Year: 2008

Car Troubles

Looks like I wasn’t the only one who had to spend time at a car dealership today. Once I got here to Bitter’s, I noticed my car didn’t want to turn at the intersection, which is when I noticed it had stalled. Its idling rough, and at very low RPM. Check engine light is on. I’m figuring an O2 sensor on the engine is acting up and the computer is running the engine too rich. The dealership I took it to hasn’t read the code off the engine yet. We shall see when they call me. Unlike Ahab, I didn’t bring a copy of American Rifleman, but the Honda dealership is right down the road from NRA headquarters.

UPDATE: Turns out the code indicates the computer wasn’t reading anything from the throttle body.  When the dealer tested the throttle body itself, it was fine.  They couldn’t get it to produce the code again.  I’m going to take it home.  If it happens again I’ll get the throttle body replaced.  Hopefully it was a bump in the night type thing.

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Must Read

The Anchoress has an excellent post talking about conservatives, including this quote from Ronald Reagan:

“When I began entering into the give and take of legislative bargaining in Sacramento, a lot of the most radical conservatives who had supported me during the election didn’t like it. “Compromise” was a dirty word to them and they wouldn’t face the fact that we couldn’t get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don’t get it all, some said, don’t take anything. I’d learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: ‘I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.’ If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that’s what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it.”

– Ronald Reagan, An American Life

I couldn’t agree more.   Read the whole post.

Hat tip to Rightwingprof, who’s impressions of the race are also worthwhile.

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Red’s Day in Court

ATF’s motion for summary judgment has been denied.  Red’s Trading Post will be headed to trial.  I have a lot of confidence, given ATF’s track record in court, that Red’s will be keeping their FFL.  That doesn’t help make up for the legal costs, unfortunately.  This is why ATF reform is vitally important.  Even if you win against the ATF, you still kind of lose.

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Turning Down Bloomberg

Greg thinks the same way I do, and will turn down jobs with companies that locate in anti-gun jurisdictions, and are with companies owned by certain people that like to poop on the constitution. I would be up front with the employer as to exactly why you won’t relocate, “I’m a sport shooter, and I’d have to give that up to move to New York City. I’m not going to do that. I also don’t appreciate what your Mayor is doing to my second amendment rights in that regard.”

Once employers realize, especially in tech fields which are awash with People of the Gun, that they are losing out on good employees because of these laws, they might start locating in better places.

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I Dare You Mike!

Michael Nutter claims he will be enforcing Philadelphia illegal gun laws:

At the first regular meeting of the new City Council yesterday, Council members Darrell L. Clarke and Donna Reed Miller introduced the same package of gun-control measures that languished last year while the state legislature refused to authorize them.

But these bills have a new wrinkle – they don’t call for state-enabling legislation. The previous bills were conditional on companion state laws in recognition of a 1996 Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that said cities could not enforce their own gun laws.

But Nutter, Clarke and Miller, frustrated by the repeated failure of gun-control measures in the legislature, now appear ready to do just that.

“If these bills pass and if I sign them, then I expect to enforce them,” Nutter said. “If you believe we can have a safer city by putting these measures in place, I think as good public servants we are compelled to take some type of action in the face of no relief coming from anywhere else.”

Go ahead Mayor Nutter. Enforce them against me. Please. I could use the money I’ll make from the giant lawsuit I promise I’ll slap the city with. Pennsylvania needs to reconsider its preemption statue if Mayor Nutter is serious about crossing this Rubicon. Not to weaken it, but to impose penalties on cities and local municipalities who violate it. We have the power to do this in the legislature, and I really hope that City Council does not really want to bring this issue to a head.

UPDATE: I love this quote:

Kairys said the city’s action could set up a test of a new Supreme Court, now under Chief Justice Ronald Castille, the former Philadelphia district attorney who promised to depoliticize the court.

If the court is truly depoliticized, then Castille will uphold state preemption.  That is not a matter of politics.  The city home rule charter does not give the city the power to contradict state laws, and preemption is a state law designed to protect an enumerated fundamental right protected by the Pennsylvania Constitution.  If Castille votes in favor of the city he will be breaking his promise, and will be actively politicizing the court.

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AR-15 Controversey in Duncannon

Man, I’m glad I’m not a cop in this town.  Apparently the fact that the police department purchased two AR-15 rifles is quite the controversy.  Officers should really have a decent carbine in their patrol cars in addition to shotguns, and the AR-15 is a fine platform for law enforcement use.

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Gay Marriage is Contagious

Sen. Mike Brubaker is trying to get a marriage amendment onto the Pennsylvania Constitution:

Tom Shaheen, vice president for policy at the Pennsylvania Family Institute, said it’s important to protect marriage in the state’s Constitution — especially considering its proximity to Massachusetts, the only state to allow homosexual “marriage.”

Apparently Tom Shaheen thinks gay marriage is a strange disease we might catch by hanging out near Massachusetts. Are these people for real?

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