Author Archives: Scott Alfter

Canadians Are “Spocking” Their $5 Bills in a Perfect Tribute to Leonard Nimoy

spock5caCanadians Are “Spocking” Their $5 Bills in a Perfect Tribute to Leonard Nimoy

News this week that Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy, who made the half-human half-Vulcan starship officer Spock a household name, had passed away at the age of 83 saddened Trekkies, casual fans and aficionados of his other acting work alike.

But Canadians with just a couple bucks and a pen have found their own unique way to pay tribute to the actor. As it turns out, the late Nimoy resembles former Canadian Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier (1841-1919), whose profile just so happens to grace the Canadian five-dollar banknote. It didn’t take long for Canadians to discover that with just a few strokes of a pen, the bill suddenly becomes a tribute to Spock.

There are even mirror-universe Spock notes making the rounds:

Someone who gets it

0bama’s going Bulworth…how is that of everybody in Washington, only Ted Cruz sees that?  (As usual, the “dumbass” post category is for 0bama.)

Cruz: “The Next 20 Months Are Going to Be Very Dangerous”

Prior to his speech at CPAC Thursday afternoon, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) didn’t mince words. He bluntly told reporters how nervous he is about the president’s final 20 months in office.

“The next 20 months are going to be very dangerous,” he said. “They are going to be dangerous at home. President Obama has reacted to this last election in a way that’s unprecedented. You know, prior presidents have been repudiated [and] they’ve reacted with contrition. [P]resident Obama, instead, reacted with anger and defiance.”

“I believe the next 20 months we are going to see a degree of lawlessness that will exceed anything we’ve seen in the previous six years,” he continued. “I think we’re going to see executive order after executive order. I think we’re going to see the abuse of regulations in a way that crushes small businesses, destroys jobs. I think we are going to see the continued weaponization of the IRS in the federal government, and it is going to be dangerous.”

On “net neutrality”

AllYourInternetAreBelongToUsImpeach and imprison…that’s the only thing that will stop this lawless cabal:

Lawless: Having Been Shot Down by Federal Courts Twice In Attempting to Vote Themselves Powers Not Granted Them By Congress, Obama’s FCC Violates the Law a Third Time and Once Again Pronounces Themselves Lords of the Internet

The left has been agitating for this endlessly, and twice before — in 2010, I think, and then again in 2014 — the FCC acted unconstitutionally to assert power over the Internet, bequeathing upon themselves a jurisdiction never delegated to them by Congress.

In 2014, the last time a Federal Court told the FCC it was acting unconstitutionally, there were suggestions that it would try again a third time, this time by using a different tactic.

It has now in fact used that tactic. The internet is an “information service” over which the FCC has no power. So the FCC has decided, on its own authority, to declare the Internet a “telecomunications service,” over which it does have authority.

Note that Congress did not make this important change in definition. An agency charged with executing the law as Congress passes it has decided that it itself would change the law.

We are no longer a democracy, and as there is no longer even a fictive consent of the governed in our laws, there no longer exists any philosophical basis for obeying the government. Now obedience is simply required by practical considerations: because they will kill or imprison you if you don’t obey.

Backdoor Gun Control

Having failed in their schemes to take your guns, they’ll next try to make your guns about as useful as paperweights by imposing draconian ammo restrictions. Crap like this is why friends don’t let friends vote Democrat:

A Pincer Movement on Ammunition

As it wanes, the Obama administration grows bold, and even reckless, on matters that send a thrill up the leg of its most leftward supporters. Its new attack on so-called armor-piercing ammunition — which is, in reality, a very broad attack on ammunition across the board — is a dangerous and destructive example of the administration’s late-days slide into rule-by-decree.

[…]

The upshot of all this maneuvering is that the ATF intends to revoke the sporting exemption for certain popular kinds of .223 ammunition, allowing it to be reclassified as armor-piercing and therefore banned, even though it is not designed as armor-piecing ammunition and has no special armor-piercing characteristics. The reason for this is that the feared and hated AR-style rifle has been enjoying a new career as a handgun. This is yet another consumer response to federal regulation: Some people prefer short-barreled rifles, particularly for home-defense situations when they will most likely be used indoors, but federal law makes short-barreled rifles a special category of weapon that requires additional permits and taxes, and some jurisdictions ban them outright. But if you remove the shoulder stock from an AR-style rifle, it’s not a rifle — it’s a handgun, albeit one of the clumsiest and goofiest handguns on the market. But the fact that there is a multi-shot handgun commercially available for those non-lead .223 rounds means that such ammunition can be banned as armor-piercing, even though it is not armor-piercing ammunition, by use or by design.

So, everybody goes back to lead, right?

Wrong. Environmental groups have been pressuring the EPA to begin regulating — or to ban outright — lead ammunition under the Toxic Substances Control Act. They lost their most recent round when the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled that the EPA lacks statutory authority to regulate lead ammunition, but when has statutory authority stopped the Obama administration? The FCC has no statutory authority to enact net-neutrality rules — that’s why it has reached back to a 1930s, New Deal–era law for justification. You can be sure that the campaign to use the EPA or other federal agencies to ban lead ammunition is far from over. The U.S. Humane Society already is petitioning the Interior Department to ban lead ammunition on public lands.

Overcriminalization Is a Problem in America

Using Sarbanes-Oxley against a fisherman who threw back some of his undersized catch?  The Supreme Court smacked down that ridiculous notion:

Overcriminalization Is a Problem in America

It’s not the first time such a miscarriage of justice has been attempted (the article also describes a jilted wife charged with violation of a chemical-weapons treaty when she tried to get back at the homewrecker), but until the size and scope of the government is drastically rolled back, it’s unlikely to be the last time.