Monday, July 4, 2011

Weblog

Macomb county jail inmate suing over porn access (Robert Snell, Detroit News)
While serving time for assault, assault & battery and awaiting sentencing for an armed robbery Kyle Richards spends his time filing lawsuits. Richards latest suit wants the state of Michigan to order Macomb county jail authorities to let him have porn, have a private TV, radio and electronic entertainment devices. All of Richards suits have been dismissed ( at least so far).

Motorcyclist protesting helmet laws crashes, hits head, dies (USA Today.com/)
Oh the irony.

Electric cars the future? Some bet on returning to the horse (Jason Peters, Front Porch Republic)
"I said in conversation recently, to my auditor’s utter bafflement, that I fully expect horses to be the technology of the future and that learning to drive a team would be good work for our rising youngsters.
This isn’t cheek. I mean it. What we did when we discovered how to use oil was build a Hot Wheels world with no thought for its limits. We backed the horseless carriage, and now it is coming up lame in the final turn."

The author's screed is about how clueless the New York Times is these days. But what he uses for examples of their cluelessness is interesting too.. Those electric cars like the Volt, Prius and the rest need to run on has to come from somewhere too,  just like the oil we burn now.  And that's a path that leads us all right back to the nuclear power plants and coal mines we're currently trying to phase out, eh? Just saying.

The atavistic appeal of the double-barreled "coach gun" even in modern times (Popular Mechanics)
"Although repeating rifles held more rounds and had a greater range, only in Hollywood does one score consistent hits on moving targets from the bouncing box of a fleeing stagecoach. The multiple-shot charge from a smoothbore was far more likely to score, and since only hits counted in that situation, shotguns were the choice of savvy stage guards. There were some repeating shotguns available that could hold more than the two rounds of the double barrel, but their mechanisms were rather delicate and not up to the rigors of stage travel. That made them less than reliable. The sturdy little double barrels suffered no such ills. They were virtually indestructible, and even if heavily fouled they would fire as long as shells could be rammed into the chambers and the action closed."

In fact, the term "riding shotgun" is still in common use today.

"...I heard yesterday that the jurors [in the Casey Anthony trial] will have spent about seven weeks for this government trial. The judge is paid; the lawyers are paid; the court clerks and guards are paid. They are all there voluntarily. Jury 'service' should be paid, and voluntary, too. How about a per diem equal to the judge's?"

Seems fair to me. That's a long time to be putting your life on hold in the service of the state without any compensation. Even draftees back in day got paid something.

The American nosedive (Jim Goad, Taki's Magazine)
In moral courage anyhow.

"Reading the Declaration of Independence 235 years after it was written, it’s kidney-punchingly obvious that the United States government has become precisely the sort of bloodsucking tyrant against which the Founding Fathers revolted."