Links and Minifeatures 03 09 Friday

The feeling I have is that something is going on at my daughter's school. She doesn't want to go. She won't talk to me or her mother as to why. So I asked the school secretary to have someone call me as soon as reasonable. Hilda's going so far as to fake illness. Which would be a lot harder to detect if a certain not-quite-seven year old had come to the realization that Parent Cam™ is always on.



She'll figure it out, I'm certain. But not many seven year olds have had that particular revelation. Which is why I want to get not only this, but the issues behind it, dealt with before she's Ferris Buehler's age.



In other words, I'm well aware that she's going to get better at this unless we take steps now.

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Appeals court overturns D.C. gun ban



Dang. There goes Post Office Headquarters.



As if the fact they were breaking the law on a gun count as well as murder, assault with a deadly weapon, assault, etcetera, ever stopped any of the disgruntled ex-postal employees that made that joke fashionable. Besides, it's still illegal to bring a gun into federal government buildings. How many folks do you suppose that actually stops? "I was going to commit mass murder and mass assault, but I better not because I'd be breaking the law that says I can't carry a weapon." The only difference is now there's a possibility that one of those law abiding citizens can return fire if they deem it necessary and beneficial.



Joking aside, this is fantastic news for the law abiding citizens of Washington DC.



And the straining at flies and swallowing camels award goes to:

Judge Karen Henderson dissented, writing that the Second Amendment does not apply to the District of Columbia because it is not a state.

Technically correct, but if the Second Amendment doesn't apply to DC, and the Fourteenth Amendment doesn't apply because it isn't a state, it's going to be kind of hard finding a part of the constitution that does apply.



As an ex-cop who was booted out of the LAPD turns to one who was booted off the Philadelphia force and says, "Let's fly out to DC and violate someone's civil rights. It's cool, man! They can't touch us because the DC Court of Appeals just ruled they don't apply in DC! Maybe we'll get lucky and see Rodney King!"



Okay, reductio ad absurdem moment over. The court didn't rule that way, as she was a dissenting opinion. But my observation that if the fourteenth amendment doesn't apply to DC, neither would a lot of the stuff granting civil rights many folks take for granted. I strongly doubt that was the intent of the framers or authors of later amendments and laws.



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How many articles have you read recently questioning Hillary or Obama? But this sort of thing happens when you're the Republican front-runner. Never too early to bring down the Republican front-runner. New York wonders as Giuliani gains support



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Proposition: The media makes money off of perceptions of extremity. Things are rarely as bad as the media portray them, and rarely as good. Case in point: Home prices: Don't expect quick rebound