Apparently, PayPal can no longer be used to purchase firearms made after 1898, kits that can be turned into a firearm, gun powder, high capacity magazines, ordnance, mines, and grenades. No need to prohibit the last two, as those are already destructive devices. Well, guess I’ll no longer patronize PayPal.

It’s getting difficult for me to shop.

To Rodger over at Curmudgeonly and Skeptical for linking to me a few times (and sending many hits my way). I enjoy his site and you will too.

Mind you, I like him even though our peoples are technically at war. Maybe, in this case, peace will prevail.

Drudge links to a story about the first shots fired. Of course, the fighting started before that.

The Comedian celebrates his one year anniversary today. Well, he sorta celebrates.

Check it, yo.

Saw the speech and nothing surprised me. The language was stronger than the last one and he didn’t muddle through it. But ferchrissakes, the word is pronounced noo klee er. Not noo kyoo ler.

From the Wonderful World of Longmire.

While watching the prez last night, Mrs. Uncle looked at me and said: Thank God Bush is giving this speech and not Gore. Werd!

Former attorney general Ernest Borgnine is at it again:

”We will not solve the world’s problems by might. What has happened to the Bill of Rights? What has happened to due process? What has happened to the Geneva Convention? If they’re not prisoners of war, what are they? And what rights do they have?

Well, wasn’t that pretty much your MO during that Waco and Elian Gonzalez thing? Since you asked, I mean.

Peggy has given up:

Does it occur to the average warmonger that he or she is now ‘out of work’ too? Maybe, maybe not.

I am not out of work. I still will hope and I will pray for the lives of our troops and the lives of the people of Baghdad.

Surely only the most ignorant and hateful among them can be feeling good about all the brand-new suffering and horror about to be unleashed in Iraq, right?

That’s fairly self explanatory. However, some folks are likely feeling the relief of getting it over with.

And surely the most honest among pro-war intellectuals would admit that they, too, fear the unknown and unknowable costs -human, spiritual, cultural, political, economic – of this invasion, right?

Sure they do. But they’ve weighed those costs against the known costs of not invading.

With the partial birth ban on the table, two presidential hopefuls weren’t there to vote:

Two Democratic presidential candidates, Senators John Edwards of North Carolina and John Kerry of Massachusetts, who have voted against the ban in the past, were absent today and did not vote.

Translation: Our pollsters haven’t told us what to think yet.

Justin may have uncovered a Blogger.com conspiracy!

Diplomatic ties are severed with respect to Iraq and Bush to address the nation. I guess maybe there was some credibility to those reports in Israel that the war would start on March 18.

Update: Inspectors urged to leave. Citizens asked to get out also. Yup, trouble’s abrewin’.

Update2: Even Saddam has been told to get out.

Update3: UN Staff ordered to get the hell out.

In addition to racial hatred in suburbia, a man was severely beaten in the old city because the attackers thought he was gay.

A man is recovering from four days in a coma after a group of men jumped him as he was leaving Cup-a-Joe in the Old City.

The Jonathan Rule’s family says the men attacked Jonathan because they thought he was gay.

But the crime can’t be classified as a hate crime because sexual orientation isn’t included in Tennessee’s hate crimes law.

First, this is horrible. I always hear folks (especially folks who just moved here) in East Tennessee talking about how nice people here are. Then crap like this happens. Second, I oppose hate crime legislation. The penalty should be the same for beating up a white guy as it is for beating up a black guy. However, our local news program decided to make it an issue. Homophobia and racism are still the problem, regardless of hate crime legislation.

I heard on the news that three men were taken into custody over this incident.

Sopranos’ star is near a contract deal. Good, now the second best television show ever will stay on the air. And the best show is on until 2005.

Some woman trying to prevent a bulldozer from running over a Palestinian’s house didn’t quite make it. Then I heard on the news last night that there would be an investigation into the incident. Well, here’s your investigation: She should have moved. I can appreciate someone being willing to die for what they believe in, but don’t be stupid.

Update: Bigwig has more.

I keep hearing the term antiwar protestor and it refers to the people protesting the impending war with Iraq. The last time I saw the phrase was here. An interesting read, by the way, courtesy of Michael over at the Metroblab. Read it, it’s worth it.

Wouldn’t an antiwar protestor be someone who protested antiwar (or peace)? So, I suppose I am an antiwar protestor.

Check it out! Sometimes, the Brits are cool, even without a war.

Bloom County is coming back? Cool

Green – You believe that small economic units
should control the goods, and that the
government should be permissive of
“victimless crimes,” respectful of
civil liberties and very strict towards big
business. You also believe in either a
socialist tax structure or more power to local
communities. You think that environmental
policies should be written into law. Your
historical role model is Ralf Nader.

Which political sterotype are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

You may notice some new things on the site. Do not adjust your set these things are intentional. For example, the Search function at the top and the countdown to the sunset of the AW ban. As always, criticism and comment on both content and form of this site are welcome.

The FBI and Customs seized (sans warrant and without notifying the AP) a FedEx package containing an FBI report intended to be delivered to the AP. Way to go guys, I feel real secure now that you’ve saved me from information.

Apparently, he wants lawmakers to actually wait and see how much dough the lottery will pull in before planning on spending the money. Wow, applying real world business concepts to gummint. What a novel idea. As Bill has pointed out on several occasions, most of Tennessee’s financial problems come from failure to accurately project revenue. Seems like Bredesen should also fire the guys that project revenue.

Of course, legislators are in a hurry to start buying votes err giving scholarships to Tennessee students even though they have no idea how much money the lottery will bring in. Seems pretty easy to determine how many scholarships they’ll have to give out by looking at past enrollment statistics in Tennessee. However, the big unknown is how many folks will play the lottery.

Now, I wonder if the gummint should even be in the business of giving scholarships. It’d be nice to have free scholarships in case I decide to have any little uncles but is that the place of the state?

Today is the six month anniversary of the UN Debate on Iraq. The UN is not an expeditious group, like the League of Nations before them, and I fear the UN is ensuring its own doom. Now we have a six step proposal for Saddam (proposed by the Brits):

• A televised appearance by Saddam in which the Iraqi dictator renounces nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

• Baghdad’s permission for 30 key weapons scientists to travel to Cyprus to be interviewed by U.N. weapons inspectors.

• The destruction “forthwith” of 10,000 liters of anthrax and other chemical and biological weapons Iraq allegedly possesses.

• The disclosure of full details regarding an Iraqi aerial drone recently discovered by weapons inspectors, as well as other unmanned aerial vehicles

• The surrender of and explanation about biological weapons production.

• A commitment to destroy proscribed missiles.

Apparently, some still don’t get it. 1441 calls for serious consequences if Iraq fails to disarm. Further, the inspectors are there to verify compliance and not look for needles in haystacks. Saddam should have proven that he disposed of the weapons and he has failed. But debate after debate and resolution after resolution continue and nothing is being done.

Russia, France and Germany have a material interest in trade with Iraq. They are financially better off with the status quo. For them, it’s about oil, as it were.

And the lunatic fringe in the US that says the war is about oil is nuts. The fact we’re not also putting pressure on Saudi Arabia is about the oil. Saudi Arabia is our number one oil supplier. They also pay off suicide bombers’ families (just like Saddam) and most 9/11 hijackers were Saudi. The US is kowtowing to the Saudis over oil; and France, Germany and Russia are kowtowing to Iraq over oil and trade.

Bush has made it clear that he’d like to have UN support for an invasion but he doesn’t need it. His responsibility lies with the American people and not European trade interests. Maybe after that, he can deal with that Saudi Arabia thing (or North Korea for that matter). Get it over with.

Reason: Disarming History: How an award-winning scholar twisted the truth about America’s gun culture — and almost got away with it.

A summary of the supposed outright fucking lies err errors in Bellesiles political beliefs err research.

I wanted to yap about Bredesen’s budget proposal. However, some folks did it already and probably did it better than I could. Bubba has a summary here. And Halfbakered weighs in here.

Good reading. Needless to say, I still think Bredesen is kicking some names and taking some ass. We need more Democrats like him.

The Beastie Boys have recorded an anti-war song. At least these guys are expressing the views through their music and not some other attention seeking public forum.

Barry is running a World’s Worst Blogger game (for those of you who are improv fans).

These are either getting boring, or my last noun choice wasn’t so good. Let me know.

Today’s noun: Lawyer

185 lawyers walk into a bar [add a punch line].

I used to buy the argument that we don’t know when life begins so the only way to know for certain when life exists is when a fetus is independent and separate from its mother. I’m not saying it’s correct but I am stating that it seemed to be the only objective measure of such an occurrence. I’m no longer so certain because this article suggests that the conscious mind could develop before 24 weeks. On a related note, Congress is debating a ban on partial birth abortions.