Once again, California leads the way...

...in stark-staring-mad style liberal lunacy.

Item1: It sure takes a lot to make the ultra-liberal federal judges in this part of the country look like reasoned, scholarly, objective and impartial members of the bench, but CA state attorney Jerry Brown makes it easy with his flat out batshit insane Global Warming Lawsuit Against the EEEvil Automakers for Ruining The Planet. Only a gibbering idiot would let something like that go to trial with a straight face. See DirtCrashr and RNS for more details.

Item 2: Sitting on the Governors desk right now is AB1471, the microstamping bill that apparently sailed through the state legislature regardless of the total, complete and utter lack of solid science behind it. This bill requires that all handguns have a laser-engraved microstamp on the tip of the firing pin that will deliver a unique imprint to the cartridge upon firing. The obvious fact that this "investigative aid" can be overcome in a variety of ways - 5 minutes with a file, picking up your cartridges at the scene of the crime or picking up other people's cartridges from the gun range and dropping them as "evidence" to name just 3 off the top of my head - has not deterred the primates that pass for our legislators suggests to me that they're less concerned about current criminals than they are about creating a whole new class of criminal - namely law-abiding gun-owners. "Hey, it's an unworkable solution that has no place in reality, but if it delivers yet another kick to the nuts of the CA gun-owner, it can't be all bad".

Item 3: Another one gracing Ahhnuld's desk is AB821, the lead ammo ban to SAVE THE CALIFORNIA CONDOR, MAN! Despite all our conservation efforts, this species still just cannot make it on its own. The high levels of lead toxicity in the blood of Condors has led the environmental crowd to blame hunters for the problem. Now this may or may not be true - I don't think there's a definitive study out there that proves it beyond a doubt; besides which, there are plenty of other carrion-eating species out here in the great state of California, and I don't hear any others being decimated in this manner. Shit, sometimes I think we're being overrun by coyotes from some of the news stories I hear, and everwhere I look when I'm hiking I see crows and ravens. Anyway, regardless of whether science has reached a conclusion or not, our esteemed legislature has determined that WE MUST DO SOMETHING! That something? Well, criminalize a bunch of hunters of course! "Hey, it's an unworkable solution that has no place in reality, but if it delivers yet another kick to the nuts of the CA gun-owner, it can't be all bad".

Now, with a Republican governor at the helm, one would be tempted to think "Well, this is a man of reason and discernment; obviously he will just veto this nonsense and we'll continue about our day"... except this is Arnold Schwarzenegger we're talking about. You know, the one who said "The Global Warming debate is over", the one who signed into law AB50, the Eevil 50BMG rifle ban. His veto is by no means a slam dunk in this matter, especially given the amount of democratic ass he has to kiss on a daily basis to get ANYTHING done in Sacramento - or anything in the bedroom, since he's married to a Kennedy.