Did they ever really have it?

More excellence from A Softer World.

Sublimity

Now, this might be coming from a biased position, as I already love Corelli, but this particular concerto stirs something deep within my soul.

Incidentally, in comparison to other cultures, this is merely one of the areas where Western Civilization shines brighter than a thousand suns. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schubert, Corelli, Dvorak, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Debussy, Handel, Strauss, Liszt, Vivaldi, Verdi...

Bring it.

Caturday Night Special, Episode 0x35

With officers like these, who needs criminals?

This must be more of the "new professionalism" that Scalia had crowed about:

The suspect said that he was hit three times with a Taser after he was already handcuffed and face-down on the floor. Murphy's investigation found evidence that the suspect was hit twice with the Taser — once in the back before he was handcuffed and once in the buttocks after he was cuffed.

Murphy said the officer who used the Taser -— described as Officer #3 in the report — also coarsely threatened to use the Taser in the man's anus and genitals. Murphy's report says that use of Taser on a man's buttock's does not violate policy in and of itself; the question is whether it was "reasonable and necessary."

If the question remains open to the nature of water-boarding as torture (it is), then how is this within the realm of consideration for "reasonable and necessary" action?

Unsurprisingly, the review yielded these recommendations:

— Use-of-force investigation policy review. Establish specific standards and procedures needed for those tasked with investigating reportable uses of force by Boise police officers. "It is important that such acts be investigated and documented using consistent, best practices," he said.

— Training regarding positional asphyxia. During the arrest in question, the suspect was placed face-down on the ground and handcuffed with his hands behind his back and had the weight of three officers on his body. "None of the officers seemed to be aware of the possible danger posed by positional asphyxia," Murphy said.

More training and additional bureaucracy is the answer to persistent abuse of authority? If anything, it is demonstrably the antithesis of known solutions to the systematic abuse of power.

This is not law, and it is not justice, but both of them will out, legally or otherwise.

The stupid, it burns!

The goggles, they do nothing!

I hate this state.

I love a happy ending

Caturday Night Special, Episode 0x34

Constitutional Law, with Guanotations

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Coercion and Enforcement Syndicate* hands down an edict from on high:

From Tennessee Firearms Association:

The ATF - as expected - has issued a letter in which it disregards the 10th Amendment restrictions on federal power (as seems to be the trend since the late 1930) and has notified Tennessee’s federal firearms dealers that the Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act is meaningless. Essentially, ATF is saying to the state of Tennessee that the 10th Amendment no longer exists.

We expected such from a tyranny that no longer lives within the bounds of its express authority…

Interesting times ahead, folks. Every time the patricians tighten the vise on the citizens, there is an inevitable move towards a grey market, which causes the cycle to begin anew.

I ask again: what part of "the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" is unclear? Furthermore, what makes it an acceptable legal practice to completely ignore the Ninth and Tenth Amendments?

* A new tag has been created.

I'd change the name to "Wolverine Motors"

My hat is off to this man, and his excellent model of salesmanship:

Mark Muller, owner of Max Motors, is upgrading an earlier sales gimmick in which he offered new truck buyers to choose between a $250 gas voucher or a gun voucher. The website says the dealer is giving away guns again "due to popular demand."

"Muller calls the initial deal an overwhelming success," Business Insider reports. "He also says it generates a lot of publicity and really angers 'liberals.'"

Muller tells CNN he is won't be handing out the free weapons personally but will give buyers a voucher to use at a gun store.

The AK-47 isn't typically a "precision" rifle, but the name has universal recognition, and the ZOMG-factor of getting one (via voucher) with one's new truck should not be discounted. To the contrary, it seems to be working out for Mr. Muller just fine.

Personally, I'd rather have the extra cash from buying a used truck (a depreciating asset of flexible value), then use the surplus to buy several quality firearms and corresponding ammunition by the case, but that's just me.

Yet another argument against universal suffrage

Stand back! They're going to try Science!

With the monstrous weapons man already has, humanity is in danger of being trapped in this world by its moral adolescents. Our knowledge of science has clearly outstripped our capacity to control it. We have many men of science, but too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon On The Mount. Man is stumbling blindly through a spiritual darkness while toying with the precarious secrets of life and death.

The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. This is our twentieth century's claim to distinction and to progress.

- General Omar Bradley, November 10, 1948

Caturday Night Special, Episode 0x33

This is always apropos to my state of being: failing to plan is planning to fail, and that includes planning to have the failure of failure-planning planned.

Waiting

While at a birthday party last weekend, some time after we had declined to give a snort about fireworks that may or may not be seen from the roof (we pondered, drinks in hand, of questionable ability to do so, had we the desire), but sometime before the inevitable close of the evening (sometime the next morning), we sat at the fire-pit, conversing. We, meaning one of the more elderly men (young in spirit, though, and try convincing him otherwise) and myself.

We quibbled about our gardens at length, and about everything else that had passed since we last spoke. Inevitably, the discussion shifted to the state of my personal life. Specifically, the notable lack of a better-looking, better-dressed, better-behaved complement to my shambling mess (to complete that tired old Victorian stigma), complete with lady-parts and parasol.

I shrugged. "The last one didn't work out", I offered. "I owed her better than wasting her time with something that wasn't about to work."

He nodded, and swirled the quasi-alchemical mixture in his Mason jar, as if attempting to read it like so many tea leaves.

At length he said, "You need to find yourself a cute little waitress somewhere and settle down."

I was immediately taken with the image, and had nothing further to say beyond, "Yep."

Ask about his Comeback Tour

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure:

Michael Jackson will be buried this week– without his brain. As his family tries to finalise details for the King of Pop’s funeral on Tuesday they have been told it will be held back for tests.

They faced the grim choice of waiting up to three weeks for Jackson’s brain to be returned to them or go ahead and bury him without it – which they have decided to do.

I think we all know why, though.

Caturday Night Special, Episode 0x32

Happy Secession Day, everyone. (Once again, with feeling!)

The term "laws" lends them respect undue

People crushed by law, have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much to hope and nothing to lose, will always be dangerous.

- Edmund Burke, Letter to Charles James Fox, Oct. 8, 1777

Perhaps we should send unicorns and rainbows

As the saying goes, the truth will out:

Britain's violent crime record is worse than any other country in the European union, it has been revealed.

Official crime figures show the UK also has a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S. and even South Africa - widely considered one of the world's most dangerous countries.

What a devastatingly obvious result: disarming an entire nation, flooding it with third-world immigrants that have zero desire to assimilate into the native culture, and cracking down on the native citizenry in ways that would make the old Soviet Politburo green with envy creates a perfect environment for criminal activity.

Don't think it won't happen here.

Subtlety in advertising