Confused yet?

A Jackson County Circuit judge ruled Friday that the Medford School District can forbid a teacher from carrying a concealed handgun on school grounds.

English teacher Shirley Katz, 44, argued state law allows her to carry a concealed handgun for protection.

[Judge] Arnold said the issue before him was whether a school district can prohibit employees from carrying weapons by writing an employee policy. State law does not allow local governments to write laws restricting guns, but because the district had not enacted a law, Arnold ruled the district prevailed.

The reasoning here seems to be that Oregon state law does not expressly guarantee the right to concealed carry by preventing local jurisdictions from passing laws against concealed carry. My question for the judge is what other possible purpose could such a law have, other than to prevent local jurisdictions from infringing upon a right guaranteed by the state?

This is a rock and a hard place for the school district, and as a former teacher and a mother, I’m not unsympathetic to that. On the one hand, would I prefer teachers to have guns in case bad guys with guns show up and open fire on students? Yes. On the other hand, the body of public school teachers is not immune to poisonous, insane, and criminal people within their ranks. Teachers are brought up with noticeable frequency on sexual abuse charges regarding their students, for example. All it would take is one instance of a gun-carrying teacher turning out to be a psychopath who opens fire, and the particular school that had hired that person would be completely finished. (Although I frankly doubt that schools, especially in this state, are given to placing any importance at all on the former scenario of armed teachers helping to prevent school shootings.)

But it should not be a difficult issue for the state law. Either make an exception for school districts under the law, or enforce the law–that the right to carry arms shall not be infringed. Here’s what the law actually says:

166.173 Authority of city or county to regulate possession of loaded firearms in public places. (1) A city or county may adopt ordinances to regulate, restrict or prohibit the possession of loaded firearms in public places as defined in ORS 161.015.

(2) Ordinances adopted under subsection (1) of this section do not apply to or affect:

(a) A law enforcement officer in the performance of official duty.

(b) A member of the military in the performance of official duty.

(c) A person licensed to carry a concealed handgun.

(d) A person authorized to possess a loaded firearm while in or on a public building or court facility under ORS 166.370. [1995 s.s. c.1 §4; 1999 c.782 §8]

A city or county may not adopt ordinances to infringe upon the rights of a person licensed to carry a concealed handgun. A school district is not a legislative body, but it is a governmental one, as has been tested numerous times in free speech cases. In addition, the law also says:

166.170 State preemption. (1) Except as expressly authorized by state statute, the authority to regulate in any matter whatsoever the sale, acquisition, transfer, ownership, possession, storage, transportation or use of firearms or any element relating to firearms and components thereof, including ammunition, is vested solely in the Legislative Assembly.

(2) Except as expressly authorized by state statute, no county, city or other municipal corporation or district may enact civil or criminal ordinances, including but not limited to zoning ordinances, to regulate, restrict or prohibit the sale, acquisition, transfer, ownership, possession, storage, transportation or use of firearms or any element relating to firearms and components thereof, including ammunition. Ordinances that are contrary to this subsection are void. [1995 s.s. c.1 §1]

Oregon school districts are called, well, districts. If they are going to issue directives that have the force of law on their campuses, then they are making law in effect and most assuredly usurping the power of the state legislature. In addition, their directive does not apply to parents or visitors–why? Because they know they could never make it stick on people over whom they don’t have direct employment power. The net effect is, give up your concealed carry right or find another job. And as I say, I’m not unsympathetic to this position–all things being equal, “around your young children” is not where you want guns as a matter of routine. But all things aren’t equal when it comes to school shootings. The teacher in this case wants the gun for her personal safety and not as a test case for teachers prepared to fight back against potential shooters, but the implications of the precedent will presumably be the same. I hope this is overturned on appeal.

Update: Survey of the two school resource officers at Citizens’ Academy says: Teachers carrying would deter would-be shooters.

Because she really is a super-cool progressive, see, so she’ll make the most beloved character in a generation of literature retroactively gay and hope nobody notices that if she’d actually said so in the books, she wouldn’t have sold nearly as many.

Oh well. The fact that she didn’t say so in the books means I can just pretend it didn’t happen. If I can do it with three whole Star Wars films I can certainly do it with the after-market remarks of the richest woman in the world.

Via the headlines of the Beta Heartbreaker.

I’ve mentioned before that I don’t read many novels. The one that is the subject of this post happened to catch my eye at Costco when I was in the mood to buy books. That line of florid dreck didn’t stop me from reading, but this might: Another of the protagonists says to her niece, on the subject of “What if Indians steal our food?” (the book is set during a wagon-train prairie crossing): “If you were hungry and someone had a picnic in your yard, wouldn’t you want to join them?”

Are you kidding me with that garbage, Ms. Kirkpatrick? And here I thought only Sesame Street was that addled. I can’t find a clip, but the sketch that caused my son and me to cease watching Sesame Street involved Baby Bear becoming irritated that Goldilocks always took his porridge, setting out to rewrite the tale so that she would take somebody else’s porridge, and eventually having a friend tell him he should re-write it so that there was a designated Goldilocks bowl waiting for her when she got there.

Teaching children that stealing’s okay because it’s always motivated by need and that in fact the victims should feel guilty about this need? Oh, and that stealing is “joining?” No thanks.

Out: Repulsive old bats who’d like to assassinate the president. In: Religion of Peace Global Warming. Cindy Sheehan just emailed Ace to say she wanted to kill Bush way before Betty did and therefore would’ve made way more peace if she’d only had a time-travel machine and also that she’s running for office and Gore is not so she will make way more peace than he might or might not in the future when she kicks that warmonger Pelosi out of office.

Why doesn’t the Nobel board just save themselves some time and put out a statement delivering the prizes for the next five years to Bono, Rosie O’Donnell, Arianna Huffington, Leonardo DiCaprio, Barack Obama? It appears all you have to do to win it is espouse leftist/socialist talking points and be famous.

… must include me, because as nothing is new under the sun, there must have been at least one administration in our nation’s past whose officials were consistently preemptively attacked in a manner borderline slanderous as dishonest mouthpieces for a corrupt president before anybody’s heard his report. Even when not one of the attackers’ party voted “no” to the confirmation of the official in question.

I just don’t know which one it was.

Snopes, stick to verifying or debunking facts. Your opinions are worthless.

1) Dear CNN/Christiane Amanpour: When a guy from the network that gives house room to Keith Freakin’ Olbermann tells you that your “documentary” on religious ideologues was biased, skewed, and downright dishonest in its comparisons of the other two to the poor victimized, driven-to-the-wall adherents of violent Islam, maybe you’ve got a little problem. Like “turn it off after five minutes” problem. And maybe I’ve got an even bigger problem than Amanpour, in that my church sent out an email encouraging people to watch this sham and then show up at church on Sunday ready to finish up and discuss a program by … Bill Moyers. I passed.

2) Are you really telling me that the difference reported in the study between the book-reading habits of liberals and conservatives, the one the president of the American Association of Publishers (I’m so proud), Pat Schroeder, cited in order to crow like the queen of the yard (h/t Slublog) was one book? One? Without reference to what else liberals and conservatives do with their time or even what they actually read? And that the guy who actually did the study says the one book is within the margin of error?

Ace: Yes, dummy, that’s what I’m telling you. Learn to read, for goshsakes.

Eah. Even if it were statistically significant, I would have put up my John Adams and The Last Lion and Team of Rivals and The History of England against The Audacity of Hope any day.

3) You mean doctors prefer charging what the market will bear for a service, and getting paid up front, to charging what a market interference says they must charge and getting paid much later? I’m shocked. (H/t The Headlines of the Creator of Worlds.)

Perusing today’s articles linked in Oregon Reddit produced this little gem: a plan to post to the web the names and addresses of anybody signing petitions that run counter to the homosexual lobby’s agenda.

In addition to holding petition signers accountable, Stewart explains the underlying idea behind the project’s name, Know Thy Neighbor. “To me, it’s important as a queer woman to be able to look up people and see, are the people in my neighborhood on this petition? Are there people in my zip code on this?” she says. Finding out that people she knows—like friends or coworkers or even a boss or local business owner—signed the petition is valuable information, “if for no other reason than protection.”

“If” for no other reason? Do tell, what could be the other reasons? Leaving aside the laughable premise that people who oppose gay marriage, by definition, wish, and will perpetrate, harm on gay people, that is.

Privacy for me, but not for thee if you oppose me. Where have I heard that before?

Because no way he’s even sniffing that sweet “special interest money.”

This guy’s personal blog post was linked off the front page of the website of The Oregonian, oregonlive.com. Nice when you don’t even have to bother to pay your editorialists.

Update: Turns out that oregonlive.com has a feature called “Oregon Reddit,” which appears to work much like Digg, et al, in that registered users can post links to stories they like. That’s where the link to this post appears.

Bumper sticker seen this morning: that quote of Gandhi’s that says (unsourced at the Wiki), “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Bumper sticker seen about two minutes afterward: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

Guess who said it?

But Gandhi wasn’t the first to repudiate “an eye for an eye.” Wait, if I think hard, I might get it.

Right, okay, Gandhi already stipulated that he admired Christ; it was his followers he had trouble with. Well, tell me something: Why is it that the people in our country today most strident against any form of religion even in public view, much less in the government, are some of the very people most strident in their demands for our government to act as Jesus said it would be best for individuals to act in their daily lives? You cannot remain an effective government if you allow individuals to tyrannize over other individuals, nor other governments to tyrannize over your own. Or, in select cases, over still other governments. It is simply not a feasible plan for the ordering of the globe.

Why are the biggest anti-religionists also frequently the biggest fans of complete nonviolence, no matter the harm it causes to people in either their own country or others?

Update: More tales of taking Jesus out of context:

Q: Is it morally meaningful for people who have no guilt to apologize to people who are not victims?”

A: No.

Nevermind HRC’s arrogance in badgering the DoD about planning for a withdrawal that, as yet, has not been forced on them by the shrillers in the legislature. What I want to know is, when did people start talking like this, and why are they still?

Clinton has privately and publicly pushed Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace two months ago to begin drafting the plans for what she said will be a complicated withdrawal of troops, trucks and equipment.

“If we’re not planning for it, it will be difficult to execute it in a safe and efficacious way,” she said then.

Emphasis mine. I see this usage all the time, from writers and speakers on all topics. Why? They’re called adverbs, and they are stronger, more efficient words than “do this in such-and-such a way” (or worse yet, “such-and-such a manner”).

“…execute it safely and efficiently,” are the words you’re looking for, Senator. Or “efficaciously” if you must.

So pretentious and annoying.

Oh, speaking of arrogant, how much chutzpah does it take to accuse the DoD of a political response to a serious inquiry when your whole motivation in asking was A) throwing your weight around and B) political grandstanding? Let’s see how “political” DoD’s response was:

“We are always evaluating and planning for possible contingencies. As you know, it is longstanding departmental policy that operational plans, including contingency plans, are not released outside of the department.”

Ouch. Yawn.

Oh, this is just gonna be fun:

The other day I came out of my short retirement due to yet another Bush flagrant abuse of power. We decided that we would walk from Atlanta to DC to gather a people’s movement for humanity. The longer BushCo are in office, the less chance we have of recovering the heart and soul of our nation, saving our soldiers and the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, and saving the planet from corporate and individual waste and pollution. Impeachment, removal from office, and in a perfect world, incarceration for the criminals against humanity, are urgent and necessary steps that need to be taken today.

If by “today” you mean “after we start our walk, once enough congresspeople take note of our demands.” I gotta say, if a “flagrant abuse of power” like the commutation of sentence of a relatively insignificant political pawn, the unfortunate Scooter Libby, is enough to bring her out of “retirement,” Sheehan’s giving herself away with her flagrant inability to stay out of the spotlight.

Malignant bitch.

Since I announced the Journey for Humanity, I have received a lot of support and encouragement, and many “I’ll be with you in spirit.” We appreciate your moral support, but we need your bodies and your dollars if you can’t participate. Our world is in an environmental, political, and humanitarian state of emergency at this point and participation in a People’s Movement for Change, Justice, and Humanity is becoming mandatory by our membership in the Human Race.

The only “emergency” is going to be for people in your route to make sure they don’t have to look at you or your butt kissers, Sheehan. And I wouldn’t take for granted your membership in the capitalized Human Race, either.

H/t Hot Air, Allah with the sick-making Jim Carrey vid.

Isaiah Washington’s version of what happened on the set of Grey’s Anatomy–that he used the word in the course of a fight with Patrick Dempsey–is far more credible than T.R. Knight’s, that he used it directed personally at Knight. Unless Washington is difficult to work with in general, that show booted one of its best characters for very shabby reasons. Word to the wise, Grey’s–Drs. Burke, Yang, Bailey, Karev, Webber, and Torres are a hell of a lot more likeable than the titular Dr. Grey or Drs. Shepherd, O’Malley, or Stevens. Hope you’ve got some stellar stuff lined up for next season with no more unfortunate cast depletion.