LAGC
LAGC's JournalMass. woman sues FedEx over marijuana delivery
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Tobin said she thought the package was a birthday present for her daughter, because when she opened it, she found candles, pixie sticks and peppermint. There was also something she thought was potpourri, but it was marijuana.
Tobin said that about an hour later, a man knocked on her door looking for the package, while two men sat in a vehicle in her driveway, waiting. She said she didn't have it, and bolted and slammed the door. Tobin claims FedEx gave out her address, which led the men to her home.
http://news.yahoo.com/mass-woman-sues-fedex-over-marijuana-delivery-135742401.html
Jesus Christ... I'm not a big fan of frivolous lawsuits, but I think this woman may just have a case.
There's no reason FedEx couldn't have just sent the driver back to pick up the package.
Giving her address out to potential criminals just to save FedEx the labor/gas/trip is just plain negligent.
Someone needs to be held accountable.
Thank God Romney Isn't President Right Now
And I say this as an atheist... thank the heavenly Sky-Daddy!
Could you guys imagine this same aftermath of Sandy Hook right now? Not only would we likely be seeing the same gun control crap coming out of the White House, like a new AWB, but Mittens may have actually been able to peel off a considerable portion of the Republican vote in Congress to go along with him, just like Bush often did.
The nice thing about Obama being in the driver's seat is how predictable it is that the Republicans automatically knee-jerk against everything he does.
I mean, shit, he nominates a REPUBLICAN Defense Secretary, and the Republicans revolt along party-lines. Filibuster and everything. Go figure.
I have no doubt the Repukes are only going to increase their holdings in Congress in 2014, so it will be good to have a Democratic president to keep them in check.
Gridlock isn't necessarily a bad thing. Helps keep unconstitutional laws (like the PATRIOT Act and warrantless wiretaps) from seeping out of Washington.
So there are a bunch of conservatives in one of my community college classes I'm attending...
It's an online English Composition (writing) class, and the professor assigns us essays to read and discuss each week on a private online discussion board to help us analyze the works of famous writers. This week's required reading is an excerpt from Dreams From My Father, where Obama talks about how he first found out his dad had passed away. It was a very well-written piece and I was hopeful some good discussion might arise from it.
Anyway, the first half-dozen or so posters all said something to the effect of "I don't like Obama, so I'm not interested in anything he has to say." One even went so far as to call him a "pathological liar", which I took issue with. Here is what I wrote:
If anything, I think Obama has been quite candid about what he said his plans were back when he was running as a candidate, and has been quite diligent in pursuing those goals as president. He's fulfilled quite a few of his campaign promises, and those he hasn't only because of obstruction in Congress.
I don't agree with every stance of his agenda by any means, but I don't think its fair to single him out for being untruthful, considering who he has to work with in Washington.
Now I get to wait to see how many heads explode...
The Rifle on the Wall: A Left Argument for Gun Rights
"That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there." -- George Orwell
Lets start with this: The citizens right to possess firearms is a fundamental political right. The political principle at stake is quite simple: to deny the state the monopoly of armed force. This should perhaps be stated in the obverse: to empower the citizenry, to distribute the power of armed force among the citizenry as a whole. The history of arguments and struggles over this principle, throughout the world, is long and clear. Instituted in the context of a revolutionary struggle based on the most democratic concepts of its day, the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution is perhaps the clearest legal/constitutional expression of this principle, and as such, I think, is one of the most radical statutes in the world.
The question of gun rights is a political question, in the broad sense that it touches on the distribution of power in a polity. Thus, although it incorporates all these perfectly legitimate sub-political activities, it is not fundamentally about hunting, or collecting, or target practice; it is about empowering the citizen relative to the state. Denying the importance of, or even refusing to understand, this fundamental point of the Second Amendment right, and sneering at people who do, symptomizes a politics of paternalist statism not (actually the opposite of) a politics of revolutionary liberation.
Ill pause right here. For me, and for most supporters of gun rights, however inartfully they may put it, this is the core issue. To have an honest discussion of whats at stake when we talk about gun rights, gun control, etc., everyone has to know, and acknowledge, his/her position on this fundamental political principle. Do you hold that the right to possess firearms is a fundamental political right?
If you do, then you are ascribing it a strong positive value, you will be predisposed to favor its extension to all citizens, you will consider whatever regulations you think are necessary (because some might be) with the greatest circumspection (because those regulations are limitations on a right, and rights, though never as absolute as we may like, are to be cherished), you will never seek, overtly or surreptitiously, to eliminate that right entirely and your discourse will reflect all of that. If you understand gun ownership as a political right, then, for you, if there werent a second amendment, there should be.
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http://www.thepolemicist.net/2013/01/the-rifle-on-wall-left-argument-for-gun.html
One LONG-assed essay, but a very good read, if you have the time.
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