I think the real question is what one is trying to achieve. If you want a unified hyper energy (and everything else) efficient archology (with under ground mass transit for McCoy) then yes building from scratch is clearly the way to go. If you want the most bang for your buck then clearly leveraging existing cities makes more sense.

Do you really think you could just close down Paris and rebuild it more efficiently 200 miles up the river?

The idea of going out in the middle of nowhere and just starting to build massive infrastructure for the "new city" is a very Communist Party of China sort of idea.

Possession of any amount of marijuana is a violation which is subject to up to one year of incarceration (conditional release may be granted).

A subsequent conviction for possession is a felony which carries the penalty of 2-10 years of incarceration.

You kind of have to wonder what the life expectancy is going to be in China over the next half century if they don't begin dealing with problems like this.

(CNN) -- An Oregon sheriff says he will not enforce any federal regulation that President Barack Obama lays out in his package of gun control proposals Wednesday.

Linn County Sheriff Tim Mueller joins several other public officials across the nation who have decided to square off with the White House even before it outlines what its plans are for expanded measures.

Mueller sent a letter to Vice President Joe Biden this week saying he won't enforce any federal regulation "offending the constitutional rights of my citizens." He won't permit federal officers to come to his county to enforce such laws either, he said.

Mueller's defiant stand exploded into a groundswell of support. His letter -- posted on the department's Facebook page -- earned more than 59,000 likes and shares -- and was growing by the minute.

Over the weekend, Sheriff Denny Peyman of Jackson County, Kentucky, said that he too will disobey any directive from the administration. He told residents in a town hall meeting that the sheriff has more power than the federal government.

"They need to go back and study that. We are a commonwealth. I can ask federal people to leave, they have to leave. I can ask state people to leave, they have to leave," he said.

In Texas, a lawmaker said this week that he will introduce legislation that would make it illegal to enforce a federal gun ban.

"At some point there needs to be a showdown between the states and the federal government over the Supremacy Clause," Republican Rep. Steve Toth told WOAI 1200-AM. "It is our responsibility to push back when those laws are infringed by King Obama."

Pops popcorn, gets comfy chair ...

Is this really settled in this context? South Dakota v. Dole dealt with congressional action, after all.

With enough hookers and blow and gambling, you can start a city anywhere. Just ask Vegas.

Sorry, I didn't paste what I was referring to, which was the Kentucky sheriff not enforcing any "directive from the administration."

Updated at 12:22 p.m. ET] The announcement is over, and Obama is signing the 23 executive actions. These orders are in addition to laws that Obama wants Congress to pass. Here, according to the White House, are what the 23 executive actions will do, without congressional approval:

1. "Issue a presidential memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system."

2. "Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system."

3. "Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system."

4. "Direct the attorney general to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks."

5. "Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun."

6. "Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers."

7. "Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign."

8. "Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission)."

9. "Issue a presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations."

10. "Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement."

11. "Nominate an ATF director."

12. "Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations."

13. "Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime."

14. "Issue a presidential memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence."

15. "Direct the attorney general to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies."

16. "Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes."

17. "Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities."

18. "Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers."

19. "Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education."

20. "Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover."

21. "Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges."

22. "Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations."

23. "Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health."

As a local sheriff, it wouldn't be his job to enforce executive orders. He just needs to not get in the way of the FBI if they choose to do so, right?

The reaction by the NRA and others to these will tell us just how crazy these people are

Here's the list of Imperial Diktats handed down by EmperorFuhrerKing ObamaHitler:

I've got a sock with a hole in it at the big toe location and no matter how I put my socks on or store them or whatever that sock always ends up on my left foot. How in the hell does that keep happening?

The reaction by the NRA and others to these will tell us just how crazy these people are

I've got a sock with a hole in it at the big toe location and no matter how I put my socks on or store them or whatever that sock always ends up on my left foot.

Freedom bathroom.

11. "Nominate an ATF director."

16. "Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes."

Old Hoss Radbourn Old Hoss Radbourn ?@OldHossRadbourn

I killed nigh 2,500 Rebs with naught more than a broken cavalry saber and a single-shot pistol. You will be fine, America.

Old Hoss Radbourn ?@OldHossRadbourn

I hope the administration does not ban my Irish-piercing ammunition

That's non-controversial on the surface, but you can guarantee that anyone that Obama nominates is going to be put through the wringer by the NRA and its congressional lapdogs.

I've got a sock with a hole in it at the big toe location and no matter how I put my socks on or store them or whatever that sock always ends up on my left foot. How in the hell does that keep happening?

Going to be interesting to watch various parties contort themselves into a froth over these, but I've no doubt it's going to happen ...

Yeah, there's nothing really all that weird in there.

Old Hoss Radbourn ?@OldHossRadbourn

I hope the administration does not ban my Irish-piercing ammunition

I still marvel at how Fake Tony Schiavone continues to have less than a thousand followers. It's legit great stuff.

He's not saying anything anyone disagrees with there," Harris said. "But that's always his ploy."

"It's easy for him to say," Harris said. "His kids go to school with armed guards carrying assault rifles. They sleep all right."

Ellen Carmichael@ellencarmichael
The incredible irony of an administration responsible for #fastandfurious telling law-abiding people about their gun rights....

Erick Erickson @EWErickson
The President is surrounded by children, all of whom if born alive following an abortion, he'd be okay with the doctor finishing the job.

Jennifer Rubin@JRubinBlogger
I hate to call off the kabuki play on guns but can we get back to the debt ceiling?

Michelle Malkin @michellemalkin
Obama is mad. Don’t you know only the White House is allowed to use their kids and other kids for political gain!?

John Nolte @NolteNC
Why isn't the media criticizing Obama for giving all that Hollywood violence a pass today? Oh, yeah, cuz that was all a con to grab guns.

Lori Ziganto@snarkandboobs
Crocodile tears Obama invokes right to life, '1st task is keeping children safe'; What about abortion? bit.ly/13DPCzP via @TwitchyTeam

Robert Stacy McCain@rsmccain
Shorter Obama: "Excuse me while I bathe myself in the blood of victims. And shut up, haters."

CALLER: …on any given day in Americans [sic], more than 3,000 children are killed from abortion and we have no problems with that. We’re OK with that. It’s not an issue.

So you can’t spend 40 years of telling people and telling children that if I make a mistake, if something comes up and this child I don’t want is in the way of my future and in the way of me graduating high school, is in the way of me going to college, is [in] the way of me being happy, is in the way of whatever I want out of life, that it’s OK for me to kill the baby, but later on when I become a disgruntled employee, when I become an unhappy student at school because children are bullying me, that I want to eliminate them and get them out of the way? It’s the same concept.

LIMBAUGH: Well, it’s a good point. You know how to stop abortion? Require that each one occur with a gun.

... emerging as the celebrity world’s best gun-control advocate is MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, the man behind the one argument for reform that you should be following.

For the past 24 hours Scarborough’s Twitter stream has featured a takedown of the National Rifle Association’s extremism, 140 characters at a time. On Morning Joe over the past week, he’s slammed the organization as “sick” for, among other things, apparently releasing an iPhone videogame that allows users—age 4 and up—to take target practice. On his Politico blog, he warns the NRA of future extinction if it ignores a public that increasingly wants reform and continues with its “tone-deaf” ways.

... Scarborough ... is a Republican. He is of the same party that so many people on one side of the debate—those for sweeping gun-control reform—consider the bad guys. He is a longtime supporter of the Second Amendment and a believer of the original intention behind the formation of the NRA, calling it a good and “proud” organization that has been “besmirched and diminished” by a few powerful but out-of-touch gun lobbyists.

...

As much as he is decrying the recent spate of gun violence and the current mindset of the NRA, he is encouraging members of the Republican Party, to which the group is closely tied, to force it to reform its ways and make its way back from the edge of alienating and ultimately counterproductive extremism.

His message cites the stats, throwing out recent poll numbers about Americans’ support out “as a wake-up call” to the NRA and the Republican Party in general. “If they keep their feet in cement,” he says, “they’re going to be run over—not by Joe Biden, buy by Middle America, by people that want to protect their children.”

... Scarborough is boiling the debate down to logic, and survival. His take on the gun debate isn’t an opportunistic takedown of an out-of-touch organization, but a much needed canary in the coal mine for a major presence in American politics that doesn’t seem to be paying close enough attention. Quite simply, he says that if Republicans continue to back the NRA as it promotes its current stances, they would be “driving off the cliff into political oblivion.”

Oklahoma, if it's your second offense?

18. "Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers."

That law says "two to 10 years." Without some actual examples of people serving 7 years in prison simply for possessing a joint, I'm going to continue to call B.S. on BrianBrianson's claim.

One of those steps, also sought by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, would have the president order the Justice Department to prosecute criminals who provide false information to buy a gun.

The mayor said that in 2010 there were 76,000 cases referred by the FBI to the Justice Department. Only 44 were prosecuted.

— source

So what. 2 years, 7 years, 10 years? Does it really negate he point? Anyone going to jail for any amount of time for merely possessing a joint is a travesty. You want to cut spending, start there.

That law says "two to 10 years." Without some actual examples of people serving 7 years in prison simply for possessing a joint, I'm going to continue to call B.S. on BrianBrianson's claim.

Because the law at the state and federal level is so well known for going lenient on simple drug offenders.

Well it does if the offender is white.

Only yesterday, lefties were saying that putting more armed guards in schools was a nutjob idea that only the idiots at the NRA could dream up. But now Obama wants to do it, so I guess it's a great idea. One needs a scorecard to keep up with the changing "principles" on the left.

The idea of going out in the middle of nowhere and just starting to build massive infrastructure for the "new city" is a very Communist Party of China sort of idea.

In 1999, State Senator Barack Obama voted “present” on a bill that would require adult prosecution for discharging a gun in or near a school.

That legislation came as a response to the tragic Columbine High School shooting that year.

SB 759 provided that anyone 15 years of age or older charged with aggravated battery with a weapon in school or within 1,000 feet of a school would be charged as an adult.

It passed the Illinois State Senate in a 52-1 vote, with 5 members voting present — including Obama.

— source

SB 759 provided that anyone 15 years of age or older charged with aggravated battery with a weapon in school or within 1,000 feet of a school would be charged as an adult.

Ashamed of pointing out Obama's shamelessness? No, not at all.

in fairness, the population density in chicago (you know, the district he represented at the time) is such that 6000 people live within 1000 feet of any given school, so that is not exactly a narrow perimeter.

if you believe that, then how do you feel about someone shamelessly bashing another person for doing something they themselves support being done?

As I pointed out in #1465, Obama could have prosecuted over 75,000 people who used false info. while trying to buy guns in 2010 alone, yet he prosecuted just 44 of them. And yet people seem to think the next law is going to make a difference.

So what? Don't you care about the children?

no. obama did not do any of that. the department of justice did that.

now, if you're going to ask why the department of justice passed on prosecuting 75000 - more or less - minor cases, i might point you to the general defunding of the federal government led by republican congressmen, along with the quite significant waiting list of obama appointees currently being filibustered by republican congressmen.

So he was the one "no" vote? Egads!

Even funnier. The U.S. is running trillion-dollar budget deficits but somehow it's being "defunded."

I don't know what Joe is on, but I want some of that. The hallucinations he's getting must be wild.

are you drunk, or just an imbecile?


oh, and since this has been a topic of recent conversation, i am not calling you an imbecile, because that would be a slur. what i am doing is merely questioning your sobriety because your current level of comprehension and coherence is really, actually below the level of an imbecile, and it would seem to me that for an intelligent person to give the responses that you are giving, well, if you were an actually intelligent person (there's no judgment there), i would literally fear of you falling into a drug/alcohol induced coma due the sheer volume of mind-altering substances you must currently be on. if you are an actually intelligent person.


if not, then sure, go ahead and consider this an invective.

Even funnier. The U.S. is running trillion-dollar budget deficits but somehow it's being "defunded."

are you drunk, or just an imbecile?

Well, you obviously don't have the facts on your side when it comes to Obama and guns, so I guess the above is what you're left with.

The great part of all this that is that there's something for Joe to be pissed at and denigrate in all three possible Obama votes on that issue. Faith is truly awesome.

....He just declared 23 Executive Orders pertaining to the matters of guns, and asked Congress to pass several other laws pertaining to that subject as well.

If anything, we just been giving more information about his stance on guns in the past 24 hours than we have in the last 4 years of his presidency. Come on Joe, you're better than this.

Not true at all. "Present" was a gutless vote and "no" would have been dumb, but I would have given him credit for voting "yes."

Not true at all. "Present" was a gutless vote and "no" would have been dumb, but I would have given him credit for voting "yes."


This is bizarre. Today's executive orders were little more than grandstanding, an excuse for a photo op, and they didn't tell us much of anything about Obama's position on guns that we didn't know four years ago or eight years ago or a dozen years ago. (If there was anything new, I haven't seen anyone point it out.)

Well, this is a contradiction. Which is it, that Obama doesn't give a #### or won't vote on the issue, or that we have 'always' known what his position is. You can assume what his position is, but this is the first time during his presidency that he decided to give real credence to gun control. He held back after the Giffords event in early 2011, he held back after Aurora, and he only decided to take the issue seriously after Newton. That certainly suggests he had to be convinced at least that it was 'viable' to pursue gun control legislation.