Month: July 2002

Boxer signs on to armed-pilot bill. A well-known anti-gun senator has agreed to support legislation that would allow airline pilots to fly armed because, she says, it is better than ordering planes destroyed by U.S. fighter jets in the event of a hijacking.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said at a press conference in Washington today that she is lending her support to legislation sponsored by Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., that would, essentially, bypass a decision made earlier by Transportation Security Administration Director John Magaw not to allow guns on the flight deck. [FirearmNews.com]

This shows that even a notorious Socialist can occasionally recognize reality. I’ve always believed that Boxer is an unusually principled politican (even if her principles are foolish and destructive), so it’s not a complete surprise that she would take this stand. By contrast, I expect Feinstein (who is truly evil) to oppose the Senate bill.

Italian police black out ‘blasphemous’ websites. Italian authorities have shut down five Internet sites which reportedly carried blasphemies against God and the Virgin Mary, following a complaint by the Vatican’s newspaper. [ABC News Online]

Here’s a reminder that Arab countries aren’t the only ones run by oppresive theocracies.

Lawsuit is filed over car search. Demorris Lee at newsobserver.com –

Lawsuit is filed over car search – A Durham man was stopped for
speeding. When he refused to consent to a drug search, he was arrested
for careless and reckless driving, a drug dog searched his car, he was
charged with possession of a controlled substance when they found a
prescription anti-depressant pill, and he was cuffed tightly enough to
paralyze one hand. [unknown]
bq. Most people don’t realize that they have a right to refuse an
officer’s request to search their cars, said Seth Jaffe, a staff
attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of North
Carolina. Jaffe said motorists should refuse a search if they think
their rights are being violated but that they also should cooperate
with police.
[End the War on Freedom]

Note the advice given by the ACLU weasel. Motorists should always refuse a search, because any time a cop asks for consent to search their rights are automatically being violated. This case also demonstrates the absurdity of “consent” in these searches, because the cops are going to search anyway regardless of the illegality of their actions.

EBay Says No to PayPal Gambling. EBay says it won’t offer PayPal as a payment method for online gambling once its planned purchase of the company goes through. That puts gambling sites in a tough spot. By Joanna Glasner. [Wired News]

This sounds like good news for e-gold, and any other companies which believe that your money is in fact your money, and not the US government’s.

I’ve added a new article to the “Gun-free Britain” page.

The last sentence was particularly interesting: “The figure could be THREE TIMES higher under a new system which will count crimes not investigated.” I thought the British government had been forced to stop lying about their crime a few years ago, but from this it sounds like they’re still doing it.

Ebay buys PayPal [Slashdot]

This strikes me as rather alarming. Will Ebay now force users to pay using PayPal? Or impose some kind of additional penalty on those who don’t? In addition, PayPal has a history of dubious practices that probably won’t change just because someone bought them.

Base Station Rescue service for ABS [The Macintosh News Network]

They offer to replace the defective capacitors Apple used in their Airport Base Stations for $80. I have one of the base stations with bad capacitors, so I’m going to give this service a try.

Libyan Leader Arrives in South Africa [AP World News]

bq. It was yet another victory for South African President Thabo Mbeki in his struggle with Gadhafi over who will lead the world’s poorest continent in the beginning of the 21st Century.

Gadhafi fancies himself the father of the African Union, the new continental body that will replace the 39-year-old Organization for African Unity at a summit of African leaders starting Monday.

With these two as the choices for “African leader,” it’s no wonder the continent is in such bad shape. Mbeki is better than Gadhafi, but not really that much better.

Bureaucrats make it too hard to bring in foreign workers. [OpinionJournal]

This article comments on the difficulty of bringing in seasonal workers for resorts in out-of-the-way places where Americans aren’t willing to work. It’s a rather pleasant surprise to read such a complaint in a conservative publication, given that they have a history of opposing immigration on the theory that it hurts American workers. Perhaps the conservatives are finally starting to come around to the benefits of open borders.

I was pleased to note that many people in my neighborhood were setting off fireworks yesterday, despite a rather vile story in the Los Angeles Times in which government employees said that fireworks were illegal and the cops would throw you in prison if you set them off.