Yesterday, "unidentified" thugs in Cairo attacked protestors outside the Egyptian Defense Ministry, the seat of the warlords who currently rule the country. The attacks killed at least 20 protestors and injured scores more. The protestors were demanding an end to the continued military-industrial domination of the entire nation. http://english.alarabiya.net/...
In other news, the Tampa City Council today considers a change to the ordinance demarcating what until yesterday was called the "Clean Zone" around the Republican National Convention, and today has been renamed the "Event Zone." http://www.wtsp.com/...
Shrinking the whatever-you-call-it zone, an area that will be subject to "heightened police activity," and in portions of which petitions for redress of grievances and other First Amendment exercises of political speech will be "allowed," with one of a limited number of "permits," will allow the police and other security assets to concentrate their forces over a smaller front and reduced potential Battlespace. Local business owners and residents sought the change, fearing major negative impacts on the local retail climate, and the boom expected from Convention-induced spending, from Tazers, tear gas and truncheons.
[And wait! There's more below!]
Sources close to the event horizon claim that this change has nothing to do with protecting the expected influx of hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of delegates and camp followers, many of whom have already booked private performances at Mons Venus, http://voices.yahoo.com/... , and other local attractions.
Nor, they state, does the change have anything to do with Governator Rick Scott's ruling that Florida's "concealed carry" program, which may have issued possibly as many as 1.5 million permits to gunmen and -women (but even these numbers are also concealed), and other gun laws like "stand your ground," trumps the RNC's orders to outlaw private firearms in the Event Zone. http://www.nydailynews.com/...
In a story in the local FOX TV outlet, the Tampa City Attorney struggled to explain:
Some people still contend that no specially designated area is needed.
"I realize they're saying that maybe we didn't need this but I strongly think that we do," said Tampa City Attorney Jim Shimberg. "And we think that it represents a fair and reasonable balance between public safety considerations and first amendment."
http://cfnews13.com/...
According to Scott,
"It is unclear how disarming law-abiding citizens would better protect them from the dangers and threats posed by those who would flout the law.
"It is at just such times that the constitutional right to self-defense is most precious and must be protected from government overreach."
http://www.nydailynews.com/...
Convention organizers state firmly that consistent with their long-standing positions on the Second Amendment, they are cautiously optimistic that a well-armed population will self-regulate, and not "take out" their frustrations on the conventioneers, who are mostly good ol' boys and gals anyway, are thought to be comfortable enough with Mitt Romney not to generate firefights between factions, and who would be "law-abiding" right up to and, in Florida, maybe beyond the point at which they drew down on someone who annoyed or "threatened" them.
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It's everywhere, folks, the longing for simple decency and governance...