Yup, that sucked. (Thing One's first hour of independence, Version 1.1)

Before I give you this update, I want to give a more important one. This past weekend, Thing One called and asked to talk. He said that he'd been doing a lot of drinking over the weekend in the hope that he could forget his problems, but it hadn't worked, and he was sober and worried that night. We talked for awhile. He says he's applying for jobs and has a lead on a fast-food job that would allow him to pay his tickets and get insurance and licensing sorted out. He says he's resolved not to drive again until he has a valid license and insurance. And he says he's going to take things one thing at a time and not panic at the prospect of being sued for money he doesn't have. I waited for the pitch, the appeal for money, or the excuses to start, but they didn't come. He seemed to be very serious, and I want to give him credit. I'm sure there will be setbacks again, probably soon, but to me, this young man who wants to help people but has some growing up to do first is the real Thing One. This is why I'm on his side, even when I have to try to find the humor in his actions to keep from despair. Keep this in mind as you read Version 1.1 of his story of events--later on, he will begin to take genuine responsibility. It's just going to take a couple of weeks first.

If you missed the last installment, Thing One has turned 18 years of age (along with Thing Two.) Being 18 years old and thus a mature adult, he has moved out to seek his fortune. Unfortunately, not having prepared to take that step by holding jobs, saving money or securing his own transportation, he didn't have the means to go out on his own . . . so he arranged to have his biological mom, BM, pick him up and take him to her home in Wisconsin. If you want this post to make any sense at all, you're going to want to read "Yup, that sucked (Thing One's first hour of independence)" first.

Life with Thing One has taught us that, when he's in trouble, there's always another version of the story in the works. Don't like the version he told you? Ask someone else; he told them something different. Don't like either one? Tell him so and give him a day; there'll be a new version. Basically, if he were a fiction writer, mid-level management would love him; he's very responsive to notes and suggestions. When he was telling these versions to us, My Bride and I were in different states and I was hard to reach; the temptation to give us at least two different versions must have been too much to resist.

So what changed in Version 1.1?

• He told his mom (My Bride) that the occupants of the other car actually jumped out and switched places immediately after the accident, rather than staying put to be examined by him as he told me. This is a key detail because it allows him to continue to claim that the other driver must have been drunk. If you recall, the police tested the other driver at 0.04 BAC, but Thing One claimed that the passengers were more intoxicated. Note that I'm not claiming to know that the other drivers didn't pull a switch; I'm just pointing out that it's the second version of the story, not the first.
• He further explained to her, the next day after the accident, that he was greatly relieved to find that he would not be held responsible for the "totaled" vehicles . . . because the other party wasn't insured, either. His "theory of the case" holds that only insurance companies can sue drivers for damages, so he's in the clear. When I got the chance to talk to him, I explained that liability doesn't work that way, but Version 1.1 wasn't ready to hear that yet.
• Perhaps most intriguingly, Version 1.1 included a teaser/trailer for Version 1.2: Thing One told My Bride that "everything is going to be ok" because "SugarDaddy signed the truck over to me, so it's in my name now." When she asked what had been done and why, he refused to spoil the surprise, saying only that he was now the proud owner of the (totaled) truck and that this was somehow better for "SugarDaddy and his wife." Pressed for details, he blurted out, "I'm not going to do anything to mess up Bio-Mom's relationship with SugarDaddy!" and left it at that. How he came to believe that it would be his fault if Bio-Mom and SugarDaddy somehow failed to make their extra-marital affair work out was not clear, but personally, my guess is that someone in the household explained it to him.

Yup, that sucked. (Thing One's first hour of independence)

Not my circus . . . not my monkeys . . . not my circus . . . not my monkeys . . .

It's been over two weeks since Thing One left home.

Thing Two is doing better for the moment; he's spending his time doing a job search and just asked about purchasing auto insurance this morning. He's still quiet and withdrawn, still obviously working things out slowly, but he's trying.

#3 Son is making the most of summer, playing outside, going to the zoo, baseball games, museums, classes, and camp-outs.

My Bride is beginning to enjoy the peace of the household.

Thing One . . . well, he's having some trouble. It took them six days to make an eight-hour drive back to Bio-Mom's house, so they left at noon on Thursday and arrived in the early hours of the following Wednesday. It took him about another hour or so after arriving in his new home to crash a borrowed truck into an SUV with four occupants.

Luckily, no serious injuries. He's lying about "the drunk," but what else is Facebook for?

I know this because he called me at 3:00 AM to tell me that he really needed my help, and I rolled out of bed and left a cabin of snoring campers to go stand out by the bathrooms in the woods and listen to this story for half an hour.

Thing One's Version (1.0):

They "had car trouble," which was what obliged them to spend nearly a week about an hour from home before heading up to Wisconsin. When they finally went, they arrived in the middle of the night, and after they'd unloaded, somebody had to go for food. It is implied that Thing One is the only driver sober enough to go out, and it "just doesn't make sense to go to a restaurant." Everyone at the house knows he doesn't have insurance, but they all figure it's OK, because it's only a few miles. BM's (Bio-Mom's) married sugar-daddy, "SD," has foolishly left his truck at her home, so for some reason they send Thing One and his 13-year-old half-sister, HS13, in his truck instead of BM's vehicle. He gets about a mile down the street and comes to an intersection with a red light, but it turns green before he reaches it, so he heads on through. There's a "drunk driver" coming from the other way, though, and that dastardly character turns right into Thing One. Thing One sees that he's about to hit the drunk driver's car, so he lets go of the wheel and grabs HS13 so she won't hit the windshield. 

"JESUS, TAKE THE WHEEEEEEEEEEEL!"

After the crash, Thing One jumps out and checks on everyone. No one is badly hurt, though he and HS 13 have bumps and bruises. Neither was wearing a seat belt. There are four people in the other car, all drunk, all underage, none injured. But when the police arrive, they insist that the other driver doesn't count as a "drunk driver" just because she blew a 0.04 BAC on a breathalyzer. Apparently, you're not considered DUI unless you meet the legal standard of intoxication. Thing One is not drunk, either, but his mind is somewhat blown at this news. The police officers also ticket him for failure to carry insurance and for failing to stop for a red light. For reasons he does not specify, the police on the scene don't seem to buy version 1.0 of his story. They also have a conversation about the value of the other party's vehicle, the value of the vehicle he crashed (since it's not his) and his potential liability. At this point, Thing One does not seem to be aware that he is "judgment proof" because he doesn't own anything, and I keep that to myself for two reasons: first, because it's not an absolute guarantee that he won't be sued, and second, because I have a feeling that the next step is going to be to throw everyone as far as possible off the scent of SD's assets (and Bio-Mom's, if she has any.) Seems to me the obvious strategy would be to put as much liability as they can on Thing One as fast as they can. This is about to happen anyway, but why should I be the one to suggest the idea to him? The only regret I do have about keeping that to myself is that I could have warned him . . . but I didn't know specifically what they were going to pull, and they can do no wrong in his eyes anyway.

Version 1.0 of his story ends with him talking things over with Bio-Mom. She has a lawyer, you see, and she's going to sic him on that drunk driver and those cops, and they'll fight and win! Well, they'll challenge the red-light ticket, anyway, but apparently nothing else, because it's pretty hard to dispute that he canceled his auto insurance the day before he left home. In this version of the story, it's not a coincidence that Bio-Mom has a lawyer; he's been fighting to get her driver's license back ever since she lost it after her last DUI. That was news to me, too, especially after she drove here to pick him up.

He's out there learning on his own. Learning hurts sometimes, but it could have been a lot worse if someone had been badly hurt or killed.

In our next installment, we'll hear Thing One's Version (1.1) complete with retcons! As Heraclitus taught us in antiquity, "there is nothing constant in a bullshit story except change."

SUMMER CAMP! Camp Quest Kansas City 2.0 is GO!

I am not here. I am at Camp Quest Kansas City at Knob Noster State Park in Missouri, helping run a summer camp. This particular summer camp is the one you go to if you don't want to pray over every meal or learn how your body is like an unwrapped candy bar, but you also don't want to pledge that you are a social justice atheist-humanist warrior for truth.

We're just gonna swim in the pool, do science in the woods, talk about big ideas, play soccer in the field and sing songs around the fire. It's not entirely my usual idea of camping, but there's no internet or air conditioning.

I'll be back at the end of June. Try not to let any of my friends throttle any of my other friends while I'm gone. I promise I'll write stuff about whatever the internet is upset about when I get back.

BTW, for those of you following Thing One and Thing Two, Thing One did get moved out this week and made it to his biological mom's house. His Facebook status this morning was:

"theres nothing like a shit to sober you up in da morning lolol"

So that's apparently going well so far.

Thing Two got his driver's license and registered as an organ donor and a voter, and he seems like he's doing pretty well at the moment.

Snuffy Pfleger suspended again? I'll believe it when I see it--again.

So the good monsignor Michael "Snuffy" Pfleger has apparently been suspended by Cardinal George . . . again. Second City Cop dared to go there with a post entitled "You're Pfired!" That kind of punning takes . . . . well, it certainly takes something.

Personally, I find that I haven't really changed my outlook since the last time Cardinal George suspended Snuffy; back in 2008 I wondered, "Seriously, Cardinal George, what does it take?"

The list hasn't changed much, because Pfleger hasn't changed much:

"Theoretically, is there an act Pfleger could commit that would shame the Catholic church and the archdiocese of Chicago enough that they'd decide to cut him loose?

• We know injecting the church into elections, thus at least theoretically jeopardizing their tax-exempt status in any just world, isn't enough.
• We know that praising bigots like Louis Farrakhan from the pulpit isn't enough.
• We know that publicly lying repeatedly in his official capacity as a priest isn't enough.
• We know that threatening to "snuff out" John Riggio wasn't enough.

So, just for my own idle curiosity, what would it take? Does he actually have to start assaulting people physicall--or would that be tolerated, too?"

It remains to be seen whether mentioning that you won't take a job in a high school is on that list, too. We'll see whether this suspension is any more "permanent" than the last one.

Right-to-Carry Town Hall Meeting . . . in Chicago!

Tomorrow night, the UTATU Collective (a student service group at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago) will host a Right-to-Carry informational town-hall meeting at the Carruthers Center for Inner-City Studies near the corner of Oakwood and Langley, just a few blocks off the lake on the south side of Chicago.

That's right, Chicago. And the night after that, there'll be an identical meeting in Elmhurst, IL--one of the most putatively anti-gun of the Chicago suburbs.

All the recent focus on McDonald v. Chicago has tended to take some focus off the very real political changes in Illinois regarding right-to-carry. Five or ten years ago I would have laughed at the idea of putting on a meeting like this one. Tomorrow I expect it to be packed.

I'm planning to make the drive; I've laid in a supply of audiobooks so I can take off after work tomorrow, zoom up to Chicago listening to Pale Horse Coming by Stephen Hunter and then slog back home listening to The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by the late, great Carl Sagan. Thursday morning is going to suck. There was a time when I could drive eight hours in a night, roll into home at one or two in the morning, and be raring to go in the morning . . . . but that was before I got old.

Ess You What Huh What?

I'm glad I'm not the only one wondering what on earth the "States United to Prevent Gun Violence" is supposed to be. Their name is only slightly less stupid than the "Freedom States Alliance," which is just about a syntactically null statement (what are the "Freedom States," and why do they advocate cracking down on freedom?)
Seriously, "States United?" You idiots are claiming to be a coalition of state governments or something. You are, at best, a sort of shell corporation consisting of various vestigial state-level gun-banning groups that represent tiny minorities of the voters in your respective states. You are entirely full of crap, and I've never heard of you. My guess is that the SUPGV was created out of whole cloth quite recently as a way to pool that sweet, sweet grant money from the Joyce Foundation people so everyone can keep feeding, even if each goober had to accept less largesse than he's grown accustomed to.

Being a gun-ban astroturf activist is not a fun or respected life, but it beats working for a living, I guess.

From Comments: Stay off my side, hippie.

So Andy Martin stopped by to leave a comment on the post about Scott Brown's upset in Massachusett's Senate race:

My campaign is the big winner from the “Massachusetts Message,” because we are the only campaign nimble enough to react quickly. We will have a new statewide ad up this Friday. Patrick Hughes is dead in the water.

Andy Martin
www.Andyforussenator.com

Right. What Mr. Martin didn't mention is that his "nimble" campaign will probably, if history is a guide, "react quickly" with an ad explaining that only a vote for Andy Martin can prevent the Jew World Order from building its alliance with Barack Obama's secret Muslim terrorist brotherhood. There's no point in re-hashing all the insanity here, since Media Matters has been nice enough to compile most of the craziness in one place. See? I told you I could be independent. Don't stop reading before you get to the bottom, or you'll regret it. The highlights go something like this:

• Andy Martin used to be Anthony Martin-Trigona.
• Andy Martin graduated from the University of Illinois law school, but was denied admission to the bar because he did some weird, unprofessional things in courts and because the Selective Service had declared that he suffered from mild mental illness.
• Andy Martin has filed hundreds of lawsuits, maybe thousands, spanning decades. He sues the other party, but is known for then vindictively suing the judge, opposing lawyers, their families . . . . this is not an exaggeration on my part, but is well documented in court decisions.
• Remember when the Birthers were saying that Islamic law states that you're Muslim if your father was a Muslim, so Barack Obama has to be a Muslim even if he renounced the faith or even never practiced it because he just is, OK? Yup, that came from Andy Martin (that is to say, he takes credit for it.)
  
• Andy Martin believes (or believed?) that there is a widespread Jewish conspiracy to bankrupt him and steal his property, and that the evil Joos work as a "wolf pack" within a "national network" of Jews. Opposing this "herd instinct" of "slimy Jew" thieves is so exhausting and frustrating, he wrote, that it brought him around to understanding why the Nazis committed the Holocaust and prevented him from feeling regret that it happened.

In short, I hope you get the help you need someday, Andy Martin. You do not appear to be operating with your faculties in good working order. I think you'd be shocked how much your life would change if you took a year or two off from running for the Senate and sending out wacko emails and just concentrated on finding a professional to talk to about your life.

I think you've got that backward, pal.

Sorry for the lack of content . . . more is coming, both here and at the Chicago Gun Rights Examiner site, but too much is happening right now.

Still, I was brought up short yesterday, and I gotta tell somebody. First, I'll get the confession out of the way: I listen to NPR. A lot. I like their news programs--yes, I know there's a bias there, but there's also an in-depth approach that is just plain more interesting to me than the soundbites you get on other "news" radio or television. And I'm addicted to "This American Life," "Car Talk," "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me," and even "A Prairie Home Companion." Don't judge me.

Anyway, it's time for the pledge drives, and they're begging for money constantly. One of the things I hate the most about these drives is that even when I contribute (Damnit, I said no judging!) I still have to switch the channel for a few days, because I can't stop the begging by my contribution alone. But I didn't write this to complain about pledge drives. I wrote this to tell you about the different donation levels that come with different privileges. There are "Memberships," "Day Sponsors," etc. For instance, if you're a "Day Sponsor," they'll run mini-commercials six times on your special day telling everyone that it's your husband's birthday or the anniversary of your first sit-in or whatever. I can see the value in that.

What I don't understand is the "My Source" level of donation. A standard membership costs $50, but for $500, you can be a "My Source" donor. That entitles you to cut a recording of yourself telling everyone why you love WUIS so much, and why it's "Your Source" for NPR. Essentially, they want you to pay an extra 900% for your membership as payment for being allowed to act as unpaid voice talent in a commercial for their station.

I don't think I get it.

I guess it's a slow year for world peace.

I don't think the Nobel Committee knows that President Bush was limited to two terms. I think they thought that Obama deposed Bush much the same way that Von Stauffenberg tried to depose Hitler--ending his reign of terror for the good of humanity. They don't need to see evidence that President Obama has actually done anything to benefit world peace on his own watch, because toppling the Bushitler dictatorship was achievement enough for one lifetime.

The Nobel Peace Prize 2009

"for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples"

Photo: Pete Souza, Obama-Biden Transition Project, licensed by Attribution Share Alike 3.0
Barack Obama
USA
44th President of the United States of America
b. 1961

Ummmm . . . OK. Extraordinary, huh?

In all the furor over Obama's school speech, why is nobody talking about this?

This is just a short note; I'll do a full Chicago Gun Rights Examiner piece on this tonight after the Sangamon County Rifle Association meets.

I've been pretty quiet about Obama's address to students. On the one hand, I do think a lot of people are investing way too much fury and emotion in this, because Obama now realizes that people don't trust him to talk to school kids, and I'm guessing he'll deliver a completely apolitical speech that will leave everyone who panicked looking silly.But I've been surprised at what I haven't heard anyone talk about: Arne Duncan, Barack Obama's Secretary of Education, and Chicago. If you wanted a reason to be worried about Barack Obama addressing schoolchildren in school, Arne Duncan would be the best one. Duncan spent years as the Superintendent of Chicago public schools, and I talked about his record of using Chicago public school students, buses, money and school days to hold political rallies and stump for legislation, both in Chicago and Springfield:

Use . . . your children well
"As a school teacher, I wanted to write an angry rant about this, but what can I say that would embarrass people who haven't resigned after finding out that 49% of their students drop out before graduation? Arne Duncan is a fool, but he doesn't seem to mind being a fool. He appears to have embraced his inner fool, if you will. Chicago's schools have been giving kids the day off from school on the condition that they accept a free bus ride to an anti-gun protest (and protest on the desired side, of course) for years. Now they're going to bus them down to Springfield, on a school day, for the same purpose. . . . "

I can't believe this hasn't been widely discussed--if people were calling me a paranoid, crazy racist for thinking Barack Obama might try to score political points using school children, I'd want to know their opinion of Obama's Secretary of Education using his district budget to pay for busing students 175 miles to the state capital to demand money for his schools . . . to say nothing of gun control laws. I couldn't believe people weren't outraged at the time . . . but that's where we are, I suppose.

"The Chicago Way: Students are political pawns"
Well, they did it. They bused in CPS students--the original article said 1,200 district buses would be used--to fill Soldier Field. They hired a rapper from Chicago (Ben One--never heard of him) and painted empty chairs to sit at midfield and stand for the 26 "CPS students" who've been killed this year, because as everyone knows, those people were killed by a lack of state funds and state-level gun control. Then they lined up Mayor Daley, Jesse Jackson, and the all the usual suspects (including Arne Duncan, the CPS Superintendent) and let them harangue the captive audience.
In this case, the students have the power to come together and speak out--but only as long as they stay on Daley's carefully-scripted message. More state money for a district that spends money hiring rappers for rallies for more state money. More gun-control laws to cure violence in the city with the strictest gun control laws in the nation (well, after Heller v. D.C. is decided) and the highest rates of violence to go with it.
Go along with this program, use your political power in approved ways, and you get a free bus ride to Soldier Field to listen to minor music stars--as long as you look respectful during the political harangues.

It just doesn't make sense to me that nobody seems to be making this connection.

Stop, you're embarrassing yourself

You know what I heard on NPR yesterday? Some commentators were discussing Ted Kennedy's death, and they were all agreeing that he was a great man and an amazing legislator, and one of them just went a bridge too far. I don't know if he felt he wasn't getting enough attention, or what, but he brought up the Chappaquiddick "incident."

In praise of Senator Ted Kennedy.

Kennedy, he explained, really owned that incident. He really felt bad about it. In fact, Kennedy himself used much stronger language than the commentator has ever heard anyone else use in condemning his actions that fateful night . . . . words like "inexplicable."

We obviously travel in very different circles, because I don't think I've ever met anyone who thought Kennedy's behavior was "inexplicable." He was drunk, caused an accident that killed a young lady who had no business in the car with him, and found it more convenient to go back to his hotel than to deal with police and reporters. Most people I know aren't shy about calling Ted Kennedy a murderer for what he did that night . . . . and if you've never met anyone who thought Ted Kennedy was worse than "inexplicable" for leaving Mary Jo Kopechne to drown in cold, dark water, you might want to take a good look at your social circle and think about whether you've truly lost touch with the real world. Lauding Ted Kennedy for taking responsibility for Chappaquiddick makes it sound like you're watching a different channel than the rest of us.

I don't know if this gadget works . . . .

But I wish I'd seen it before my wife's very expensive Toshiba Satellite Paperweight made the transition from laptop computer. I liked it better when it was a computer.

In all fairness, though, it can hold down a lot of paper.

What do all you computer geeks think? Is this thing worth $9.95 (to people who haven't already lunched their laptops?)

Your gun buy-back amuses me.

WNEP 16 did a report on a gun buy-back (they haven't transitioned to the term "gun turn-in event" in Pennsylvania, apparently) called "Operation Safe Guns." I'm really beginning to think they name these things with a dartboard.

"Let's see . . . I got 'guns,' that's good . . . 'safe,' one more . . . ."
THWACK!
"Ooh! 'Operation!' That's a good one, Chief!"
"Thanks, Lou, I like your mustache. So what's our catchy new name?"
"Hmm . . . 'Guns Operation Safe' is nice."
"No, it's nonsense. How about 'Operation Gun Safe?'"
"We did that three years ago, and the gun nuts came out of the woodwork demanding free gun safes. Never again."
"OK, how about 'Operation Safe Guns' then?"
"Uh, Chief, are we doing anything about making the guns safer? I thought we were just collecting them and destroying the cheap ones Ralph doesn't want to take home?"
"You have a point . . . maybe we should throw the darts again and settle in. Might miss lunch,though."
"You know, Chief, 'Operation Safe Guns' is growing on me."

Then there are the big claims. They got 110 guns "off the street" including "two illegal guns." Wow. Here's a screen cap of WNEP's Jennifer Borrasso holding one of the "illegal guns" the program took in. Don't be afraid to look, it can't hurt you through the internet:

In the video, Borrasso explains that this is an illegal sawed-off shotgun. Notice how conveniently she places the barrel of the gun against her shoulders so we can estimate the length. If that barrel is less than 15or 16 inches long, I'd be very surprised. What we actually have here is a single-shot, break-open shotgun with a barrel that is technically too short according to federal law. Someone apparently cut it off shorter than 18 inches, but not by much. I'm surprised they gave it to a reporter to hold up on the evening news as their example of an illegal gun, because it would take an expert to tell it apart from a perfectly legal shotgun being used to hunt rabbits on railroad tracks somewhere in Pennsylvania right now (well, maybe during rabbit season.) Actually, Elmer Fudd carried something very similar.

This is an illegal gun the way a Mustang with the wrong engine parts is an illegal car in California, even if it passes the actual measurement of pollution output. It's a technical violation of an arbitrary regulation that no one but an expert would ever know is supposed to be "dangerous" or scary.

I can hear some of you saying I'm too negative. Why can't I think of the positive? OK, here's the positive: although "Operation Safe Guns" won't tell you this, I would bet $50 that the person who turned that gun in didn't know it was verboten by order of der mann. The average person would have no way of looking at that gun and knowing that it was worth ten years in a federal PMA prison. Therefore, we can all be glad that the unwitting federal felon turned this thing in at a "no questions asked" event and got $75 for his trouble. The gun was probably worth approximately that before the barrel was cut, but now it's radioactive; like a car sold at a police auction with two kilos of cocaine still hidden in the seats, it would have been a danger to everyone who purchased it.

The question I can't shake off is this: if that was the example they wanted to show the world of an "illegal gun" they "took off the streets," how innocent was the other one? It must have been less menacing than a well-aged single-shot break-open shotgun with a barrel a couple of inches too short.

Oh, Paul Helmke, You Rascally Scamp, you

Sigh. So, this will not shock anyone who reads this blog, but Paul Helmke told another lie about buying guns in America yesterday. The usual. From the written article:

But the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence says it's not enough.

"Doing this on the internet allows someone who is anti-social to get those sort of arms, no questions asked, no suspicions raised... Allowing online sellers to never take responsibility for their actions, something is wrong with that system," says the president of the group, Paul Helmke.

I'll give Paul the benefit of the doubt and assume he must not have known that the reporter was going to put that quote right after the one where the owner of the gun shop tells the truth about interstate gun sales:

Thompson says all three sales were legal and says buying online doesn't mean it's any easier to get a gun. He says you still have to physically go to a registered gun store to pick it up.

"There's no skipping any steps... there's no mail order guns."

What really irritates me is not the fact that Helmke lied--that's what he does for a living. What's he going to do? Say that the guy only bought a magazine from The Gun Source, and that if he'd wanted to buy a gun he'd have had to have it shipped to a local FFL, who would have then followed all local, state and federal laws the same as any other sale? What's the percentage in that for anybody Helmke cares about? No, what irks me is hearing the reporter, Julie Huck of NBC26, observe in a clear abuse of the present progressive tense, " . . .that argument not flying with those campaigning against gun violence" and then playing Helmke's quote as if it were equally true. Helmke's arguing that there's "something wrong with our system of gun distribution" because "the same shop was involved in all three of these shootings." What he's not mentioning is what "involved" means. From the report, it's clear that Sodini bought one Glock magazine from The Gun Source, and something the TV report calls a "loader on his Glock." Maybe one of those execrable Glock thumb-savers? No guns, in any case, which means that The Gun Source has as much to do with any argument over "gun distribution" as they would if Helmke were arguing against lobsters or microprocessors--two other things TGS did not sell to Sodini.

One more time, TGS, just to be clear: if Sodini had purchased a firearm from TGS, then TGS would have taken his payment and waited for his local federally-licensed firearm dealer to send a copy of his FFL (Federal Firearms License) to TGS. Then TGS would have shipped the firearm, not to Sodini, but to the FFL. From that time on, the gun would be in the local FFL's inventory the same as any other. Then, for a fee, the local FFL would sell the gun Sodini--IF he filled out the federal Form 4473 correctly and passed the NICS background check.

And since you mentioned the Northern Illinois University shooting, I'll just go ahead and mention that all state and local laws are also in effect. If the buyer lived in Illinois, then his local FFL would follow all Illinois laws as well, which include recording the buyer's Firearm Owner Identification information and making the buyer wait three days before he takes possession of handgun (one day for long guns.) I'm sure the fact that Illinois has much more restrictive gun laws than Wisconsin while at the same time having much higher levels of violent crime involving firearms has not escaped your notice, since you're a professional Authorized Journalist and all, but if you'd spent a minute or two on Google you wouldn't have to air a report containing two mutually exclusive claims about how the system works.

Like, Wow, Man. Astrology is Like, Complicated.

And stuff.

Flipping around through the various widgets last night, I couldn't help but notice a couple created by fellow Examiners . . . hey, here's the Chicago Astrology and Relationships Examiner. Nothing like really pounding away at that "integrity" button. But since Codrea's most consistent competition for most popular politics Examiner is the "Hawaii Exopolitics Examiner" (that is, the guy who writes about our extra-terrestrial foreign policy) I guess it's no surprise.

Anyway, let's see what my horoscope has to say. But first, it's important to note that the Astrology Examiner doesn't practice orthodox astrology. She prefers to "channel upon an overview of things to come" and other straightforward methods. Quite refreshing. But how about that horoscope?

Aries (3/21- 4/20)

Men: Making restless decisions at this point will cost you dearly,
especially emotionally and financially. You may need to postpone making important
decisions until you seek out all the facts from all sides. You may be tempted
to lean on individuals to get them to act more quickly. This can only drive people
away from you. You need to act effectively without throwing your weight around.

Hmm. So, if I weren't an Aries, restless decisions would be OK, and I wouldn't need to seek out the facts from all sides before making important decisions. Crud; I get stuck with all the work. And also, if I were a Taurus, I could lean on people and throw my weight around, but as an Aries I am forced to employ courtesy, damnit. Doesn't seem fair, somehow.

Women: You have been holding back expressing your true emotions towards people at home/work that have taken you for granted too long. It is time for you to draw the line before you go overboard.

Whoa. Glad My Bride's not an Aries. I'd rather she keep repressing those feelings, thank you. It's kept us going this long. It's kind of too bad this one is only for the women, though (I never even knew that astrology was different for men and women) because I get a little tired of being taken for granted myself. But I guess it's back to it. It almost feels like the stars want me to stay passive so they can take advantage of me too.

Married: Keep your own agenda in focus do not let anyone deter you from your goals. As hard as you try to work as a team, you may have to debate in order to prove your point, you need to remain true to your own convictions at this time.

The stars are writing run-on sentences now . . . but anyway, I should focus on my agenda and stick with my goals. Got it. And all the rest of you born in the other 11 months can just let people steamroll you, since your goals aren't important like mine.

Single: You have overlooked potential opportunities to meet new people that are
right in front of you. Many of you may be thinking about at person that you let
go of or missed the opportunity to be with in your past. For many of you that find
yourself thinking about contacting a past love interest, this person will be happy
to hear from you.You are now ready to go forward and socialize in opportunities to meet new love. You will be surprised how well other singles respond to you.

Wow . . . it's odd how only Aries miss opportunities to meet potential dates. I would have thought that was more universal. Good to know that all Aries everywhere are ready to go forward and socialize, even the ones who've had recent traumatic experiences. Also excellent news that all Aries who contact old flames will be welcomed back despite the restraining orders. Good luck with that.

Spiritual Message: Sometimes, you may need to look to the past to remember what you really want out of life and believe that you can still attain it.

Unless you were born in the summer, fall, or winter. In that case your past is meaningless and you should do your best to forget the lessons of history.

I hate to sound judgmental, but I am

Tam wrote a smart piece on what it takes to avoid 99.99% of self-defense situations without having to learn to shoot or strike or grapple or duel with bowie knives. At the same time, elements of the national media, including sportswriters like Mike Lupica at Sports Illustrated and Neil Katz at CBS News, are alternately wailing about the gun culture and cowering behind crucifixes chanting "It . . . is . . . alive!" at a Jennings 9mm pistol because it (and not the woman who decided to point it at him and pull the trigger) murdered a famous football player. Sharp as a Marble had excerpts from Katz's voodoo fetish story today, and they show that Katz is extremely worried that the jumbi in the pistol might jump up and kill someone else next:

At any one of those turns, had something happened differently, McNair might still be alive. No one can know.

Actually, that's not true. The twist that matters is the one when Sahel Kazemi made the decision to kill Steve McNair. The others are just details that could have changed a million different ways, but as long as Sahel Kazemi still decided that Steve McNair had to die, she could have done it with anything from a frying pan to a kitchen knife to a can of gasoline and a match.

Federal authorities haven’t said when the gun was born, but they know who made it - a now defunct California firm called Bryco, and later renamed Jennings,

Uh . . . OK. I've heard of biological weapons, but this is ridiculous. And you're ridiculous, Mr. Katz.

The gun was a 9mm and by 2002 it had made its way into a Tenn. pawn shop, where it likely sat under locked glass, flickering fluorescent bulbs shining off its metal skin.

Uh . . . . huh. Hm. One wonders if this is why the gun made the decision to become a murder weapon rather than, for instance, going out and finding some poor single mother and living on her nightstand just in case. But then, who knows why guns do what they do? You buy them books and send them to school, but they never call, and they never write.
But they do have skin, and it's made of metal, I guess, and that's creepier than John McCain trying to smile at a baby.

When police arrived her body had already fallen to the floor. The gun lay beneath her crumpled body in a pool of the killer’s own blood.

Police located it by following the sound of the gun's maniacal laughter and its mad cackling: "They called me MAD at the foundry! Now the serial number a001337 will be remembered forever! Remembered . . . . and feared! Mwa ha ha ha ha!"

Remember kids, if you see a firearm, draw a circle of salt around it and sprinkle it with garlic to trap the jumbi inside. Then if you want you can go find an adult or whatever.

But seriously, this brings me to my real point, which I fear may be taken as prudish and judgmental. One of the ways to, as Tamara puts it, not get killed, is to avoid doing things like taking on a 20-year-old mistress who thinks you're going to leave your wife. Maybe things are different in France or wherever the "enlightened" culture teaches that all successful men must have mistresses, because maybe women there understand what "mistress" means and what the limits of that role really are. But here, in America, you hook up with a barely-adult waitress who isn't your wife at your own peril. It's always possible that she doesn't accept sugar-daddy relationships with older, married millionaire celebrities because of her rock-solid personal stability and rationality.

Just saying. I love Steve McNair as much as the next person who never knew him but enjoys watching football on the tv sets, but the guy made a really, really bad choice and he got killed. I've made some dumb choices in my life, most of them involving explosives and/or automobiles, that could have killed me. I'm very lucky that they didn't. But if they had, most people wouldn't have pretended the car I died in was a person with a murderous soul. But then again, I never played in a Super Bowl.

Worst Book Ever?

Maybe.

My wife got me a pile of old books the other day. She often does this, because she knows I go through them rapidly and my tastes are eclectic to put it kindly. This means there are hits and misses and it's hard to predict which is which, but she's brought me some beauties over the years.

This is not one of them:

Notice anything odd there? She picked it up because it looked like an anthology of classics, which I'd bet is what it was supposed to look like . . . but notice how many classics. One hundred one? How many pages do you think are in this book?








Hmmm . . . . I think I'm beginning to
see how they managed it. Ten pages for Tom Jones . . . nine pages for Ivanhoe . . . and only eight pages for Anna Karenina. Now, I haven't read Tom Jones or Ivanhoe (yes, a blogger is allowed to admit that there is a classic book he has not read) but I really enjoyed Anna Karenina. What I'm having a hard time envisioning is how anyone could pretend to understand it when it's been cut down to eight pages in length. Tolstoy couldn't have written an eight-page description of poor Anna brushing her teeth without giving himself a stroke. How is this supposed to work?

I recently re-read Fahrenheit 451. I doubt many of my readers have not also read this work, but the quick version is this: in a dystopian future, Guy Montag is a fireman who is paid to burn books instead of putting out fires. People live mad, frantic, unthinking lives where nothing matters except fast, loud, mindless fun. But Montag can feel something missing . . .
When I was a child, I thought it was a good story with the fatal flaw that the firemen were a heavy-handed contrivance; they made the story hard to believe, because they were so unnecessary. What were they there for? Reading it now, I realize that's the whole point. As Captain Beatty says, the firemen really aren't necessary; they just make big fires in the night as entertainment for the people who need that "real world" edge to their drama. The censorship of any real ideas that might put people off their appetite for bread and circuses is accomplished by the people themselves, who choose to ignore those ideas so the fun can continue. The ideas they ignore so studiously could be expressed on their giant televisions or their tiny seashell radio earbuds (the technological aspects seem a lot more prescient today than the last time I read this, too, as I mow the law with an Ipod and my neighbors are carting out the box from their new 194" TV.) The whole thing started, Beatty said, with dumbing down the literature, the drama, the cinema and the news to a sort of bland pudding.

This book is an example of the bland pudding . . . and the weirdest thing is Armstrong's introduction, where he holds forth for several pages about the importance of being able to discuss Tom Jones and Moby Dick at cocktail parties. He's careful to note that the "false expertise" of the man who has only skimmed such works is useless . . . but his book is different, because it will keep you from wasting your time reading a bunch of junk you think you like. These are the novels that the collective wisdom of the great critics has decreed that you will enjoy . . . these are the novels that the collective wisdom of the great critics has decreed that you must be able to quote or at least nod knowingly about in order to get that middle-management slot at the insurance company. In short, if you're the sort of insufferable boor who has no chance of ever understanding why people enjoy any of these stories, you'll love this book.

Bleg: Anybody out there read "Gun World?"

I'd like to get in touch with Jan Libourel, and there's not much on the internets. I'll look for a Gun World on the newsstand later today when I'm out, but if anyone has a copy, can you post the contact info for Libourel, or at least the front office?

I'd like to ask Mr. Libourel a question or two about Josh Sugarmann (I'm going to contact Josh, too, but I don't think he'll talk to me.)

Michael Jackson Still Dead, Says Michael Jackson

Tamara is going to love this.

I don't know why I didn't predict it, except that I haven't been paying attention lately as I look for a job, but the creepy, fake TV psychics are coming out of the woodwork to let everyone know what Michael Jackson is thinking now that he's dead. Apparently he misses his kids and thinks Sylvia Browne's desk is too close to the credenza . . . with more stunning revelations to come on Oprah. Of course.

"Hippy, do me a favor. . . ."

". . . . .and stay off my side."

Look, I swear to you, I tried not to care about the Miss California deal. I did. A flap between a sparkly beauty queen and a sparkly internet drama queen is not something I want to admit I care about . . . . but today I caught some of Perez Hilton's comments on video, and it jogged some thoughts loose, so here we go.

First, I was struck by the way the whole thing was presented. If you haven't heard yet, the Miss USA pageant was held recently, and "Perez Hilton" (get it?!?) was one of the celebrity judges. I didn't watch it, and for a few days afterward, I heard over and over on sources from NPR to local radio to TV news and the internet that there had been a repeat of the " . . . and such as!" incident from a year or two ago. Nobody actually quoted what the woman said; I didn't even find out that she'd said something about gay marriage until a few days after. When I finally found out what she'd said, my first thought was that she was wrong, but . . . . where was the stupid? Where was the idiocy we were all supposed to mock? I just wasn't seeing what was so idiotic about a woman giving her opinion on the issue.

Later, when I saw Hilton's statements, I could only sigh and wish that he and I were on opposite sides of this issue. Unfortunately, we're not. I agree with him; if two adult people say they both want to commit to a marriage, everybody else should butt out. And I disagree with Miss California; her opinion is her opinion, but I think we all know gay marriage is coming, and it's not going to hurt anybody else's marriage when it does. If you're not buying that, you're entitled to your opinion, too, but keep me updated as Iowa's family structure falls apart in the coming years, because I may miss it.

Still and all, sharing Perez Hilton's side of anything is uncomfortable. Here he is blathering on at length and in detail about how Miss USA has to "represent everyone" and Miss California was "being divisive" with her answer. Really? Who asked the question, Pez-head? Was that you? Did you notice that you asked a simple, binary, yes-or-no question? She couldn't answer your question honestly without alienating someone. Your trouble is that you're defining "represent" as "agree with" and alleging that if she doesn't agree with you, she isn't representing you. That's a problem for two reasons, the first of which is that you think Miss USA is supposed to represent you. In what body or proceedings are you ever going to be represented by Miss USA? I'll tell you right now, Miss USA doesn't represent me. Ever. Actually, I probably shouldn't throw stones, since my federal representatives include Barry "Barack" Obama, Roland "Tombstone" Burris and Dick "Dick" Durbin. Maybe I should look into being represented by Miss USA and Miss America in future, actually, but that's neither here nor there.

I promised you two reasons, didn't I? Well, the second reason is that Hilton asked the question and thus set Miss California up to make a choice. The only choice he left her was between "representing" (in his parlance) either the people who want to prevent gay marriages or the people who want to allow gay marriages. That was it. Since he defines representation as slavish agreement, it's not possible for her to represent both sides--for one side to get what it demands, the other side has to lose what it wants. There really isn't a middle of the road. He could just say "Obviously, I disagree, and here's why gay marriage is important . . . " But that would require thinking his position through and considering whether it's really what he believes, and that's a lot like work. I shouldn't expect more than that from someone who snarks celebrities for a living, but apparently I did.