Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Iran intends to disconnect from the internet and replace it with a local, "clean" version.

CISPA is the next incarnation of SOPA, burying the copyright provisions behind phony cyber-security concerns. That didn't take long.

RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS:

history concealed carry
history ohio concealed carry
ohio stand your ground
ohio house bill 12 concealed carry passes (Jan 1, 2004–Apr 30, 2004)
ohio house bill 12 concealed carry 2004

How the arrest and acquittal led to the lawsuit.
Four person lawsuit follows arrest of pizza delivery man.
Pizza deliveryman arrested for carrying concealed weapon.

"The appellate court also upheld a lower court's dismissal of the prosecution of a pizza deliveryman who carried a handgun in his waistband for protection while making his deliveries."

Arguments before the Supreme Court.
Ohio Supreme Court upholds concealed carry ban.
Decision based on lawsuit.
On the ban.

"In a 5-2 ruling issued Wednesday morning, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled that the state’s ban does not infringe on the right to bear arms guaranteed by the Ohio Constitution. The ruling keeps Ohio from joining 44 other states that allow citizens to carry hidden guns. Ohio has had some kind of ban on concealed weapons since 1859."

Decision allows open carry.

"Further, the state correctly asserts that the statute leaves open the ability to bear arms by openly carrying a firearm, satisfying the third prong of the test."

History of concealed carry in US from 1976.
Buckeye defense walks in 2003.
Ohio set to pass concealed carry law.
DDN version in text.
Ohio concealed carry law.
Concealed carry passes.
Ohio Supreme Court upholds preemption law.
Ohio legalizes carrying guns in bars.
Concealed carry effect on crime rates.

Taft signed the bill on Jan. 8. The law went into effect on April 8.

SOCIALISM:

Coercive unions kill companies and therefore put workers out of jobs - this is why unions are nearly extinct in the private sector - so of course Ohio would be better off with a right to work law, but it would be even better if we took away all power of coercion from all unions. And government.

ECONOMY:

Gas prices are falling, but that's because of a slowing economy.

TAX AND SPEND:

Great analysis of leviathan government in the US.

"[The federal government] uses contracts, grants, and mandates to state and local governments to hide its true size, thereby creating the illusion that it is smaller than it actually is, and give its departments and agencies much greater flexibility in hiring labor, thereby creating the illusion that the civil-service system is somehow working effectively."

The government doesn't keep records of these contractors on purpose.

"Contractors and grantees do not keep count of their employees, in part because doing so would allow the federal government . . . to estimate actual labor costs."

Add it all up, federal, state and local.

"When we add up the true size of the federal workforce — civil servants, postal workers, military personnel, contractors, grantees, and bailed-out businesses — and add in state- and local-government employees — civil servants, teachers, firefighters, and police officers — we reach the astonishing figure of nearly 40 million Americans employed in some way by government. That means that about 17 percent of the American labor pool — one in every six workers — owes its living to the taxpayer."

Wow. Just wow.

Obama says we must raise taxes on the wealthy to grow the economy, and Obama is clearly an expert on growing the economy.

REGULATION:

Maryland government bans employers from demanding social media passwords. There's no way businesses could get away with this in a competitive market. It's only possible because government interventions in the market has corporatized our economy, severely reducing the number of companies in the marketplace. This is another case of government trying to solve a problem created by government.

EDUCATION:

Federal job training is ineffective while private sector job training is very effective. It sucks that some people need studies to prove things that are obvious with a little thought.

Some organization says that Ohio was last out of the 39 states it surveyed for government funded pre-school quality. But why did they only survey 39 states? And check this out:

"On the benchmarks, which are not based on classroom performance, Ohio met the standard for teacher specialized training and screenings/support services."

Not based on classroom performance? On the other hand, Ohio government was dinged for cutting spending. This survey is a charade that's intended solely to pressure government to spend more.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Real scientists, engineers and astronauts at NASA are fed up with Hansen's fraud.

"49 former NASA scientists and astronauts sent a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden last week admonishing the agency for it’s role in advocating a high degree of certainty that man-made CO2 is a major cause of climate change while neglecting empirical evidence that calls the theory into question."

This is great to see.

Obama's EPA approves gas with 15 percent ethanol which is bad for engines and mileage.

POLICE STATE:

Forensic experts claim screams on 911 tape are not from Zimmerman.

WAR:

Do you think our rulers have made our military lose its way?

"Nebraskans are being informed that some of their brave sons are heading off to Afghanistan to fight AlQaeda help Afghan government officials and farmers improve that country's agriculture. These troops are part of the Nebraska Army National Guard's Afghan Agribusiness Development Team (I'm not making this up)! In the name of "national defense," the Afghans will doubtless be militarily "urged" to purchase farming supplies and resources — with U.S. taxpayer-supplied dollars — from major corporate agribusinesses."

Our government is insane because voters empower it to be.

POLITICS:

Santorum drops out. I wonder how much his daughter's illness played in his decision.

Great Ron Paul Texas ad.

Ron Paul likely to win Missouri delegates. And that's not all.

"Missouri’s results – a shot in the arm for the Paul campaign – have led many observers to conclude that Mr. Paul’s caucus strategy is working better than they had anticipated. His strong performance follows several events in recent weeks that suggest that Ron Paul supporters – energized by the message of limited government and fiscal conservatism – are quickly taking over the leadership of the Republican party at the state and local levels across the country."

Let's hope that's true.

On the great lie of democracy.

"People must be given the impression that, by voting, they are the show; they are steering the ship-of-state. But the corporate-state interests – the political establishment – that actually own the system, are not burdened by such delusions. The entire institutional order – including the state, major corporations, schools and universities, organized religions, and the mainstream media – share a common interest in keeping people subservient to their authority and control. At its most basic level – and as more of us have been learning of late – there are too many trillions of dollars of despoiled wealth, and too much power over the direction of human energy, to permit the establishment to allow preferences or even whims of ordinary people to upset institutional interests. In the words of Emma Goldman, "if voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.""

Every couple of years our rulers allow us a choice between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum, and that fools people into thinking the government works for them, as if there aren't thousands or millions of decisions being made by our rulers every day.

Mexican constitution bans negative political campaigning. The worst rise to the top, and that works great for them.

MEDIA:

Where in the world is the media while Ron Paul is attracting record crowds?

Media self-censorship of black on white crime and sensationalism of white on black crime.

"None of those black-on-white atrocities made anywhere near the news that the Trayvon Martin case made, and it's deliberate. Editors for the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and the Chicago Tribune admitted to deliberately censoring information about black crime for political reasons, in an effort to "guard against subjecting an entire group of people to suspicion.""

...

"Even if the president and his liberal allies in the media and assorted civil rights hustlers don't care much about blacks murdering whites, what about blacks murdering blacks? During a mid-March weekend in Chicago, 49 people were shot, 10 fatally, including a 6-year-old black girl, making for more than 100 murders this year. Philadelphia isn't far behind, with murder clipping along at one a day since the beginning of 2012. Have we heard Obama make a statement about this carnage or that most homicide victims are black and that their murderers are black? No, and we won't, because black-on-black crime, like black-on-white crime, does not fit the liberal narrative of the continuing problem of white racism."

It's all part of the leftist agenda.

I'm not so optimistic that the media will provide reasonable coverage of Ron Paul now that Santorum dropped out. This is where North's argument fails:

"If Gingrich is in second place in the primaries, that benefits the mainstream media. They can try to make it a two-horse race. But that tactic will be obvious. It will not work. The Web will not let them get away with anything like this."

How will the web stop them? I think they'll talk about Romney and Gingrich then mention Paul in passing no matter whether Paul is leading Gingrich or not.

LOCAL:

ODOT short $1.6 billion out of $1.8 billion for road projects.

"The 2012 road construction season officially launched Tuesday with 800 transportation preservation projects throughout the state, said Ohio Department of Transportation Director Jerry Wray."

We have a road construction season? Is that like baseball season?

Local governments looking for new ways to steal people's money.

MISC:

Google's ChromeOS to compete with Windows and OS X.