Outage! Oh, and the Idiot of the Week Award!

Best to announce these before they happen, I suppose. Oh well – most everyone who reads this already knows what I’ve been up to. To those who don’t: I’ve been moving for the last two weeks and have had zero time to update. But now that hassle is done, and we’re coming back hard and fast.

Anyway, onto this week’s shining examples of human compitence:

Joker Busted!

JULY 28–Meet Spencer Taylor. The Michigan man, 20, was arrested early yesterday morning for allegedly trying to steal Batman posters and other collectibles from a theater showing “The Dark Knight.” As can be seen in the below mug shot, Taylor went to the Three Rivers Cinema multiplex in costume as the Joker. According to cops, he was charged with larceny and malicious destruction of property, and had to pose for booking photos in and out of character.

Not a whole lot to be said here. Mr. Taylor, your life’s ambition seems to be wanting to be a 2-bit thug following in the footsteps of a crazed psychopath. Enjoy your time in lockup – it’ll take more than a phone call to get out of there if they do it right.

The Real Argument on Illegal Immigration

Illegal immigration. The big hot-button we all saw back in 2006, and since. The subject that broke the camel’s back with the conservative base and McCain. There’s a lot of opinions on the subject: The right believes immigration as a concept to be a good thing, but illegal immigration undermines our institutions and disrespects our laws and our national sovereignty (especially when other governments promote it). The businessmen see it as a source of cheap labor, not only in terms of wages but in the extreme unlikelihood of lawsuits resulting from labor malpractice. The left see the importation of other nation’s impoverished as a humanitarian cause, and focus less on the legal aspect, but rather on the notion that we should improve these people’s lives. The “no borders” crowd needs to stop smoking crack. But that’s just the tipping point – opinions vary even more when you start going after specific subjects: how to deal with the people here, what rights as a non-citizen do they have, how should they be treated in terms of applications for citizenship, how to seal the border, etc. Just about the only thing we can seem to agree on is that the border needs to be sealed before the other problems are addressed. (Citing back to an AP/Newsweek poll showing 79% support for this back in ‘06 when the subject was hot)

But what’s really missing from the illegal immigration argument? No, it’s not the national security issues of the drug cartels on the southern border. No, it’s not the anchor babies stories, or the story of Raemon and Campos (sp), or other border agents who were silenced for what they did down on the border. No… the argument we should be having, the argument that should be the PRIMARY focus of this debate…well, it looks something like this:

DC is WRONG! Second Amendment Rights for the Individual

DC is WRONG! Second Amendment Rights for the Individual

The Supreme Court ruled today that the handgun, rifle, and shotgun ban in Washington D.C. was an egregious violation of the 2nd Amendment, affirming that it is the right of the individual citizen to bear arms, not just in the form of a government regulated militia.

More to follow as details and the rulings are released later today.

Update 1: Ruling was a 5-4 decision, with Scalia writing for the majority, which included Kennedy, Roberts, Thomas, Scalia, and Alito. Stevens wrote for the minority, joined by Ginsberg, Breyers, and Souter.

This ruling does NOT impact the ban on ownership of guns by felons and the mentally insane, nor does it affect current standing restrictions on the sales of firearms. (Delay, permit checks, licenses, etc.)

–J.L.

Politicians Bash Yesterday’s Death Penalty Ruling

Politicians from the affected states claim they refuse to support yesterday’s ruling.

So, the legislators in the affected states are opposing this ruling, and are vowing to rewrite these laws anyway, to force the Supreme Court to address this issue again. Good.

One thing important to remember about all SC rulings – they are not laws. They are guidelines for lower courts to follow – in short, they set precedent, so it’s highly likely that all lower courts will rule in the same manner as the Supreme Court. However, in terms of law, they only have absolute authority in the specific case they heard. All other cases are simply “assumed” to follow in the same path. Thus, these states are absolutely in their right to ignore this ruling and pass new laws – they’ll simply be unable to enforce them until the SC reverses its ruling today.

More on the rest of today’s upcoming rulings, especially the gun ban, later.

–J.L.

Idiot of the Week

For a more humorous story:

CNN: Inmate Tries to Escape, Falls into Police Chief’s Office

So, apparently, these two glue-sniffers decided to try and escape through a tiny air vent. One got stuck, the other falls through into the chief’s office on his attempted escape. Knowing what these facilities are like, the duct was likely made of nothing more than sheet metal.

For their humorous escapades, we honor these two jailbirds with the first Torches & Pitchforks Idiot of the Week award. Enjoy guys! And next time, try digging a tunnel with a spoon.

–J.L.

MoveOn.Org’s Anti-McCain Ad

This week, the hard-left leaning MoveOn.Org published an advertisement attacking John McCain over a comment he made with regard to keeping soldiers in Iraq for the next 100 years. (For the purposes of accuracy, McCain’s comment was to the extent that he’d be open to keeping a military presence in the Middle East in a peaceful situation, similar to the relationship we currently have with several states in Europe, such as Germany and Poland, and with nations like Japan.)

The video can be found here: MoveOn.Org “Alex” video

Fiery Flood Of Polar Bear Death Alert: Madison, WI to Ban Drive-Throughs

Madison, Wisconsin to Ban Drive Throughs

…out of global warming hysteria. In order to green up the city, and prevent cars from idling, they’re going to ban all restaurant drive throughs. This is likely to be followed up with any other drive throughs, including prescription pickup, banking, etc.

This town sounds like a homeowners’ association gone nuts. If I were living in this city, I’d be picking up my business and leaving – while it is probably within the authority of the city to do this, the idea that the local government should be so intrusive in the day to day affairs of business is absurd. Especially when such an action will not only have zero impact (we’ll do a global warming post on this later), being on a scale too small to fit, but will likely cause more environmental damage than if they’d let it be. (Cars produce more emissions during start-up than when idling.)

–J.L.

Today’s Supreme Court Rulings

Today’s Supreme Court Rulings

The Supreme Court released three rulings today, leaving four before it closes session for 2008. (Those are to be announced tomorrow.) Let’s touch on each of them and what they mean:

No Death Penalty for Child Rapists

The court heard a case brought up against a law in the state of Louisana that allowed for anyone who raped a child under 12 years of age to receive capital punishment. In a 5-4 ruling, with Justice Kennedy writing for the majority, the court has decided that the death penalty is not “proportionate to the crime”, and is in violation of the cruel andunusual punishment clause of the eighth amendment. This overturns similar laws in five additional states.

The court said nothing in regard to the use of capital punishment for murder or treason. (The two most longstanding uses for it.) Earlier this year, the Supreme Court affirmed that the death penalty via lethal injection does not violate the cruel and unusual clause. Further, in 1977, the Supreme Court declared that the death penalty is not an appropriate sentence for the rape of adults. Until this case (had it gone the other way), no one had been executed for any form of rape since 1944 in the US.

Site Change

Loved the old theme, but it didn’t lend itself to longer posts. This one should be easier to read.

Not certain I like the layout, but we’ll go with this for a temp. Feedback on this one v. the old theme?

The Ever So Laughable “Fairness Doctrine”

The Ever So Laughable “Fairness Doctrine”

Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi Endorses “Fairness Doctrine”

Little background first:

The Fairness Doctrine traces back to 1949, and until 1967 was applied to broadcasting licences on a selective, case-by-case basis. In 1967, the Federal Communications Commission picked up the Fairness Doctrine as a general policy, under the auspices of President Johnson and the Democratic controlled Congress. It remained a matter of communications policy under President Reagan axed it in 1987 as an unconstitutional burden on the broadcasting companies and the right of free speech of the people.

So what is the “Fairness Doctrine”? The Fairness Doctrine argues that the radio airwaves are to be considered public band in all cases, and because of that, the government should have the right to regulate them. In this regulation, the government will enforce an “equal air time” on all broadcasters who discuss any political matters. What this means is that all broadcasting companies who, for example, play Rush Limbaugh’s three hour radio program, will be required to put a liberal host on their station for a three hour period.