Did you know Michelle Malkin has an Immigration Blog? No. Well she does. You can check it out here.

Titled: The unlikely ACLU-gun-nut alliance

When the American Civil Liberties Union and gun-nut lobbies make common cause, it is time to pay attention. That is exactly the case with the new Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances, an improbable coalition of liberal and conservative - nay, arch conservative - organizations cobbled together to contest the thoughtless renewal of the Patriot Act that President Bush has called for.

Why are the pro gun lobbies described as nuts? And why does the ACLU get a nuttiness pass? Could it possibly be a bias on the part of the author?

The ACLU is bedded down here with, among still more, the American Conservative Union, the Eagle Forum, the Free Congress Foundation and Citizens for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Republican former congressman Bob Barr chairs the unlikely affair.

I get the feeling this author don't think much about those of us on the conservative side of politics.

Unlikely but welcome. Slammed through Congress in panic and without serious hearings or debate in just six weeks after 9/11, the act mowed down traditional civil liberties wholesale and concentrated new, dangerous powers in the executive branch.
  
Key provisions, particularly ones dealing with surveillance, are scheduled to sunset at the end of this year unless Congress extends them. Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales are pushing for a quick endorsement of the act as it is.

Blah blah blah

Some of the innovations in the act are reasonable and probably were overdue even before the terrorist attack - roaming wire taps under judicial supervision, for instance, that focus on the subject and are not limited to just this or that form or place of communication.
  
But many provisions are way over the top. Section 802 defines terrorism so broadly it could be used to criminalize ordinary political activity and subject citizens who are exercising protected political rights to secret surveillance and their political organizations to police infiltration.
  
Section 215 allows the government to rummage through citizens' medical, library and gun-purchase records without probable cause and without informing the subject of the snooping. Section 213 allows secret searches of homes and businesses - "creep and peep," in opponents' shorthand. Gag orders keep even legal challenges to parts of the act secret, a truly Orwellian scenario.
  
Barr's organization argues that America "can wage an effective war on terrorism without locking up its own citizens without access to their families and attorneys, and without trial or charges."

Yup.

Barr was one of the howling right-wingers of the GOP's Gingrich generation, but out of office he has become arguably the leading conservative voice for principled defense of individual liberties and for protecting citizens' besieged zone of privacy.

So why all the "attacks" on conservatives in the beginning of this article?

Conservatives should oppose much of the Patriot Act just on principle alone. However as the author of this article pointed out not all of it is bad and some of it is way over due.

I think the preservation of Liberty is one area where conservatives, libertarians and liberals should join forces. Save the "attacks" for the social security debate.

Titled: Concealed Pistol Permits: Renewal Date

This is a great bill, and much needed. There is no reason why a renewal CPL cannot bear an issue date that is the same as the previous CPL's expiration date. Other licenses, such as drivers' licenses, do exactly this. With passage by the House in a vote of 109-0, MCRGO is confident that the Senate will also agree.

BRIEF SUMMARY: The bill would set the issuance date of a concealed pistol permit as the same day as the expiration of the preceding permit, if the permit were renewed prior to its expiration date.

Source: MCRGO. The full text of the bill can be read here.

If, like me, you find yourself with a pre release Windows XP x64 ISO file and you are not sure what to do with it. Here is a step by step guide for burning that image to a CD and then installing it onto your hard drive.

I installed XP x64 last night without incident. Plug and play managed to correctly identity and install drivers for all my devices. I did have to download the Radeon beta drivers for x64 before I was able to run Doom3. The ATI setup program quits before the drivers install correctly but you can manually install them by browsing to the location they were extracted to. I haven’t really had a chance to install many applications yet but the ones that I have all seem to work fine.

I believe the final release is due sometime in April. I have also heard that Microsoft is going to allow registered users of XP to download it for free. I haven’t been able to confirm that from any source other then from the guy at the local computer shop though. I’ll let you know.

Say Uncle outed me a couple of days ago. My first reaction was that I better get some content posted to earn his recommendation. And that is what I intended to do. But then I bought one of these

And one of these

That's right. 64 bit. I haven't done any extensive testing on it yet but so far it seems wicked fast. I am actually a little surprised on how fast 32 bit XP seems to work with it. Especially when you consider in clock speeds I went from a 2500+ to a 3000+ which is not that big of a jump. In the past I have made much bigger jumps without hardly any noticeable difference in performance. I know those numbers don't represent actual clock speeds but they are the only numbers I have at the moment.

Anyway I have to go create another partition for 64 bit XP and install all my applications. I'll be back later with new (some) content. See you then.

Titled: Michigan and South Carolina Sign CPL Reciprocity Agreement

MCRGO has just been notified by the Michigan Attorney General's office that Michigan and South Carolina have signed a mutual reciprocity agreement. This should become effective when the information is posted on South Carolina's web page. (Michigan already recognizes South Carolina CPLs, as long as the licensee is a SC resident.)

.....[Snip].....

South Carolina is thus the 28th state where Michigan CPLs are valid. Congratulations to all, especially to Attorney General Mike Cox, who from the very earliest moments of his 2002 campaign for AG promised MCRGO that he would work aggressively to obtain all possible reciprocity agreements for Michigan's citizens. He has certainly kept his promise!

28 states now. That is great news for CPL holders who like to travel. The Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners keeps an updated map of states with reciprocity agreements with Michigan. As of now this is how it breaks down.

This really should not be that big of a deal. It is, after all, the 2nd Amendment to our Bill of Rights found at the very beginning of our Constitution. To me, the big deal is that we let this right slip away in the first place. Shame on all of us.

The above graphic and more info can be found at Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners.

Titled: Scientists slam US plasma weapon

Scientists have reacted angrily to the revelation that the US military is funding development of a weapon intended to deliver an "excrutiating bout of pain" from over a mile away. The "Pulsed Energy Projectile" (PEP) device "fires a laser pulse that generates a burst of expanding plasma when it hits something solid", the New Scientist explains. If you happen to be that something solid, then you get temporarily incapacitated without suffering permanent injury.

People are mad at our military? I've never heard of such a thing. When did this start happening. PEP sounds like a great military weapon. You can incapacitate an enemy with the option not to kill them. I know that in most cases we would rather our enemies be dead then incapacitated but what about in crowd situations where you can not so easily separate the good guys from the bad guys? It makes great sense for that situation as well as many others I can think of.

That's the theory, but pain reasearchers fear that the proposed riot control weapon could be used for torture, and further doubt a solid ethical basis for the research. Andrew Rice, a consultant in pain medicine at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, said: "Even if the use of temporary severe pain can be justified as a restraining measure, which I do not believe it can, the long-term physical and psychological effects are unknown."

Ok I will grant them that we don't know the long-term psychological effects but can we agree that the lasting effects would probably remain better then being dead? No. Well there is just no pleasing some people.

I have heard there is a picture of this weapon somewhere but I haven't found it yet. I'll post it when I do.

I read several Pro Gun Bloggers, a few of which you can find on my Blogroll to the right. I just added one more to my reading list and the Blogroll. The Blog is named "The Ten Ring". The authors describe themselves this way.

A blog by two self-described gun nuts. One who started as a liberal and the other who started as a conservative. We helped each other grow and thrive over the past nine years.

It was a great find and is a great read.

Oh yea, Say Uncle's referral logs are what initially led me to The Ten Ring. I really love the whole Blogging phenomenon. I wonder if it will catch on?