you could knock a helicopter out of the sky with a well-placed rock. He would know since he was in four of them when they went down. In New Mexico, someone shot one out of the sky:

A Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Department helicopter that crashed Saturday in the yard of an Albuquerque home was brought down by a bullet, Sheriff Darren White said late Tuesday.

At a news conference in New Mexico, White showed pictures of where a bullet penetrated the windshield of the aircraft, known as Metro One, and shattered on a pedal the pilot uses to fly the helicopter.

CounterTop says:

What do you want to bet that whoever shot down the New Mexican Police Chopper was using a .50 Caliber.

Even if he wasn’t, I bet it will be reported he was.

From the Department of Duh:

In dating, extravagant gifts keep on giving

In other news, these gifts sometimes lead to sex.

Messing with the template, do not be alarmed.

Update: Not a fan of this one and it will change soon. However, I am testing out some template functionality. If anyone has suggestions, please speak now or forever STFU.

Oh and if your link isn’t on the site: relax, it will be back shortly.

David Hardy has some thoughts worth reading:

Another way to look at the trend. Brady Campaign started out as National Coalition to Control Handguns. I have its early pamphlets, in which it argues that registration and permit systems were bad ideas. That’s because it wanted a complete handgun ban, testified to that effect, and thought a national permit system would be proposed as a compromise (attesting to the weak condition it thought the gun movement was in). Later, as Handgun Control, Inc., it disavowed handgun bans and advocated permit systems, the very compromise it had earlier feared. As Brady Campaign, I believe it now disavows (or at least plays down, way down) national registration or permit systems, and is content to criticize NRA for the most part, occasionally proposing assault weapon bans, but even that rather quietly.

John Jay Hooker is running for governor of Tennessee. It’d be kinda neat if he won because then I could say our governor has left a comments on this blog.

It’s good to see the MSM addressing the serious concerns regarding the war on drugs. It’d be nicer if we could get our politicians to seriously look at it. John Tierney:

It’s the same pattern observed during Prohibition, when illicit stills would blow up, and there was a rise in deaths from alcohol poisoning. Far from instilling virtue in Americans, Prohibition caused them to switch from beer and wine to hard liquor. Overall consumption of alcohol might even have increased.

Today we tolerate alcohol, even though it causes far more harm than illegal drugs, because we realize a ban would be futile, create more problems than it cured and deprive too many people of something they value.

Radley Balko:

Imagine for a moment that you’re a parent with a teenage son. He doesn’t drink, but you know his friends do. You’re also not naive. You’ve read the government’s statistics: 47 percent of high school students tell researchers they’ve had a drink of alcohol in the previous 30 days. Thirty percent have had at least five drinks in a row in the past month. Thirteen percent admitted to having driven in the previous month after drinking alcohol.

So, what do you do with regard to your son’s social life? Many parents have decided to take a realist’s approach. They’re throwing parties for their kids and their friends. They serve alcohol at these parties, but they also collect car keys to make sure no one drives home until the next morning. Their logic makes sense: The kids are going to drink; it’s better that they do it in a controlled, supervised environment.

I concur. My parents let me drink when I was young. Their theory was that if I was home then I wasn’t out driving, which could lead to my own or others’ death. Plus, it’s like the forbidden fruit in that if you aren’t forbidden from doing it, it becomes slightly less appealing.

In Battle Creek, Michigan there is a proposed pit bull ordinance. Here’s the odd thing:

The group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) wrote a letter to Mayor John Godfrey urging either a pit bull ban or stronger restrictions.

Let me get this straight, PETA is advocating a ban on dogs. PETA is advocating doggie genocide, like what happened in Denver where the police went door-to-door collecting pit bulls so that those dogs would be killed.

More proof the PETArds are a bunch of damn lunatics. Screw ’em.

Chris Muir (of Day By Day fame) needs your help. His sister has cancer. Go here to read about it. And make sure you click the Click4Cathy button a few times. Or you could just click here . And he’s not asking for money.

NPR’s On The Media has a good piece regarding gun coverage in the press and how it’s quite often wrong. Some snippets:

JOHN SOLOMON: In a column last summer, Okrent wrote that gun owners are, “among the groups the Times treats as strange objects to be examined on an laboratory slide.” For them,” he continued, “a walk through this paper can make you feel you’re traveling in a strange and forbidding world.”

Needs counts only one hunter on a floor of 170 newsroom employees. That, despite the fact that four in ten Americans say they own at least one gun. It’s a disconnect that makes this man’s job much easier.

Big focus on hunting. And my favorite:

DENNIS HENNIGAN: It does not help when you have editorial writers make statements that appear to be hostile to gun ownership per se.

JOHN SOLOMON: Dennis Hennigan is the legal director for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

DENNIS HENNIGAN: That just plays into the NRA’s hands, and it allows them to again reinforce their case that there is this conspiracy essentially against gun ownership, and that they are the guardians of freedom.

No, Mr. Hennigan, there is a conspiracy and you guys lead it. Not the media. The issue I have is that the media run screaming from the NRA yet they are too eager to get quotes from outfits like the Brady Bunch who are hostile to gun owners.

Via Smijer.

This time, it’s local. From Michael Silence:

A woman gunned down a prison guard and sprang her husband in a daring and violent escape this morning at the Roane County Courthouse in Kingston, a state official said.

Authorities across the state began a manhunt for George Hyatte, 34, and his wife, Jennifer Hyatte, Tennessee Department of Correction spokeswoman Amanda Sluss said.

Sluss said Jennifer Hyatte shot corrections officer Wayne Morgan three times with a shotgun in the parking lot of the courthouse, where George Hyatte was scheduled to make an appearance.

Sadly, the guard has died. Michael has many more updates.

I’ve installed Spam Karma 2. However, it has banned even me from commenting here. Any ideas?

If you have the same problem, I’m working on it.

Update: If I log out of WordPress, I can comment just fine. Any ideas?

Update: BTW, Spam Karma (with the exception of the log out thing) absolutely kicks butt. This is the first time I’ve had trackbacks enabled for more than 30 minutes in months.

Seen at End the War on Freedom:

If you need proof that marijuana causes mental illness just listen to the insane rantings of cops, prosecutors and politicians when they get going on the subject.

John Cole reports that some on the right don’t like John Roberts because he has no problem with gay cooties.

Head has plans to build a twin-gun Gatling rig with two AK type rifles. 900-1,000 rounds per minute. Sweet. And legal.

And check out these shredders. Christ, they can shred a BMW.

Update: Oh, a local man bought a tank:

The tank even came with desert tan, a working turret that moves around in menacing fashion and a very big gun that goes up and down, as if following something.

In other words, Bryan’s tank is the real deal.

The tank had been deployed with the Royal Scots Armored Brigade and was in Germany, running around on NATO assignments during the final days of the Cold War. The Brits decommissioned the tank about 1996, and it went into England’s collection of military bargain basement equipment.

“They will sell surplus military to anyone,” says Bryan.

The British Mark 11, the last version of its Chieftain tanks and the most modern main battle tank a civilian can own, was shipped from Southampton, England, to Brunswick, Ga., and trucked to Knoxville, where it was unloaded on 17th Street.

Since I was hacked, I had to upgrade WordPress to version 1.5. You’re looking at it now but probably didn’t notice (other than the fact comments don’t pop up any more – that’s on purpose). If you notice any issues, let me know.

Thanks to Chris for helping me err doing it for me.

A kid, who smoked weed recreationally, was thought to be a drug dealer. Police raided his home and killed him because he possibly pointed his gun at police. Personally, I think we need more than possibly to justify killing anyone. However, here’s the part I found odd:

Police thought there was drug dealing going on in the home, and that there might be violence because Diotaiuto had a valid concealed weapons permit

Got that? You are considered violent for going through the trouble of getting a permit to legally carry a concealed weapon. And what did they find? They found an undisclosed weed (likely undisclosed because it’s not enough to justify killing someone for), paraphernalia (probably rolling papers), a gun they knew he owned, and an air gun. For that, Anthony Andrew Diotaiuto, 23, of Sunrise Florida is dead.

Another senseless no-knock warrant death.

Update: Pete has more.

I’ve covered Krasniqi before, who is a man who illegally sells guns to terrorists. The media tend to treat this guy like a saint. David Hardy looks at his political contributions. Some politicos should be ashamed to have a gunrunner contributing since they tend to be some fairly anti-gun folks.

The Ford blog links to this story, which says:

“Some analysts think the Democrats could stage a surprise here. This seat will be open, because Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is leaving, and the Democrats are tapping U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. as their candidate.

Actually, Ford stands no chance and I’ll call it now. The trick to winning in Tennessee is the middle and eastern sections of the state and Ford doesn’t have them. Sure, he’s a darling in Memphis but elsewhere people don’t know who he is. Or care.

Ford is a dynamic African-American congressman from a prominent political family; he’s already airing TV ads.

The problem is that the South has never elected an African-American to the Senate.

Really? What about Hiram Revels of Mississippi? Not only was he in the south but he was the first black senator. And he was a (gasp!) Republican. Seems like Dick Polman is making shit up.

Another potential problem is that his uncle, a Memphis politician, was indicted by a federal grand jury on bribery charges.

Ayup.

Update: In light of Manish’s comments, I will note that there is conflicting information on whether or not Hiram was elected or appointed. At the time, there was no 17th amendment so senators were not popularly elected but were elected by the state legislature. Most sources I’ve found say he was elected, which has to mean elected by the legislature.

So, Dick Polman may be correct or not, depending on what your definition of elected is.

Another black senator from the south is Blanche K. Bruce.

Number 6 is up at Fearless Philosophy For Free Minds.

Something exists that doesn’t cause cancer.

This is a test of WordPress version 1.5.

The story of the NRA supported boycott of ConocoPhillips is big news right now as it should be. I would like to take this chance to introduce you to some old news that has some bearing on the subject.

I live in Smyrna Tennessee and like all cities it is suffering the blight of franchise restaurants. One is Captain D’s. While it is just another franchise like all the rest it has taught me a small lesson lately that I would like to share.

This Captain D’s looks like all the rest on the main strip of any town out there. Another cookie cutter building from corporate hell.

The one thing that sets off this restaurant is this small bench and a small grey headstone set out in front. Unless you take the time to look at it you likely would miss it.

What is it? A memorial to something very bad that happened here.

Most places you eat at do not have headstones as decor, but this one does and there is a bloody story behind it.

In July 2000 the store was being closed up that night by the last workers on the night shift. There were three of them.

The problem is one of them supposedly owed 400$ to some shady characters. Those characters came that night armed to get their money. When they left there was no one left alive in the Smyrna Tennessee Captain D’s.

I once wrote a small piece on the debate about the right to be armed while you worked.

As a Mormon I would never go into a persons house and demand that they not have coffee for breakfast because I am against it, or even to take the opposite extreme and demand they have fish for dinner Friday if I were Catholic. The simple fact is that they make the rules for their house, their business, and their life.

If you don’t like it then leave. But do not get so self absorbed that you feel your rights wins over their rights. That’s the basic beliefs that has pushed the gun grabbing community for to long. They believe their rights are more important then yours. A group of people I do not want to be related to in any way.

At first my argument is correct, but I did not carry it to its fullest extent. I should respect and follow the rules you set on your property and job site…up to the point that they do not endanger my life. At that point you need to understand that you do not have the right to put me in harms way for a paycheck.

So that July night in 2000 three people died. From the testimony of the killers two dies while on their knees. A sad place be when death comes a knocking.

“Then I heard two gunshots,” Palmer said in the statement. “It sounded like firecrackers going off. I remember seeing two of the people in the back on their knees. This was before they were shot.”

What rules does Captain D’s have about firearms on the property? Not sure. I checked their doors and they do not have the anti-carry permit sign so that does not seem to be an issue, but as for the workers they likely would be fired in a heart beat if caught with a concealed firearm..

So here in Smyrna we have the names of three people etched into stone.
Read the rest of this entry »

Peter Jennings has died of lung cancer. He apparently smoked like 20 years ago and then quit. Then he started again after 9/11 and quit again. Now, under those circumstances, I don’t know that smoking caused his cancer. Yet, the WaPo mentions smoking. Also, the local GOB network talk radio station spent all morning doing their anti-smoking thing due to Jennings’ death. Guess every bit of bad news has to be politicized.

Looks like both pro- and anti-gun senators have signed off on a bill that lets people take a 25% tax credit if they buy a gun safe. The facts are stupidly wrong:

In the United States, approximately 50-percent of all households contain a firearm. Statistics have shown that an improperly stored firearm kills one child every three hours in the United States, making it the second leading cause of deaths among children. A loaded, accessible firearm in a residential home contributed to 55-percent of all suicides, and nearly one-third of all violent crime in the U.S. is committed with a gun stolen from the homes of law-abiding citizens.

As they say at KABA:

One death every three hours is 2920 per year. The only way you can get anywhere near this number is by including every firearm related death, including homicide and suicide, and count as ‘children’ anyone 19 years old and younger.

Additionally, a safe will not make up for parental negligence which is how kids get killed by A loaded, accessible firearm in a residential home. And access to guns doesn’t lead to more suicides. I’m all for the tax credit but the bill is kind of silly.

Maybe we could get them to add a rider to repeal the 1986 Hughes Amendment?

Who looks out for the taxpayers of Knoxville? Two downtown Knoxville projects have serious questions that need answers. The Market Square and Worlds Fair Site projects have both been brought forward with RFPs that have confused both taxpayers and City officials. Each RFP had a two-part implementation. First the City chooses a finalist from a group of RFP respondents. Then the City enters into a negotiation period with the finalist. Each time in this negotiation period there have been serious issues or questions that remain unresolved or unanswered. It is clear there is a failure to communicate.

The first project was the Market Square project of 2002 to 2004. The City issued a RFP and the winning respondent was Kinsey Probasco Associates of Chattanooga. The entire purpose of this proposal was to select a “Coordinating Developer” for the Market Square project who would invest 22 million dollars of private investment in condos and offices around Market Square and bring national tenants to Market Square. KPA was paid a fee of $ 648,732 for Development fees for Phase 1 of the project. KPA has yet to be the “Coordinating Developer”. KPA has yet to invest any private investment except for that invested by David Dewhirst, which is less than 1.7 million dollars and is done on his own behalf. KPA has yet to bring any national tenants. What did KPA do to earn these fees?

KCDC has yet to prepare the “Comprehensive Development Agreement” for the Market Square project, which defined the duties of the “Coordinating Developer” and required the 22 million dollars of private investment. Why did KCDC not prepare this contract in 2002?

Some have said, including KPA President Jon Kinsey, that the reason for the delay of KCDC issuing the “Comprehensive Development Agreement” was that everything was based on the new downtown theater. So the “Comprehensive Development Agreement” for the Market Square project could not be released until the theater was approved. While this is not really correct it has been said many times by many people. If the taxpayers were to accept this statement as true why has KCDC not released this “Comprehensive Development Agreement” contract after the downtown theater was approved several months ago? This is no sunset on doing this. The taxpayers require an answer.

Hayes Hickman of the Knoxville News Sentinel wrote, “Mayor Bill Haslam said he’s not in a position to critique the contract Kinsey Probasco signed with the previous administration.” Haslam said, “What this administration can do is ask, ‘Did they deliver on what they said they would do in the contract?’ And I think the answer is ‘yes.'” So Mayor Haslam is on the record as saying that KPA did what was in the contract? Which contract? What contract? Cardinal has done the work required of them at Market Square for the brick facade on the storefronts, the white concrete, Krutch Park, and the water fountain but what has KPA done?

Yet the whole reason for the contract was to have the “Coordinating Developer”, require the 22 million dollars of private investment to match the public investment made by the taxpayers, and to recruit national tenants. So far none of that has been done. So what does the Mayor’s statement really mean? Does this mean the City of Knoxville will release KPA from the entire purpose for the Market Square project?

If this is the case then shouldn’t KPA be required to return the $ 648,732 for Development fees? Also keep in mind that KCDC was paid $ 100,000 for Administration fees. Shouldn’t those fees be returned also? Why is it the Mayor says he is not in the position to critique the contract Kinsey Probasco signed with the previous administration? If not the Mayor then whom? This is a serious issue that must be resolved.

The Worlds Fair Site project coincidently also has the same finalist as the Market Square project, Kinsey Probasco Associates of Chattanooga. Once again a problem has arisen in the negotiation period. The stated purpose of this proposal was for the City to have control over the assets that were being sold. As Bill Lyons commented in the KNS about the Victorian houses, “”It could be a flop house, ‘As long as they met code, there’s no control over the use.’”

Yet in the negotiation period the City requested KPA to invest $ 200,000 in the Emporium Building and in return the City would remove the 50 % arts requirement for the Victorian houses. While many people thought the 50 % arts requirement was part of the original RFP Bill Lyons has explained in the k2k Internet forum that this 50 % requirement was the first result in the negotiation period with KPA. This has clarified a confusing issue for both taxpayers and City officials.

Since the Victorian houses are now free of the art use requirements why can they not be split from the contract? It is clear in section 5.7 of the RFP for the Worlds Fair Site that the City can take any asset off the contract just as it will do with the Tennessee Amphitheater. Since this serves the interest of the taxpayers why should this not be done? In section 4.5 of the RFP it is clear that this is a two-part process. The first part is the selection of a finalist and the second part is the negotiation period. So let’s see how well the City will negotiate on behalf on the taxpayers.

This brings me to the purpose for this article. On behalf of all taxpayers I ask that the Mayor and City Council require KCDC to implement the “Comprehensive Development Agreement” for the Market Square project, which defined the duties of the “Coordinating Developer” and will require the 22 million dollars of private investment for the Market Square project. Since the City is in the negotiation period for the Worlds Fair Site the taxpayers should be assured of a successful outcome. If the City fails in this responsibility I ask each taxpayer to call Mayor Haslam and express your feelings. Who looks out for the taxpayers of Knoxville? The taxpayers do.

Wow, come back from the old vacation to find my site was hacked and general catch up. Blogging may be light. However, you can go read the brief history of gun control instead:

In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

There’s more and it’s scary.

(via Ravenwood)

The latest RINO Sightings is up from those whacky secular Republicans.

The site was hacked. Working on fixing it.

Pesky hackers. Say, just wondering why it is they go through the trouble of hacking a site only to put up some stupid little string of characters no one can understand?

Update: Oh, the message they left was:

Xiiii, num eh q funfa msm, kkkk, tkz for OutLaw Group

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution just put out an uncredited editorial against the NRA boycott of ConocoPhillips. Full of scare quotes and numbers. The only problem is that truth they leave out.

The National Rifle Association has called for a boycott of ConocoPhillips because the energy company has dared to insist on its right to keep its workers safe.

Like many other employers, ConocoPhillips bars its employees from bringing firearms onto the work site, even if the weapon is kept locked in the employee’s car in the workplace parking lot. It’s a wise move, given that 487 people were shot to death at work in 2003, the latest year for which numbers are available. Those gunfire fatalities accounted for more than three-quarters of all the homicides on work sites that year

Now I found this link at KeepandBearArms.com. The links are published each day early, and yet by 7:30AM as I write this the internet has already shown the truth, and it isn’t in this article.

Whoa there- “487 people were shot to death at work in 2003” Were do these numbers come from????

I quick yahoo search of “Workplace shootings” bring this up as the second hit:
LINK EDITED TO MAKE IT SMALLER

It is a press release from www.handgunfree.org that states:
“Handgun-Free America has found that workplace shootings continue to be on the rise in America, according to early 2004 data. Data from the first half of 2004 show that there were 26 incidents of workplace shootings by the end of June, compared with 5 similar incidents in 2003.”

The local library should start filing newspapers in the fiction section

And this one

From occupationalhazards.com
Workplace Shootings Responsible for 290 Deaths in Past Decade – 06/22/2004

A new report released by Handgun-Free America has found that in the last decade (1994-2003), there were 164 workplace shootings in America, with a total of 290 people killed and 161 wounded.

According to the report, from 2002 to 2003, the number of workplace shootings increased from 25 to 45 and the number of victims killed in workplace shootings increased from 33 to 69.

Gee it took 10 seconds to look that up. Why can’t a newspaper.

So by 7:30 in the morning two people showed in just minutes of real research that the newspapers numbers do not hold water.