He went to the speech to stand outside and show off his cammo and his guns. The press took note and had a chat with him. Hendrickson told them, “I’m a pretty laid-back guy that loves his kids and his country.”

Hendrickson was released from jail about a month ago after serving for an assault charge. He had pepper-sprayed a customer at the Cub Foods (a grocery store) in Brooklyn Center. Hendrickson was a security guard at the Cub Foods.

(Until now, I did not know that Cub Foods had security guards.)

The story of Josh’s visit to the President’s talk, carrying two loaded handguns, can be read at the Star Tribune or elsewhere on the Internet.

Actually, Josh told reporters that it really wasn’t any trouble at all to bring his guns. He routinely grabs his car keys, his wallet, and his loaded pistol on the way out the door each day. That is, I would guess, because Josh is a gun nut.

In the meantime, Josh’s congressional representative…that crazy lady who French kissed George Bush and called for an investigation of all Democrats in Congress to check to make sure they agreed with her “American Views”…has been known to tell her constituents to come to the table “Armed and Dangerous.”

Well, apparently they do. I believe it is the case that signs on sticks are against the rules at rallies, protests, or public gatherings such as this one. No sticks allowed. A stick that carries a big sign on which you express your First Amendment rights is not okay. But guns, with which you First-Amendmently express your Second Amendment rights, are okay.

So, the problem as I see it is that our social rules and regulations are often pieced together in somewhat haphazard ways that make no sense. The rule about the sticks is typically a local ordinance, untested in any court. Since sticks are arms and the Second Amendment says “right to bear arms” not “right to bear arms but not sticks” then surely the stick laws would be struck down in a second if challenged. But still, the rules of our society are somewhat haphazard not so much in the logic but in the means by which the rules arise. Collectively what appears to be an illogical mix (sticks no, guns yes) is only illogical because it’s a work in progress (one might even say “half baked”).Given enough time, municipal laws, state or provincial laws, federal or national laws and international laws would all make more sense as a whole because, after all, we one species and we share one planet. How much zany variation (sticks no, guns yes) is required?

But the laws are haphazard, and this confuses the duller individuals such as Josh. The idea that it is okay to visit a speech given by the president of the United States with the gun you normally carry, and in this case with an extra gun thrown in to boot, is absurd. At this moment in our legal and social history, it happens that Josh can get away with it. But that does not make it right. This sort of aggressive and obnoxious behavior is very negative, potentially dangerous, and is only allowed by the quirkiness of our system. The fact that the vast majority of gun-owning Obama-haters kept their guns home while Josh brought his guns is primarily because Josh is confused.

Again, that confusion is understandable. Quite often, people don’t find a sense of direction or guidance from our zany system of rules. Since it is illegal to bring a stick to the rally, but it is legal to pack two loaded handguns, it would be hard for a guy like Josh, who I’m thinking is not the most lucid lure in the tackle box, to know what to do and what not to do and when. Josh needs our help. He needs some social cues. He needs, in fact, to gain a sense of ostracization for his asshatery.

I’d like to let him know what’s going on in other people’s minds when he straps on his Glock and goes to visit the president of the United States.

Josh, most Minnesotans do not think it is appropriate to walk around with a loaded gun unless you are a cop or if you are out hunting. This includes every single gun owner I know in Minnesota whom I’ve asked over the years, and this is a considerable number. Even people I know who collect guns and have large numbers of them or who hunt all the time do not drop the Glock into the pocket on the way out the door. Then again, most of these people…those I know who have guns…did not and would not vote for Michele Bachmann. And they all think Joe Wilson is a jerk. I’m willing to bet, Josh Hendrickson, that you do not think Joe Wilson is a jerk, and that you are a big fan of Bachmann’s. Together, all that makes you a jerk, Josh.

Why am I telling you this, Josh? I’m using my First Amendment rights here. I have strong feelings about a certain issue and I want to make my opinion heard loud and clear. I am exercising my constitutional rights. I certainly hope that you do not have a problem with that.

Josh, I think you are an asshole. I’m in Rogers now and then. When I’m in town, please stay away from me, and under no circumstances are you to approach any member of my family. If we stop at the Antique Mall, or grab a bite at BoBo’s, I expect you to clear the hell out and stay away. For all I know, you are a heavy drinker and a crack head and a psychopath. I don’t trust that the government is any good at keeping guns out of the hands of people who should not have them. Given your known record of violence, I think it is wise to not trust you, Josh. Since I don’t trust you, I don’t want you living in the same society I live in, and if I had my choice, I’d drive you to the edge of the Good Ol’ USA and drop you off at the border. If I knew where you worked, I wouldn’t patronize that place. If I knew what school your kids went to, I would contact that principal and ask them to search you when you showed up at the school for events or to pick up your kids. And if I worked for the Secret Service, I’d be on your ass like ugly on an ape.

I say all these things as though I’m guessing them, but who knows? Maybe someone like me, someone who finds you and your actions to be terribly offensive, is your next door neighbor, or your employer, or the barkeep at the Champps down in Maple Grove. You know those people know who are not saying this stuff to you? They’re just avoiding the issue. Almost everybody you know thinks you are a shithead, Josh. And that’s probably always going to be the case.

And you know what? Most Minnesotans feel roughly like I do. In fact, the legislative sponsor of our Minnesota conceal and carry law did not have nice things to say about you.

I shouldn’t really worry, though. Now that you actually have shown up at a Presidential speech armed with two handguns, and showed off, YOUR ass is on THE list. Forever. For the rest of your life, information about where you live and where you ever have lived, where you work and where you ever have worked, your history of security guard jobs, of pepper spray use, your police record, is all linked into a file and is now the responsibility of some Secret Service agent who really has better things to do than to follow you around on paper until you die. You are wasting taxpayer money, you shithead.

Have a nice life being watched by the Secret Service.

Enjoy the following two videos. In the first, we get a look at Josh himself. In the second, we get a somewhat broader overview of the problem we are seeing today of which Josh is only a tiny, ant-like part.

White House Czar Calls for End to ‘War on Drugs’

The Obama administration’s new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting “a war on drugs,” a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use.

In his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation’s drug issues.

Wall Street Journal

Lawmaker: CIA Already Being Probed For Misleading Congress

As they go after Nancy Pelosi over those CIA briefings, Republicans have been putting the burden of proof on the Speaker, suggesting that it’s all but unheard of for the CIA to mislead others in government. But in fact, the agency is currently being probed for doing exactly that on a different issue — and the effort was initiated by one of Pelosi’s fiercest critics on the torture briefings kerfuffle.

TPM Muckraker

Sea-Based Missile Defense Moves Forward

Riki Ellison, Chairman and Founder of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, MDAA, told the MDAA membership last week of the establishment of a new U.S. Navy command that will support our nation’s missile defense program, and he said it is a sign of support for sea-based missile defense by President Barack Obama’s Administration.

Space War

US burns Bibles in Afghanistan row

The US army in Afghanistan has burned Bibles printed in local languages, a US colonel in Afghanistan has said, amid concerns they could have been used to try to convert Afghans.

Al Jazeera

House passes measure expanding gun rights

Gun rights advocates found an unlikely ally in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives on Wednesday as lawmakers passed a measure allowing concealed, loaded firearms to be carried in national parks.

CNN

What They Really Teach You About Sex at Jerry Falwell’s ‘Bible Boot Camp’

I thought we’d try something new before class today,” says Nathan, the Evangelism 101 teaching assistant. “A little cheer.”

My roommate Eric turns to me. “God is good. Bet you ten bucks.”

Before I can ask what he means, Nathan sets down his microphone and shouts through cupped hands, “God is good!”

Esquire

At Whitman, A Protest Over Poet’s Lifestyle

A group of seven congregants from Topeka, Kan., set up outside Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda yesterday to protest the sexual orientation of the poet for whom the school was named.

The police presence — 40 officers, five horses, blocked-off streets and a football field’s length of yellow tape — seemed comically disproportionate until the counter-protest arrived.

Washington Post

A Gaythering Storm

There is a storm being caused by gay marriage and we are all in serious trouble.

Funny or Die

Taliban blocks UN polio treatment in Pakistan

Miliants in northern Pakistan have triggered a medical emergency by refusing to allow health officials to conduct a polio vaccination campaign.

Taliban militants in the former tourist destination of Swat Valley have obstructed officials from vaccinating over 300,000 children.

Telegraph

Science setback for Texas schools

After three all-day meetings and a blizzard of amendments and counter-amendments, the Texas Board of Education cast its final vote Friday on state science standards. The results weren’t pretty.

The board majority amended the Earth and Space Sciences standards as well as the Biology standards (TEKS) with loopholes and language that make it even easier for creationists to attack science textbooks.

NCSE

Religious Revolt: New Christian Sect Battles Demons, Raises the Dead, Campaigns for Sarah Palin

What is happening to Christianity?

In 1996 a team from Ted Haggard’s New Life Church flew to Mali and began furtively anointing entire towns with cooking oil.

AlterNet

John Ziegler, Palin Activist, Arrested At Katie Couric Award Ceremony

Documentary filmmaker John Ziegler, who’s hard at work fighting Sarah Palin’s last battles for her, appeared On The Record with Greta Van Susteren, whose husband is hard at work fighting Sarah Palin’s future battles, for the glory of Scientology.

Huffington Post

Licensed to kill? Gunmen in killings had permits

They had more in common than unleashing carnage — nearly every gunman in this monthlong series of mass killings was legally entitled to fire his weapons.

So what does that say about the state of gun control laws in this country? One thing appears certain: the regulations aren’t getting stricter. Many recent efforts to change weapons laws have been about easing them.

Talking Points Memo

As multiple-death shootings surge, Congress looks away

Indeed, in recent weeks more than 60 people — including seven police officers — have been killed in multiple-death shootings from coast to coast. It’s just the type of headline-grabbing trend that might usually get congressional lawmakers screaming from the rafters for policy reforms, like banning military-style assault weapons and forcing gun-show vendors to do background checks on prospective buyers. Gun control advocates argue that such steps would help stem the more than 30,000 gun deaths that plague the United States each year.

But that hasn’t been the case. Instead, the reaction from congressional leaders — even the most vocal gun-reform proponents — has been a long, strange silence.

The Minnesota Independent

Tea Party Twitter Arrest: Daniel Hayden Threatened Mass Murder, Cop Killing

Another Twitter post began “START THE KILLING NOW!” Yet another: “Send the cops around. I will cut their heads off the heads and throw the[m] on the State Capitol steps,” he wrote in one message.

Huffington Post

Texas Republicans to U.S.: “Cease and desist”

Let’s be clear what this “cease and desist” nonsense is all about: it’s neo-secessionism.

They aren’t outright calling for Texas to secede. Rather, they are claiming that state governments have the right to nullify the laws of the U.S. government.

Daily Kos

Rick Perry, After Raising Secession, Calls For Fed Help With Swine Flu

Less than two weeks after raising the prospect of seceding from the union, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is calling on the federal government to come to his state’s aid in the midst of the swine flu outbreak.

Huffington Post

Hillary To Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN): “President Obama Won The Election”

During today’s hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Hillary Clinton made something clear to a very critical Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN): President Obama won the 2008 election.

Pence gave a lengthy question in which he criticized Obama for being seen shaking hands with Hugo Chávez, and asked Hillary about the negative effects of this event. In her response, Hillary explained that Obama is taking a different approach than what has been tried in the recent past and didn’t work — and that Obama is the president:

Talking Points Memo

FBI vet Rowley rips RNC report, readies WAMM complaints, pursues police data

FBI whistleblower-turned-activist Coleen Rowley is on a roll. She ripped into the City of St. Paul’s report on Republican National Convention law enforcement in a commentary that appeared Friday at MinnPost and today at The Huffington Post. Tomorrow, as court hearings start in the cases of the RNC8 protesters, Rowley and individuals from Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) and other groups will file formal complaints against the city, state and Ramsey County over police tactics. And Rowley’s inquiries into what she suspects was overbroad surveillance during the RNC are starting to bear fruit — or at least what she calls a first “non-responsive” response from Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher’s office.

Minnesota Independent

Lawsuits filed alleging police misconduct around the RNC

Let the litigation begin. Eight lawsuits have been filed in U.S. District Court claiming civil rights abuses by police officers during events surrounding the Republican National Convention (RNC) in September. The civil suits accuse officers of physical and sexual abuse, illegal searches and seizure of property, and wrongful detainment.

“This is just the beginning,” says Ted Dooley, one of the attorneys handling the cases. “There’s going to be a lot of litigation, and it’s going to take a long time.”

Minnesota Independent

One in 31

From the Pew Center on the States report, One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections, “Adding up all probationers and parolees, prisoners and jail inmates, you’ll find America now has more than 7.3 million adults under some form of correctional control. That whopping figure is more than the populations of Chicago, Philadelphia, San Diego and Dallas put together, and larger than the populations of 38 states and the District of Columbia. During Ronald Reagan’s first term as president, 1 in every 77 adults was under the control of the correctional system in the United States. Now, 25 years later, it is 1 in 31, or 3.2 percent of all adults.”

Sociological Images

Is anything made in the U.S.A. anymore? You’d be surprised

It seems as if the country that used to make everything is on the brink of making nothing. In January, 207,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs vanished in the largest one-month drop since October 1982. U.S. factory activity is hovering at a 28-year low. Even before the recession, plants were hemorrhaging work to foreign competitors with low-cost labor. And some companies were moving production overseas.

But manufacturing in the United States is not dead or even dying. It is moving upscale, following the biggest profits and becoming more efficient, just as Henry Ford did when he created the assembly line to make the Model T car.

International Herald Tribune

Court upholds conviction in guns case

The Supreme Court on Tuesday affirmed the use of a federal law barring people convicted of domestic violence crimes from owning guns, the first firearms case at the high court since last year’s decision in support of gun rights.

The court, in a 7-2 decision, said state laws against battery need not specifically mention domestic violence to fall under the domestic violence gun ban that was enacted in 1996.

Associated Press

Giz Explains: Why Lenses Are the Real Key to Stunning Photos

When most of us talk digital cameras, we talk megapixels, ISO, image noise, shot-per-second speed and image processing. We’re tech geeks. But really, none of that stuff matters as much as your camera’s lens.

Gizmodo