Ohio recently passed concealed carry. As yet, there has been no blood in the streets.

Yes, it is pretty much a scam.

A few weeks back, I went to the weekly flea market at the fairgrounds. I love books, so I pawed through every book collection there. We’re running out of shelf space, so I bought a few choice ones. This particular trip, I picked up Isaac Asimov’s New Intelligent Man’s Guide to SCIENCE: Vol II, The Biological Sciences.

Now, I’m a sucker for Asimov’s non-fiction. In fact, Asimov’s prolificness and my readitude of it won me a trip to Hawaii (but that’s another story). Anyway, just judging by the title, I knew this book was bound to be good: to hell with you Old Intelligent Men, you Non-Intelligent Men, and ALLLLLL you Women!

So I’m cruising through the first couple of chapters, right up to the part about photosynthesis. Now there’s something I haven’t thought about since high school biology. As we all know, photosynthesis is how plants take light, plus water, plus carbon dioxide, and turn it into oxygen and carbs (those evil, evil carbs!). In particular, the chlorophyll in the plant uses the light energy to break up water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen.

That’s when the light went off. As you know, there’s a meme floating around the zeitgeist that we need to stop burning fossil fuels as energy sources, and use hydrogen instead. Using pure hydrogen as a fuel has a great upside, because it’s clean burning (producing just water as a by-product) There’s just one problem: There ain’t no pure hydrogen on earth.

Oh, there’s some, but the problem with hydrogen is it tends to buddy up with other elements and form compounds. That’s why I haven’t really paid much attention to the talk about burning hydrogen as an “energy source,” because it’s NOT an energy source; you have to expend energy breaking the hydrogen loose from whatever compound it’s in. Hydrogen could be used as an energy storage and conversion medium, but producing hydrogen by, say, electrolysis of water, is still a losing proposition if you’re getting the electricity from a coal-fired power plant. OK, you could probably take advantage of some economy of scale, but the dirty coal is still being burned. Sure, we could use solar cells, but then you have to put energy into creating the cells.

But what if you could grow your hydrogen-producing system? Bio-engineer what would literally be a “power plant?” This idea struck me just now when reading Asimov’s book. And whenever I have moments like this, I think, “Either this idea is so incredibly stupid that only Dilbert’s boss could come up with it, or else somebody is already working on it.”

Well, actually, both could be true, but at any rate, somebody is already working on it.

For several decades, we have known that green algae can produce hydrogen directly from water….Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that sulfur deprivation of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a green algae, turns off the normal photosynthesis pathways, causing cells to stop emitting oxygen and stop producing carbohydrate, protein, and fat energy reserves. Hydrogenase is induced and activated by the low oxygen tension, and the stored energy reserves are then used to produce hydrogen. Once the stores are depleted, sulfur must again be added to return the system to normal photosynthesis. By cycling between sulfur and non-sulfur metabolism, hydrogen can be cyclically produced in a two-stage process.

There’s actually quite a bit of interest in the idea of biological hydrogen production. If you, loyal readers, have any expertise in this, please leave a comment. Also, feel free to point out any pointy-haired boss (PHB) moments I might have had in this post.

I’m back. A few notes:

Yes, I got your email. No, I haven’t read it yet.

Busy unpacking.

My dog is suffering depression as a result of the move. He has moped for the last 24 hours with his tail down and ears back. He’s quite pathetic, really. No amount of pork rinds seems to help.

Your regularly scheduled programming will resume Monday.

Quite odd but I have not followed anything in the news for about 3 days and I don’t miss it. Odd, indeed.

In the interest of expanding my horizons, I’ve started to take violin lessons. I’ve only had one so far, so I’m really really bad. In fact, it’s probably safe to say I have very little musical talent. However, that hasn’t stopped me from pursuing a short career as a part-time rock-n-roller.

It all started long ago, when I was a junior in high school. I got a bass guitar for Christmas. It was second-hand, of course. In fact, it used to belong to our school’s principal, Mr. P., Harley-Davidson owner and lead guitarist for Lambert and the Leaping Lizards.

I wanted the bass because my best friend J. had an electric six-string. After I got my bass, we would sit around weekends and try to play songs by our favorite bands: Kiss, Iron Maiden, Creedence Clearwater Revival. Before long, we hooked up with another guitar player and a drummer, and our first garage band was born.

That band didn’t go very far. We played only one show, as an opening act for a real band, at a party for a motorcycle gang. I remember avoiding the row of parked Harleys, fearing a domino-style disaster should I come too close.

By my sophomore year of college, I had hit the big time. I was gigging steadily with a band called Ultraviolet. Besides myself and J., who played lead guitar and sang, there was B., a handyman and church organist in his 30’s, on drums, and another guitarist/singer, T., an aging southpaw who played a right-handed guitar upside-down.

Our song list was loaded with classic rock favorites, from bands like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, with a dash of current hard rock numbers from Guns ‘n’ Roses and the Black Crowes. We weren’t above throwing in a long 12-bar blues improv number, either.

Of course, since we were out in the boondocks of Louisiana, we had a limited choice of venues. Most of them were seedy honky-tonks with names like the Coon Ridge Saloon or the Wolf’s Den—smoke filled shacks with barely enough room for the pool table and the juke box, much less our amplifiers.

In these kinds of places, with $3 cover charges, we never made much money. I remember one slow night, the other band members wound up owing money, after the owner deducted their bar tabs from their pay—just like in The Blues Brothers. Another time, a waitress helped herself to half the door money and ducked out before the last set. All told, considering equipment costs and gas money, I doubt I ever broke even.

Now here I am, many years later, and I hardly ever even pick up my bass. I haven’t practiced in ages; all my “chops” are gone. But maybe someday I can go back to my true calling. I still have time to re-grow that mullet.

What’s the first thing you think when you hear that somebody is performing jury duty? Chances are, it’s “How come he couldn’t get out of it?”

On the one hand, you’d think that as popular as courtroom dramas are on TV, people would be lining up to serve on a jury. Of course, that’s fantasy, and thankfully most people can tell the difference. In reality, being has some serious downsides. For one thing, if you happen to be a juror in a high-profile murder trial, you run the risk of being sequestered for a year.

Furthermore, jury duty pays peanuts. In most states, jurors are given less than $50/day by the government. While it’s true that most (perhaps all?) states forbid employers to fire employees who miss work because of jury duty, not all states require employers to pay the employees their usual wages during that time. And if you’re self-employed, I guess you’re just out of luck.

So here’s some things I’d like to discuss: have any of you loyal readers ever been a juror? Was it a good or bad experience? What are some things that could be changed in order to make the juror experience better? Is it a bad thing (or is it even true?) that people, in general, don’t want to be jurors?

I have a wacky idea or two, but I’d like to hear from you guys. Discuss!

From here:

A school board trustee is demanding an apology from a parents’ group that used a fake photo from a satirical newspaper on its pamphlets opposing the expansion of a safe schools policy.
…
The photo shows a teacher at the front of a class with explicit sexual images and terms drawn on the board and is supposed to represent one of the “countless” classrooms where homosexuality is promoted.

The picture was copied from the Onion, a satirical newspaper from the United States. The headline of the 1998 story says, ” ’98 homosexual drive nearing goal.”

Good grief.

This guy does not care for Instapundit:

Put simply, Reynolds is the leading purveyor of modern McCarthyism on the Internet. He is a daily source of cheap shots, pot-kettle criticisms, and two-cent sanctimony.

OK then. Call me crazy, but when I see somebody drag out “McCarthyism,” it sets off my Godwin Alarm. It has been flung about so much that, as Orwell said about the word “fascism,” that it “has now no meaning except insofar as it signifies ‘something not desirable.'”

Tonight I’m headed over to a buddy’s house for some poker—probably Texas Hold ‘Em. Anybody got any pointers? I mean, besides “double-down on 11.” I already know that one.

Les has the weekly scoop. Good stuff, as always.

Heh. Pud’s packing.

I did manage to make it to the range this past weekend. It had been way too long since my last trip. My marksmanship, never much to brag about, was atrocious.

I did have fun though, and used up a few boxes of ammo. I’m going to have to re-stock, and I can’t wait until November for the next Ammo Day. Maybe I’ll wait until next week and buy ammo, instead of a gun, for Mikey Moore.

In the interest of picking up slack, I thought I’d just jot down some of the random stuff that has happened lately.

1. A few weeks ago I saw a vehicle with a vanity plate reading “BDSM.” The young lady driving was rather comely, but did not seem to be wearing any leather accoutrements.

2. More recently I was walking around my neighborhood. One portion of the walk was along a busy 5-lane street. As I was walking, I noticed that about a fifth of a mile or so ahead was one of those Bobcat loaders heading toward me down the sidewalk—fast! I started thinking about getting way out of the way, when it ran over a sign and swerved back into the street where it smacked up against a truck. At that point I noticed it was actually on a trailer, and I realized the truck had been towing it and was trying to catch it. Luckily, there wasn’t any traffic right at that moment, so they managed to nudge it to the side of the road and stop it.

3. Yesterday I conducted a mental survey of the people who were driving like idiots during my commute to work (excluding myself, of course). I noticed they all had something in common (no, it was a John Kerry bumper sticker; that was only on half of the cars). They were all talking on cell phones. At least they weren’t reading the newspaper—yes, I’ve seen that happen several times on the interstate at 70+ mph. At that, I still think the average level of driving ability is better here than in Nashville. Heh.

Now how’s that for some high-quality blogging?

People say never to blog that you won’t be blogging because it hurts traffic, I figure my readers deserve better.

Blogging will be light. I’m moving. See you guys some time after Saturday.

Thibodeaux will have to pick up the slack.

The Colorado bill I blogged about here has been changed to allow cities with populations over 400,000 (i.e., Denver) exemption to the law that bans breed specific legislation.

Other than the fact I’m opposed to BSL, I have other issues with the legislation. Why exempt only cities with certain populations? Doesn’t seem to provide equal protection if you ask me.

Now, this Ogre guy doesn’t like AR15s! The outrage! Gonna have to let him have it again.

No, I jest. Some folks don’t like them but I do.

Via No Quarters, I learned that there are 600,426,974,379,824,381,952 ways to spell Viagra.

The NAACP is upset because a school paper, The Gateway, conducted an April Fool’s gag by naming the paper The Ghettoway. April does bring out the fools. Who’s the racist here?

While black leaders address this critical issue in race relations, SayUncle estimates that in America today: 21 black people will commit murder; 22 black people will be murdered; 506 black people will be arrested for drug trafficking crimes; 1,000,000 black people are in prison; and 26,500,000 black people live in poverty.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has warned that a Rwandan style genocide may be in the making in the Sudan (yes, that Kofi Annan):

The U.N. chief issued his warning in a speech in Geneva on the 10th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide in which about 800,000 died. He left no doubt he feared something similar might be under way in west Sudan, where U.N. officials say “ethnic cleansing” is carried out.

“The international community cannot stand idle,” declared Annan, who has himself acknowledged more should have been done to halt the orgy of killing in Rwanda in 1994.

“The risk of genocide remains frighteningly real.”

Annan said humanitarian workers and human rights experts needed to be given full access to Darfur, a western region in Africa’s biggest country, to administer aid to hundreds of thousands of people driven from their homes, many into neighboring Chad.

The Comedian reports that Tax Freedom Day will be the earliest it has been since 1967. April 11, 2004.

What is Tax Freedom Day:

Tax Freedom Day is the day when Americans will finally have earned enough money to pay off their total tax bill for the year. Every dollar that’s officially called income by the government is counted, and every payment to the government that is officially considered a tax is counted. Taxes at all levels of government are included, whether levied by Uncle Sam or state and local governments.

They blame the Bush tax cuts and that artificially inflated economic boom a few years ago.

. . . and all I got was this fruit basket.

No-knock warrants are out of control. As far as I am concerned, they should be illegal.

Via Brutal Hugs.

This is Chad Daniel Crawford. This lunatic allegedly ‘place kicked’ a two pound Yorkshire terrier and killed it while its owners watched.

What a sick bastard.

The only 9/11 suspect ever convicted is now free:

The only Sept. 11 suspect convicted was freed by a court Wednesday, pending the outcome of his retrial on charges of aiding the Hamburg al-Qaida cell that included three of the suicide pilots.

[snip]

El Motassadeq, 30, has acknowledged training at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan (news – web sites) and being friends with Hamburg-based hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, but denies any knowledge of the Sept. 11 plot.

He has been serving a maximum 15-year prison term in a Hamburg prison since a court in the city convicted him in February 2003 of giving logistical help to the al-Qaida cell. He was expected to be released later Wednesday.

The decision was a fresh setback for prosecutions of Sept. 11 suspects after the same Hamburg court acquitted el Motassadeq’s friend and fellow Moroccan Abdelghani Mzoudi of identical charges in February.

An appeals court last month threw out el Motassadeq’s conviction and ordered a retrial starting June 16, saying he was denied a fair trial because the U.S. government refused access to a key witness in its custody.

If terrorism is going to be a criminal matter, it needs better prosecutors.

My home county is pushing for a sales tax increase:

Blount County budget officials have called for an increase in the county’s sales tax. So how much would residents have to pay? And why?

The county budget committee has called for voters to decide on a sales tax increase of half of a percent. It’s a move designed to address the nearly $8 million in additional money requested by Blount County schools for the 2004-2005 school year.

The motion for a referendum passed the budget committee Monday night.

It would raise the sales tax to the state maximum of 9.75 percent. That means if you buy $100 worth of sales taxable items, you’ll pay $9.75 in taxes.

The increase would generate an estimated $2.3 million for Blount County. All of it would go directly to the schools.

The referendum goes before the full Blount County Commission on April 15. It could appear on the ballot as early as August.

Needless to say, I’ll be voting in the Hell No column. And I encourage my fellow Blount Countians to do the same.

Yet, WATE writes:

Gov. Phil Bredesen has a slab of ribs riding on Tuesday night’s national championship between the Lady Vols and the University of Connecticut.

Bredesen and Connecticut Gov. John Rowland struck a bet Tuesday.

If UT loses the game, Bredesen will send Rowland barbecue ribs from the Rendezvous in Memphis.

If Connecticut loses, Bredesen will get a clambake dinner.

The whacky ninth circuit does something, well, whacky. Of course, one judge seems to be daring the SCOTUS to take the case:

One 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge even seemed to invite U.S. Supreme Court review by noting another circuit has recognized an individual’s right to keep and bear arms while the 9th Circuit hasn’t.

“If the Second Amendment were truly an outdated relic, the Constitution provides a method for repeal,” Circuit Judge Andrew Kleinfeld wrote. “The Constitution does not furnish the federal courts with an eraser.”

Clayton Cramer discusses the dissents to the ruling.

Eugene Volokh thinks these dissents are good news in that they’re exposing more people to the actual intent of the amendment.

Well, I hate to follow a serious post with something kind of trivial, but I just have to say:

Eat it, UT! Bwahahahaha!

Congratulations to UConn’s men’s AND women’s basketball teams.

Kevin, who thinks that we are on the downward spiral to a total loss of freedom, asks:

Believing what we believe, is it moral for us to let it happen without standing up and pledging our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor to fight it? I have grandchildren. What do I owe them?

Despite my efforts at:

Putting up a sign in my yard that says the court system is a joke;

Making machine guns;

Refusal to give authorities ID;

Buying up property that may some day benefit the public good;

Starting my own un-licensed business;

Setting my water heater to 130 degrees;

Writing a book that tells people not to pay taxes;

Importing lobster tails of less than 5.5 inches;

Growing orchids;

Buying, with a personal check, significant quantities of indoor gardening lights to care for my begonias;

Carrying large amounts of cash;

Missing the occasional tax payment;

Using unusually high amounts of electricity (for the begonias);

Building model rockets;

Doing home improvements without getting government permission;

Being a smart ass to TSA employees and wearing a Hi, I’m a terrorist button on planes;

Taking pictures of my nephews bathing to get developed;

I have yet to encounter any targets of opportunity. They must be raiding the wrong houses. All kidding aside, I don’t do most of those things but those very actions have been cause for our government to trample liberties. And no one (but me and a few bloggers, apparently) gets angry about it.

I think our apathetic public is just unwilling to rise up about injustice. Not many people take to the streets in protest of our lost civil liberties. Not many practice civil disobedience.

Nevermind, Janet Jackson just showed her other boob.

MadOgre, a blog I read regularly due to his excellent gun articles, stated:

I hate Pit Bulls. I really do. Pit Bulls are nasty creatures. Might as well have a pet fucking alligator. These things should not be pets. I don’t care what people say about them being nice. That’s what they all say after the dog snaps and eats someone. A stray Pit Bull around my house will become a dead Pit Bull collar or no.

I sent him the following email and invited him to peruse my Pet Archives:

You and I agree on many issues but your comment about pit bulls is quite disheartening. I trained police dogs for attack, obedience and drug work for years. Bully type dogs have a high drive and are eager to please.

Most dog attacks are the result of improper treatment, restraint, and socialization. Even more sad is that people who shouldn’t own any dog are often the ones that own pit bulls and then train them to be mean. I can take any dog as a pup and make it a dangerous or a sociable animal.

Also, there is no scientific way to determine what breed any particular dog is. Dogs of molosser stock (which includes pits, american bulldogs, mastiffs, boxers, and dozens of other breeds) all look and behave similarly.

Pit Bulls were also the most popular breed in the US up through the 1950s. Pit Bulls served valiantly in WW1 and WW2. Also, Pits served as Search and Rescue Dogs at the WTC rubble.

Pet ownership is about responsibility and not about breeds of dog. Your comment about how they shouldn’t be pets is similar to the nannyism (particularly with respect to guns) that you rant about. I’m disappointed, after all you’re advocating banning “assault dogs”.

I suppose you can tell I am rather passionate about this topic, you can read more at:

https://saysuncle.com/archives/cat_pets_responsibility.html

Regards,

Mr. Ogre is swayed by the bad press the breed gets. Sadly, most other people who support breed bans are as well. This is a growing problem for pet owners as breed licensing is on the rise. Punish the deed, not the breed.

Update: Ogre responds with:

Bull dogs are one thing… Police dogs one thing… Rotts are one thing…

Rotts and German Sheppards and Dobbermans rarely snap and attack kids.

But Pit Bulls are another thing all together. I despise them.

I don’t dislike any other dog… but Pit Bulls. They can snap and attack in a blink.

Assault Dog? Come on now. An Assault Rifle doesn’t suddenly turn around and shoot the owner or his kids.

If you can handle them – bully for you. Not many people can. Not many people can handle a timber wolf either, but Ranger is doing fine. So I guess maybe I’m a Pot calling out a Kettle

I responded with:

People “despise” guns too.

Fatal dog attack stats: http://www.fataldogattacks.com/statistics.html

Pit Bull and Pit-bull-type dogs (21%), Mixed breed dogs (16%),
Rottweilers (13%), German Shepherd Dogs (9%), Wolf Dogs (5%),
Siberian Huskies (5%), Malamutes (4%), Great Danes (3%),
St. Bernards (3%), Chow Chows (3%), Doberman Pinschers (3%),
other breeds & non-specified breeds (15%).

Given that American Bulldogs, Staffordshires and other dogs are routinely lumped in the pit bull category (because they’re all “Bull” dogs), I’d say the numbers are fairly comparable. And your wolf makes the list too. The primary factor seems to be reproductive status of the animal:

“Of the 28 single dogs responsible for a fatal attack between 2000-2001;
26 were males and 2 were females. Of the 26 males, 21 were found to be intact (the reproductive status of the remaining 5 males dogs could not be determined”

You’ll notice also that the overall fatal attacks are very low. 28 out of how many dogs in this country? Surely, you can start to see the parallel between politically incorrect dogs and guns.

I’d even say, to continue your assault rifle analogy, that less proportional number of dogs “suddenly turn” on someone as people accidentally shoot themselves due to negligence or a gun defect. A dog turning on someone or attacking someone is the result of improper training and socialization. Dogs are what people make them to be.

I tend to think I am not changing anyone’s mind. It does occur to me that 5% of fatal attacks are by Wolf Dogs, which I assume means some sort of domesticated wolf. 21% are pit bulls, which likely means any bully breed. But I wonder how many people own domesticated wolves vs. people that own pit bulls. It would stand to reason considerably less. So, statistically speaking, it is possible that domesticated wolves are more likely to kill someone. However, I can’t find stats on wolf ownership, so it’s just a guess.

JoinTogether’s News Item here criticizes John A. Giannetti, Jr. for casting the vote to kill the Maryland Assault Weapons Ban. Kudos to Mr. Giannetti. Regardless, JoinTogether admits:

What I find particularly puzzling is that Senator Giannetti could not even bring himself to support a straight reauthorization of the weak 1994 federal ban, which is the law of the land until September 13, 2004. We don’t expect Congress to act to renew the ban so Marylanders will be able to buy AK-47s and other assault weapons on September 14.

So, in addition to admitting again that the 1994 ban is weak, they don’t expect that ban to renew. Additionally, they just flat out lie about AK-47s. AK-47s are not available currently (to be honest, I don’t know that they ever have been); and the 1994 ban doesn’t ban them; they are regulated under the 1934 National Firearms Act.

And not really ironic in that stupid little Alanis Morissette way (other than it involves her), but really ironic:

“I am overjoyed to be back in my homeland, the true North … strong and censor-free.”

— pop singer ALANIS MORISSETTE, wearing a naked body suit with nipples and pubic hair, at Canada’s Juno music awards.

Yet:

A high school teacher in British Columbia, punished for writing publicly against homosexuality, is not protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the province’s Supreme Court has ruled.