Our Times
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." --George Santayana
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Feb 2008
Jan 2008
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Minor-League Baseball to Atlanta
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Wed 16 Jan 2008 8:17
by Kevin McGehee
32° and fair
in Coweta County, GA
0 comments
[Our Times]
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I’m poleaxed.
Such was the secrecy surrounding efforts to bring minor league ball to Gwinnett that the plan seemed to spring fully formed from the landscape Monday in leaked news reports. The county reportedly would build a stadium near the Mall of Georgia and import the top farm team of one of the top sporting franchises in modern history to play in it.
But Tuesday’s formal announcement was in fact the product of lengthy secret negotiations that began with Nasuti’s private brainstorming session in 2006 and ended Tuesday with the announcement that the Richmond Braves would be relocating for the 2009 season.
The team will play in a new $45 million stadium to be built on land the county also purchased Tuesday, located on Buford Drive east of I-85. Under the county’s agreement with the Braves, construction on the stadium must begin by April and conclude by March.
At first, it all seemed so unlikely.» Nasuti wanted baseball in Gwinnett and made it happen
I wish Gwinnett the best. I can’t imagine myself going all the way to Buford for a ball game, but it’s more likely than going to <glurg> Turner Field for the overrated and ever-choking-in-the-playoffs “major”-league Braves.
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Too Good to Be True Dept.
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Sat 12 Jan 2008 13:28
by Kevin McGehee
56° and fair
in Coweta County, GA
0 comments
[Our Times]
[Get Offa My Lawn!]
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The Clinton vs. Obama cage match that’s shaping up in South Carolina and New York gives all the appearance of leading to a potentially fatal fracture of the Democratic Party, as racial identity politics threaten to block Her Inevitableness from collecting what she regards as rightfully hers.
Really, in a world where justice is far from poetic there’s only one way this can shake out: Clinton at the top of the ticket and Obama as her running mate, singing together in perfect harmony, side-by-side on my piano keyboard the campaign trail.
If I were going to bet on the outcome for the Democrats, that’s where the money would be.
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Is There Any Way We Could Get Them to Decide on Our Next President?
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Thu 10 Jan 2008 11:48
by Kevin McGehee
66° and cloudy
in Coweta County, GA
0 comments
[Our Times]
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Back in the early days of the consumer VCR industry, there were two competing formats. Beta had better quality, but traded off capacity to do it; one could only record one hour of programming on a single cassette. As a result, when porn filmmakers wanted to market their wares on video, they opted for VHS, which could store up to two hours on a single cassette. The rest, as they say (whoever they are), is history.
Well, if you’ve been wondering whether to choose DVD-HD or Blu-Ray, our not-so-new porn overlords have chosen:
Executives in the adult-film industry spoke Wednesday during the opening day of the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo 2008, which briefly overlaps with the more mainstream Consumer Electronics Show ending Thursday.
“It could be a real sign that things will shift,“ Jeff Thill, director of video operations for the Hustler Video Group, said about the Warner decision. Thill said he sees no advantage of one format over the other, but is “leaning Blu-Ray” after Warner’s announcement.
The Blu-Ray camp, led by Sony, has been fighting Toshiba and its HD DVD format for years in a battle reminiscent of the VHS versus Betamax battle. In that fight, Betamax maker Sony’s refusal to work with the porn industry helped usher in a VHS victory when the adult industry capitalized on the burgeoning popularity of VCRs and video rentals.
Hustler had some success recently with the Blu-Ray release of Jenna Haze Oil Orgy, said Thill, who was on hand to showcase Hustler’s latest releases at the annual AVN Adult Entertainment Expo.» Porn Providers Rethinking Next-Gen DVD Plans
H/t: Vodkapundit, who avers,
Really though, the only reason I’m linking this story is to point out that PC Magazine has, perhaps for the first time, published the words “Jenna Haze Oil Orgy” all in a row.
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Dec 2007
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That’s a Relief!
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Mon 24 Dec 2007 12:14
by Kevin McGehee
44° and partly cloudy
in Chattanooga, TN
3 comments
[Our Times]
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Accompanying this article about an expected gain of one U.S. House seat for Georgia after the 2010 census, the Chattanooga Times Free Press also has a map showing California with no anticipated change to the size of its House delegation. Given that I recently read that the Fugue State has experienced an actual decrease in its population in recent years, I’m inclined to believe that the shine has finally come off that place.
Of course, when I was a kid California was known as the place from which America’s future trends always originated. That hasn’t been true for a couple of decades now at least.
It’ll be interesting to watch this story as it develops, and what people say about why it’s happening. Excessive taxation and nanny-state government? A rising tide of illegals? “Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded”...?
Me, I think people are leaving because they keep hearing that those of us in the rest of the country are going to come over there with chainsaws, cut it loose, and set it adrift in the Pacific.
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Does the UN Charter Have a ‘Takings’ Clause?
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Tue 11 Dec 2007 13:11
by Kevin McGehee
74° and sunny
in Coweta County, GA
0 comments
[Our Times]
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Ecuador will open bidding for a major oil project in a jungle nature reserve in June if the poor Andean country does not receive international funding to abandon the proposal, the oil minister said Monday.
The government is seeking a minimum of $350 million a year from the international community for 10 years not to drill in the Ishpingo-Tiputini-Tambococha fields located in Yasuni National Park, in Ecuador’s northeastern jungle. The money is to compensate Ecuador for income it would have generated by drilling for oil at the site.
The jungle area, which holds close to 1 billion barrels of crude, is part of a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Some environmentalists say the reserve has more varieties of plant life than the United States and Canada combined.
President Rafeael Correa has said Ecuador was not asking for the money as “charity” but as a way for the international community to recognize its “shared responsibility” for preserving Yasuni as a major source of biodiversity.» Ecuador to Drill Park Unless World Pays
Seems everybody is resisting unfunded mandates these days.
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Call Them What They Are: SAFETY-Free Zones
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Thu 6 Dec 2007 21:59
by Kevin McGehee
43° and partly cloudy
in Coweta County, GA
0 comments
[Our Times]
[Courting Disaster]
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Like Instapundit, I haven’t posted here about the Omaha mass murder—but I think I’m pretty much in sync with Prof. Reynolds:
But it’s worth noting—since apparently most of the media reports haven’t—that this was another mass shooting in a “gun-free” zone. It seems to me that we’ve reached the point at which a facility that bans firearms, making its patrons unable to defend themselves, should be subject to lawsuit for its failure to protect them. The pattern of mass shootings in “gun free” zones is well-established at this point, and I don’t see why places that take the affirmative step of forcing their law-abiding patrons to go unarmed should get off scot-free.
In a similar vein, I’m cheered somewhat by this development of local importance:
The Georgia Court of Appeals has overturned a Coweta Superior Court decision and ruled that Coweta County’s ordinance prohibiting guns in parks is preempted by state law.
The Court of Appeals ruled unanimously Tuesday to overturn a decision by Judge Jack Kirby. In June, Kirby ruled in favor of Coweta County in a suit filed against Coweta by Ed Stone and gun rights group Georgia Carry.
Stone, a Coweta resident and president of Georgia Carry, had appeared before the Coweta County Board of Commissioners earlier this year. He told the commissioners that the rule forbidding guns in county parks was preempted by state law.
When the county refused to change the rule, Stone and Georgia Carry sued.
[...]
Georgia state law states that “no county or municipal corporation, by zoning or by ordinance, resolution, or other enactment, shall regulate in any manner gun shows; the possession, ownership, transport, carrying, transfer, sale, purchase, licensing, or registration of firearms or components of firearms; firearms dealers, or dealers in firearms components,“ according to the opinion.
“The plain language of the statute expressly precludes a county from regulating ‘in any manner… carrying… of firearms,‘“ according to the opinion. “Under these circumstances, the preemption is express and the trial court erred in concluding otherwise.“ » Gun ban in parks overturned
Plain language should be interpreted as though the legislature meant the meaning to be equally plain. The county had argued that the county may “enhance” state law, but that’s a general rule that is clearly and explicitly superseded by the state law in question. When the state law says, “no county or municipal corporation, by zoning or by ordinance, resolution, or other enactment, shall…“, that doesn’t mean, “unless they really really want to.“
I’m always in favor of courts reading the law to mean what it plainly says. It’s just too bad it’s so newsworthy when it happens.
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