We got our census form...

...and promptly looked up the sections of the constitution which applied to the situation.

From the U.S. Constitution:
Article 1 Section 2:
"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.
Amendment 14:
"Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed."

These are the constitutional guidelines for our federal census, therefore question 1 on my census form is constitutional.

From my 2010 census form:
"1. How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2010?" Pretty simple, quite constitutional.
"2. Were there any additional people staying here April 1, 2010 that you did not include in Question 1?" ??? If I answer the first question correctly, do I really need the second one?
Now that we've satisfied the census provisions in the Constitution, the part that pisses me off:
3 wants to know if we rent, have a mortgage, or own outright our home.
4 requests our phone number.
5 asks for first name, middle initial, and last name for each person living here. This might be ok, just to help eliminate fraud, but it's not technically in the constitution.
6 is sexist. Can the government not count us without segregating us by our private parts?
7 is ageist. Can the government not count us without segregating us by our age?
8 is racist. Can the government not count us without segregating Hispanics, Latinos, and Spanish origin folks?
9 is racist. By definition. "What is Person 1's race?" Can the government not count us without segregating us by race?
10 is about whether people in this home live or stay somewhere else sometimes. I don't even know what to say about this one. Does it really make a difference?
There's room on the form for 12 people.

Do I need to point out that the only reason the government needs this information is so that they can redistribute wealth (in theory) from those they see as having it to those ages, colors, and sexes that it sees as not having it?

I'm sure there's a regulation or code somewhere that makes this all legal, but it doesn't make it right.

I think I'll get a big fat red marker and write a "5" on the front page and return it.

Guns allowed in Arizona bars

Hey, barkeep, if you're so concerned that guns might be kept (by folks who aren't even drinking) in the vicinity of your bar, don't you worry about all the cars in your parking lot?

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i4PSarfGJNWRZRC0OWFn9f0dF59wD9B18F0O0

Newsworthy?

I searched the front pages of ABC news, CBS news, and NBC (or is it MSNBC) news for information on the 9/12 march in D.C.

my summation:

ABC: an article expressing nothing of the substance of the protest, only questioning the tally of participants. was it 30,000 or 2,000,000? I got the feeling from the article that it was simply the author's way of complaining about the excitement surrounding the event. Don't take my word for it, read it yourself! Also, there were 5 mentions of Kanye West. Who? Oh, Kanye "George Bush doesn't care about black people!" West.

CBS: an "opinion" section article describing the protest against Big Government as "a gigantic temper tantrum". Again, read it yourself! To CBS' credit, I only spotted the above-mentioned Mr. West once.

(MS)NBC: Kanye West: 1. Rally in D.C. featuring tens if not hundreds of thousands of anti-big-government protestors: 0.

I attempted image searches at Bing, Google, and Yahoo for the term "9/12 march on washington"

My #1 results from each:

Bing:

AIDS poster.

Google:

Picture of ACORN activists surely from some other event.


Yahoo:a photo from the "Let Gaza Live! National March on Washington"

A really bad piece of reportage:

This article on KXXV ABC in Texas (actually an AP story) does not explain why the NRA is moving against Sotomayor except to say 'Sotomayor has a "hostile view" of the Second Amendment'. The article explains the US Chamber of Commerce's position even though it isn't relative to the story itself. We end the piece with a quote from an anti-NRA group but once again get absolutely no information about why they might back the controversial Supreme Court nominee. There is mention of the defeat of a bill to allow CCW holders reciprocity with every other CCW state, but the article fails to explain how that is at all relevant.

All in all, I guess readers are left to form their own opinions simply based on which lobbying groups they like. What a lazy way to fill some webspace...

Parker Hale, like new. (Guns XXXI)

Remember the Parker Hale .270?
It was my dad's and it had a cracked stock. I took it to a local gunsmith. He said that he thought he'd be able to fix it.
When they called for me to pick it up, he had a new (beat up and ugly) wood stock on it and wanted to measure me for it. I explained that it was not the stock I wanted, that if I had to replace it I wanted the Hogue Overmolded stock. He was not happy because he'd already glassbedded (sic?) the rifle and I was not happy because some of the glasbedding (also sic?) was visible on the barrel.
I should have read more on the forums... I probably could have swapped stocks myself in retrospect, but I thought he'd fix the wood.
Long story short, he got the right stock and I'm glad to be done with the whole thing. He slopped on the screws and never did remove the extra glas (also also sic?). I'll not have him do any more gunsmithing for me. On the other hand, I should have guessed judging by the scratches on some of the for sale pistols (brand new) in the display cases that their attitude was more about functionality than about artistry.

Here she is:




On yet another hand, their prices are reasonable and I picked up a Heritage .22lr/mag SA revolver. I had them order it, and they never took it out of the box. It's pretty nice and shoots awfully straight for a ~$200 brand-spankin'-new pistol. I don't have pics of that one yet, but you can expect another post pretty soon: either I'll get some photos of the .22 or I'll get the Parker Hale out to the range and shoot some paper and some pictures.

CRASH!

Our computer died this weekend. Thanks to Don for giving me his old dell tower system a while back, it still works!

Anyway, it's too old to hook up my USB stuff like my MP3 player and the external hard drive which holds all my pictures, music, and podcasts, so the blog may be on hold until I get repaired/replaced and that may be a while. I've just made an appointment with the mechanic to remove all the money from our savings account in return for which our van will run like it did two months ago. What a deal!

I must ask!

What is the deal with the "caller ID". I get calls rather often here at work, especially right at or after shift change from people who want to know who called them from here. I just got one a few minutes ago.

him: "This is _____, who called me from there?"
me: "This is a business."
him: "So is this. I just walked in the door."
me: "Okay."
him: "Someone called me from there."
me: "Okay."
him: "I wanted to know who called."
me: "Did you get a message?"
him: "No, I just walked in the door."
me: "Then I don't know who called you."
him: "Alright, then..."
me: "Bye."

Is it just me, or what? To me, it's common sense that someone who really wants a call back will leave a message, or lacking an answering machine or service (but still having caller ID?) will call back.