Snowflakes in Hell

It’s not often I agree with Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), but in this case, I do:

While Schumer has been one of the agency’s most outspoken critics, he also says Congress should be saddled with part of the blame. He says creating the Department of Homeland Security was “one of the worst things” Congress did.

Yep.

Hat tip: Rand Simberg

As we await Mayor Street’s signature on several anti-gun ordinances recently passed by City Council, we’re faced with what to do about it. It’s not clear yet whether the city actually plans to enforce its new ordinances, or whether this will be window dressing as the election approaches, and soon forgotten about.

The big problem we face as a state is that Philadelphia incurs little in the way of cost for passing their own gun control ordinances. If they do try to enforce them, charges won’t hold up in court because of state preemption. But that won’t help keep folks out of jail, and the city will still be able to hassle gun owners. There will be lawsuits, but those will take a while to immediately hurt the city, and make it reconsider its actions.

What we ought to do is add a provision to the state’s preemption.

c) Penalties: Not withstanding any other provision of state or local law, any county, municipality or township creating or enforcing an ordinance or regulation in violation of § 6120 (a) shall forfeit any appropriations from the state budget.

Or something along those lines. If there is a cost to the city of passing and enforcing these things that would be felt immediately, I think this nonsense would stop.

I’m very happy to see that race is playing less of a role in Philadelphia elections, which has traditionally voted along racial lines. But man, do you people have to settle on Nutty Nutter?

Seriously, any of these guys is better than John Street. But can we pick someone who, I don’t know, doesn’t want to make police state tactics a regular routine for city authorities?

Nutter has drawn fire for his proposal to allow police to stop and frisk people suspected of carrying guns as a way to stem the rising tide of violence in the city.

Fattah and the other three candidates said Nutter’s idea might subject black residents to police abuse. Nutter responded that it’s “not about race, it’s about criminals,” adding, “as a person who’s been black for 49 years, I think I know a little bit about racial profiling.”

This white non-resident agrees that it would be wrong to profile blacks for stop and frisk. Actually, this white non-resident believe that it would be wrong to stop and frisk people of any color, because it’s not how this country operates. Terry stops were meant to allow officers to frisk suspects for their own personal safety. It wasn’t meant to be a generic tool for fighting crime.

Classical Values has more.

If you’re in the Philadelphia area, and have nothing to do this weekend, why not take a tour of a guided missile cruiser.   The USS Winston Churchill will be docked at Penn’s Landing, and open for tours.

The magazine ban has passed the IL senate. It will now be heard by the house.

We hear quite a lot of calls for gun restrictions based on the fact that they are great instruments for people committing suicide. I think this method is probably a bit more effective:

A man cut off his own head with a chainsaw after stabbing his 70-year-old father to death in their apartment in the German city of Cologne, police said.

Clearly easy access to chainsaws is to blame. Also, does anyone else notice that these really bizarre news reports always seem to come out of Germany?

It seems I may have rodents again in the house.  The normal response previously would be to watch my friend’s cat for a weekend while the friend was gone.  Bitter is allergic though, so I may have to look for alternatives.   The problem with traps is I have to remember to check them, and I’m kind of absent minded about things like that.  They need to make a trap that beeps when it has a captive.

Maybe I should pick up a black rat snake the next time I see one while hiking.  I’d be willing to bet they are effective at dealing with rodent problems, and I’m sure Bitter isn’t allergic to them.  But I doubt she’d want to visit in that case.  I doubt my neighbors would appreciate the rodent reducing utility of having a giant contstricting reptile in the neighborhood either.