August 28, 2007

political violence linked to gun ownership

Well, surprise, surprise. Reuters reports today on the Small Arms Survey by Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies, which found that some of the worlds most violent hot-spots have the lowest per-capita ownership of firearms. At the bottom of the list are nations like Nigeria (1 per 100 people). Totalitarian Communist regimes like China had only 3 per 100 people.

But the civilized nations of Europe are packing heat (30-60 per 100). The US has 90 firearms per 100 people.

Small Arms Survey director Keith Krause says, "Firearms are very unevenly distributed around the world. The image we have of certain regions such as Africa or Latin America being awash with weapons -- these images are certainly misleading."

Could it be the 1-3 guns per 100 people in those poorer, more violent countries corresponds to the percentage of people in those nations who will use firearms without moral compunction? What would happen if the percentage of firearms were large enough that large numbers of decent, law-abiding people owned a weapon?

Source: Reuters

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March 20, 2007

finally, a champion

Never has the stiff upper lip and gracious formalism of British nobility been more welcome than it was this morning when I read Lord Viscount Monckton of Brenchly's open challenge to former Vice President Albert Gore to a televised debate on the subject of Global Warming™.

Although Monckton's tone was gentlemanly and complimentary, there can be no doubt as to the sincerity of his challenge, as he proposed "the caution and skepticism of true science" should prevail over the "shibboleths and nostrums of the false, new religion of climate alarmism."

Having called Albert out, and having proposed a venue (the Library of the Oxford Museum of Natural History), Lord Monckton offers Mr. Gore the "prerogative and right to choose his weapons by specifying the form of the Great Debate."

Should Gore accept this challenge? Of course he ought to step up and defend his nefarious plan to crash the economies of compliant nations and drown the world's poor in a blood-warm sea of starvation and disease, while consolidating global administrative power into the hands of a few priests of "the religion of climate alarmism."

But will he accept? Gore has been pretty canny about sidestepping scenarios where he must face scientific arguments with an opposition view. He may (wisely) conclude his rickety case would not withstand the pounding that Lord Monckton would mete out. On the other hand, it is such a public provocation.

Oh man, I am all a twitter.

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March 13, 2007

bancroft-arnesen to seek evidence of global warming in minneapolis

The first thing to go were those little paper umbrellas that you put in Mai-Tai's. There just wasn't enough room on their sled, what with the beach gear and suntan lotion.

But they never got to don wetsuits and swim through tepid seas choked with polar bear carcasses. They never got to take pictures of the melting icecap, to post them on their blog, and broadcast the bad news into children's classrooms like two astronauts high atop the world. They never got to do these things because it was too darned cold.

Instead of global warming, they reported 58 degrees below zero inside their tent. In an attempt to stave off frostbite, Bancroft had to keep hot water bottles on her feet. And in the middle of the night they'd wake up to find the hot water bottles frozen.

It all reminds me so much of The Penguin That Hated The Cold.

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October 14, 2006

jammin' with clinton

Clinton called the kettle black on Thursday, claiming the Republican party has been "jammed into an ideological corner" by a sliver of the Republican Party; namely "its more right-wing and its most ideological element."

Skuze me? Which party handed Howard "Yaarrrr" Dean the party chairmanship after his leftist tantrum meltdown in '04? Which party no longer resembles the party of JFK or Truman? Which party, despite a string of embarrassing defeats (which started in '94, on Clinton's watch), continues to slew further and further left? Which party's moderate candidates must walk a tightrope between supporting the troops and kow-towing to an angry, radical fringe? Which party is drumming out moderates like Zell Miller and Joe Leiberman because they support the American president in the war on terror?

Meanwhile Republicans run pell mell to pose in the middle at the slightest hint of a threat from Democrat witch hunters on the prowl for anybody who may have shaken Foley's hand (the one that holds his Blackberry) at some point in the past.

This slick displacement is amazing, even downright...Clintonian. As he has done so many times in the past, Bubba declares the situation exactly opposite from reality. A heart is a spade, and he dares you to say otherwise. Pathological Bill has shown his colors again.

SOURCE: Clinton says right wing has hurt U.S., predicts win by Democrats

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October 11, 2006

oh please no, not backlash!

The Canadian Press reports: "Iran's top leaders vow to continue nuclear program despite NKorea backlash."

In a nearly subsequent response, and in the wake of North Korea's "successful" nuclear bomb test, a clearly shaken Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran said, "Our policy is clear: Progress, offering transparent logic and insisting on the rights of the nation without retreat." But you could tell he was really worried about the repercussions North Korea is experiencing.

Privately (I just know) he worried to president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (may he languish forever without press coverage) that Iran could not withstand another round of stern finger wagging and condemnations such as Ahmadinejad doles out to Israel every day.

"Don't you realize," Khamenei said, his lower lip quivering, "that the UN may convene to discuss the slim possiblity of opening a dialogue on whether to allow the suggestion of contemplating a prolonged timetable for issuing a resolution which takes a decidedly 'disappointed' view of our nuclear program? Do you really want that?"

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October 02, 2006

abc: journalism is drudgery

"One dude, sitting in his apartment, marshalls the vangard of the militant right, and pretty much controls all media in the world," said ABC News Political Director Mark Halperin. "And if he puts up that little blue and red siren? Forgeddaboudit. In today's media, Drudge is like Walter Cronkite, except with x-ray vision. No, wait, he's like Dan Rather. He's like a young, literate Dan Rather that nobody knows what he looks like. The Rather comparison is apt because he can force anybody anywhere believe anything he says. The Cronkite comparison is apt because they would have believed him anyway.

"Basically," Halperin continues, shaking his head, "by choosing often obscure stories about Democrats (honestly, who had ever heard of Monica Lewinsky?), he can set the talking points for everyone across the political spectrum. And once that happens, the rest of the mainstream media has to follow suit and cover the "story," usually within three to four weeks or less."

Drudge admits he's wrong about 20% of the time, but who cares? His headlines are pure journalistic gold. "I haven't done any investigative journalism since I started at the Times, back in 1968," admits New York Times reporter Jayson Blair. "In fact, nobody at the Times has. Drudge makes it too danged easy: you can either write something that says the exact opposite of what Drudge said (e.g. "Clinton is not alleged to have had sex with that woman") or if you're in a hurry you can just copy what he wrote word for word."

Democratic strategist Chris Lehane remembers, "There was this one time when Drudge thought it would be funny to say that Congressman Barney Frank was gay. Now practically everyone things Frank is gay. Nobody fact-checks this. Nobody asks Mr. Frank what he thinks. That's the power of Drudge. Not there's anything wrong with that, I'm just saying."

SOURCE: abcnews.go.com

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September 25, 2006

mel's bells

Mel Gibson, commenting at an early screening of his upcoming movie Apocalypto, drew a comparison between the morally horrific decline of the Mayans and present day American culture. "What's human sacrifice," he asked, "if not sending guys off to Iraq for no reason?"

As a writer/director who has tackled the subject of declining cultures, Mel Gibson shows surprisingly little insight on the matter. First off, the Mayans' form of human sacrifice is chiefly horrible because they sacrificed the imprisoned, the helpless, the innocent. Our military is all-volunteer, and they aren't standing in line to be slaughtered, they are highly-trained, active participants in the most effective fighting force in the history of the world. The Mayans' sacrifices were inspired by fear of the supernatural; they sought to appease their angry gods. Our soldiers are exemplars of courage daily engaged in fighting a lethal but human foe. Mayan leaders consolidated their power through a reign of terror. We have ended a reign of terror and now struggle to replace it with government elected by those it governs.

But most disappointing is the fact that Gibson, as a conservative Catholic, missed a more apt comparison which he should not have. If there is anything like human sacrifice of innocents happening in American culture today, it is the sacrifice of the unborn in the commonplace practice of abortion. If he is a Catholic, and believes what Catholics believe, then how can he, in a discussion of human sacrifice, raise the anti-war banner and keep silent about abortion? Perhaps if we knew everything about the Mayans, we'd find that their movie directors too, were sounding alarms about the wrong issues when their world ended.

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