News Highlights

Gun control advocates win a round in California

There are some things that that a reasonable person would find difficult to believe but they are real nonetheless. For example, the California state legislature and Governor Schwarzenegger believe that requiring micro stamping semi-automatic pistols in two places with the make, model and serial number and on each cartridge fired will somehow reduce crime. No matter that handguns already contain the information, enacting a new law to do that which is being done now is not seen as superfluous. What is new is placing that information on a bullet fired from the gun, a good trick if you can do it.

There are millions of firearms in circulation without the required micro stamping. Will criminals use guns with micro stamping that will identify bullets fired from it, or will they choose an older but equally effective gun without this capability?

Gun control advocates reach for any straw to pursue their agenda, no matter how ridiculous. Even if the technology existed, and I’m not sure it does, placing this information on cartridges still will not assure that the culprit firing the gun is the person that bought it.

Assemblyman Mike Feuer, D-Los Angeles, said his bill “will crack down on violent crime”. Schwarzenegger either believed him or thought it was good politics to sign the bill into law; in any case there is now another useless law that does nothing more than burden gun manufacturers and lawful buyers, certainly not criminals.

Get in line to claim your share of the ocean

Perhaps you also didn’t know but plans are in the works to enable you to stake a claim to stretches of ocean near a coastline. Yes indeed, newspapers are heralding a “Gold rush is on where prospectors hope to harness wave energy”. If the Sonoma County Water Agency is successful in its quest for exclusive rights to develop wave-energy along the county’s coastline, it will grant exclusive rights to applicants for a portion of the adjacent ocean along the county’s coast. Surprisingly, Sonoma County would become the seventh wave-energy application for a portion of the California coastline, so far the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has not granted any California permits but four such permits have been granted in Oregon.

Global warming deniers may risk criminal prosecution

It won’t be long now; the U.N. will soon be issuing the ‘Final Climate Change Report’. This will be the fourth and last report. It’s easy to take this event lightly but U.N. officials are warning that ignoring the urgency of global warming would be “criminally irresponsible”. What is the significance of the “warning”; well, global warming deniers could then be subject to criminal penalties at the ‘World Court’. The court functions like the Courts of Inquisitions during the Middle Ages; I’m not sure they will burn us at the stake but they will inflict some sort of unpleasant punishment. It’s not clear at this time if Nobel Prize winner Al Gore will sit on the court.

Ego may cost Bhutto her head

In Pakistan the leader of the opposition to President/General Musharraf is a woman, Benazir Bhutto. Surveys indicate that 70% of Pakistanis favor Sharia law. Of course, Sharia law diminishes women and places men over them in all respects. It is curious, therefore, that there are so many Muslims in Pakistan that seem to want Bhutto, a woman, to lead the country. A while ago Bhutto was elected president but times are different now. Taliban is in ascendance and strict Sharia law follows their takeover of a country (remember Afghanistan before the war to remove al Qaeda?). Bhutto must have an enormous ego to risk her life at the hands of her Muslim countrymen.