The Cleveland Plain Dealer claimed that legislation “offered by Rep. Jim Aslanides of Coshocton would end journalists’ access to the list of people granted a concealed-weapons permits [sic]”, and repeating the lie a second time by saying that “lawmakers are seeking to close off public access completely”. The bill did nothing of the sort and Buckeye Firearms pointed that out. They also contacted Brent Larkin, who had agreed … six days before that the editorial misrepresented House Bill 347, and that “if there is an error in the story, I will address it.”

However, Buckeye notes there have been 10 issues since then and 16 corrections. None of those address the error in the story.

Before I thought The Plain Dealer was just ignorant. Now, I know they’re just biased.

Matt Rustler thinks the recent string of (underreported, I might add) bombings in the US may be holiday wishes from Osama:

Anyone see a trend here? The fact that all the bombs have been relatively low-powered and unreliable would seem to suggest amateurs. It wouldn’t be the first time that weak-minded college students have become fascinated with radical, anti-American politics. And the bombs don’t have to work well in order to terrorize people.

Well, the press would actually have to devote significant coverage to the incidents for that.

Note to self:

Self,

Never again try to blow your nose with a mouthful of mouth wash.

Love,

Self.

Stupid multi-tasking.

Update: Despite the general feeling of Ick!, it cleared my sinuses and my nostrils were minty fresh.

Heard on news radio this morning that a local politico is proposing that state reps who violate the law be denied their pensions. My question is this: Why do we give pensions to state representatives in the first place? That seems to encourage career politicking and that’s no damn good for anyone, except career politicians.

Via Gunner, comes this story:

For anyone who has ever said “there oughta be a law,” a Queens politician is offering the opportunity of a lifetime.

Assemblyman Jimmy Meng (D-Flushing) is sponsoring a “Make Your Own Law” contest – inviting his constituents to write legislation with the promise that the best proposal will be introduced as a bill in Albany.

First, in this country we have too many laws that are rather asinine. If you’d like a list of some I take issue with, go here. Now, as if to delegitimize them, we’re giving them away like children’s toys that come free when you add soda and fries. This really makes a mockery of the law, if you ask me.

The politicians will pick the winner to submit as a law. Gunner notes they may be trying to avoid something similar that happened in England:

He likely is trying to avoid what happened in England not so long ago. They let people submit and pick the bills. What occurred when the people finally picked one that would legalize shooting criminals was that politician who promised to submit it commented.

“The People have Spoken – the Bastards”

He also did not submit the bill.

Here’s my idea for a law: Don’t have contests that give away laws.

Update: Ravenwood says the idea stolen was stolen from Pennsylvania. I like his idea for a there ought not be a law contest.

The press is all goo-goo because, well, I’ll let them tell it:

Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, who once owned a .45-caliber revolver, is not licensed to carry a concealed handgun in Texas. State officials refused Monday to reveal whether she has ever been licensed.

Miers’ brother gave her the Smith & Wesson handgun when he was worried about her living alone in Dallas. Judge Nathan Hecht of the Texas Supreme Court, a longtime friend of Miers’, has said she kept the gun for a long time.

State law requires the release of information about license holders but not former license holders, said Pamela Smith, assistant general counsel for the agency

A person in Texas can own a gun without a concealed handgun license. Texas is one of 43 states that allow concealed weapons, and more than 230,000 residents are registered under the law.

So, she owned a gun. Big deal. Say, I never recall one story about the Chinese assault rifle that John Kerry may or may not have owned.

I prefer the EOTech. But Mr. Completely has the skinny on the C-More Red Dot Sight.

Tired of gun acronyms and abbreviations? The guys at AR15.com have thought of everything, here’s a list.

Oh that major announcement I promised yesterday, I’ve postponed it until tomorrow.

The latest is up over at Environmental Republican.

This article was listed on Yahoo! news main page with the headline:

Environmentalists at war with SUVs in Paris

The would be one headline. Another would be Vandals Targeting SUVs. The LA Times reports it as:

SUV Drivers in Paris Get Wind Knocked Out of Them

tomorrow.

Some folks on the right support the Miers’ nomination. Some don’t. In the some don’t camp, there are basically three reasons that right-leaning people don’t support her:

1 – Her qualifications are questionable.
2- Her positions on various issues are unknown.
3 – Both

My position, honestly, is that 1 and 3 don’t matter one bit. At all. Focusing on number 2 is what scares the Hell out of me. We don’t know how she feels about the commerce clause, second amendment, eminent domain, ad infinitum. The Bush administration says trust us. After record spending, the biggest federal bureaucracy ever, lax immigration and border controls, and the whole list of grievances that conservatives have against this big-spending administration, trust us doesn’t cut it. And it never will again. You’ve ruined that and it cost you my vote in 2004.

In terms of her qualifications (or lack of), I could really care less. Bush could nominate a monkey and if the monkey came down on the right side of the issues, fine with me. It does help credibility if Bush nominates someone who is qualified because this nomination stinks of cronyism. But it’s not necessary. There, I said it. Happy now?

We haven’t even seen how Roberts (who is highly qualified) is going to go. And if you expect me to trust a person with minimal qualifications, no record to speak of, and whose only reason for consideration is that she’s the president’s pal on the high court, forget it. I ain’t buying.

Bill Hobbs is going on hiatus. He’ll be back. They always come back.

The NRA, who endorsed George Bush despite his support for extending the assault weapons ban, is happy that gun crime prosecutions are up under this administration:

The data, obtained by TRAC from the Department of Justice, show that federal prosecutions are up across the board in the Bush Justice Department, and that cases filed on gun charges are a primary reason for the increase.

In 2000 there were 5,490 such prosecutions. In 2004 there were 10,937. That increase in gun crime prosecutions makes up almost one-quarter of the total increase in federal prosecutions in that period. The data suggest a significant change in priorities between a Janet Reno vs. a John Ashcroft-run Justice Department: the latter went after criminals who misuse firearms, not law-abiding citizens.

Assuming that gun crime prosecutions are up for actual gun crimes and not technical violations of arbitrary laws, that is good news.

Via Phelps, I tried the new Google news reader. It’s slow, has an ugly interface, and is not very intuitive. I’ll stick with Bloglines.

Defense Review has the skinny on (and lots of pics of) the new Bushmaster 5.56mm Subcarbine/SBR and 9mm. Sweet!

James Rummel, a self-defense instructor and blogger, has apparently received death threats from anti-gunners. Odd. Since they’re anti-gun, I wonder how they’d plan on doing that? I wonder how those threats went? Something like: Violence is horrible and you’re encouraging it, so I must kill you.

Pure idiocy. I’m happy to report I’ve never received any death threats, that I remember. I must be doing it wrong.

Not to make light of the situation at all, really. But it is another reason for at least pseudonymous blogging.

Robert received his AK mags and has a good report regarding quality. Guess I’ll have to get some now.

So, you like drinking air?

Alston has pics of his NASCAR AR-15. Heh.

Wow. At least 20,000 dead. My thoughts and prayers to the victims of the earthquake.

Reader Robert in comments:

Times are changing. In the future, they will line the birdcages with take-out food napkins. No one will know what a newspaper was.

For all things Burma, check out Burma Watch.

Via Jeff, comes Roxanne:

It’s Time for Moderate Republicans and Moderate Independents to Represent

I know you’re out there, reading this blog. Never commenting because you don’t want to incur the wrath. I can’t say that I blame you.

But, please consider de-lurking today to let some good folks know how the Democratic Party can get your vote. Screeching from both ends of the spectrum discouraged. Let’s try to have a serious discussion.

I left comments there. My recommendations:

Head on over and give you $0.02.

The latest Carnival of Cordite is up.

Salem’s Lots wonders about the Tennessean:

Does the Tennessean even know about the existence of blogs? If any Tennessean reporter/editor/copy person, etc. bothered to scan Nashville is Talking, they would see better, more cogent writing on a local level than much of what passes as local news and op-ed commentary.

The Tennessean apparently got a story piped in when said issue (pork) had been discussed quite a bit on the local blogs. In Knoxville, The News Sentinel was quick to cover, look at and (most importantly) read blogs. Heck, they’ve even got a few of their own blogs (though Humphreys blogs absolutely sucked).

In all fairness, though, I don’t read the Tennessean. Mostly because it sucks.

Mike Spenis on Harriet Miers:

Remember, the choice here is not between Miers and the nominee of your dreams. It’s between Miers and whoever gets confirmed in her place.

By the way, I wish we’d kinda get moving on this whole Miers thing because I need to know now if I should add her name to my spell checking software.

Police hurried to Heritage High School, which was then locked down for 20 or 30 minutes due to a gun scare. It was a fake gun used in ROTC drills.

Bob Krumm is all over it and notes it looks like a money laundering organization. And he crunches some numbers:

One of the items mentioned in the Tenenssean (sic) report was that the Black Caucus “might be exempt from filing if it raises less than $30,000 annually.”

Today’s Commercial Appeal reports that the Black Caucus greatly exceed that limit. They took in $248,000 for last year’s annual Black Caucus retreat. Donations for the event came from private groups. “Some of the largest coming from TennCare contractors, pharmaceutical firms and public institutions such as the University of Tennessee and the University of Memphis.”