You remember Michael Bellesiles, right? I know Clayton Cramer does. Jim Lindgren notes that something is awfully fishy about some of his new stories. I have to admit, that if it turns out that Bellesiles is lying again, I would almost have to wonder if it’s pathological. Surely by now he knows everything he publishes is going to be gone over with a fine tooth comb. Megan McArdle is skeptical that Bellesiles would be so bold. It seems hard for me to believe he’d bend the truth again unless he had some kind of issue.
Category: Boneheads
Home Depot Supplying NYC Criminals With Illegal Weapons?
The knives generally fall into one of two categories: switchblades and gravity knives. On a switchblade, the blade pops out at the simple flip of a switch; with gravity knives, the blades come out by a simple flick of the wrist. Carrying either of those kinds of knives is a crime under New York State law, prosecutors said. A spokesman for Home Depot, Stephen Holmes, said the company did not know that the knives were illegal in New York. As soon as prosecutors contacted the company, it immediately removed the knives from its two Manhattan stores and is removing them from all locations in the state, the spokesman said.
“These are common knives,†Mr. Holmes said, adding that contractors and homeowners often used them “for various home-improvement projects.â€
“We simply didn’t know that they were being used for any other purpose,†he said.
They weren’t being used for any other purpose, and Home Depot isn’t selling switchblades. This is a case of New York City’s District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. being a hysterical ninny. These people have completely lost their minds. You’re trying to regulate sharp pointy things! Think about it man!
UPDATE: Holy crap. Watch the video. To demonstrate the knives are dangerous, they show one salesman saying “I’ve almost taken my fingers off with those!” Knives can be dangerous. Who knew?!? I’d hate to think how a New York Times investigative reporter would deal with being sent to culinary school. Just think of how dangerous that must be?
Bill Maher a Racist?
Apparently he wants a real black president, which to him means someone who acts like a thug:
“I thought when we elected a black president, we were going to get a black president. You know, this [BP oil spill] is where I want a real black president. I want him in a meeting with the BP CEOs, you know, where he lifts up his shirt so you can see the gun in his pants. That’s — (in black man voice) ‘we’ve got a motherfu**ing problem here?’ Shoot somebody in the foot.”
Will he get a pass on this from his friends in the media? I’m surprised people thought that was funny.
Glock Thrown Out With the Trash
Apparently one man’s super-secret hiding place for his pistol was so good, even his wife didn’t know, which turned into hilarity when she took the trash out. I wonder how many years a Glock can remain functional in a landfill?
Free Beer! Free Our Beer!
There are multiple fronts in the war on free beer in Pennsylvania – free beer in the liberty sense, not in the free sample sense.
First, the issue of grocery stores selling beer was heard in the Supreme Court yesterday. See, grocery stores are banned from selling beer in Pennsylvania. We’re only allowed to buy beer in bars/cafes no more than 2 six-packs at a time or from distributers who can only sell massive freakin’ boxes of the stuff. It’s for the children – and to prevent alcoholism. I’m not sure how forcing people to walk into a bar or buying in bulk reduces alcoholism rates, but it’s a case that has been made by proponents of the current system. But then Glorious Wegmans got all uppity on the distributers. They realized that each of their grocery stores has a cafe. Food and beverages are sold for on-site consumption in one corner of their store, and Wegmans decided they would be happy to allow beer to be consumed as well. No reason you can’t enjoy a good beer with your pizza, right? In order to comply with state bureaucrats, Wegmans put up fences and gates around the new beer sections, and all purchases must be made at special registers, separately from the rest of your groceries.
The Wegmans system is by no means convenient for beer lovers, it’s just one less trip in the car. If you don’t visit the store in the right order, you still have to make multiple trips into the store through special doors. It is stupid, but at least it reduces our carbon footprint or something. But the beer distributers demand higher carbon footprints and mandatory bulk sales or skeezy bar visits for all! And so the Supreme Court will decide we lowly taxpayers can be trusted to buy our beer in a building with unprepared food. John Micek reports that there is no anticipated date for a decision and encourages folks to drink up while they can.
In other news, a hearing on the overzealous “unregistered” beer raids was held this week with some surprising and not-so-surprising results. Because bureaucrats don’t have to pass any sort of literacy test, they actually stole a bunch of beer that was perfectly legal and registered. But there were some bottles which were non registered, so the whole fiasco hasn’t gone away. Oh, and not to mention it involved the state police who were fully armed and acting like it was a drug raid.
Philly Republican Rep. John Taylor went further.
While questioning [State Police Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement chief Major John] Lutz, Taylor expressed support for the state police but said, “In this one you and your unit were wrong . . . they knew when they were going in there they did not need four armed agents. A teenager with a clipboard could have done what they did.”
Taylor called the bust “an over-use of force,” and said, regarding priorities, that “those of us from Philadelphia have plenty [other things] for you to do.”
Lutz shot back that there was unregistered beer.
“So what! So what!” shouted Taylor. “Use a clerk to do that!
I say cut his funding. If he has fully armed cops to spare for a job that could take a recent college grad with no training and a clipboard (who would probably do a better job of identifying beer anyway), then it’s time to start making cuts.
Also interesting is the fact that they were actually questioned as to why state police stole lawful beer from the bars before actually checking to see if it is registered.
Sen. John Pippy, R-Allegheny County, asked why they’d seized brew before confirming it’s unregistered?
“Historically, the beer was always seized,” answered Lutz.
Yeah, or un-kegged with axes.
Got that? They can steal your car before they actually make an effort to find out if you really bought it. And if they screw it up, too bad. It’s on your dime.
Unfortunately, lawmakers being what they are, their solution to avoid this in the future is more regulation. They want breweries (who are supposed to register the beer) to start putting special barcodes on all beer so that they can send in a kid with a scanner who doesn’t have to think to check on beer registration status. For the big breweries, they will wholeheartedly endorse it. They can afford to make the changes without a huge hit to the bottom line. Smaller breweries, not so much.
It’s time to dismantle the entire system. No more regulatory capture, no more favors for unions, no more creating monopoly industries, no more.
Video of Arizona Wal-Mart ND
A few days ago I linked to a story of an Arizona man who is facing charges after his pistol discharged in a Wal-Mart. Now we have the video where you can see this guy walking around the store, gun in hand, and drawing the firearm, dropping the magazine, and putting it back. The video also shows some other highly odd behavior.
I’m going to go out on the limb here and suggest this guy either has some mental or developmental problems. It would seem he was wearing a Department of Corrections uniform shirt, and attended training with them for a brief period of time.
This guy is facing six counts of endangerment, which is a felony in Arizona if it involves a “substantial risk of imminent death.”  I would say this case pretty clearly fits that bill, so this guy is going to be a prohibited person if he’s convicted on just one of the counts, unless the prosecutor wants to plead him down to a misdemeanor. I don’t think that should be the case, considering we have video of his gratuitous gun handling. The evidence would appear to be strong enough there should be no need for a plea deal.
Don’t Play With it in Public
Southwest’s PR Nightmare
So anyone who has ever flown Southwest with a particularly gregarious flight attendant knows that the airline is pretty fast and loose with what they allow their staff to say on the PA system – usually in a very good way with humor and spirit injected into the announcements. As someone with a friend who had family working for Southwest, I know some of the amusing antics that are supposed to entertain, but are also used to convey relevant information to the flight. (Example: “This is a non-smoking flight and you may not tamper with the smoke detectors. However, if you must smoke, you may step out onto the wing and become our feature film, Gone with the Wind.)
Little did we know that the Southwest definition of amusing antics included electioneering for animal rights groups trying to shut down hunting and farming.
HumaneWatch has a story of a flight to Ohio on Thursday where a flight attendant welcomed the passengers to the ground by promoting HSUS’s website in favor of a ballot initiative there. As the swarm of condemnation started, Southwest released a statement saying they don’t condone the actions of the flight attendant. Great. But I want to know what policy Southwest had on the books that made the flight attendant believe that electioneering via the PA system was acceptable practice.
It seems to me that Southwest could maintain a fairly open policy about being friendly on the intercom while still saying somethings are off limits. Flight attendants have a captive audience where customers cannot immediately get up and leave if the crew are the ones misbehaving. It shouldn’t be a stretch for airline to tell their staff that they leave their politics at home when flying.
It’s a good thing for Southwest that the Supreme Court opened up the campaign finance laws for corporations recently, otherwise I would be inquiring as to the fair market value of such political ads on a captive audience forced to listen to the crew by federal law. I’d hate to think that Southwest wouldn’t report such a donation.
New HSUS Sponsored Dog Food
Fresh from Uruguay, you too can turn your dog into a vegetarian. Nevermind that dogs are carnivores. Terrierman’s Daily Dose has the low down on the food, which is sponsored by the anti-hunting animal rights group Humane Society of the United States. If I were a dog, and my owners fed me this crap, I think I’d kill them in their sleep and eat them. I would argue a dog that did that ought not be put down. I’d understand.
The only real disappointment is, though it’s certified USDA organic, it is not, in fact, Vegan, since it contains vitamins found only in animal products. Good thing too, since I’m pretty sure Vegan dog food would kill your pooch. Hell, I think this stuff might too.
Does it Include a Beaver?
An environmental group has come up with a headline-grabbing attention whore scheme innovative new way to address the issues of endangered animals and human overpopulation that will be sure to show tangible results.
The solution to these major problems? Condoms with endangered animal-themed packages.
Because clearly some guy in need of a condom fast is going to take the time to think about the merits of the overpopulation concerns and how humans impact the environment of the endangered Fresno Kangaroo Rat.