Aug 17, 2011

You can't make this stuff up

How do you streamline government?

 Army Secretary Creates Commission to Simplify Bureaucracy

The release itself is sensible enough as government press releases go,  but I fear the public information officer who wrote the headline was doodling pictures of tanks and guns while his English teacher was explaining the concept of irony.

(H/T to a lad who paid attention.)


Aug 16, 2011

And quickly following our fair report -- no guns in SUX county buildings either

SUX is, sometimes appropriately, the airport code for Sioux City, the Woodbury County seat where the victim disarmament movement gathers steam.

County supervisors have just outlawed carry by CCW permittees in the court house and three other county buildings.  They're depending on that odd application of the criminal trespass laws to get around a very tight state preemption law.

By now the propaganda is familiar.  This time we get it from Supervisor George Boykin who parroted the obligatory horror at the Tucson shooting:  "... mass shootings like the one that nearly killed Arizona Congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords in the last year can't be stopped.  But we can certainly take measures to minimize that from happening." 


No you can't, George,  and you haven't. 


George continues that is is important  "to make sure that county patrons were protected from 'deranged' people with a gun."


Care to tell us, Mr Supervisor, about your estimate of the likelihood of derangement by a citizen who (a) has a clean history (b) took at least rudimentary firearms training and (c) jumped through the hoops necessary to obtain a CCW? Please contrast that to the likelihood of derangement by a thug who sees your  "no-guns" sign and giggles hard enough to shake the Hi-Point in his undies.


The best place to track these local gun banners  is over at Stranded in Iowa's place. 



No fair guns

It's official. Your CCW is void at the Iowa State Fair.

We are waiting for a response from Iowa State Patrol Captain Gary Nieuwsma who announced the ban after some Craigslist comments made him or his bosses nervous. The question is: What is the statutory authority for voiding CCWs?

The situation is particularly silly in that the cops announced that there will be no metal detectors, just "no guns" signs.  So Honest Abe will leave his piece locked  in the trunk outside the gates.  Thugeye will giggle and slip his Lorcin in his sock.

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I think I know what the captain's answer will be. Since shall-issue became law eight months ago, local officials have discovered a workaround. With the active encouragement of Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, they have banned CCW carry  in many public places through a tortuous interpretation of the trespass laws.

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There is some history behind this nincompoopery.  The forces of law and order are  under intense pressure from the corn dog lobby to make  sure everyone feels safe there on the gritty East Side.

A  number of fights/assaults/mini-riots broke out last year just outside the fairgrounds. People at the scenes said aggressors tended to be non-white, the victims Caucasian, and one police officer reported the perps were crowing about "beat whitey night."

Before  the official spin machine got going, the sergeant in charge of public relations for Des Moines police publicly quoted the street cop's "beat whitey" report. She lost her job. Since then the city, the county, and the state have spent  gobbillions of dollars producing report after report saying, "Nope. Nothing racial here. Move along, folks." (I carefully add that we've also experienced something like "beat blackie nights"  in these parts. There's slime at the bottom of  both barrels.)


h/t Between Two Rivers

Why we're broke

It's almost another of those throwaway stories, a ho-hum piece about a politician riding in a parade, tossing great gobs of candy to kids on the curb.

This time the politician is one Barack Obama parading through the Heartland on his nice new bus (reported cost $1.1 million and guess who's paying).

But I must be confused because His Obamaness swears the trip is not political. He says it's a "listening trip."

Okay. I'm listening, and what I hear is a one-day total of more than  $362 million to (a) make life sweeter out here in Bucolia because he really loves us or (2) buy off some more of us hick voters.  The money goes build new unemployment offices, hire doctors, help hospitals buy computer gizmos,  and set up meetings between people who want to borrow and those who want to lend. And so forth.

The president is not being entirely forthcoming about the niggling detail of where the money comes from. Our Chinese Visa card? Faster presses at the bureau of Printing and Cartooning?

It would disrespectful, even crass, to quiz Mr. Obama about what earthly good the handouts will do for anything other than his campaign to remain publicly housed.

He doesn't even tell us how he swung the million-plus loan for the bus. Maybe a nothing-down deal from Ally Financial (nee GMAC)?