Vin Suprynowicz

Richard Mack first came to national attention when, as sheriff of Graham County, Arizona, he successfully brought the lawsuit Mack v. United States (re-named Printz v. United States, when Mack’s suit was joined with that of Sheriff Jay Printz of Ravalli County, Montana), arguing Congress had no legitimate power to order local law enforcement officials to conduct background checks under the 1993 Brady Bill, or “Handgun Violence Prevention Act.”

Mack and Printz won a significant Supreme Court victory for states’ right and limits on federal power, though many authorities now argue the decision had little practical effect, since most police agencies seem pleased as punch to earn a profit charging law-abiding citizens to submit to fingerprinting and other indignities in order to be licensed to exercise what was previously considered their “right” to keep and bear arms.

More »

Farm injuries among youths have been declining for more than a decade, according to Barbara Lee, senior research scientist at the National Farm Medicine Center in Marshfield, Wisc.

But more than 15,000 youths under the age of 20 were still injured on farms in 2009, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Most of those injuries involved routine farm chores, according to Nancy Leppink, deputy administrator of the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division — though some involved kids riding four-wheel-drive vehicles and the like.

More »

They say when you stand at the base of the great pyramid of Khufu and look up, you don’t see a pyramid, at all. The proportions are so vast that the third dimension drops away, and it appears you’re simply gazing at a flat new horizon, albeit tilted up at 51 degrees.

(This may be no accident. The western horizon was a very important place to the ancient Egyptians — the boundary between this world and the World-Beyond. And while it’s true the Egyptians were fixated on that land of the dead, it may not be true that all their best-celebrated texts were merely instructions to the traveler on how to conduct himself once he’d crossed that horizon for good. The promise of all mystery religions — Egypt’s surely among the oldest — was of a ritual and a sacrament that would allow the traveler to voyage to the World-Beyond … and return.)

More »

The Obama administration is doing everything in its power to block the development and use of low-cost coal and oil reserves in this country — and even in Canada.

Bad enough that the administration continues to block the Keystone pipeline from Canada to Texas, a job-intensive private project which would reduce our dependence on Mideast oil and which has already passed every environmental review with flying colors. Beyond that, “Each step the government took … showcases its defiance,” as the administration continued its deepwater drilling moratorium after the policy was struck down as illegal, U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman of New Orleans found last year, holding the Obama administration in contempt of court.

More »

Fed by streams tumbling from the Selkirk Mountains and bordered by parkland, the 19-mile stretch of clear water in the Idaho Panhandle known as Priest Lake has been called “the Lake Tahoe of the upper Northwest,” The Washington Post reports. Houses and resorts crowd the privately owned lakeshore; piers and a marina jut into its waters.

A local couple, Mike and Chantell Sackett run an excavation business in Priest Lake. Back in 2005, Chantell bought Mike a 0.63-acre lot in a subdivision about 500 feet from the lake, as a surprise.

More »

Nation’s “Forests Are Severely Damaged By Marijuana Grow Sites,” reads the headline on the Dec. 7 press release from the U.S. Forest Service, datelined Washington, D&C.

Marijuana cultivation sites in 20 states on 67 national forests “have caused severe damage,” said Forest Service director of law enforcement David Ferrell. In California alone, the Forest Service has cleaned up and restored 335 sites, removing 130 tons of trash, 300 pounds of pesticides, five tons of fertilizer and nearly 260 miles of irrigation piping, the agriculture cop testified.

More »

And now the bustling streets and malls fall strangely quiet. In many a home the living room rests ankle-deep in an effluvia of ribbons and bows, while in the background someone has left the TV running — Alastair Sim throws open his window on a bright and shining world for the 56th time, and asks the lad in the street what day this is.

It’s Christmas morning, sir. And yes, he certainly does know the butcher shop on “the next street but one” with the big, fat turkey still hanging in the window — “the one as big as me.” (You thought it was a “goose”? Me too — but they actually say “turkey,” I checked.)

More »

America’s great national holiday is July 4 — celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

But how long did that confederation of sovereign states, founded to fight the Revolution, really last?

More »

Do you know who owns your mortgage? Wanna bet?

In 2004, the nice New York couple who rented me my house decided to retire to San Diego instead of Las Vegas. They asked me if I wanted to buy. It sounded easier than moving. I asked the folks at my bank, then called Bank West of Nevada, if they issued mortgage loans, thinking it would be nice not only to patronize a local business, and also to be able to go down the street and visit my mortgage holder in person if there was ever a problem. They told me they did.

That wasn’t quite true. When I sat down to sign the forms, it turned out my lender was an outfit called RBMG, which had been acquired in 2001 by NetBank, an Internet-only outfit which was to fail massively in 2007.

More »

Did you read the interesting five-part series in last week’s Review-Journal on fatal shootings by local Las Vegas valley police.

As ever, I’d urge folks to look not just at the 30 seconds leading up to gunfire, but to what goes on in the minutes or hours before.

More »