that still do! But at the time, the city simply named the alleys. Sneak-y.

Rule Two Violation In WaPo

...In an AP (well, of course) photo above Eugene Robinson's very grudging admission that the Second Amendment means what it says. (A wink and a nod to Turk Turon for the link).

Of course, he also thinks putting guns in the hands of the law-abiding will somehow result in a statistically significant uptick in homicides, then shares this deep and abiding insight, "I think the idea that the Founders' 'original intent' should govern every interpretation of the Constitution is loony -- as if men who wrote with quill pens could somehow devise a blueprint for regulating the Internet."

Yeah, Mr. Robinson, 'cos human nature has changed in drastic and fundamental ways since the late 1700s? Because "freedom of speech and of the press" could not possibly refer to electronic media, even the fat pipe of easy and widespread Internet access? (Only shouting from soapboxes and printing with a manual press using hand-set type are protected, yeah sure). Because making "... no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" could not possibly include Sci3nt0l0gy, Unitarians* or Hari Krishna d00ds?

It is not a matter of the technology those men used to record their thoughts but rather the quality and depth of those thoughts. A quill pen scratches along at about the rate most writers compose and far more rapidly than the thoughts of political philosopher can be organized and set down.

It is nothing but prejudice -- the blind arrogance of the materially privileged -- to sneer at our forebears as narrow, ignorant men because they lacked typewriters, ballpoints, indoor plumbing, electric lights and streetcars. They had their minds. They had the body of Biblical, Greek and Roman writings (and were often able to read them in the original language) along with nearly as much of modern Western philosophy as we have today. They had Shakespeare, Swift, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, algebra and calculus. Their time is not called The Age of Reason Enlightenment (oops) lightly. They were not savages, grunting at the first dim light of tomorrow; they knew the human mind and human heart for good and for ill.

It is true that some among the Founders and Framers were newspaper columnists. But we mustn't hold that against them, either.
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* Like those icky John and John Q. Adamses. How durst they?

Should We Bake Them A Cake?

There ought to be some way for us People Of The Gun to show our appreciation of the good folks at SCOTUSblog, who labored under hugely more traffic than their usual and kept the blog running nevertheless. Well done!

And they've provided my morning chuckle, too, with a posting in re Heller from aptly-named weenie Law Professor CarlT. Bogus, long-time source of PSH, who writes in part, "Surely, insurrectionism has had both James Madison and Edmund Burke spinning in their graves." Umm, gee, yeah, except Madison didn't need to be dead to hear about it; his ol' pal Thomas Jefferson was wont at the time to muse that a revolt every ten or twenty years would be about right. Did'ja miss that sidebar, Prof?

I'm forever amazed at these guys who so trust The State they'd deny the right of the People to resist tyranny. Wonder if he has a big poster of the Tian An Men Square Tank Guy with big ol' red circle-and-slash negation symbol over it -- or is it okay to stand up to The Man as long as you're unarmed and get vanished for it?

Awww, Professor Bogus, who's the sad clown? Heheheh.

Marsparagus?

Lost in the delight over the news of Heller today, the gang of happy boffins running the Phoenix probe on Mars were smiling even broader when tests showed the soil could support life. Oh, you'd have to bring a bushel back here to grow asparagus in it but it is a bigger deal than you might think.

"So what," you might say, "dirt's dirt!"
Which it sort of is, except when it's not: for quite some time now, the best guess was that Martian soil was loaded with superoxides, more alkaline than household bleach. It would not be farmin' material.

So today's news changes the possibilities. Life on Mars just became a little more possible.

Yayy, Hooray!

I'm thinkin' of makin' a T-shirt, with

HELLER
HELLER
HELLER!
in some heavy block font and a 1911 (or, better still, Chief Lanier ya ditzy schmuckette[1], a .500-or-bigger-bore revolver) kind of watermarked into it. Whattaya think?

We need to remember -- as so very many have pointed out -- that Heller is not an endpoint but more like a ticket to ride and that there are still plenty of trains we've got to catch. Nevertheless, recognition of the Second Amendment as protecting an individual right (a pre-existing individual right, high-five t'th High Court majority) is the keystone in the bridge to tomorrow.

A point of which I've not seen mention: The United States just got uniquer[2]. We were already just about alone in the world with respect to firearms; and now we're the only nation I know of where previous restrictions of the inalienable, inherent right to self-defense and the keeping of arms have been rolled back.

Think of it for just a moment: your shooting hobby -- let alone carrying for self-defense -- would be nearly impossible in most of the "First World" countries save Switzerland, utterly impossible in a few; and hardly easier in the next tier of nations. Nope, the States are just about alone in this wonderful idea that you have a right to defend yourself against aggression using the most effective means the human mind and hand has yet produced. Here, even The Fed'ral Gummit has admitted your life has value and you've a right to the best tools to protect it. Everywhere else, well, y'might be dog food. The baddie you stop in Britain may get you haled up on criminal charges for preserving your own life in your own home.

Other countries have many positive attributes but on the whole? I like it here. I like a place that doesn't prevent me stopping rapists and strongarm robbers right at the source.

Hey, Michelle O? I have never been prouder of the United States of America than I am today. Put that in your pie and smoke slice[3] it.
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1. Ew. Ghastly.
2. Yes! Not a word and not even a logical notion. Work with me here?
3. Thanks, Tam! It is the better word.

Hang. Up. And. Drive.

Not only is it better for your driving, it keeps governments from finding an excuse to meddle. Check the (nanny) states cited in the linked article for their cel-and-drive laws: Californiastan and Novy York. Get the picture?

...Yes, I make the occasional call from the car, too. Even with a Bluetooth headset and eyes-free dialing (by touch, voicedialing would be nice but, $$), my attention to the primary (and life-preserving!) task is perceptibly lessened. H'mm, ask Tam to set the table or ohholycow NOT HIT THAT TRUCK! Which is the most important? Decisions, decisions.

Like other risky actions, the dangers of phoning while driving can be lessened by careful choice of time and conditions and a heightened awareness directed towards the primary task. Just keep yourself from becoming a statistic by use of some means other than dumb luck, please.

Do celphones make people ruder or do the inconsiderate find geater scope for their irritatingness through celphones? I pulled off the Monon Trail at the turnaround point of yesterday's ride to find a cel-yakking-enabled young person in a large car parked square across where the trail joins a strip-center paking lot, leaving barely room to get by if riders turned abruptly. (Gave me quite the dirty look when I did). The spot is posted not to park in and there were plenty of empty spaces in the lot. Thanks, Citizen!

Sheesh. Where's that clue-by-four?

Bizzy Day

...Woke up and blogged, drove to work 'cos it was supposed to be stormy (yeah, well, it was, but not when I was commuting), called home and reminded my roomie of the new market opening up not outrageously far away when I saw a news item of ribs being grilled for shoppers (all et up when she got there, drat), got outta work on time for once, went to the new Super-Duper Market myself (it really was wonderful but jam-dammit packed with people who were, mostly, socializing), came back home, set up dinner (Purina Girl Chow: a nice mixed salad!), stuffed it in the fridge, went and rode two miles on my bicycle, popped the Magic Garage Door Opener as I came up the alley, made a graceful, sweeping curve and realized halfway through it that I was going too fast. Bumped the brakes, locked up both wheels, felt the back skid out from under me and lowsided at less than 5 mph.

Did a nice gentle fall since most of my forward momentum was gone by the time I was moving faceplantwards, caught myself on my hands and the balls of my feet and would have been standing again about as soon as takes to bounce back up were it not for the need to lift up the bike. Still, it's a maneuver that has nothing to recommend it and it was not at all improved by the small boy peering over a fence across the alley.

And dinner was decent, too. Had some wasabi* whatever mix on the side for crunch. Delightful! Now, if there were only gracefulness pills I could take....
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* "Wasabi," a word not, ferthluvva, in Blogger's dictonary! Hello? Hellooo? Do they keep you poor sods trapped under a rock, doin' The Innarwebz on a Curta Calculator via landline telegraphy and drinking dandelion-root tea?

Let The Hand-Wringing Begin!

With the Heller decision not even yet released, the cringing nanny-ninnies are already goin' all fluttery over it. To wit (or witless?), Atlanta's Mayor along Shirley's little helpers, a cinquefecta of trembling Mayors; and not only from way out Left in Trenton, New Mobsey and PSHan Francisco but even Miami. Wha hop'? Did the Mayor there miss what happened in the Sunshine State after legal carry was made easier or does he just not care? (From Jacob, who aptly fisks the whole notion with special, not-to-be-missed attention to New York's laws, via Sebastian).

The guest editorial in question has got it all, from the specious implication that the Supremes have previously held the Second Amendment to not be an individual right to unproven assertions of a linkage between restrictive firearms laws and reduction in violent crime. (By that yardstick, Chicago should have far less crime than Indianapolis; in fact, the Windy City usually beats us for criminality even if we leave the denizens of the respective City Halls* out of the stats). She even gives us "community leaders" as The Great Benign Father Here To Lead The Ignert Savages To Civilisation, a meme I thought died moaning as the sun set on the empires of the 19th Century. Really, if she'd managed to blow a kiss to Che, Hugo or Fidel, the bouquet would be complete.

As if to prove irony is fireproof, Mayor Franklin cites a shooting (of The Children, 'cos that's even more heart-wrenchingly useful to her ends) in Chicago to "prove" her point about unregulated handguns being bad. Unpossible! Handguns are already prohibited there and long guns harshly restricted. And it didn't help. Those disallowed the means to defend themselves died of it at the hands of baddies who ignored the law. Gee, criminals unconcerned about adding one more crime to their tab, who would have thunk it?

Then the high price of crime is put in play. Hmpf. Memo to Ms. Franklin: If you're so all-fired concerned about the budgetary impact of violent crime (another of her crying points), you would do well to remember that legally-armed citizens thwart a huge number of crimes every year at no cost to any taxpayer but themselves. Hows that for a win-win? Conversely, if you abet malefactors by disarming the law-abiding, you are making the problem worse and enlarging the victim pool.

We really should adopt some sort of intelligence and critical reasoning skill test as a prerequisite to holding public office. It would put a whoooooole lotta "Benign" Great Leaders outta work. Benign, benighted, potato, potahtoe. Most of them would do their finest public service picking up litter.
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* Actually the City-County Building here after they melted City and County Gummits together for streamlined irksomeness.