I step out for the afternoon, and come back to find that DC's gun laws have been ruled unconstitutional, on the grounds that the court is recognizing the Second Amendment's guarantee of an individual right to bear arms.
This is one of those headlines like, "Extraterrestrial life discovered," or "UFO lands on White House lawn, offers cures for all disease." It's great news, but... one may need a day or two to believe it really happened.
Volokh has quite a bit on the subject -- keep scrolling if you are curious.
What did you say?
Pardon me, what did you say?
Fun, fun
Fun with Computers:
If you're wondering why it's been a bit slow around here, there are two good reasons. One of them I'll save for a separate post.
The second one was that the computer fan burned out. I had to swap it out; the new one turned out to have the wrong RPMs, which caused the BIOS to shut down instantly.
So I contacted the company, Cooler Master, which sent me a proper replacement by mail (for free, too). I got the thing back up and running today; otherwise, I've been on my old, slow, barely functional backup computer, normally housed in the closet.
Great to be back on the real rig! Or, rather, it was for an hour -- then the power supply burned out anyway, as apparently its internal fan had also died.
Well, back to Fry's. The closest one is in Alpharetta -- which is like an hour each way -- but there is one minor compensation. In addition to having a lot of parts, they also have the best collection of Westerns on DVD you'll likely find anywhere.
The End of War
The End of Wars:
We have seen the beginnings of wars in our lifetime. Would you like to see the end of one?
Read this, then. (h/t John Donovan)
Then, if you like, you might read this review.
Cherokee vote
The Civilized Tribe:
The Cherokee nation today voted to revoke the citizenship of descendants of their former slaves. This is an interesting matter, since tribal citizenship isn't covered by the 14th Amendment (i.e., Alabama can't vote to revoke the citizenship of descendants of slaves, b/c the nature of "citizenship" in Alabama is established in the Federal Constitution). The Cherokee are therefore presumably free to do it, but it opens a lot of interesting questions about why they would.
I'm not sure why the Cherokee wished to do it, as the article offers no explanation but "racism." I wonder if "gambling receipts" aren't a more plausible explanation -- I believe I'm right to say that the Cherokee operate the only functioning casino within hundreds of miles of Georgia, Tennessee, or the Carolinas in Cherokee, NC.
Yet by cutting off their freedman branch, they're also cutting down on the number of votes they have in US government elections, as well as state elections. It's an odd thing to have done, then, to alienate a substantial number of your supporters.
One thing that many people have mentioned over the last few years is the degree to which multiculturalism and 'identity politics' have led to a fracturing of America. Here we see that happening literally: even an established identity is being fractured, with advocates of the break claiming that it's really about who they are as a people. Turnout for the vote was higher than for the vote on their national constitution, so it's an area that really is of deep meaning and importance to them.
Something to watch -- a canary in the mine, maybe.