Nothing Much

Categories Nothing Much

In Indiana

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Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes.

“We believe … a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,” David said. “We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest.”……………..

Professor Ivan Bodensteiner, of Valparaiso University School of Law, said the court’s decision is consistent with the idea of preventing violence.  “It’s not surprising that they would say there’s no right to beat the hell out of the officer,” Bodensteiner said. “(The court is saying) we would rather opt on the side of saying if the police act wrongfully in entering your house your remedy is under law, to bring a civil action against the officer.”

I won’t be moving to Indy any time soon…..

Categories Nothing Much

So last night…..

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…I followed a link, to a link, and ended up on William the Coroner’s blog reading about how Harry Potter needed a 1911.

And have you noticed that only Europe seems to have a problem with Deatheaters? Maybe it’s because Americans have spent the last 200 years shooting deer, playing GTA: Vice City, and keeping an eye out for black helicopters over their compounds. Meanwhile, Brits have been cutting their stakes with spoons. Remember: gun-control means that Voldemort wins. God made wizards and God made muggles, but Samuel Colt made them equal.

Totally worth the laugh, go read the whole thing, you’ll need at least a vague understanding of the Harry Potter series though or it may not make sense (the movie version is fine)!

Categories Cats, Nothing Much

Company Endorsement

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In February of 2010 I bought a Litter Robot litter box for my cats.  Unfortunately only one of the cats (Trouble) will use it on a regular basis, the other one (Janie) turned out to have issues with the whole “covered litter box” concept (basically she hates it).  In general for the last year however its worked just fine with minimal hitches in the running. 

But a week or so ago it stopped working.  No lights on the control panel, no nothing.  Sigh.  It only came with a 90 day warranty, and even if the warranty were for a year its over that mark too.  But I went ahead and contacted the company.  At best I figured I’d end up being told I had to buy a $50 part to fix it, at worst that I’d have to pay for shipping it to them and a fee to have them even look at it.  But I figured it was worth contacting them to see what they had to say about it.

Instead Shirley from their tech support department contacted me with a list of things to check, or double check, with the end conclusion that it was likely the power supply was no longer working (the power supply remains cold even after having been plugged in for a while, when every other power supply in the house gets at least a little warm after the same period of time), not perhaps a HUGE surprise as we had major thunderstorms rolling through the day it died complete with power fluctuations. She said that was a not unusual failure point, the other being that something caused the plug jack in the unit to fail, and that were that the case they have a new jack unit they can send me.

The company shipped me a new power supply at no charge, with only request being that I return the defunct one to them, AND I don’t even have to pay the shipping on the returned power supply.  They’re sending FedEx back out to pick up the box.  The new power supply did indeed solve the problem, and the defunct one is in the box waiting for FedEx to come by and pick it up (the plan is for Tuesday pickup).  How cool is that?

**Disclaimer, I bought the original litter box with my own money, and am receiving no kickback or reward for this endorsement.  I also have to add that this is NOT a litter box for every cat loving house-old out there, but it works well for me!

Categories Nothing Much

Gas tax

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Over at Daddy Bears Den Daddy Bear commented on the lack of breakdown of taxes on the reciept at the gas pump. Which started a conversation on how much ARE you paying in gas taxes a year, which drove me to find this site.

Assuming I don’t run to many extra errands during the week I average 10 – 12 gallons a week. According to that chart I’m paying $0.66 in taxes per gallon. Thats $6.60 a week, or $343.20 a year. My husband runs about the same, though his car doesn’t get quite the gas milage mine does. Which I suppose in the over all scheme of things could be worse, I have no kids to run around, and a car that gets decent gas milage. But at the current gas prices (after taxes) of $4.03 (at the cheap place!) thats another 85 gallons of gas I could buy just from the taxes I personally pay. That hurts. I’m already not going places because I can’t really afford the gas.