Tip O' the Hat to Geico

I have to admit that I enjoy Geico's Caveman ads. I never thought I'd see the day when an insurance marketing scheme would give me the chuckles... given their collective history of annoying talking geckos and ducks.

I wonder what went on when the marketing department came up with this idea. I bet it started out very non-politically-correct.

"Bob, we need to come up with something to convince stupid people that they're not too stupid for our insurance."

"How about if we make fun of retarded people?........ How about blondes?"

Then they finally found a group that is acceptable for ridicule. Think about how hard that is.

It's also icing on the cake that each of those ads subtly make fun of every spineless PC wuss that can't take a joke.

Well done Geico.

Dayton Daily News Publishes Me

The Dayton Daily News contacted Ohioans For Concealed Carry (OFCC) to ask if they could publish an article I wrote to oppose theirs. They did. They changed the title. The only other thing that I wish that I added is to point out that OFCC is non-profit and completely volunteer-based. Not one person sees a penny go to their pocket. I'm so sick of hearing about the evil, billionaire-making "gun lobby." I promise you that no one sent me a check or a virgin to sacrifice...

1) Read their story here.

2) Then read mine below (or at the link I gave first).

3) Then tell me who you believe... the newspaper editor that can't get the changes to the law right? Or me, one of the volunteers that helped average people be part of the biggest "Contact Your Legislator" phone drive in recent history.

Sore Losers Just Don't Get It

I imagine that many Ohio firearm owners awoke this morning refreshed from their slumber that was free from nightmares... Nightmares that won't be able to come true around three months from now... Nightmares about unknowingly becoming a criminal due to crossing a municipal boundary with a handgun that can be legally carried some places and not others with their state-issued Concealed Handgun License. Many probably sipped their morning coffee and smiled while thinking about how nice it will be to never again worry about the ambiguity of Ohio’s car carry restrictions. Hopefully, their celebratory mood wasn’t ruined when they opened their newspaper and saw the expected whining that is likely to prevail for quite awhile.

"It's really arrogant for them to just ignore the will of the people," said Toby Hoover, executive director of one of Ohio’s anti-gun organizations. "It shows they just don't have any respect for us at all. We're terribly disappointed. It's a pretty determined bunch of people in favor of the gun lobby."

Ms. Hoover needs to be reminded of a couple of things. First, she needs to be informed as to what it is that a legislative representative does. Their job description includes listening to their constituents and passing laws that benefit them. This veto override was possible because both Democrats and Republicans listened to “the will of the people”. She says that they ignored it. That just doesn’t add up.

House Bill 347 originally passed a Senate committee, the Senate floor, and the House floor with overwhelming numbers on the same afternoon! It then survived a veto override that is very hard to achieve. Heck… it hasn’t been done since 1977. How was all of this possible? The people wanted it.

"I have to run the Senate based on members of the Senate responding to their constituents," said Senate President Bill Harris, an Ashland Republican. "We've done what our members felt was the right thing to do and we'll stand by it."

This ties in nicely with the second fact that Ms. Hoover needs to stop ignoring… This victory was not achieved by back-room intimidation of an all-powerful and evil “gun lobby”. Such a notion is ludicrous. While Ohioans are greatly indebted to several outfits for their organizational efforts, this legislation survived thanks to thousands of individuals that personally contacted their representatives and told them why these issues are important. Several legislators have stated that HB347 had a grassroots movement behind it that was utterly unprecedented!

Pat yourself on the back, Ohio. Enjoy this time of celebration. However, remember that battles still lie ahead. Several anti-gun mayors are already on record saying that they will ignore the overwhelming voice of Ohioans and challenge this law before it goes into effect 90 days from now. Thankfully, each of us have already proven that we are up to that challenge and willing to do what it takes for our rights to prevail.

Cleveland Seeks Trans-Fat Ban

Heeeeere we go!!!

From yesterday's Cleveland Plain Dealer:

Cleveland Council Seeks Trans-Fat Ban

Resolution asks city, county health officials to work on getting eateries to change food

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Harlan Spector

Plain Dealer Reporter

We now have Smoking Police. Are we ready for Crisco Cops?

Following the lead of New York City, which last week became the first major U.S. city to ban artery-clogging trans fats from restaurants, Cleveland City Council on Monday unanimously passed a resolution encouraging a ban here.

...

Cuyahoga Health Commissioner Terry Allan joked about being called a "Crisco Cop," but called the Cleveland council resolution a "step in the right direction."

...

"Any time we get legislation on how to do business, it causes hardships," said Tim Davin, president of the Cleveland Area Restaurant Association.

I hope the government doesn't find out about my non-safety scissors. Hell, I could hurt myself with those things!

Bias in the Media for Concealed Carry Reform

Thanks to what Ohio legislators are saying was an unprecedented grassroots movement, HB347 survived the Governor's veto. If you don't remember what HB347 does and why it is important, go here.

Thousands of people flooded their representatives and Governor with phone calls and emails. Taft's office was especially not happy with us. I've heard we basically shut down his office for a few days thanks to our organized efforts.

I'll try not to give you the whole play-by-play, but here it is in a nutshell: After originally passing overwhelmingly in the House and Senate, the Act became "lost" for a few days before it made its way to Taft's desk. This is because once the Governor officially receives it, he has ten days to make a decision. Someone was stalling. No one could tell us who. The House Speaker, the Senate President, and the Governor's staff could not answer simple questions like, "Where is it? What is the process for getting it to Taft?" They told different people different things and stalled for a few days. That really pissed me off. Most Acts get to the Governor within a couple hours for his decision. This was certainly fishy.

Anyway, Taft finally "found" it and vetoed. Ohio requires a three/fifths majority vote for an override. We needed 60 votes in the House and got 71. We needed 20 in the Senate and knew that those would be more difficult. Thanks to bi-partisan support, we got 21.

Every single media outlet said that this bill should not have become law. Seriously. The only support that I saw came in the form of Letters to the Editor. Not surprisingly, every single newspaper is now bitching that the process works and this will become law in ninety days. The original legislation passed with overwhelming numbers out of a Senate committee, the Senate floor, and the House floor all in the same afternoon! That doesn't happen very often. Then, Taft's veto was overridden with the large, bi-partisan majority that was needed. Veto overrides are so hard to do that the last one occurred in Ohio in 1977.

So despite all of that and legislators going on record saying they have never heard from so many constituents about any other piece of legislation, every single media outlet is now continuing to show their true colors by rehasing the whining of anti-gunners and barely mentioning why these laws are so important and necessary...

From The Columbus Dispatch:

Even though most Ohioans consider it a bad idea, the Ohio Senate yesterday joined the House in overriding Gov. Bob Taft’s veto of a concealed-carry law that effectively wipes out Columbus’ assault weapons ban and about 80 other local gun laws.

From The Cincinnati Enquirer:

Mayor Mark Mallory, a state legislator for 10 years, said he is discouraged by the Ohio General Assembly's vote against home rule.

Cincinnati's ban on assault weapons was reinstated Friday by the Ohio Supreme Court after more than two years of court appeals. The local ban will be unenforceable, again, March 13, meaning that residents can own military-style, semiautomatic weapons with magazines that hold dozens of bullets.

"We had a court ruling which upheld the concept that the city of Cincinnati was . . . well within its rights" to enforce an assault weapons ban, Mallory said. "The legislature set that ruling on its ear ... or all of the legislative talk about local control, we continue to see examples of the legislature saying, 'No, we can't decide this at the local level.' It's very disappointing."

Even our beloved Times-Reporter:

Ohioans backed Gov. Bob Taft, but lawmakers didn't. The Ohio Senate completed an override of his veto of legislation that will wipe out local gun bans.

Unfortunately, finding balanced reporting is all but impossible when the issue is firearms. They keep discussing the necessity of Ohio's Home Rule Amendment. I wish that these folks actually read the Amendment they keep trying to hide behind. It does not apply to "matters of statewide concern." (That is a direct quote). Hmmm, I wonder if statewide laws that affect me and my state-issued Concealed Handgun License fall into that category.

Non-Scientific Smoking Ban Study

Joanna and I went to two bars tonight that we've never been to just to get out of the house. The first one we went to was completely empty. I mean *completely* empty. We were the only people there. This was about 9:00. We were chatting with the bartender lady and Joanna said, "Not too busy in here". The lady responded, "We're usually packed on Fridays. 40-50 people at least. Lines for the pool tables... Tonight, we've had a lot of people come in and ask if they can smoke. I tell them no and they leave. I thought I'd at least see our 3 or 4 regulars."

Two really hammered guys came in as we were leaving saying that some other place we'd never heard of (Sparky's) was allowing their patrons to smoke even though they knew they were breaking the law. These guys said it was the busiest Sparky's has ever been and people were telling them, "Nobody else on this street would let us smoke, so we came here."

The second bar we went to has a jazz/blues band that plays every weekend. (Really cool place, we're going to definitely go back.) Anyway, there was a constant throng of people right outside the door smoking and shivering. People coming in had to thread their way through the smoking crowd. (Even though this is technically illegal -- no possibility can exist of smoke getting in a door or window.) First of all, I thought to myself "Can you imagine a blues joint without smoke?" Next I thought up something else looking at the crowd of smokers: I wonder if owners are going to be allowing people to go outside and smoke. What if people leave without paying their bill? Granted, it probably depends more on the type of place. I imagine a few college bars will be having to put some tabs "on the house" if they tell people to go outside and move so many feet away from the door.

As the title of this post states, this certainly isn't a definitive study describing the effects of the law so far... I'm just posting what I saw at two places tonight.

Lift em and Thrust

Alright smart people, including at least one aeronautical engineer that stops by every now and then:

A plane is standing on a runway that can move (like a giant conveyor belt). This conveyor has a control system that tracks the plane's speed and tunes the speed of the conveyor to be exactly the same (but in the opposite direction).

Will the plane be able to take off?

England: "Burglars Have Rights Too"

I love reading English newspapers...

Burglars have rights too, says Attorney General

By Melissa Kite and Andrew Alderson


A fresh row broke out last night about the rights of householders to fight back against intruders after the Government's most senior lawyer defended the rights of burglars.

Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, flew in the face of the Prime Minister's pledge to look again at the law with a view to giving homeowners more rights when he said that existing legislation was adequate.

He said that criminals must also have the right to protection from violence, prompting David Davis, the shadow home secretary, to accuse the government of being dangerously split on the issue...

Lord Goldsmith's intervention came as Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, dismissed fears that giving homeowners greater freedom when tackling burglars would lead to an "arms race" that would put them in greater danger...

Lord Goldsmith, however, appeared to take issue with the Prime Minister's pledge to act. "We must protect victims and law abiding citizens," he said.

"But we have to recognise that others have some rights as well. They don't lose all rights because they're engaged in criminal conduct." ...

He [some other English dude] spoke of his regret about the repercussions over the verdict on Tony Martin, the farmer who shot dead one burglar and seriously injured another during a break-in at his farm in August 1999.

There was a public outcry when Martin was found guilty at Norwich Crown Court and sentenced to life in prison. The charge and sentence were later reduced to five years for manslaughter...

First Smoking... Next ???

NY eateries face new rules on trans fats, calories

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City's board of health on Tuesday voted to phase out most artificial trans fats from restaurants, forcing doughnut shops and fast-food stands to remove artery-clogging oils from their cooking.

In a separate vote, the board of health also ordered restaurants to standardize how they display the number of calories in dishes on their menus in an effort to combat obesity.

...

Thank you Yahoo! News for allowing me to re-post this
beautiful Milkey masterpiece!

Milkey Got Snubbed

I stumbled upon an interesting blog post today on "Nasty, Brutish & Short".

It references a New York Times article that describes how some bloggers were compensated for political posts during the previous election cycle. I'm wary of indirectly referencing an article from the ridiculously-dubbed "Journal of Record" as we all know there is a very real chance that these figures are at best blatant liberal agenda-pushing lies or at worst will give away National Security secrets.

Anyway, I'll take a chance...

Here in Ohio, Jesse Taylor of Pandagon and the Strickland for Governor blog was paid $2,050 a month. For writing things like "Ted is fighting to take back the statehouse for all Ohioans."

Sherrod Brown paid $17,000 to Tim Tagaris of Grow Ohio, MyDD and Daily Kos.

Read the rest of the post here.