Saturday, November 24, 2007
Friday, November 23, 2007
Pocahontas Park Today...
We got in 8 miles today on the Red and Blue trails. I am totally wasted and my knees are hurting. I will have to go to the gym tomorrow to lift weights. I guess that I am just really tired from work this week…
RMStringer
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood
over questions of reality and illusion.
I know this: if life is an illusion, then I
am no less an illusion, and being thus, the
illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I
love, I slay, and I am content.
(Robert E. Howard, Queen of the Black Coast, Weird Tales, May 1934)
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Strange Files...
On CNN.Com/HealthDoctors untangle the strange case of the giant hairball!
CNN) -- It may not be the most appetizing reading before a hearty holiday meal, but the New England Journal of Medicine is devoting part of its Thanksgiving issue to a giant hairball -- and not the feline kind.
The prestigious journal details the case of a previously healthy 18-year-old woman who consulted a team of gastrointestinal specialists.
She complained of a five-month history of pain and swelling in her abdomen, vomiting after eating and a 40-pound weight loss.
After a scan of the woman's abdomen showed a large mass, doctors lowered a scope through her esophagus.
It revealed "a large bezoar occluding nearly the entire stomach," wrote Drs. Ronald M. Levy and Srinadh Komanduri, gastroenterologists at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois.
For the uninitiated, a bezoar is a hairball.
"On questioning, the patient stated that she had had a habit of eating her hair for many years -- a condition called trichophagia," they wrote.
"It seemed like she'd been doing this for several years," Levy told CNN.
The woman underwent surgery to remove the mass of black, curly hair, which weighed 10 pounds and measured 15 inches by 7 inches by 7 inches, the doctors said.
Five days later, she was eating normally and was sent home.
A year later, the pain and vomiting were gone, the patient had regained 20 pounds "and reports that she has stopped eating her hair."
Reached at his home in Chicago, Levy said he had no idea whether the journal's timing of the publication on Thanksgiving was intentional.
Either way, he said, it would not affect the gastroenterologists' holiday dinner plans -- "We don't get fazed by much."
What is your opinion?
Blogroll Me!
Justices To Rule On D.C. Gun Ban
2nd Amendment Case Could Affect Laws Nationwide
By Robert BarnesWashington Post Staff Writer
The Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will determine whether the District of Columbia's strict firearms law violates the Constitution, a decision that will raise the politically and culturally divisive issue of gun control just in time for the 2008 elections.
The court's examination of the meaning of the Second Amendment for the first time in nearly 70 years carries broad implications for gun-control measures locally and across the country.
The District has the nation's most restrictive law, essentially banning private handgun ownership and requiring that rifles and shotguns kept in private homes be unloaded and disassembled or outfitted with a trigger lock. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declared it unconstitutional last year, becoming the first appeals court to overturn a gun-control law because of the Second Amendment.
For years, legal scholars, historians and grammarians have debated the meaning of the amendment because of its enigmatic wording and odd punctuation: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Gun-rights proponents say the words guarantee the right of an individual to possess firearms. Gun-control supporters say the words convey only a civic or "collective" right to own guns as part of service in an organized military organization. The Bush administration said in 2002 that it supports the individual-rights position.
Robert A. Levy, a scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute who has spent years planning a challenge that would reach the Supreme Court, called the court's decision to take the case "good news for all Americans who would like to be able to defend themselves where they live and sleep."
"And it's especially good news for residents of Washington, D.C., which has been the murder capital of the nation despite an outright ban on all functional firearms since 1976," he said.
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) has said the District's up-and-down homicide rate would have been higher without the ban, and that the law is a locally supported move to protect police officers, children and other victims of gun violence.
"It's the will of the people of the District of Columbia that has to be respected," Fenty said at a news conference with D.C. Attorney General Linda Singer and several D.C. Council members. "We should have the right to make our own decisions."
He added: "We believe the U.S. Constitution is on our side."
The two sides proposed competing constitutional questions, so the court wrote its own, saying it would determine whether provisions of the District's law "violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes." The court will probably hear the case in March.
The court's last examination of the amendment was in 1939, when it ruled in U.S. v. Miller that a sawed-off shotgun transported across state lines by a bootlegger was not what the amendment's authors had in mind when they were protecting arms needed for military service.
Since then, almost all of the nation's courts of appeal have read the ruling to mean that the amendment conveys only a collective right to gun ownership. But two of them, the D.C. Circuit and the 5th Circuit, have endorsed the individual-rights view, and so have some legal scholars who normally take positions on the left.
Mark V. Tushnet, a Harvard law professor whose new book, "Out of Range," is a legal and historical examination of the Second Amendment, concluded that the legal arguments on each side "are in reasonably close balance."
There is scant evidence about the justices' views.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia have made statements that seem to show their sympathy for the individual-rights argument. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said at his confirmation hearing that he believed the court in its Miller decision "sidestepped" the fundamental question.
Levy and co-counsel Clark M. Neily III and Alan Gura worked for years to assemble a challenge to the D.C. ban that the courts would accept. Their plaintiffs are law-abiding citizens who want the weapons for self-defense rather than people appealing criminal convictions for possessing weapons.
The case is called District of Columbia v. Heller because of security guard and D.C. resident Dick A. Heller, 65, whose application for a permit to keep a handgun in his home was denied by the city.
A federal district judge ruled against Heller and other residents who brought the suit, but a three-judge panel of the appeals court overturned that decision. By a 2 to 1 vote, the judges ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to private firearms and self-defense that "existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution."
The petition filed by the D.C. attorney general said the appeals court is wrong for three reasons: It recognizes an individual rather than a collective right, the Second Amendment serves as a restriction only on federal interference with state-regulated militias and state-recognized gun rights, and the District is within its rights to protect its citizens by banning a certain type of gun.
The gun-rights lawyers said they agreed that even a recognition of an individual right could allow the government to make reasonable restrictions, but not the ban the District imposes.
Both sides acknowledge that the Second Amendment pertains to federal restrictions rather than to restrictions imposed by states and that the District's unique status presents something of a jurisdictional quandary. But Maryland and three other states filed a brief saying that all have a stake in the case, because allowing the appeals court ruling to stand would destabilize current law and "cast a cloud over all federal and state law restricting access to firearms."
National groups on both sides of the gun-control issue are jittery about bringing the case to the Supreme Court, because of the uncertainty about the outcome.
"We're nervous," said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "Anytime you go to the Supreme Court, you could end up with all sorts of gun laws being called into question."
The National Rifle Association was also initially skeptical about the case, but Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said he is more confident of a positive outcome for his group with Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. on the court.
What is your opinion?
Blogroll Me!
By Robert BarnesWashington Post Staff Writer
The Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will determine whether the District of Columbia's strict firearms law violates the Constitution, a decision that will raise the politically and culturally divisive issue of gun control just in time for the 2008 elections.
The court's examination of the meaning of the Second Amendment for the first time in nearly 70 years carries broad implications for gun-control measures locally and across the country.
The District has the nation's most restrictive law, essentially banning private handgun ownership and requiring that rifles and shotguns kept in private homes be unloaded and disassembled or outfitted with a trigger lock. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declared it unconstitutional last year, becoming the first appeals court to overturn a gun-control law because of the Second Amendment.
For years, legal scholars, historians and grammarians have debated the meaning of the amendment because of its enigmatic wording and odd punctuation: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Gun-rights proponents say the words guarantee the right of an individual to possess firearms. Gun-control supporters say the words convey only a civic or "collective" right to own guns as part of service in an organized military organization. The Bush administration said in 2002 that it supports the individual-rights position.
Robert A. Levy, a scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute who has spent years planning a challenge that would reach the Supreme Court, called the court's decision to take the case "good news for all Americans who would like to be able to defend themselves where they live and sleep."
"And it's especially good news for residents of Washington, D.C., which has been the murder capital of the nation despite an outright ban on all functional firearms since 1976," he said.
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) has said the District's up-and-down homicide rate would have been higher without the ban, and that the law is a locally supported move to protect police officers, children and other victims of gun violence.
"It's the will of the people of the District of Columbia that has to be respected," Fenty said at a news conference with D.C. Attorney General Linda Singer and several D.C. Council members. "We should have the right to make our own decisions."
He added: "We believe the U.S. Constitution is on our side."
The two sides proposed competing constitutional questions, so the court wrote its own, saying it would determine whether provisions of the District's law "violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes." The court will probably hear the case in March.
The court's last examination of the amendment was in 1939, when it ruled in U.S. v. Miller that a sawed-off shotgun transported across state lines by a bootlegger was not what the amendment's authors had in mind when they were protecting arms needed for military service.
Since then, almost all of the nation's courts of appeal have read the ruling to mean that the amendment conveys only a collective right to gun ownership. But two of them, the D.C. Circuit and the 5th Circuit, have endorsed the individual-rights view, and so have some legal scholars who normally take positions on the left.
Mark V. Tushnet, a Harvard law professor whose new book, "Out of Range," is a legal and historical examination of the Second Amendment, concluded that the legal arguments on each side "are in reasonably close balance."
There is scant evidence about the justices' views.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia have made statements that seem to show their sympathy for the individual-rights argument. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said at his confirmation hearing that he believed the court in its Miller decision "sidestepped" the fundamental question.
Levy and co-counsel Clark M. Neily III and Alan Gura worked for years to assemble a challenge to the D.C. ban that the courts would accept. Their plaintiffs are law-abiding citizens who want the weapons for self-defense rather than people appealing criminal convictions for possessing weapons.
The case is called District of Columbia v. Heller because of security guard and D.C. resident Dick A. Heller, 65, whose application for a permit to keep a handgun in his home was denied by the city.
A federal district judge ruled against Heller and other residents who brought the suit, but a three-judge panel of the appeals court overturned that decision. By a 2 to 1 vote, the judges ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to private firearms and self-defense that "existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution."
The petition filed by the D.C. attorney general said the appeals court is wrong for three reasons: It recognizes an individual rather than a collective right, the Second Amendment serves as a restriction only on federal interference with state-regulated militias and state-recognized gun rights, and the District is within its rights to protect its citizens by banning a certain type of gun.
The gun-rights lawyers said they agreed that even a recognition of an individual right could allow the government to make reasonable restrictions, but not the ban the District imposes.
Both sides acknowledge that the Second Amendment pertains to federal restrictions rather than to restrictions imposed by states and that the District's unique status presents something of a jurisdictional quandary. But Maryland and three other states filed a brief saying that all have a stake in the case, because allowing the appeals court ruling to stand would destabilize current law and "cast a cloud over all federal and state law restricting access to firearms."
National groups on both sides of the gun-control issue are jittery about bringing the case to the Supreme Court, because of the uncertainty about the outcome.
"We're nervous," said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "Anytime you go to the Supreme Court, you could end up with all sorts of gun laws being called into question."
The National Rifle Association was also initially skeptical about the case, but Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said he is more confident of a positive outcome for his group with Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. on the court.
What is your opinion?
Blogroll Me!
Dc Gun Laws...
This is off of the NRA's Website. This does not need to happen!!! Please help to not let this happen!!!
--
RMSTringer
+++++++++++++++
| The Case For Reforming The District of Columbia`s Gun Laws |
H.R. 1399/S. 1001, the "District of Columbia Personal Protection Act," introduced in the House by Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.) and Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) and in the Senate by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), would end D.C.'s prohibition on using guns for self-defense in one's home and conform other D.C. gun laws to federal laws, while retaining stiff penalties for illegal gun possession and gun crimes. It would do none of the things claimed by anti-gun groups. The legislation is long overdue. In 1976, D.C.'s City Council thumbed its nose at Congress, the 14th Amendment's guarantee of "equal protection of the laws," and the rest of the U.S., and began conducting a social experiment of its own design against the city's law-abiding residents. The experiment, unlike anything known elsewhere in America, took the form of the Firearms Control Regulations Act, which required that firearms kept at home be rendered useless for protection by being "unloaded, disassembled, or bound by a trigger lock or similar device." It required that all privately owned firearms be registered, and prohibited possession of a handgun not registered with city police prior to Sept. 24, 1976, and re-registered by Feb. 5, 1977. The results have been catastrophic. Since D.C. imposed its 1976 laws, it has earned the unfortunate distinction, "murder capital of the United States." D.C.'s murder rate had been declining before 1976, but it increased thereafter. Between 1976-1991, it rose 200%, while the U.S. murder rate rose only 9%. (FBI, D.C. Police)
|
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RMSTringer
+++++++++++++++
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Mountain Biking Today...
We went to Pocahontas Park and we did the Red Trail. IT was fun as we had not ridden it in a long time. The redid a section of the trial and made a Half-Pipe out of it. I saw it and rode it several weeks ago with Mark. I will have some video clips of a few parts of the trial. Jeff brought his camera and we used the video function. After we rode the Red, We went to the Green trial and it was a good fun ride on that trial we had 6.69 miles when we made it back to the Quala Lot. I hope to get some more ridding in this weekend!!
God Bless and have a good Thanksgiving Day!!
RMStringer
******************
"Seduction is thus a central, indeed in certain respects, the central idea, in political life.
It signifies a course of action deliberately designed by one or more interested
agents to undermine and replace some established loyalty."
Kenneth Minogue (November issue of The New Criterion)
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Ambient Massive - There Is Grace In Their Feelings
. Instruments used were: Kurzweil 2000vx Microfreak' Maschine 2 Wavestate Deepmind 12 Virus Ti2 Monotron and various VSTi synths. Releas...
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DSC00210 , originally uploaded by RMStringer . Phillip Glyn and Ridding High at Solley's Disco Saturday night 1-2-2010. Taken with the S...
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I will be starting with Wachovia on Thursday. I will be working from 9 - 6 for the first several weeks...YAHOOOOO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
