Requiring ID To Vote Is A Violation of One's Civil Rights

But not to buy ammunition?  The April 4, 2013 Sacramento Bee reports that the lower house of the California legislature has approved a bill to restrict ammunition sales.  Some of the restrictions are not spectacularly unreasonable: ID to buy ammo (because local governments with such requirements have apparently found people who are prohibited from gun ownership buying ammo -- a pretty clear indication that someone is illegally in possession).  Others are a bit mystifying, such as requiring reporting of purchases of more than 3000 rounds, except by police officers.  (How many cops are buying ammunition in those quantities for official purposes?  Isn't the department buying it?)  But the biggest issue here is why is requiring you to show ID to vote a problem -- but not a problem when buying ammo?

More Wheels Under Big Bertha

I thought that I was going to have to remove Big Bertha from the platform it currently sits upon to put more wheels under it -- but I was inspired.  Instead, I drilled and tapped four more 1/2"-13 holes in the platform (and yes, if you tap holes from the top, it is identical from a threading standpoint to tapping them from the bottom).  Then I disassembled the casters so that I could screw the caster housings into the holes, and reassembled the casters once in place. 

I have not rolled it out onto the chipseal to see how it does, because the sky was pretty cloudy this evening, but at least rolling it on the concrete in the telescope garage, it seems to move much more freely than it did on only four wheels.

Can't Sleep

The April 2, 2013 Guardian reports:

About one in four Americans suspect that President Barack Obama might be the antichrist, more than a third believe that global warming is a hoax and more than half suspect that a secretive global elite is trying to set up a New World Order, according to a poll released on Tuesday.

That's ridiculous.  The Antichrist will be competent.

The survey also revealed that 28% of people believed in a sinister global New World Order conspiracy, aimed at ruling the whole world through authoritarian government. Another 25% were "not sure" and only a minority of American voters – 46% – thought such a conspiracy theory was not true.

If the world today is a result of a sinister global New World Order conspiracy, the conspirators are remarkably incompetent.  The good news:

 For example, only 7% of Americans in the survey believed the moon landing was faked, 14% believed in Bigfoot and 4% accepted that "shape-shifting alien reptilian people control our world by taking on human form".

What?  The X Files wasn't a documentary?

Illegal Mayors Against Guns

Michael Bloomberg's group is called Mayors Against Illegal Guns.  Here is a website with rap sheets on a bunch of mayors that were members of MAIG, and had...difficulties:

Gary Becker

Click the names above the rapsheets of the rest of the Gang

City: Racine, Wisconsin

Status: Former member, Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Charges: Possession of child pornography, showing pornography to a child, sexual assault on a child, enticing children, and lesser felonies,  

Resolution: Plea of guilty to sexual assault on a child and child enticement. Awaiting sentencing.

I have long suspected that much of the "you can't be trusted with guns" stuff from these sorts is really projection: they are saying to themselves that they can't be trusted, and assume that everyone else is as out of control as they are.  In the case of Gary Becker, this March 3, 2010 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article really captures how out of control this guy was:

Racine - Two weeks before he was due to be sentenced for child sex crimes, former Racine Mayor Gary Becker visited the juniors section of a Racine department store and purchased small-size lingerie.

That revelation during Wednesday's sentencing hearing, Racine County Circuit Judge Stephen Simanek said in an unusual admission that he had changed his mind about the probation-only penalty he planned for Becker, bringing on instead a three-year prison term.

"It's almost like a death wish," Simanek said of Becker's purchase of nine bras and panties as his sentencing date neared. "It's almost like you have to be brain-dead not to understand the significance of that."

I Know Why Studios Wouldn't Touch This Film

No, I don't read wretched trash like Entertainment Weekly, but someone brought this March 6, 2013 issue with its article about the upcoming HBO movie about Liberace to my attention (this isn't in the online edition, for some reason):

Based on Thorson's 1988 memoir of the same name, Candelabra begins in 1977, when Liberace (or "Lee," as his friends called him) is reigning in Vegas as the world's favorite pianist-comedian-showman.  After a chance encounter, he seduces Thorson, a naive 18-year-old foster kid, into his more-is-more world of private jets and be-thonged houseboys.  The story ends in 1987, the Liberace dies of AIDS, finally confirmed the rumors of his secret life and leaving Thorson--whom he'd dumped five years earlier--with practically nothing but a drug addiction and a surgically altered face remodeled in Lee's own image.

The article goes on to quote the producer that

his movie was dismissed by every major studio as "too gay" before HBO eventually snapped it up.  "None of us could understand [the rejection].  It just seemed baffling to me."

Too gay?  Can a movie be "too gay" today?  Or was it just too honest?  A foster kid.  He's 18.  And he gets dumped at 23 (which means he is starting to look like an adult).  Perhaps if Liberace had been a closeted Republican there would have been interest.

I don't mean that every homosexual is like Liberace.  But Liberace played a stereotype on stage and in private life that used to be widely regarded as just fabulous.  Stereotypes like this don't just get invented.

What If Colorado Democrats Treated Sex Like Guns?

A great video by law professor Rob Natelson:

I Had To Check The Date To Make Sure It Wasn't Real

From April 1, 2013 Washington Monthly:

California to Begin Operating Massive Open Online Prisons

California Governor Jerry Brown today announced a major reform plan for the state’s corrections system. “An online prison system,” he explained, “will save the state billions and reduce recidivism.”

Under the program, called Massive Open Online Prisons (or MOOPs), incarcerated Californians will be imprisoned from the comfort of their own homes. They will log on every hour to check in with state corrections and enjoy one hour each day to walk around their own yards. Ankle bracelets will ensure that they do not stray beyond 30 yards of their houses or apartments.

Obviously, a parody of MOOC, Massive Open Online Courses, but you have to admit -- you could see Governor Moonbeam saying this, couldn't you?