A Dixie Carpetbagger

The decision may have come down by now.  I can only hope– and pray– that it’ll be favorable.

Massad Ayoob has links to a group of podcasts and interviews (including John Stossel’s show from this week) concerning the case.

Joe Huffman quotes justice Scalia from the Heller decision.  To paraphrase:

We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country, and we take seriously the concerns raised by the many amici who believe that prohibition of handgun ownership is a solution. The Constitution leaves [them] a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns… [...] But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home. [...] it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.

Maybe we can take one more step towards true freedom today.

The following is a timeline of the controversy over the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court.

Read the rest of this entry »

Later on today, I have posts coming up about Elena Kagan and the MacDonald case.

For now, just keep Brigid in your prayers… she has pneumonia.

I grieved my Lord from day to day,
I scorned His love so full and free,
And though I wandered far away,
My mother’s prayers have followed me.

Refrain:
I’m coming home, I’m coming home,
To live my wasted life anew,
For mother’s prayers have followed me,
Have followed me the whole world through.

O’er desert wild, o’er mountain high,
A wanderer I chose to be;
A wretched soul, condemned to die,
Still mother’s prayers have followed me.

He turned my darkness into light,
This blessed Christ of Calvary!
I’ll praise His name both day and night,
That mother’s prayers have followed me.

——-

One of the verses that ties to this hymn is… touching to me.  “When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also.” (2 Timothy 1:5)  I can imagine Timothy reading this letter and reflecting back on his mother and grandmother, tearing up a bit as he did so.  I know I did while reading that verse, and reading the words of the hymn.  Oh, thank You, Lord, that mother’s prayers have followed me…

Remember Ms. “But Arizona doesn’t have a border with Mexico!” I mentioned in the last post?  I found out via a commenter at Wyatt’s that Senator Kyl sent her a letter.  He included a map.  I can only imagine that said map looked like this:

Scene: bar interior, nighttime.  A woman waves at a guy dressed as a Snickers bar, and is then tackled by her girlfriend, who is dressed as a sumo wrestler.  At the far end of the bar, two men wearing brush hats and drinking Fosters slam their drinks down, stand up, and shoot each other in the buttocks.  A woman stands up from one of the tables and begins yelling “But Arizona doesn’t have a border with Mexico!“  Two friends are sharing a meal in one of the booths when several people wearing lab coats come in, grab one of them and drags them away.  A gentleman wearing a three-piece suit, narrow tie and holding a lit cigarette walks into view.

Rod Serling: You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of good and evil but of morons; a journey into a monstrous land whose boundaries are that of stupidity — Next stop, the Nannystate World.

Geographically Illiterate Woman: Oh… My… Gawd… is that a LIT CIGARETTE?  You MONSTER, put that out!  (Begins mock coughing)  Oh noes, I’m gettin’ CAN-SUH!

RS: (Puts cigarette in mouth and takes a drag) You have got to be kidding me.  Less than 35 years, and it’s come down to this?  What’s next, you gonna tell me that we elected some henpecked college boy as President?

Everyone in the bar breaks eye contact and begins shifting in their chairs.  The bartender lifts the remote and turns the T.V. to CNN, where an Obama speech is on.

RS: And I thought Nixon was bad.

A 28 year old woman is running for state rep in Tennessee.  She… she posed for racy pictures!  When she was 23!  TWENTY-THREE!  I hate to show you such… filth… but here’s one of the pictures she posed for.  Scandalous!

No, not really.  I have a few female friends who model, and that picture is tame.  As in, that went in the lobby.  One of my friends has a picture where she was modeling a black strapless dress and had a… wardrobe malfunction.  The picture was used (in a cropped form) in a few ad campaigns.  Heck, that picture’s tame compared to some of the pictures my friends take at the lake.

I find it more scandalous that she was pregnant at 15.  Since the picture’s a 0.5 on the Scandal-meter, the fact that she’s 28 with a 13 year old measures a whopping 1.0.  Seriously, Teddy Kennedy kills a chick, Bill Clinton gets hummers in the Oval Office, and Blago tried to sell a Senate seat… and this is supposed to be scandalous?  Pshaw!

All I wanna know is… if she wins, will she do a Maxim shoot?  (chuckle)

(H/T Uncle)

I’d love to see a pro-gun group do a parody of this:

“You don’t need a gun to defend your kid… because they should already have one.”

(Scene cuts to little Suzy in a parking lot, BIG BAD GUY about to grab her when she spins around and draws) “STOP!  FREEEEZE!” (Sounds of gunfire are heard)

(Scene cuts to Suzy sitting on her car hood, pointing a revolver at a wounded BIG BAD GUY holding his belly and bleeding.  She’s calling 911 on her cell)  “Hello, 911?  I’d like to report an attempted kidnapping.  Yeah, he’s still here.  Nope, he’s down on the ground bleeding.  Okay, I’ll stay on the line.  Can you have the officers grab something to eat?  I’m starving.  Oh wait, I got a beep, hold on a second…”

——-

Seriously?  You don’t need a (big, bad, scary) gun to defend your kid… because you can get an Amber Alert?  What’s that saying again?  You know, the one about the moral superiority of a murdered rape victim?

(H/T Breda)

From the New York Times:

One day next month every student at Loyola Law School Los Angeles will awake to a higher grade point average. But it’s not because they are all working harder. The school is retroactively inflating its grades, tacking on 0.333 to every grade recorded in the last few years. The goal is to make its students look more attractive in a competitive job market.

From the Washington Post:

The Marine Corps has discharged 13 junior officers training at Quantico for cheating on a land navigation test [...] They were taking an intense, six-month training course for new officers and were trying to learn how to lead a platoon through rugged terrain. They were sent with a map and compass to a wooded area on the base and instructed to write down numbers painted on boxes left there. The accused wrote down numbers from the previous year’s test…

The defense for both events?  Everyone’s doing it! Which, of course, doesn’t make me feel a bit better.  That just means that there’s more “A+” students out there who are actually A- (or B+, or C-) students graded on a curve.

I also admire the Marine OCS cadets for their sheer chutzpah– they’re going to lead people in combat, and they don’t even have the common courtesy to learn basic skills?  What happens when they’re in a war zone and have to bring their squad back in through a minefield… at night… with no GPS gear?  How many letters to parents will they have to right before it dawns on them that this happened because of their mental laziness?

(NYT article via Jennifer, WaPo article via Laginappe’s Guy)

The Democrat disaster preparedness plan:

1. Don’t have a disaster.

2.  And if you do have a disaster…

3.  DIE QUICKLY.

“George Bush Barack Obama doesn’t care about black disabled people.”

I spent Hurricane Opal in a shelter with my disabled grandmother– so this upsets me a bit.  No plans… whatsoever?  Not even having the Social Security and Medicare offices fax the local Emergency Operation Centers a list of people who might need help?

(H/T Hope n’ Change)