Sunday, December 23, 2018

Deer - a "menace"?

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2018/12/20/deer_are_a_menace_and_we_need_to_kill_a_lot_more_of_them.html

What if, absent the natural predators for deer, they are a menace as hunters have said they would be all along absent hunting?

What if the bambi idea is backwards - that deer are eating plants to extinction and their populations have grown all too fast after being devastated by the deforestation of the early 1900s?

That seems to be true, not to mention their risk to humans in cars.

I love deer. I've hunted them all my life. I like to see them, hunt them, eat them. They are beautiful. The whitetail is apparently more adaptable than the mule deer, which is decreasing in numbers.

I hope the human race keeps learning how to help them live in balance with the rest of nature.

Thursday, December 6, 2018

Climate Change or Not

Interesting speculation:
"Climate change itself is already in the process of definitively rebutting climate alarmists who think human use of fossil fuels is causing ultimately catastrophic global warming.  That is because natural climate cycles have already turned from warming to cooling, global temperatures have already been declining for more than 10 years, and global temperatures will continue to decline for another two decades or more."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/05/31/sorry-global-warming-alarmists-the-earth-is-cooling/?fbclid=IwAR2xkFsqCfQtXP-KXU0WX2yqJdfiSQEyrbx_v1SpyWO2Z_zIMN9fDGlVkH0#5aa3911b3de0

A new federal report on climate change predicts dire consequences if action isn't taken. Human sacrifice. Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria.
Sorry, that's Bill Murray in “Ghostbusters.” But Murray's classic oration is only an exaggerated form of the predictions contained in the report, which include early death, food shortages and pestilence. Thus, environmentalists are dismayed that President Trump and much of the public have responded with a shrug.
They shouldn't be surprised, because there is little appetite for embracing meaningful climate change policies and there's a long history of such reports crying wolf.
https://newsok.com/article/5616517/skepticism-a-reasonable-response-to-climate-report

Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Why 536 was the worst?

Volcano on Iceland ....
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/why-536-was-worst-year-be-alive

Monday, December 3, 2018

Good bye Levi's ...

Levi’s Teams with Billionaire Michael Bloomberg to Attack Gun Rights

That company won't miss the $40 or so I spent on their product as much as I will miss knowing what jeans I like to wear. Tried LL Bean, not terrible, will try Duluth Trading Post next. 

Sunday, December 2, 2018

CO2 Reductions Aren't Free

Writing for Commentary, Abe Greenwald notes that it “turns out that people — not just Americans — care deeply about melting ice caps and rising sea levels only under specific circumstances. Namely, when they can be blamed on the greed and stupidity of their political enemies. They find that they suddenly care a lot less when addressing climate change means shelling out a few extra euro cents. So the French came out in droves, lit bonfires, tore up some buildings, blocked streets, and chanted slogans.”
https://newsok.com/article/5616517/skepticism-a-reasonable-response-to-climate-report

A very easy way to reduce CO2 would be to ban pets of all kinds - but that will never be advocated because the advocates know they can only sell this disaster if they avoid showing how painful it would really be to reduce CO2 emissions. 

Common Sense Gun Reform and Other Unicorns

This is why I opposed back ground checks all those years ago - they don't work, they are expensive and they reinforce the idea of dependence on government for our safety.

https://www.nraila.org/articles/20181130/anti-gun-researchers-undermine-the-anti-gun-narrative

Monday, November 26, 2018

Inequality, Thank Goodness

I'll admit I have not read anyone's in depth analysis on why inequality is anything other than inevitable. Once government has enough power to regulate equality, it will regulate all the money to the insiders. 

Inequality is another "emperor's clothes", people talk about it but there's never been a point at which it was established that it matters, and there's no public debate about why it matters. If inequality were the result of government interference, on the other hand, that would matter to those who value liberty

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/heres-how-much-money-it-takes-to-be-among-the-richest-50-percent-of-people-worldwide/ar-BBPSBdV?ocid=ientp

Saturday, November 24, 2018

Self Evident?

They are self-evident, ultimately, because we believe that they are. Or because we believe in a God — whether biblical or not, literal or metaphorical or perhaps, like Jefferson’s or Einstein’s God, one and the same with the laws of nature — who decrees that they are. And, ultimately, this is a distinction without a difference. Either way, what lies at the foundation of the American experiment, our democracy, our very way of life, is an article of faith.
It is by no means the only possible political faith. For most of human history, no one believed in these propositions. Indeed, no one had even conceived of them. We forget how revolutionary these principles were at the time of the American founding, and even for centuries afterward. Until the late 20th century, liberal democracy was an exceedingly rare (and usually short-lived) phenomenon. For millennia, it appeared “self-evident” to most of humanity that the legitimacy of governments flowed from the divine right of kings, or the inherent superiority of a feudal aristocracy, or the enlightened wisdom of a theocratic priesthood. In the last century, totalitarian ideologies of left and right built regimes whose claims to legitimacy rested on the complete sublimation of individual worth to the deified class or race collective. And still today, authoritarians around the world bolster their support by championing the power of national and ethnic groups above the rights of the citizen.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-lessons-my-father-charles-krauthammer-taught-me-about-being-thankful/2018/11/21/c314bf34-ecee-11e8-8679-934a2b33be52_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.24d03038e2cf

Friday, November 23, 2018

It is easy to have contempt for politicians and I do ....

.. but this story is powerful nonetheless for the connection to the human experience.

Every November, as she has done for almost forty years, Nellie Connally readies herself for the reporters’ calls. She has her hair done in preparation for the cameras, and she buys flowers—yellow roses, typically—to freshen her home, a sun-washed two-bedroom condominium on the twelfth floor of a luxury high-rise, the Four Leaf Towers, in Houston. Because the story is always present in her memory, she doesn’t have to brush up for the interviews, and because she is a trouper—she wanted to be an actress, a long, long time ago—she always sounds as if she is speaking on the subject for the first time. The story she is perpetually asked to tell, of course, is the tale of that fateful day, November 22, 1963, when she rode in an open Lincoln convertible with the president of the United States, John F. Kennedy; his wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy; and her husband, John Connally, the governor of Texas.

https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/the-witness-2/

Sunday, November 18, 2018

"Let's Ban Dissent"

A group of international scientists is walking back major claims they’d made in the journal Nature about the rate at which the earth’s oceans are warming. A newly published note from the study’s co-author, Ralph Keeting, makes it plain that these researchers still believe the oceans are warming at an alarming rate, but they now acknowledge that procedural mistakes “that came to our attention” created an unacceptably large margin of error in their results.
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/culture-civilization/science/when-the-scientific-consensus-is-corrected-by-a-skeptic/

The battle of climate science is being played out in the heads of mathematicians with statistical calculations based on estimates and evaluations of uncertainty.

But the science is settled, don't forget. It's a little baby science, with little power to predict no ability to control.

Thursday, November 8, 2018

How Could A Bad Man Be So Good ...

We now know why President Obama had to struggle so hard to spur the economy and allow it to grow more than 2 percent a year. And that was the high-water mark. In the last quarter of his presidency, growth had slipped to 1.5 percent. Today it’s obvious what Obama’s problem was. He had the wrong policies‚ lots of them. 
How do we know this? Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, and the Republican Congress reversed Obama’s policies. The result, from the day Trump was elected, has been a more robust economy. Nearly 4 million jobs have been added, and unemployment has dipped to the lowest point in nearly a half-century. Let’s compare what Obama did with what Trump is doing.

https://www.weeklystandard.com/fred-barnes/what-trump-knows-that-obama-didnt

Wednesday, November 7, 2018

John Lott on FBI Active Shooter Records

In all, the FBI claims that concealed handgun permit holders have stopped 3.2 percent of active shooter incidents.
But the bureau misses at least 23 cases where permit holders saved the day. That means they stopped 11.5 percent of active shooter incidents from 2000 to 2017.  We at the Crime Prevention Research Center are more confident that we have all of the cases from 2014 to 2017, when 16.5 percent of attacks were stopped.
Back in 2015, when I pointed out errors in the original report, the FBI simply responded, “We acknowledge in the FBI report that our data are imperfect.”  But no correction was ever made. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/10/23/the_problem_with_the_fbis_active_shooter_data_138425.html

Monday, November 5, 2018

The Sky Is Falling. Again.

For years I assigned statistics students to pick any apocalyptic climate claim in the media and trace it back through the UN reports to its genesis in a scientific study. I knew they would discover that these reports are not scientific documents based on the peer review process, but political documents “approved by governments” and intended to scare the public into supporting constraints on the production and use of energy.

Another choice clip:
Even the average global temperature (whose rise is supposed to increase disasters) has barely budged, only rising a third of the amount that has been repeatedly been predicted by the IPCC computer models.

https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2018/10/31/the_uns_terrifying_but_ever-receding_human-caused_climate_catastrophe_110360.html

Sunday, November 4, 2018

The Headline Reads ...

When will BC get his #metoo moment?

I wonder the same. I don't think it will come until HC is clearly not even a remote possibility as a candidate for president. Until then, he's still of some marginal utility to a powerful political party.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-kendall-bill-clinton-and-me-too-20181104-story.html

"Two other allegations were made public in the 1990s as a result of the Starr investigation and impeachment proceedings. Kathleen Willey, a former White House volunteer, went public in 1998 with her allegations that Clinton assaulted her in the Oval Office in 1993.
And Juanita Broaddrick, a former nursing home administrator, went public in 1999accusing Clinton of raping her in a hotel room in 1978, when he was attorney general of Arkansas. (Though accounts of Broaddrick’s claims were initially reported in 1992, during Clinton’s first run for president, she was not identified at that time.)
But for the most part, Broaddrick’s and Willey’s allegations remained outside of Starr’s purview. Broaddrick appeared in the Starr report only as a footnote in an appendix, where she was referred to as “Jane Doe No. 5.”
A fourth accuser, Leslie Millwee, a former television reporter, came forward in 2016saying Clinton assaulted her three times in 1980 during his first term as governor of Arkansas.


The news media has aired these four allegations repeatedly. There are a number of other allegations that never got much of a media airing. Peter Baker, in his impeachment saga “The Breach” relayed that additional unwelcome advances were described in Starr’s files.

It's a Big Old Crazy World

It is difficult to avoid feeling contempt for persons like this, who seem to be able to behave against all the rules and still avoid the consequences most of us would face. But the contempt detracts from my life, and this guy has to be in his own company all of the time, seems like that's suffering enough.

It is perplexing in moments when personal virtue seems irrelevant to a person's ability to make huge pots of money entertaining the masses.

https://nypost.com/2018/11/02/how-come-alec-baldwin-always-gets-away-with-it/

Saturday, October 27, 2018

Why We Should Not "Pull Together"

Hank Aaron. His life was threatened because he was a great hitter, and played smart and stayed healthy and broke some drunk's hitting record. I didn't know why there was an uproar about Hank in my youth. He was a Brave, I cheered for him. Grown up, I heard the back story - urine dumped on him at MLB games. Death threats as he approached the record. When he hit that 715th in 74, they say his mom ran on the diamond not to cheer him ... but out of fear he would be killed. Killed for hitting a baseball really, really well, and being black skinned... 
So you think it's bad today when some whack job sends pretend bombs?
Oh, and Trump "attacks the press". Wowee. Look at what JFK did with the protection of the oh so noble press. How was anyone ever so naive as to believe all the mythical majesty of the "press". Rate gathering wonders, yes they are that. Purposeful? Doing meaningful work? Only by accident. There could hardly be anyone more reprehensible to me than Trump, he's easily the worst employee I've ever been stuck with. Still, he's a step above "the press" in terms of integrity since he clearly is just what he says, a compulsive self promoter - just like the press but honest about it. 
I struggle to make sense of this time, too. I feel angry at the stupid. People say silly stuff like "we must all pull together to make our democracy work" as if the alpha and omega of this nation is what the government does or doesn't do (and as if the USA was a democracy - "and to the republic for which it stands").
People say silly stuff like "we must all pull together" as if they don't see how afraid I am of what you want the government to do to me, and what you think I want the government to do to you.
Pull together? Well, are you going to stop using the government against me? If not, how can I pull with you?
With this much power at stake, does it make sense to "pull together"? "Pull together", whatever that means. Really, you think 300 million people are going to have a common interest other than you shouldn't hurt me and I shouldn't hurt you?
You don't like violence? Every act of government is an act of violence, we ignore that we accept violence from the powerful. You want to smoke something that I don't think you should? Well, someone with a gun will take care of it and you can go to jail or get shot for "breaking the law". That is violence, lawful or not.
When someone says "we should all pull together" I wonder how they can miss how absurdly thin that gruel is when the pulling apart they are arguing against is about who gets to do what to whom with the violence of law. The Germans and Japanese "pulled together" about 70+ years ago, I don't want any part of "pulling together".
I'd rather we do what I see us doing every day which is looking each other in the eye with a polite greeting and mutual acknowledgement of the humanity before us and refuse to let these empty headed political types drag us into their nightmares of political conquest and imagined glory. 
If you want to pull with me, let's pull for more and greater restrictions on what you can use the government to do to me, and on what I can use the government to do to you. 
If you insist on having more reasons why government can commit violence on your fellow citizens, be aware enough not to ask them to happily participate in their own victimization.

Sunday, October 14, 2018

I'd Like To Buy An Argument

The IPCC has told us, again, that we only have ten years until disaster. "Cut carbon emissions, and we really mean it this time."  I heard this is the 4th time they've made the announcement.

Someone asked me recently, in the face of my AGW denialism, "What is your argument, that we should do nothing?"

Translation: we the non-deniers, who believe in the god of science, think things are so bad that "we" should get the 535 assclownstooges and our president to use violent coercion to make us do something, anything, to reduce carbon emissions because we are afraid of something that we don’t understand.

My argument isn’t an argument. This is what I understand to be true:
The term scientist is so vague that saying “a majority of scientists agree” is a meaningless statement. Quantify – do you mean actual people doing research on climatology in labs daily? Do you mean anyone published in a professional journal? Do you mean anyone with a PHD in a scientific field? Do you include PHD physicists and other hard sciences only? 

“Science”, or the scientific method, cannot be used to test climate in the same way it can be used to test, for example, gravity. Climate cannot be reduced to lab experiments. What is asserted about what causes what in climate is conjecture. It may be correct, it may not be correct, and since the conjecture cannot be tested the answer is not certain. Therefore, what is asserted about causality with regard to climate is belief, and has become strongly held belief for reasons I don't understand. 

There is a way to validate causality with climate, which would be to create a predictive model - one that accurately forecasts (forward and in reverse) temperatures based on the man made inputs that people fear cause changes in climate. Many climate models have been built, and none have accurately predicted climate temperature change. 

Scientific consensus – good if it advances inquiry. As a way of setting policy, consensus is a joke. Consensus is nothing more than the opinions of "scientists". This is in no way equivalalent to the application of the scientific method under controlled conditions. The whole point of the scientific method is that experts are not trustworthy (we all fall victim to bias). All work is subjected to scrutiny, tests must be performed in another lab by other scientists to be accepted as valid. Scientific consensus is to the scientific method as sawdust is to a smooth automobile transmission. 

There are many well articulated arguments against the notion that CO2 is a driver of climate change. The ones I have found are in my blog. One rule I follow is that being informed means I could articulate the case I oppose in terms that would be acceptable to someone who is a believer. Most of those who advocate for AGW cannot articulate the sceptic’s position, or won’t, and default to accusations of poor character.

Saturday, October 13, 2018

Licensing and Other Bogus Government Repression

Licensing - the illusion of quality that only empowers the state, makes it expensive to start businesses, and penalizes mobility between states.
https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2018/10/10/how_licensing_reform_can_help_states_and_veterans_110848.html

Sunday, October 7, 2018

What Tesla Means

To some part of the population, Tesla means something over and above making cars. I have exchanged thoughts recently with a friend who's enamored of Tesla and apparently Musk as well. He's a believer in electric. He seems to think electric means "good for the environment" and such, and he's what you could call a "true believer". The nitty gritty bottom line doesn't matter as much as the meaning, the association to what is coming that will be better than what is.

I hope he's right.

To me, electric cars are rich kids' toys. They don't help reduce emissions, they have a value near zero when the battery quits (or can you get a car battery re-built for cheap these days?), and even with a substantial tax credit, they are expensive and little.

There are two sources of emissions for vehicles - one is the manufacture of the vehicle, the other is  from fuel use. The last time I saw these numbers compared, these are expected to be equal over the life of the car. In other words, a substantial reduction in emissions would be achieved by preventing the manufacture of new cars/trucks, ships, airplanes, houses, commercial buildings, and shutting down industrial food production (we can have a cow, chickens and veggies in the back yard like the great depression or the war!), etcetera.

As of a few years ago, the emissions break even for an electric was about the point in time that the battery would be expended. That is to say, the emissions cost to build an electric is so high, that even though they are not burning gas electrics do not reduce emissions.

What might change this formula would be to have zero emissions sources of electricity - nuclear being the most likely option at this point (not that it is likely for the US to build nuclear). 15 years of solar and wind speculation has brought, from my perspective, disappointment.

My friend says he can drive across country for free. What's the cost of the inconvenience of having to recharge on a specified interval, vice having the chance to stop and add gas in a few minutes whenever it is needed?

What's the cost to others of your $2500 to $7000 tax credit to play with your electric car which does not create a public good?

What if you spend less on a gas powered car - at what point would you reach free given:
-an expected ~$2000 (for my F150) annual fuel bill
-depreciation of the more expensive electric car from full cost to zero over the expected five year life of the battery, whereas my truck at the five year mark had depreciated between $14,000 and $18,000, depending on how this is calculated
-the difference in purchase price for the electric versus a similarly capable gasoline powered car
If these numbers really show he drives the car "for free", I'd like to see them.

Electric cars are like all cars - we choose them based on our identity. To me, Tesla's an ambitious idea, I hope it works, but even if it does, it won't matter much to me - it's not going to create sunshine out of cucumbers. To my friend, Tesla hints at something beautiful and hope filled and better than the current sometimes squalid state of human experience. I'm happy for him.

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=726718267156239993#editor/target=post;postID=5962610422521073459

https://www.fidelity.com/news/article/top-news/201810051527RTRSNEWSCOMBINED_KCN1MF27C-OUSBS_1

Friday, September 28, 2018

Mark Davis' Comments

In almost forty years of broadcasting and writing, I’ve spent a lot of time tracking the fates of the Republican and Democrat parties. In recent years, the main conservative thirsts have been for a more muscular and unapologetic conservatism and for the bright light of truth to be directed onto the darkest habits of modern leftists.
The election of Donald Trump has propelled us down a road featuring satisfying helpings of both. But on one stunning day, September 27, 2018, there arose Republican resolve like nothing in recent memory. The accompanying reputational suicide of several key Democrats tied a bow around a historic day for clarity.

The occasion was the totally unnecessary session of testimony by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his main accuser of sexual misbehavior, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. The occasion was needless because Dr. Ford’s story in no way rises to the level of credibility to dislodge the nomination. No decent society smears people for life based on high school misbehavior, so even if the wholly unsupported story were true, there would have been a strong argument against its relevancy today.

https://townhall.com/columnists/markdavis/2018/09/28/untitled-n2523392

Harsanyi Says It Well

I don't care about Kavanaugh's future, he's a strong guy, he'll be fine whether a Supreme or not a Supreme. One is not entitled to being a Supreme and it is arguable he could have a better life not being a Supreme.

I dislike it when anyone is forced to defend themselves from this kind of an accusation, the taint of which is separate from the truth of it. Those who would seek high office must know to expect this by now. That's how it goes.

I want Kavanaugh to defend the constitutional system we have and serve to hold back the juggernaught of the federal government, and I think he will.

What's all the fuss about? We are afraid of what our fellow citizens will use the federal government to do to us.

https://nypost.com/2018/09/27/kavanaugh-ford-emotion-and-evidence/

Confirm Kavanaugh

Confirm the guy. The democrats apparently weren't so worried about men's poor sexual behavior when they began their infatuation with Bill C and his "wife". But if they were, they ignored it on the chance of getting the wife elected. A worse candidate I could not imagine, but if you have to elect the first woman, and she's the only one that's close to electable, well, hold your nose folks and pretend she's not the worst imaginable candidate.

She brought all of Bill's baggage, and all of her prior efforts to stomp into the ground people like Ford. How anyone on that side can do anything but kick themselves for getting Trump elected by supporting another Clinton is not understandable to the likes of me. They got what they asked for.

They created Trump.

All I want from any president is to be a good employee of mine, be a great CinC, and put judges into the courts that uphold the mandates within the Constitution. Trump did that. Incredible.

I've rarely detested anyone more than Trump, and he's given me two, maybe, of the best judges I could have hoped for - constitutionalists.

This circus about events from 30 years ago is absurd and desperate. I get why the democrat types are afraid, I would be too.

We afraid of the power the other side will use against us. That was the point of the two party system and the constitution - to limit what our fellow man could use the power of the state to do to us.

It seem precarious at this point.


Sunday, September 16, 2018

Deaths, guesses and empty headed critics

Another installment of lies, damned lies and statistics. "Believe nothing you hear and half of what you read." Coach John Inman

I think he may have been a little to generous about believing what you read. In theory I favor anything that helps people stop believing that politicians are anything but idiots, but I don't think lying or being careless about truth is the best path ahead.

"Actually, “official death toll” is exactly what it is not. Meyers not only acted even more childishly than the president he was belittling, but he was being intellectually lazy as well. Moreover, such comments confirmed a key part of Trump’s claim: His critics have definitely exploited Puerto Rico’s suffering to hammer the president."

https://www.ocregister.com/2018/09/15/trump-is-half-right-about-puerto-rico-deaths/

Sunday, September 9, 2018

Losing a Kid Who Took Himself Away From You

A good read, a somber read, read it.
http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/24576392/as-family-tyler-hilinski-grieves-espn-writer-shares-sorrow

Pick a Date, Any Date - GW Still?

"Or, you can pick a different start date to your liking.  How about 1998?  That will give you an entire 20 year run.  It's hard to say that the verb "is" should cover a period of more than 20 years.  On the UAH series you can see that temperatures have also fallen about 0.4 deg C since early 1998.  Again, even on this substantially longer scale, the earth "is cooling."  (Note, however, that there is a significant difference between the Wikipedia chart and the UAH satellite series as to what has happened since 1998.  On the Wikipedia chart the latest reading (2017?) is up about 0.3 deg C from 1998; while on the UAH series, the latest reading (July 2018) is down about 0.4 deg C from the then-records set in 1998.  That's those "adjustments" in the surface temperature record that I was talking about.  I would say that there is no credible position that the heavily adjusted surface temperature record that Wikipedia relies on should be used for this purpose over the far more accurate and un-tampered UAH satellite record.)"
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2018-8-9-how-do-you-tell-if-the-earths-climate-system-is-warming

As a friend said, if you own the data set, you own everything. If you can "adjust" the temps due to your calculations for known distortions, you win.

Saturday, September 8, 2018

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics - what do we know?

It is essential that we look at data, and it is easy to be fooled by what we find when looking at the data.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/09/04/mass_shootings_in_america_anatomy_of_a_hyped_statistic_137960.html

Publish the data with the conclusions, let others review it, that's the first step towards legit science. 

Sunday, August 26, 2018

Plastic in the Ocean from Where?


Where does the plastic come from?
https://www.dailywire.com/news/33611/walsh-walsh-america-responsible-almost-none-matt-walsh?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=062316-news&utm_campaign=benshapiro

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Pure As The Wind Driven Snow

Press puff pieces highlighted the résumés of his superstars—of Lisa Page (no comment needed), Peter Strzok (less than no comment needed), Jeannie Rhee (a former attorney for the Clinton Foundation, Ben Rhodes, and for a bit Hillary Clinton), Andrew Weissman (Clinton zealot, Obama and DNC donor, and the cheerleader to Sally Yates’s refusal to carry out a presidential order), Aaron Zebley (the former attorney for Clinton staffer Justin Cooper who set up the infamous Clinton home server and smashed to bits her mobile devices), and a host of other pros, who were all shortly to prove Trump-Russian “collusion.”
https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/13/the-legacies-of-robert-muellers-investigations/

Yes, it was all dirty and I suspect it will continue to be dirty, and it likely always was dirty.

Friday, August 10, 2018

Demographics is Destiny

The trend varies among demographic groups. Native-born Hispanics and blacks used to have birth rates above the replacement rate (2.1 births per woman). Now they're below replacement, almost as low that of as native-born whites and Asians, which are down only a bit. The immigrant birth rate remains above replacement level among blacks, but only barely above among Hispanics, and below among whites and Asians.
One possible consequence: Those often-gleeful predictions that whites will soon be a minority will not be realized so soon, or maybe ever. Nor is it clear, as sociologist Richard Alba has suggested, whether often-intermarrying Hispanics and Asians will see themselves as aggrieved minorities. They might just blend in, like Italians and Poles.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/07/27/will_the_trend_of_low_birth_rates_be_reversed_137639.html

Sunday, August 5, 2018

Power Corrupts, yada yada yada

Has it ever been more clear how dirty the election fight was? The more power we cede, the greater their motivation to win at any cost.

https://www.weeklystandard.com/fred-barnes/three-leaders-are-better-than-one

Kill CAFE', Make Me Smile

This article is the sort of empty headed logic that makes it clear why no one should buy newspapers nor rely on newspaper writers for analysis.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-fuel-economy-20180802-story.html#

First, if they have to meet a fuel efficiency standard across the fleet, why not make it 100 or 1000 miles per gallon? Why just 50? While we're setting these government standards, why not make it a crime to build an auto and/or not allow new autos to be sold since the building of a vehicle emits as much carbon as a lifetime of driving it?

The author makes it sound like electric cars are great pollution reducers - but they are not in the least, unless the electricity is coming from nuclear power. Even then, the carbon emitted in the production of the batteries is only brought back to even about the time the battery dies. Electric cars will only dent emissions when electricity is fully produced by non-carbon sources. Until then, electric is much ado about nothing. Besides, they are no where near doing what a normally powered auto can do.

The fuel economy standards amount to a back door method of idiot empty headed food trough wiping politicians to dictate what cars you and I can buy - if 50mpg is the standard, we will only be able to choose from tiny autos. You and I wouldn't stand for it if pols tried to do that directly, but for some reason we fall for their virtue posturing efforts with CAFE standards that are absurd.

If stupid is as stupid does, we're all stupid for putting up with 40+ years of CAFE.

Saturday, August 4, 2018

Saturday, July 28, 2018

It was wrong even when it was right

Yes, exactly. It was inexcusable what all those folks did to cover up for Bill the abuser, it was compromise to get power over principle, and there was nothing to respect about those who did what it took to support Bill.

Yin yang style, it still may have been the right thing to do. What if that was the necessary stage to get to where we are now, where Bill-behavior isn't tolerated?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/09/opinion/sunday/bills-belated-metoo-moment.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion

Truth and Nothing but the Truth?

In the context of this article, and the concept of thin slicing emotion/thought based on the frames of expression we pass through unconsciously, I wonder if technology may give us what virtue hasn't - the way to tell when we are being lied to. Sure, this article is about another topic, but what it points to is that tech may one day be able to give a true/false read on what people are saying, maybe even in real time.

What would happen if it really was best to always say what is true? Would it wreck us or free us?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/07/artificial-intelligence-can-tell-your-sexuality-politics-surveillance-paul-lewis

Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Both Sides Are Correct

On the one hand the basic premise of government is to defend the rights of the citizens, rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Killing a person that is unborn is still killing.

On the other hand, the government is so loaded with incompetence, it is none of the government's business what a woman chooses to do with her body and who knows about it.

That's why we'll fight about this until ... women decide abortion is wrong in great enough numbers to make legislation feasible. Women will tip the scales at some point when there is a realization of the scope of the problem and the realization that they can equally choose to stop it vice having it forced upon them by men.

The legal perspective of Roe v. Wade has always been weak.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/07/15/the_supreme_court_and_original_sin_137528.html

Sunday, May 13, 2018

The Flaccid Left

Point 1 - look at list of mass murderers, and you are looking at a list of mentally ill people. Why pretend otherwise?  It should be self evident - shooting kids is probably the easiest definition of mental illness - so what can be done within the bounds of civil liberties do about this? How can these mentally ill people be stopped from getting guns?
Point 2 - don't look to media for anything other than entertainment or entertain-rage.
Point 3 - it apparently generates ratings to blame the NRA and the GOP. There's an assumption that these groups stop "common sense gun control" or whatever else it is that many believe would have been or would be done that would stop this kind of gun violence.
Point 4 - Democrats had all the power they needed in 2008 to do anything the Constitution would allow to stop gun violence, criminalize types of guns, raise the legal age for gun purchases, beef up the background check system or make the DoD comply with the laws regarding service personnel who are discharged with felony level convictions from the UCMJ. They did nothing. That is most likely because they lost their shirts when they did it before and decided they would rather not do anything difficult about guns again.
Summary: the left is as pathetic as all the politicians.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/16/opinions/democrats-spare-me-your-hypocrisy-on-shooting-cupp/index.html

Friday, May 11, 2018

The Lawbreaking President Remembered

An incredible read. A small slice:
"One federal court found the Obamacare subsidy unconstitutional, and the case is working towards the Supreme Court. But, then again, no administration in memory was stopped more often by courts, often by unanimous SCOTUS decisions. Whether it was ignoring the Senate in making appointments or claiming to rewrite employment law, Obama tried to function without constitutional restraints."
http://thefederalist.com/2018/05/10/obama-legacy-deserves-destroyed/

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

The Moment It Becomes Obvious

"In early 2016, I decided to leave San Francisco and to build a house in Washington. Previously I lived most of my life in apartment buildings with security entrances that provided a tad more security, but as my house was being built I started wondering what I would do in the event of a home invasion. I knew right away becoming a gun owner was going to be the best way to defend myself."

Thursday, April 12, 2018

Reposted

http://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/schools-are-still-one-of-the-safest-places-for-children-researcher-says/

Couldn't be overstated.

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Excellent Distinction in Education

But the conflict between choice and local control is very real across much of suburban and rural America — especially in red states, where parents and community members tend to be satisfied with and protective of their local schools. The vast majority of the nation’s 14,000 districts are small, fully a third consisting of just one or two schools. In the 70 percent of school districts that enroll fewer than 2,500 students, individual relationships with the local schools tend to be personal.
Across much of the nation, the zip-code-based schools that education reformers decry are a hub of the community. They help define local identity. Their sports teams are sources of pride and an anchor of routine. Their accomplishments and foibles are touchstones of local conversation. They offer predictability; parents know where their children will go to school. It is easier for children to become friends with children who live nearby and for parents to get to know their neighbors. In this way, local schools serve as engines of social capital — bringing people together and strengthening communities.
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2018/03/01/education-reform-local-schools-key/

I love the school choice idea but agree this argument is substantive and one not considered in the common dialogue. 

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Shady - Seems Like A Polite Term

And it also seems completely predictable since power in the hands of government is always going to be for sale at some level.
https://nypost.com/2018/03/15/inside-the-shady-private-equity-firm-run-by-kerry-and-bidens-kids/

Monday, April 9, 2018

Something Liberals and Conservatives Should Be Able To Agree On

The justices seemed to indicate the answer is “No,” but mainly because the California law was so manifestly written to target pro-life pregnancy centers. What if the law were more fairly written? The pro-life side will argue that the cases are completely different inasmuch as “informed consent” explanations take place before a serious medical procedure, and pregnancy centers don’t offer medical procedures. We agree, but the Court won’t answer that question in NIFLA v. Becerra.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/forced-speech/article/2012049

Saturday, April 7, 2018

It's going to be like Whitewater ...

"With Trump declared guilty by Democrats and all but convicted in the press, what happens if Mueller confirms the findings of the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee -- that there's plenty of Trump campaign incompetence, but no collusion?"
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/commentary-what-if-trump-is-right-and-there-is-no-collusion/

Long investigation, no Trump convicted. 

Not Subtle


This isn't where I would go with this, but the comments are a fitting return for the hateful side of the "dis-arm everyone" camp.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/mar/26/eagles-of-death-metal-jesse-hughes-march-for-our-lives-bataclan

Thursday, April 5, 2018

Fighting for Control of Your Mind

This is not the pregnancy center you are looking for ...
http://www.weeklystandard.com/forced-speech/article/2012049

Friday, March 23, 2018

Thank You

It's not going to be easy to be the guy that killed a teen.

But thanks to all that is holy that he did.

http://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/379415-pavlich-a-good-guy-with-a-gun-stops-a-school-shooting

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

The Kind of Prediction That Is Easy

Before they start creating new single-payer systems, though, perhaps they should fix the broken single-payer systems already in place. The scandals at the Veterans Administration get plenty of coverage, especially given that the VA locks veterans into its own providers and forces them to pay retail for any outside medical care. But a report on the other major system, the Indian Health Service (IHS), shows much worse performance and for a longer period of time ...

https://hotair.com/archives/2018/03/05/socialized-medicine-almost-century-failure-already/

The problem I see is that so many of the "health care" issues don't have much to do with health, or care, it's about populations and sub-populations that eat food that makes them sick. We give them meds to moderate the symptoms but the people still have diabetes, are over fat, and are frail and inflamed. There's a cost to the patient for making themselves sick by eating food that is killing them and sitting in a chair all day, but patients are not held accountable for the damage they do to themselves because that would be victim blaming - which is apparently a far worse crime than suggesting that those who work hard to stay healthy should pay for those who have not.

In many ways I agree with that last idea, because our government has been prescribing a diet that will kill you - low fat, high grain, high sugar, and little what fat you eat is supposed to be laboratory produced poly unsaturated fats no human ever ate before the 1900s. It's a crazy world in which our government is bankrupting itself by prescribing a killer diet to the population it is supposed to be protecting.


Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Not Falling For It

That the cultural war may be doing even wider political damage is suggested by Zogby findings that "voters aged 18-29 (50 percent approve/48 percent disapprove) were more likely to approve of President Trump's job as commander in chief compared to older voters aged 65+ (44 percent approve/56 percent disapprove)." It seems unlikely that the president's recent incoherence on gun rights will ultimately prove attractive to voters supportive of the Second Amendment, but his critics apparently face a credibility gap of their own.
http://reason.com/archives/2018/03/05/vilifying-gun-owners-doesnt-lead-to-a-be/1

I suspect the government's numerous failings in the Parkland case have something to do with the credibility gap for those insisting that the government have more control.

Monday, March 19, 2018

Flippy is the man

"But to show readers just how similar and tribal left and right in the U.S. have become, consider the rollout of Flippy.  Flippy is a robot “employee” of the Caliburger chain, and he is apparently able to cook as many as 2,000 hamburgers per day.  Interesting about all this is that while Reagan’s backers once defended him against the assertion that his policies were only creating fast food jobs, modern members of the right are now criticizing lefty policies that are allegedly – drumroll please – destroying those same jobs.  It would be funny if it weren’t so sad."
https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2018/03/13/flippy_the_burger_flipping_robot_is_not_a_creation_of_naive_wage_floors.html

Sunday, March 18, 2018

You say blue I hear green ...

Last week, for instance, an article in the Times said AR-15-style rifles are particularly deadly because they are "fed with box magazines" that "can be swapped out quickly, allowing a gunman to fire more than a hundred rounds in minutes." But that is true of any gun that accepts detachable magazines, including many models that do not qualify as "assault weapons."
Yesterday the Times reported that "military-style rifles" fire "lightweight, high-speed bullets that can cause grievous bone and soft tissue wounds," injuries worse than those typically caused by handguns. As one trauma surgeon explains, "the energy imparted to a human body by a high-velocity weapon is exponentially greater" than the energy imparted by a handgun. But that observation is true of rifles in general; it is not unique to so-called assault weapons.
While the .223-caliber round typically fired by AR-15-style rifles does have a relatively high muzzle velocity, other cartridges, fired by guns that are not considered "assault weapons," equal or surpass it. Furthermore, muzzle velocity is not the only factor in a bullet's lethality; size also matters, and so-called assault weapons fire smaller rounds than many hunting rifles. Both velocity and mass figure into muzzle energy, a measure of a bullet's destructive power. As UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh notes, "the .223 rifles that are often labeled 'assault weapons' have a much lower muzzle energy than familiar hunting rifles such as the .30-06."
http://reason.com/blog/2018/03/05/assault-weapon-banners-assert-false-dist

Facts like this are some of the reasons why when informed gun owners hear the gun-fearers talk about assault rifles, it's difficult not to think they are either uninformed or disingenuous. There is no way to define a so called assault rifle so as to distinguish it from any number of other firearms. The concept seems ridiculous.

Thursday, March 15, 2018

I predict 99% of predictions will be wrong ...

... like the predictions this article is written about.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/doomsday-climate-scenarios-are-a-joke-1520800377?shareToken=st435339ed5eb547259eb78cdbf9fbec0f&reflink=article_email_share

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Are You a Terrorist?

But somewhere in my attic is an old pump-action .22 rifle. Once owned by my grandfather, it’s more an heirloom than a weapon: I don’t have ammunition for it. However, if the governor of my state called me a terrorist, I’d think about buying some. I know what the government does with terrorists. It kills or imprisons them. If a prominent local activist called me a racist for even possessing it or if a billboard appeared in my neighborhood calling for my death, I might also acquire some bigger guns.
https://www.ocregister.com/2018/03/10/gun-control-advocates-bolster-the-nras-fears/

This is a good read.

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Armed Teachers

Armed teachers?

Only if the teacher wants the role. The teacher that feels they are prepared should be afforded the respect to defend the kids and themselves.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/us/armed-teachers-guns-schools.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

And we think Clinton and Trump are bad ...

and they are but ...

"Several books have told the real story, but the movie Chappaquiddick may finally blow the lid off the Democrats’ cover-up. Based on the trailers, it apparently will tell the truth: that Ted Kennedy, after driving off a bridge into Poucha Pond, escaped from his car but made no attempt to save Miss Kopechne. That Kopechne didn’t drown, but eventually suffocated for lack of oxygen as she waited for Kennedy to rescue her. That Kopechne could have been saved if Kennedy had simply called the local rescue squad. That Kennedy was such a self-centered coward that he left Kopechne to die, concerned only for his own political future. That instead of calling for help, he walked back to the house where his party was still in progress. That when he arrived, he tried to convince his cousin Joe Gargan to say that he had been driving the car. That he never did call the police to report the accident, but rather spent the night trying to concoct an alibi. That the Democrats fixed the legal process so that Kennedy would pay no meaningful penalty for the death he callously caused. That Kennedy pretended to have been injured in the accident in order to excuse his cowardice, and wore a neck brace to Kopechne’s funeral to further that lie."
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/03/stormy-daniels-and-ted-kennedy.php

It's difficult now to understand how this could have happened, unless one just accepts how much power corrupts.

She'll Never Understand

I don't think this person will ever understand how alienating her campaign was, how alienating the democratic leadership has been, to non-city going folks who have been striving to play by the rules they knew. Her party says they are know nothing hicks with bad intentions who hold back progress and don't understand right and wrong. I don't think that party will get many votes absent substantial, perhaps transcendent charisma.

http://thefederalist.com/2018/03/12/backwards-hillary-clinton-still-has-no-clue-why-she-lost/

If you look at the map of the United States, there is all that red in the middle where Trump won. I won in the coasts, I win, you know, Illinois, Minnesota, places like that. But what the map doesn’t show you is that I won the places that represent two thirds of America’s gross domestic product. So I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward, and his whole campaign, “make America great again,” was looking backwards. You know you didn’t like black people getting rights, you don’t like women getting jobs, you don’t want to see that Indian American succeeding more than you are. Whatever your problem is, I’m going to solve it.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/editorial-hillary-reminds-america-why-she-lost/article/2011909

Monday, March 12, 2018

Schools are safer than almost anywhere ... and still so vulnerable

Four times the number of children were killed in schools in the early 1990s than today, Fox said.
“There is not an epidemic of school shootings,” he said, adding that more kids are killed each year from pool drownings or bicycle accidents. There are around 55 million school children in the United States, and on average over the past 25 years, about 10 students per year were killed by gunfire at school, according to Fox and Fridel’s research.
http://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/schools-are-still-one-of-the-safest-places-for-children-researcher-says/

I never felt safe at school, the bullies were always there in the 70s, perhaps they still are. But I never imagined anyone coming with a gun to kill kids.

This is part of the strangeness that is the human experience - we accommodate to the almost routine death of kids from home poison, gang violence and automobile accidents, and lose our collective minds over an unfathomable, un-processable, unacceptable and incredibly rare risk.

"“The thing to remember is that these are extremely rare events, and no matter what you can come up with to prevent it, the shooter will have a workaround,” Fox said, adding that over the past 35 years, there have been only five cases in which someone ages 18 to 20 used an assault rifle in a mass shooting."

Immigration - About What?

This just seems too obvious, only a politician could miss these salient facts.
"Our present-day policy objectives are different. We have a populous, highly developed nation. With a declining birth rate and an aging workforce, we need young workers for a sophisticated economy and to support a growing population of retirees and our expensive retirement benefits programs. If that is our critical need, then meeting it should be the primary goal of our immigration system.

"That is exactly what Canada and Australia do. Under their merit-based “point systems,” they score applicants for admission on multiple criteria, with the most points awarded to 20-somethings, who are at the beginning of their prime work years. They accept virtually no one age 50 or older — no one with more retirement years than work years ahead of them."
http://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/374031-a-merit-based-future-beats-our-19th-century-immigration-system

This isn't what I want, I'd like to see an almost open border policy, say yes to anyone not a criminal, but also not give out social benefits like the coffers are full. But since nothing that radical will happen, here's a rationale that at least makes sense.

Saturday, March 10, 2018

What is chain immigration?

Our current system is dominated by the family reunification program.
Family reunification is really a self-selection process where one immigrant selects the next, who need only be an extended family member. Thus the term “chain migration.” Essentially, the government has no selective function. It merely verifies kinship.
It is past time to abandon this non-selective element of the 19th century “come one, come all” policy designed to settle the West and develop its agrarian economy.

http://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/374031-a-merit-based-future-beats-our-19th-century-immigration-system


Thursday, March 8, 2018

Economics Is Anything But Dismal

Well written econ is a delight.  Tariffs are still dumber than a post.
https://fee.org/articles/economics-was-invented-to-refute-trumps-tariff-arguments/

Friday, March 2, 2018

It Doesn't Happen Anywhere Else

A group of knife-wielding men attacked a train station in southwestern China on Saturday, killing at least 29 people and injuring more than 130 others in what Chinese officials called a terrorist strike, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/33-dead-130-injured-china-knife-wielding-spree-n41966

https://www.cnn.com/2014/03/01/world/asia/china-railway-attack/index.html

A man with a knife climbed over the wall of a kindergarten in China and attacked 11 students, according to Chinese state media. 
No children sustained life-threatening injuries, according to police.
The attack happened in the southwestern city of Pingxiang in the province of Guangxi.
    A 41-year-old suspect has been caught, but his motives remain unclear, state media reported.
    Knife attacks at schools in China are common. Last year, a man in the southern province of Hainan stabbed 10 children before killing himself, authorities said.
    https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/04/asia/china-kindergarten-knife-attack/index.html

    An attack by knife-wielding men at a railway station in Kunming in south-west China has left at least 29 dead, the state news agency Xinhua says.
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-26402367
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Kunming_attack

    Police in northern China say 18 people were injured when a man attacked people on a city street with a knife. The Changchun police department said on its microblog that the 50-year-old suspect in Tuesday's attack was taken into custody after being shot.
    http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/05/10/china-knife-attack-18-injured-in-mass-stabbing-suspect-shot-and-arrested.html

    A man said to be mentally ill attacked 20 people with a knife in southwest China, killing two, authorities said.
    http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/05/29/china-knife-attack-2-dead-18-injured-in-stabbing-spree.html



    Thursday, March 1, 2018

    Schools - More or Less Dangerous Lately?

    This says less.
    http://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/schools-are-still-one-of-the-safest-places-for-children-researcher-says/

    Demographics Is Destiny


    Hard to know what to make of these fertility swings, but it is not comforting.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/upshot/american-fertility-is-falling-short-of-what-women-want.html

    Wednesday, February 28, 2018

    Mental Illness, Mass Shootings, What's in a Name

    "Repeat after me: Mass shooters are not disproportionately mentally ill."
    This is the opening line of a meme that's been circulating in the aftermath of the shooting in Parkland, Fla.
    But this and other efforts to downplay the role of mental illness in mass shootings are simply misleading. There is a clear relationship between mental illness and mass public shootings.

    http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-duwe-rocque-mass-shootings-mental-illness-20180223-story.html

    It's bizarre this is even a discussion. Mass shooters by definition are mentally ill.

    Tuesday, February 27, 2018

    "It Doesn't Happen Anywhere Else"

    In the aftermath of a tragedy like the mass shooting in Las Vegas, political claims are tossed around rather quickly, and with little regard to the facts. Advocates of gun prohibition are quick to claim that the U.S. is uniquely prone to such events because of the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms.
    This claim, however, is false. In fact, as figures from the Crime Prevention Research Center show, “there were 55 percent more casualties per capita from mass public shootings in [the European Union] than U.S. from 2009-15.”
    In other words, the opposite is true. There are actually more occurrences of, and deaths from, mass shootings in Europe than the United States, on a per capita basis.
    https://www.thejacknews.com/law/gun-rights/the-united-states-does-not-have-more-mass-shootings-than-europe/

    Monday, February 26, 2018

    Using the Office Against the Duly Elected

    Power corrupts.
    http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/373738-rices-odd-memo-did-obama-withhold-intel-from-trump

    Sunday, February 25, 2018

    Just Heartbreaking

    "...the new policies made public school students above the law. These policies conflicted with laws that police officers had been long-trained to follow, but now it allowed students to act as they wished, without fear of the consequences."
    https://constitution.com/school-shooting-plot-exposed-wont-believe-set/


    Interrupt the Pattern

    I believe that after 1 or 2 of these shooters are shot down like dogs at the door of the place they were going to shoot up, this phenomenon will stop.

    Salt Lake City, Utah, teacher Kasey Hansen said the idea to arm herself in school began with the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and six adults died.
    “It just really hit home that these teachers, all they could do was pile those kids in a corner and stand in front of them and hope for the best,” said Hansen, who carries a concealed handgun as she teaches special education students.
    “I’m not here to tell all teachers that they have to carry a gun,” she said. “For me personally, I felt that it was more of a solution than just hiding in a corner and waiting.”

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/02/22/could_armed_teachers_stop_shootings_136346.html

    Tuesday, February 20, 2018

    Mass Shooting, and the Government Context

    Important facts are missing from this article - valid shootings versus invalid shootings, although not easy to discern, is an important piece to give any meaning to police shootings. The larger point remains - do people realize what they are asking for when they ask that citizens be disarmed leaving only government employees with guns?
    http://thefreethoughtproject.com/police-killed-450-citizens-mass-shootings/

    An interesting link from the article:
    http://killedbypolice.net

    Saturday, February 17, 2018

    Mass Shooter Data Base

    Fascinating.
    https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data/

    Power Corrupts

    Fascinating and dark, I don't know many folks that could handle this kind of power, certainly not Trump.

    https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/donald-trump-a-playboy-model-and-a-system-for-concealing-infidelity-national-enquirer-karen-mcdougal

    But the cost to defend our kids is too high ...

    "I calculate $10.7 billion based on government statistics which estimate the total number of K-12 public schools at around 99,000 and post-secondary education facilities at around 8,000. That gives 107,000 total. Multiply 107,000 by 100,000 (two security guards each making $50,000 a year) and you get $10.7 billion. I believe $50,000 is a good total estimate for the average security guard salary when taking into account state-level variations in average wage."

    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/for-107-billion-we-can-dramatically-reduce-the-threat-of-school-shootings/article/2649205

    I might cost double if the author didn't factor in workman's comp, days off, medical and other benefits, but it would be a steal at $40 billion. What is the budget for the department of "homeland security"?

    Government Fail

    "The F.B.I. failed to act on a tip in January from a person close to Nikolas Cruz warning that he owned a gun and might conduct a school shooting, the bureau acknowledged on Friday, an admission that prompted Gov. Rick Scott of Florida to call for the bureau’s director to resign."
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/us/fbi-nikolas-cruz-shooting.html

    Connection

    "As Chase’s teacher explained 
this simple, ingenious idea, I stared at her with my mouth hanging open. “How long have you been using this system?” I said.
    Ever since Columbine, she said. Every single Friday afternoon since Columbine. Good Lord.
    "This brilliant woman watched 
Columbine knowing that all violence begins with disconnection. All outward violence begins as inner loneliness. Who are our next mass shooters and how do we stop them? She watched that tragedy knowing that children who aren’t being noticed may eventually resort to being noticed by any means necessary."

    https://www.rd.com/advice/parenting/stop-bullying-strategy/

    Sunday, January 28, 2018

    Yes, He's the Jackass We All Assumed Him To Be

    It would be awesome if this hush money paid for out of campaign funds idea were the thing to finally bring Trump to his knees.
    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/01/26/the_president_and_the_porn_star_136105.html

    The Professionals at the FBI


    Of course agents have their own beliefs, of course they will bleed over into their enforcement, of course power corrupts and the citizenry should ask for accountability. It will be interesting to see where this goes.


    http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/370717-as-walls-close-in-on-fbi-the-bureau-lashes-out-at-its-antagonists#.Wmowv-452Qw.twitter

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fbi-texts/u-s-justice-department-recovers-fbi-officials-missing-text-messages-idUSKBN1FE2OY

    Tuesday, January 23, 2018

    When the Truth Is A Lie

    You will do what this fellow does ...
    https://nypost.com/2018/01/21/james-okeefe-is-bringing-back-the-best-practice-of-journalism/

    Monday, January 22, 2018

    Lynch? Coordinating? No Way, No One Would Believe Such A Thing

    A million years ago when I was in flight training we would eat lunch at the O club and SA would be on the screen. I just stared, she was so gorgeous I could not take my eyes off of her. I was a 20-something, there was not much better in life than looking at pretty girls. I chuckle now as she comes back into the "picture" as such a heavy weight investigator. Awesome.

    http://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/370019-was-lynch-coordinating-with-comey-in-the-clinton-investigation

    Sunday, January 21, 2018

    Gender Equality

    Or not. Simple answers create big problems.

    http://reason.com/blog/2018/01/16/if-aziz-ansari-were-a-college-student-he/

    Sunday, January 14, 2018

    He's a racist/bigot/baby eater!

    I do my best not to care about what the prez sez or how over the top the reaction is ("he eats babies for breakfast!"), the reason folks leave their countries to come here isn't because they are curious what the US is like. The driver is desperation due to corrupt political systems restricting economic liberty, little rule of law, and other obstacles to participation in cooperative economic activity for one's own benefit.
    That does not mean those are bad people, but I'm completely comfortable saying their political culture is bad and I would not like to import that culture.
    I've called those countries the "S" word in political rants before, for reasons I consider obvious. One reason it is obvious is that poor people in the US don't go there for opportunity, because those places are ...
    It is possible to talk about regions, countries, cultures and not have any hate or ill will towards those unfortunate enough to be stuck there.
    Racism and bigotry is the human experience. It degenerates the quality of life of those who can't see through it, just as seeing the human behind every face makes life better.
    What makes it monstrous is when racism/bigotry becomes the official policy of governments.
    If calling a country with an oppressive government, little rule of law and no opportunity for the poor to participate in productivity "a ****hole" is racist, well, sign me up with a capital R.