LonelyMachines

Illinois State Senator Donne Trotter has long opposed the idea of allowing civilian concealed carry in his state. During a 1995 hearing on the matter, he had this to say: There's a lot of individuals out here who do look at this as an opportunity to be that vigilante, to be that support person to the police officer who isn't there, which is one of the things we addressed just yesterday (...) What you're doing here just basically creating part-time police officers who have not gone through the extensive training, who have not had the psychological evaluations, who will be getting out there who feel now that they're--they are stronger, they are badder, they are tougher because they have this nine-shooter on their hip. ...and on Wednesday, he was arrested for attempting to bring a concealed handgun through security at O'Hare airport. This one really speaks for itself, so I'll just leave it at that.

It looks like the anti-gunners will do anything to push that "conversation" they keep saying they want with us. Today's example is a demand by Brady Campaign poster boy Steve Israel to renew the Undetectable Firearms A ct. Signed into law by President Reagan in 1988, the Act was a response to fears over newer methods of fabricating firearms parts. At the time, there was great concern about the polymer frame of the new Glock pistol, and the possibility that it could be invisible to airport metal detectors  (1) . It sunset after ten years in 1998. It was then resurrected and signed in 2003  by President Bush (2) as Public Law 108-174. It is set to expire again next year. So, why the big push for renewal? Folks are using 3d printers to make guns . You might think this is illegal, but it's not. The Gun Control Act is fairly silent on this, prohibiting only the assembly of NFA items or "non-sporting" guns made from imported parts. If you make them with the spec...

Dave Brubeck passed away one day short of his 90th birthday. Most people know him for "Take Five," which might be the most popular piece of music ever written in 5/4. One of his talents was performing in odd time signatures, and he was able to do so with grace and flair. Time Out is one of the best-selling jazz records in history, and rightfully so. The follow-up was Time Further Out , which I consider to be an even better record, and his 1963 Carnegie Hall performance is phenomenal. He was never the biggest revolutionary on the scene, but he never aspired to that. He was a tremendous influence on pianists and composers who followed, and he leaves us with a splendid body of recorded work.

I'm not sure why CNN hired this hack. He used to run the Daily Mirror , a British newspaper a scant step above tabloids in credibility. In 2004, they ran photographs purporting to show the Queen's Lancashire Regiment abusing and torturing Iraqi prisoners. It was a big deal. It made the cover of Time . It put Morgan on the map. There was one small problem, however. The pictures were fake. In the ensuing fallout,  Morgan was fired . To this day, he has not apologized. So, now he's all over CNN, and he has a global reach for his opinions. He has gone on record supporting Bob Costas' prime-time television remarks on gun control, and he now thinks he understands the Bill of Rights. If I'm to follow his interpretation of it, the 1st Amendment doesn't cover the mimeograph or the internet. The 4th Amendment doesn't apply to wiretaps or surveillance drones. By his logic, the 8th Amendment provides no protection from kneecapping, electrocution, or waterboarding, since...

Saturday, a guy killed his girlfriend, then made a show of ending his own life in front of a bunch of folks. It's horrible and senseless, but because he happened to be a guy who got paid gobs of money to play a game, it became national news. At times like this, we need pretty people to tell us what to think. As we know from such luminaries as Bono and Janeane Garofalo, popular entertainers are the most qualified to do this. Thing is, they don't know much about football, so we need a guy who gets paid gobs of money to talk about the people who get paid gobs of money to play the game. Enter Bob Costas. He has a truly epic toupee, but he's not much of a deep thinker. When he decided he had to say something on the matter , he chose to quote Jason Whitlock, another guy who gets paid gobs of money to blog about...well, you get the drift. Since the writer in question (and by extension, Costas) chose to blame guns, the whole thing turned into a burbling crockpot of ermagherd.

Iain Banks' Culture series doesn't lend itself to easy summations. Entire essays have been written on the world he set up, so I won't go into much detail. Essentially, Banks has created a liberal utopia on a galactic scale. Given a limitless supply of easy energy and near-omnipotent manufacturing technology, the citizens of the Culture want for nothing material. Tedious administration is done by artificial intelligence, leaving normal folks to live their lives as they please. In such a society, property is an archaic concept, something that is even reflected in their language . With scarcity removed from the equation, the only real crime is coercion. Still, every society hits a wall eventually. In Banks' world, self-destruction or a collapse into barbarism is unlikely, and the end point for civilizations is simple ennui. What do you do when you just feel like you're going through the motions, with nothing left to contribute? Well, there's always suicide.