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Section 311 of US Code Title 10, “Militia: composition and classes”

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

Randy Barnett explores the role of the unorganized militia in fighting terrorism.

According to press reports, a passenger helped subdue the terrorist who was attempting to bring down Northwest #253. This again highlights the importance of the unorganized militia in asymetric warfare. In Saved by the Militia, I offered this analysis in the wake of the success of the general militia on United Airlines #93 in defending Washington from terrorist attack on 9/11:

The characterization of these heroes as members of the militia is not just the opinion of one law professor. It is clearly stated in Federal statutes. Perhaps you will not believe me unless I quote Section 311 of US Code Title 10, entitled, “Militia: composition and classes” in its entirety (with emphases added):

“(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.

(b) The classes of the militia are —

(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and

(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.”

I’m occasionally guilty of saying that the National Guard is not part of the militia, because it’s part of the Army. Now I know better.

Read the rest of Barnett’s article for a partial explanation of why the unorganized militia is also crucial to the security of a free state.

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Posted in Bill of Rights, Constitution, Little Yellow Sticky, Military, Militia, Right to Keep and Bear Arms | Comments Off

When I Said “Boughs”….

Thursday, December 24th, 2009

…I meant “bunches of green leafy twigs”, not “heavy dead branches”; and when I said “holly”, I didn’t mean “pine”; and when I said “halls”, I didn’t mean “my car”; and most of all, when I said “deck”? I meant “hang decoratively, with care, even”, not, most definitely not “BASH A BLOODY GREAT HOLE IN THE REAR WINDOW!”

Ah, yes, traditional Houston holiday weather: rain, wind, and flying debris.
BoughsOfPine-w450

This has been floating around for a few years, but I still love it:
All My Liberal Friends:
Please accept with no obligation, implied or explicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2010, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

To All My Conservative Friends:
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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Posted in Dammit!, Laugh Dammit!, Me | 1 Comment »

McDonald v. Chicago Briefs

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

I doubt this case will collect anything like the number of briefs that Heller did, but it’s going to be an interesting fight nevertheless, and the issue involved — whether or not the Fourteenth amendment means anything — actually has much broader application than the 2nd amendment fight in Heller.

Anyway, the ABA is collecting briefs here.

Via Arms and the Law.

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Posted in Bill of Rights, Constitution, Law, Little Yellow Sticky, McDonald | Comments Off

Mousies

Saturday, November 14th, 2009

I finally broke down and bought a mouse for my new laptop. I had planned to force myself to become proficient with the touchpad, and I got a lot better at it, but in the end it became a nuisance while doing any kind of extended typing. My thumbs tended to rest there, and triggered all kinds of unwanted events.

I ended up with a Logitech V450 Nano Cordless Laser Mouse with the “plug and forget Nanoreceiver”, a USB unit so tiny that I can leave it plugged in all the time. (Or at least, that’s the advertising claim. I’m still concerned that it might provide enough leverage to eventually damage the laptop jack.)

There’s a storage jack for it inside the mouse, but you have to remove the battery cover. Better than nothing, but.

My Toshiba laptop has a tiny button just above the touchpad that turns it off, which makes using the mouse very convenient.

Mousing action is fine, and I think this might be the good combination.

Hey, FTC? As always, none of your damn business what may or may not have gone on between Logitech and me. Please feel free to stab yourselves with used mucking-out forks.

Not, of course, that they or any one else cares about my pissant little blog, but it’s the principle of the thing, something some folks seem to have a problem with. Means, ends, and all that.

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Posted in Computers, Cool Stuff, Me | 2 Comments »

The Science of Self-Control

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

This looks like a pretty interesting article; although I got bored about halfway through, I did manage to finish.

If they really want to reach people like me, they need to put the top three tips to self control in the lede, instead of at the end:

  1. For important tasks, leverage peer pressure and your social goals to overcome ego depletion
  2. Plan out ahead of time not to succumb to specific predictable temptations
  3. Avoid hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), for example by making a point to not skip meals

A more complicated question is whether to seek out difficult dilemmas to strengthen your medium-term self-control skills, or whether to avoid them to prevent short-term ego depletion. The obvious partial answer to this will be the subject of tomorrow’s post. In the meantime, the lolcats can wait until you’ve fixed that bug.

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Posted in Cool Stuff, Me | Comments Off

Light Posting

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

Just a reminder, my current circumstances do not afford me the time I need to write, nor the Internet access I need to collect material and post. I hope that will change, soon, but for now it’s out of my hands.

Posted in Dammit!, Me, Meta | 1 Comment »

In The Lap of the Gods

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

I’m typing this on my new Toshiba laptop, a Satellite A505-S6980, which is running Windows 7.

Purchased from the Best Buy in Green Bay, WI. I undoubtably paid a premium, but frankly, I’ve never bought a laptop before, know absolutely nothing about them, and the saleslady who helped gave very good advice. I didn’t have to wait for delivery, and I got an extended service plan which covers me when I spill a drink into the keyboard or break the screen.

I also plumped for the Microsoft Home & Student version of Office, which was only $70 to permanently license the pre-installed trial version.

I’m probably going to go ahead and get the Pro version, because I need to be able to run Access. (Still far and away the most flexible and powerful database design tool I’ve tried. It might not be what I’d choose for a high-performance enterprise solution, but for my needs, it works great.) That’ll be $250 to upgrade at Amazon.

At 2.2 GHz dual core, with 4GB memory, it’s more powerful than my desktop, running Ubuntu.

Still getting used to the keyboard.

Still getting used to the touchpad. I hate touchpads, and was hoping for a clit-mouse, but didn’t see one.

I wish the display lid was a little stiffer; it flexes too easily and feels flimsy.

Win7 is pretty nice, actually, although there’s a couple of things that I haven’t figured out how to do yet. (No easy right-click way to put up a new wall-paper, for instance. Yes, I see how to do it, it’s just not quite as convenient. It seems you can’t set the display behavior of particular folders as you could in Win XP; if there’s no workaround, that’s bad. I can’t get the Details view to show me a column listing the number of files in each subfolder.)

Again, there’s probably fixes for all this; I just haven’t found them yet. And it looks like there are other cool features as well to compensate.

I don’t often drop more than a thousand bucks at a throw, and it was hungry work. I pigged out at Grazies, a local Italian place. Their “ITALIAN SAUSAGE FETTUCCINE” was perfectly spiced, excellent flavor embellished with a touch of heat. I ate too much, and didn’t have enough room for as much of their “WOOD-FIRED APPLE CRISP COBBLER” as I would have liked, but managed to stop myself soon enough to have a good lunch-sized serving to bring home.

My waitress mostly stayed out of my way and let me enjoy my food without the intrusive chatter and false friendliness that’s so common. Instead, she simply paid attention, and delivered what I wanted when I wanted it.

If you’re in Green Bay, highly recommended.

Oh, and FTC?

It’s none of your fucking business whether I got anything from Toshiba, Best Buy, Microsoft, or Grazies to write this little review, so eat my perfectly-seasoned shit and die in slow writhing agony.

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Posted in Computers, Me, Windows | 7 Comments »

A Word of Advice, Howard

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

They’ll yield faster on Lover’s Lane if you learn to undo the clasps in back.

Yield Sign at Howard and Bralick Way

Yield Sign at Howard Lane and Bralick Way


[Second in my series of cheap double-entendre road sign photos. Yes, I understand I am perpetrating jokes which have been told by every freshman high school boy in town since these signs were, ahem, erected. And, yes, the sign really does say "Howard Lane". I'll take a better picture on the next sunny day. I wonder if the drivers going by as I point my camera shake their heads at my obvious newbiehood.]

Posted in Laugh Dammit!, Me, Photography | Comments Off

Hustlin’ and Bustlin’

Sunday, September 27th, 2009

LogAndCream002sq450jIntersection of Logtown and Cream City, Wisconsin.

[Note: Not associated with Milwaukee, which is far, far away. There are actually are a few buildings in this Cream City.]

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Posted in Cool Stuff, Me, Photography | 1 Comment »

Mandatory Sporadic

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

I’ll only be able to post sporadically for the next month or two, possibly only on weekends.

I apologize to all those who can no more start their day without my golden words than they could without coffee.

There’s nothing like a good hot pot of coffee to get you going in the morning. Sure, I’ve tried other enemas….

— Emo Phillips

From the If Anybody Really Cares Department:

WordPress sometimes counts more comments than I can see posted. On the other hand, when I make a comment on such a post, it doesn’t always bump the counter. I’ll investigate when I have time. For now, if you’ve commented and I haven’t replied, I may not have seen your post, or I may have replied but the count didn’t bump.

I’d very much appreciate if readers would tell me if they’ve noticed this happening, or if you’ve tried to comment, but your comment has not appeared.

Posted in Me, Meta, Word Press | Comments Off

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