Bob Tisdale has a rebuttal to their latest nonsense.
[Update a while later]
Note that we seem to have attracted a cowardly anonymous (and apparently not very bright) troll in comments, who seems unable to address the actual content of this post.
Gun Control
The great fizzle:
…the assault weapons ban has been deep-sixed by Democrats in the Senate. Same with any limit on the size of magazines. The argument now is all about increasing the reach of background checks, although any bill that can pass the Senate and the House will be much less extensive than the president or his supporters would like.
The gun control debate has shown the president again to be hopelessly detached as a legislative mechanic and ineffectual as a shaper of public opinion. Before writing rhetorical checks that his own party’s majority leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, couldn’t cash, the president might have at least consulted with the wily old son-of-a-gun about what was plausible and adjusted accordingly. He might have taken into consideration Reid’s ribbon-cutting ceremony with National Rifle Association honcho Wayne LaPierre at the Clark County Shooting Park in Las Vegas in 2010.
Once again, we’re saved from the fecklessness of the electorate by his incompetence.
Real Hunting Groups
Versus fake ones.
What does it say about your political agenda that you have to resort to lies and political subterfuge to get it passed? Unfortunately, the media eat it up.
Humans To Mars
A conference, in early May. What I find interesting is who is not on the schedule. Check out the “Z”s.
I may try to raise money for a publicity event there for my book.
Stray Cancer Cells
A device that finds them in the blood. Early.
Fusion Propulsion
Are we on the verge of a breakthrough? Let’s hope so, but I’ll believe it when I see it. It’s a game changer if it happens.
Free Speech
A victory, in western Michigan:
Van Den Heuvel told National Review Online after the hearing today, “a real pitched battle with the township” that took almost three hours, that the defense laid out a variety of arguments, but emphasized that the county’s statude [sic] was invalid because it privileged commercial over political speech. They argued that the measure, and Verduin’s ticket, amounts to “selective enforcement,” since even the government’s attorney couldn’t explain to the judge what the ordinance exactly meant. Van Den Heuvel explains that, at one point, “they were saying to the judge, you can’t understand this.” The township’s lawyer at one point admitted to the judge that Meijer’s trucks could have as large a message as they liked displayed on the side of their vehicles, but Verduin’s trailers, in order to be legal, would have to be kept out of sight, like in a barn.
Tar. Feathers.
Redford’s Latest
It’s not just awful politics, but a terrible movie. I wonder what Ebert would have thought about it?
Gun Owners
…turning them into felons. I doubt if this would pass Constitutional muster.
Fortunately, I don’t think that Schumer’s fascist nonsense will get through the House, even if it somehow survives the Senate.
[Update a few minutes later]
Link fixed now, sorry.
Redefining America (And Space Policy)
Larry Greenfield writes that those who prefer tyranny are winning. Unfortunately, like many conservatives, he doesn’t understand what’s going on with space policy:
American innovation both promoted and benefited from the space race. Today, Mr. Obama has lowered his sights, cut NASA spending, and opposed lunar exploration and continued human spaceflight.
This is simply untrue. The administration hasn’t cut NASA spending — the Congress has, on a bi-partisan basis. And while the administration did shut down the disastrous Constellation program whose stated purpose was to get us back to the moon, it had no real prospects of doing so. They have not “opposed continued human spaceflight.” They have repeatedly requested funding increases for commercial crew, the only NASA program with any chance of getting Americans to orbit on American rockets in this decade, and Congress has repeatedly cut the funding for it. One can argue about how effective the administration’s plans will be, but to say that they oppose human spaceflight is simply false as a matter of objective fact. In fact, in its actions of wasting billions on an underfunded, unneeded new rocket, and starving of funds the programs actually needed to get humans beyond earth orbit, one could say that it is Congress, including many of the Republicans within it, that is objectively opposing continued human spaceflight.