“Amendment Two

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.”

For decades, the anti-gun contingent has zeroed in on the “well regulated Militia” part of this amendment, as if that means that only Militiamen’s right to keep and bear arms is protected. They do this because it’s all they’ve got to work with; “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” is a very explicit piece of language. To attempt to spin this amendment’s language in any other way is downright laughable. It does not say “the rights of the people who are in a Milita”, it says “the right of the people“. I’m sorry, but that’s what it says and that’s what it plainly means.

We always get into trouble when we think that we’re smarter than the framers of the Constitution, because we are not. Those guys knew what the hell they were doing. Whenever folks want to change around the Constitution or twist it’s language to suit their fancy, they always do it for self-serving reasons. They never do it for the betterment of the common good. That’s why the Founders made it so difficult to change the Constitution; they knew that some yahoos would always try to change the Constitution to push their views on everyone. A good example would be the recent right-wing attempts to pass a new Constitutional Amendment outlawing gay marriage. Do you think they were doing this to protect the rights of all American citizens? Of course not, they were doing this to try to legitimize and codify their narrow-minded political views. It failed, as it should have - that kind of stuff has no place in the Constitution.

Recently the Supreme Court has ruled on gun rights for the first time since the 1970’s and to no surprise, they found that the second amendment protects the rights of the people to keep and bear arms. This is not a surprise because that’s exactly what the Constitution says the amendment does. I know that anti-gun fervor runs strong, bordering on the hysterical (”…but guns <gasp!> kill people” they cry), but the legality of gun ownership should not really be in question. What we need to remember is that the United States is a nation of widely varied backgrounds and viewpoints. The Constitution protects all of us, even those whose viewpoints we disagree with. Forget this, and woe to you when you find yourself in the minority sometime, and those who disagree with you pass laws against you. Overall the Constitution is an extremely fair document, and by and large is what makes this country so great. Don’t screw with it. It says what it says, and I guarantee that we are probably not smart enough to re-write it to any improvement.

I am still quite slow, but can comfortably jog several 9 minute miles as often as I wish. This won’t sound like much to real runners, but it is an order of magnitude better than I could do even back in January. It’s the improvement that’s bringing the motivation these days.

I’ve been really enjoying the NewBalance love/hate commercials lately; they really seem to nail the running mentality. Here’s a link to one.

Let’s see if I can hit 40 miles this month and add some speed in June…

In the NFL, for example, there’s not that much fighting because there’s not really much point. Those guys aren’t really going to be able to hurt one another anyway, what with all the armor they’ve got on. I mean, they basically get into a street fight every time the ball is snapped. There’s just not much point in adding more.

Now in Major League Baseball, fighting is always a team sport. Think Sharks and Jets style street brawl. If one player fights, his teammates all fight too. All of them. Even the bullpen runs in from the outfield to get involved. No one usually gets hurt too badly; there’s generally just a lot of shoving and trash talking. It kind of looks like two college fraternities having a fight, where most of them really don’t want to actually fight, but they feel honor-bound to represent.

The NHL takes fighting seriously, it’s built right into the product. There’s centuries of history here and the players, and most fans, know and understand the detailed unwritten laws of these gentlemen’s diagreements. Honor and toughness are taken seriously here and violations of the code are not tolerated very well amongst other players. It’s really a phenomenon to watch. Two guys will square off, and instead of breaking it up, the refs all back up, give them room, and basically referee the fight. It’s crazy, but somehow it just doesn’t seem out of place in hockey. It’s all part of the appeal.

In the NBA, you just don’t see a whole lot of fighting. There’s been some notable exceptions, like the Ron Artest incident and the famous Rudy Tomjanovich shot, but those may be magnified by the relative rarity of these kinds of incidents. Also, the NBA hands down super-harsh penalties for fighting. You’ll get a harsh suspension just for leaving the bench to get involved. Carmelo Anthony got a month suspension last year for throwing one sucker-punch. Also, it just seems like these guys just don’t get as worked up. Why should they? They’re young, rich, happy, and they’ve got 64 more games to play. They just don’t seem as interested in duking it out on the court. Some guys obviously don’t like each other out there, but they aren’t likely to come to blows. So it’s pretty funny to think about these guys playing hockey. They wouldn’t last 10 seconds out there.

Remarkable!

This article was written by a Miami-based TIME correspondent, so just keep that in mind as I debate his points.

First and foremost, I am tired of the incredible lack of accountability and the woe-is-me victim stance that has basically become the norm in American discourse these days. The whole point of this article is basically to lay the blame for Florida Democrats’ primary election predicament on the feet of Howard Dean, the Republicans, Barack Obama, or basically, anyone but Florida themselves. This is a complete fabrication. The reason the Florida Democrats were not able to have their primary count, is because they violated established party rules, that were quite clear - along with warnings from the Democratic Party specifically outlining the penalty for violating the rules. They chose to do so anyway. I certainly can’t see how anyone can blame anyone but the idiots running the Florida Democratic Party, but clearly they are trotting out the woe-is-me-we-are-victims rhetoric that has become the standard line when anyone is called into accountability for their actions anymore. Frankly, it sounds quite childish. Now that they have been given the punishment that they knew all along was coming, the Florida Democrats are crying foul. Well, I don’t really feel sorry for you all. You did this to yourselves in a vain attempt at a ridiculous me-first attempt to garner more influence in deciding the Democratic nominee. Boo-hoo. Take your punishment with some dignity and stop the crying. Your silly threat to just take your campaign donations and go home is one I’d gladly accept.

I am also tired of hearing about how the Florida Democrats feel they have been ‘disenfranchised’. As far as I can tell, Floridians are still allowed to vote in the General election this fall - you know, the one where we actually choose the next President of the United States. The Democratic primary is a party-run affair for the Democratic party. This isn’t actually real disenfranchisement. If the citizenry of Florida were prevented from having Electoral votes this fall, that would be a real injustice. The fact is, whether you like it or not, Florida doesn’t get to help choose the Democratic nominee this time. Big deal. Democrats in Florida will still be allowed to vote for a Democrat this fall if they so choose. Stop crying ‘disenfranchisement’.

Also, Floridians should stop asking for a re-vote. This is an incredible sore-loser ploy. The Florida Democratic Party leadership screwed this up for you. You don’t always get a second chance in life. You all sound like a 5 year old who lost a board game. “It’s not fair! We deserve another try!” they cry. No, you don’t. You broke the rules, take your medicine. “But New Hampshire did it too!” the article complains, failing to miss the entire point. The reason for having the relatively small states primary and caucus first is so that they have a fighting chance to be heard at all. If we let Florida (the 4th largest state as the article points out) go first, along with other bigger states, the nomination would be all but decided and the smaller states wouldn’t count at all. All your whining about ‘disenfranchisement’, but you’d gladly prevent so many other states from having a voice at all. Doesn’t jive with me. The ironic thing is that Florida’s crass attempt at exerting far more control over the nomination process backfired on two fronts: firstly they won’t have any delegates, secondly if they had held their primary as originally scheduled, they would have likely been able to tip the nomination one way or another, as the race was still quite competitive at that point.

Serves them right. TIME should know better than to publish this whiny article from Florida. This mess is clearly not Dean’s fault, nor Senator Obama’s. The blame lies with the Florida Democratic Party. It’s time they grew up, accepted their punishment with some grace, and accepted the blame for the position they put themselves in.

What Barack said today was incredibly brave and needed saying.

Having grown up in Richmond, Virginia, amongst some blatant racism, I see Senator Obama’s speech as one of the truly great and honest assessments ever given on modern race relations.

This country needs him as President. We truly need this to happen.

A great time was had, and some badly needed backcountry time made me feel good and relaxed. Here’s a few small photos:

The good stuff just keeps on brewing!

Hopefully, we’ll burst right into spring, but this _is_ Colorado, so really, one must expect pretty varied weather. In fact, it is supposed to snow tomorrow. LOL. Today was gorgeous, though.

Here’s the map of where I went. About 375 miles all told.
I’d never been in Nebraska before, so it was cool to add another state to the list.

http://www.mapbuzz.com/viewer/1764

Happy riding!

Please go away, Senator Clinton. We are tired of you. You need to understand that your role is to assist President Obama in getting his agenda through Congress. If you can’t do that, then please leave the public sphere, and the sooner the better.