Good morning.

1. Of “blood libel” and Ms Palin’s speech.
2. And a consequence Jewish faux outrage.
3. On the topic of the post AZ incident speeches, the Scripture usage by Mr Obama is examined.
4. And one Democrat noted who apparently has never heard mention of Mr Christie.
5. A unintended consequence of QE2.
6. Our administration has jobs on the front burner.
7. Notice Hungary.
8. And Tunisia.
9. The Coen brothers films … and another note here.
10. A challenge for Western theology.
11. A somewhat pointed remark concerning Mr Greenwalds public discourse and methods here.
12. On the civility push.
13. Dragon moms.

Human nature was displayed this past week, since the catalyst event of the mass shooting in Tucson. Initiated by the heinous act of a crazed individual, we’ve seen both the good – and the bad – in humanity since. Following are a few quick links and thoughts:

Palin breaks silence on Tucson
So reads the title to a post in the New Mexico Independent. Following the herd of liberals who immediately began blaming the Right for the shooting, the title of this post leads us to believe that Sarah Palin had some obligation to respond to, due to her implicit responsibility for, the attempted assassination of Rep. Giffords.

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The New MSM Mantra: Publish first, check later
Initial reports, from “trusted” news organizations, indicated that Rep. Giffords had, in fact, been killed. From a Reuters report (via Malkin),

Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona died after being shot in the head while meeting constituents at a grocery store in Tucson, NPR reported on Saturday.

As we saw, beginning at least back at 9/11, and continuing through major events such as Hurricane Katrina, the instantaneous response time of 21st century technology does not negate the need for real time (and, sometimes slow time) fact checking.

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“It was crazy. A photographer with a [telephoto] lens was outside and he yells ‘Shooter! Shooter! Get down! And I didn’t,”
You may have heard about Rep. Giffords intern Daniel Hernandez, indeed, the President referenced him, and his heroic acts, in his memorial speech. Or perhaps you heard about the 74 year-old veteran, Bill Badger, who helped tackle the shooting suspect. But how many of you heard about Joe Zamudio, who happened to be buying cigarettes as the shooter commenced his mayhem? Zamudio heard the gunshots (and he recognized them as gunshots – something most people have a difficult time doing), and instead of running away from the sound, he ran towards it. Why? Zamudio was armed, legally, with his own handgun, and was ready to use it on the shooter.

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Boxer’s lack of common sense
Senator Barbara Boxer (D – Calif) thinks that part of the cause for the mass shooting in Tucson, other than a deranged individual deciding to shoot other human beings, is that laws on concealed carry are too lax. From Boxer,

I am particularly interested in California’s concealed weapons law, which requires someone who wants to carry a concealed weapon to first receive a permit from their local sheriff or police chief.

In California, you need to be at least 21 years old, show good cause for carrying and show good moral character to carry a concealed weapon. There is a check – an important check – on who is carrying a concealed weapon.

Perhaps someone should educate M’am Boxer that: 1) the Tucson mass shooting had nothing to do with concealed carry and, 2) concealed carry laws, whether strict or lenient, have no bearing on whether a criminal chooses to conceal his weapon.

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Twisted Thinking
In A Right to Bear Glocks?, we read,

If Loughner had gone to the Safeway carrying a regular pistol, the kind most Americans think of when they think of the right to bear arms, Giffords would probably still have been shot and we would still be having that conversation about whether it was a sane idea to put her Congressional district in the cross hairs of a rifle on the Internet.

…

Loughner’s gun, a 9-millimeter Glock, is extremely easy to fire over and over, and it can carry a 30-bullet clip. It is “not suited for hunting or personal protection,” said Paul Helmke, the president of the Brady Campaign. “What it’s good for is killing and injuring a lot of people quickly.”

Setting aside the silly notion of a “regular pistol” that is somehow connected to “the right to bear arms”, I would agree with Helmke – the 30 round magazine is not suited for hunting or personal protection. I would imagine that the extended length of the magazine, combined with the added weight of the cartridges, would affect the shooter’s accuracy and, when one is interested in personal protection, one is also interested in accuracy. Understand that while the 30 round magazine, for a handgun, is a cumbersome oddity, the use of standard capacity magazines (in the range of 10 – 19 rounds) would not appreciably alter the situation. If a shooter knows how to exchange magazines, a magazine replacement can be accomplished very quickly.

Suzanna Hupp, whose parents were murdered in the Luby’s Cafeteria mass shooting, explained to lawmakers this very point (around the 1:50 mark).

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Oh my… Did he really say that?
Per the WSJ, a quote from Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter (HT: Ron’s Bloviaing),

Conservatives like to argue that these are isolated incidents carried out by lunatics and therefore carry no big lessons (unless the perpetrator is Muslim, in which case it’s terrorism); liberals view them as opportunities to address various social ills. Obama is in the latter category and should act accordingly. “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” Rahm Emanuel famously said in 2008. The same goes for a shooting spree that gravely wounds a beloved congresswoman.

Good, err, day.

1. Cinema and China.
2. Cinema and the law.
3. Of atheists and anger.
4. Politics and Voldemort.
5. Next on the scene, Magnesium?
6. Talking foreclosures.
7. Perhaps not an error but a feature.
8. Illinois and taxes … and about not getting the cut spending bit.
9. The US and China.
10. Say goodbye to net anonymity (or more stupid liberal tricks).
11. Science and beer.
12. When libs talk their talk about consequences of rhetoric, they might look to their own first and foremost.
13. And this is not unrelated.

Good morning.

1. The ‘danger’ of conservative talk radio and the like.
2. An energy crises noted.
3. Not playing nice in the atheist/theist discourse.
4. While it may be true that the extreme left and right are close … that question in the case of the AZ shooter alas for the poster is quite irrelevant. Why? …
5. Well, a good insight into why can be found quite explicitly here.
6. For causes leading to violence, why has the left echo chamber jumped for rhetoric and not something like this? Perhaps it wasn’t self-serving enough?
7. Speaking of that echo chamber. One loud gong examined.
8. Hate speech, an example.
9. Notable quotes.
10. Global warming.
11. Market corruption.
12. Global climate and models.

Good morning.

1. The fantasy in Obamacare noted.
2. Gun control in the context of AZ.
3. Something a bit lighter. I’ll admit to, in my wilder days in school, cat bowling with a stressed out roommate. To be fair, the cat had claws and got its fair share of hurt in on us.
4. Wise words for pundits talking about the shooter.
5. And from the same source, the problem with calling for better screening of kids like him … the problem is there are tens of thousands of them … and your screening problem (false positive/negative) is going to bite you big time.
6. The political environment, or getting the blame wrong.
7. Solzhenitsyn and his remarks regarding the West.
8. Rule and meta-rule. In college we tried playing variants of chess in which one could alter movement rules as one’s move instead of a piece movement. If I remember our initial attempts weren’t interesting enough to develop meta-rules to make that very playable.
9. Beauty and the world. So few today seek to witness and express beauty.
10. 3% is not insignificant in the context of today’s 9%+ unemployment.
11. And the unfortunate problem of the death panel discussion is that the basis of it (a) is real and (b) needs to be talked about. Health care will be rationed, supply is less than the demand (and if anything Obamacare’s regulatory burdens works most to decrease supply). The pro- vs con- Obamacare position boils down to whether you trust the government. The oddity is of course, that those who trust the government never seem to notice that the same government invaded Iraq … a far much more straightforward decision and implementation (and have ignored their own Administration’s willingness to use their power to exempt for insurance requirements of the new laws companies and groups to curry political favor). 

Good morning.

A lot of talk about events in AZ.

1. The “is he right wing theme” gets a lot of play. Seeing as one of his two favorite books was the Communist Manifesto, that seems a bit far fetched.
2. Another concise rebuttal of the “right winger” theme here.
3. Demographics.
4. Some praise for abstractions.
5. His real political alignment … nuts.
6. A question for those the pundits pushing the right-wing theory.

Elsewhere

1. Whence the anger or “America where the poor are rich too.”
2. Krsna Slava.
3. Person or not? Mr Solzhenitsyn offered that which separates man from animal is repentance not cognition. Ms Delsol noted that the move to see man as not-exceptional is one of the unlearned lessons from the tragedies of the 20th century.
4. Addiction. When they find a procrastination vaccine … that might be of more general use.
5. Heh.
6. Praise of Muslim interaction with Christians … to bad this is newsworthy and not more automatic.
7. A lay introduction to String Theory by the master.
8. Work.
9. My next economics book to be read.
10. Why the fixes in place won’t work.
11. The USS Enterprise captaincy.

Haven’t found much to expound upon this week, or perhaps my blogging muse took an extended (if you’ll pardon the expression) Christmas vacation.  But indeed, I still have been perusing the ‘net, and have found a few interesting links.

If you’ve ever wondered why the ACLU seems to regularly side with organizations and issues that seem to oppose traditional American values, this collection of unearthed letters between the ACLU founder, Roger Baldwin and the American Communist Party should shed some light.  (Hat tip: Holy Coast)

Y’know that phrase, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it"?  Here’s you’re chance to learn from it.  If you want to find out how ObamaCare will turn out, just look at the broken promises and escalating costs of RomneyCare in Massachusetts.

An impressive new invention from Germany; heat balls! 

Chavez currently has dictatorial powers in Venezuela, and is currently in a stand-off with American diplomats.  So he wants the US to change the envoy to Caracas to one of his choice of useful idiots; Sean Penn, Oliver Stone or Bill Clinton.  Talk about gall.

So many liberal blogs got this absolutely wrong, you wonder if poor civics or history classes in public school lead to liberalism.  Talking Points Memo illustrated this perfectly.  When reading the Constitution in the House chambers yesterday, Republicans read what amounted to the amended Constitution, skipping parts that were superseded by later amendments.  This included counting only 3/5ths of the slaves.  Evan McMorris-Santoro writes:

It’s fairly likely that no elected politician wants to stand up and read aloud the Founder’s vision of African Americans as equaling three-fifths of a white person, so the GOP has decided to leave that part, and others, out when the Constitution is read today.

This was no "vision" of discounting African-Americans.  In fact, the "Three-Fifths Compromise" did two things when it was written into the Constitution.  It gave us a "united" states, which would have been impossible if slave states would not agree to the new Constitution, and it kept slave states from gaining too many representatives in the House (by simply importing "constituents") to keep slavery from ever being abolished.  It was a compromise, not a "vision", and it paved the way for the abolition of slavery.  A good explanation is here.

The federal debt is certainly cause for concern, but there’s also the problem of individual cities who have been financing all sorts of things with municipal bond debt.  This, too, has gotten out of control, leading us to another bailout-or-bankruptcy issue.

And finally, the roll of homeschoolers has grown to 2 million, 4% of all school-aged children.  Thanks, public schools.  Couldn’t have done it without you.

Good morning.

1. Another take on the Twain edits.
2. And yet another here.
3. Old Believers in Siberia (HT).
4. History, Bayes and the Resurrection.
5. Authority is not the problem, only if its implementation requires coercion. 
6. An interview noted.
7. Some curious remarks from an IPCC author.
8. Mr DeLong needs a saddle.
9. An interesting use of Obamacare, which practice with a future GOP President will bite the Democratic hand that birthed it.
10. Minorities and their status.
11. A principle key to the Christian life.
12. Behind the woodshed (HT).

Good morning. I’ll be brief today, two word taglines — max.

1. Creation/Evolution.
2. Hybrid.
3. Tiny.
4. Knot.
5. Character.
6. Tradition.
7. Epiphany/Theophany.
8. Chinese?
9. Housing.
10. Love/God.
11. Gigapixels.
12. Talent.
13. Discovery (HT).

Good morning.

1. Seeing as climatology depends crucially on computer aided story telling … alas the left these days seems firmly convinced the answer is theology.
2. A closet left.
3. An odd statement by Mr Obama noted.
4. A ban lifted in name only is still a ban.
5. Democracy and Israel.
6. Verse and the Coptic Queen.
7. Medicinal cabinetry spotted.
8. Questioning the use of the word “culmination.” 
9. US manufacturing trends.
10. “Greatest” art work? Really … but more to the point it is great and the comment may be apropos. I wonder how he feels about Muzak. 
11. In praise of allegory and mythopoetic fiction.
12. Praise for Ms Rand.
13. I think the poster is looking for outrage as a response to Mr Scalia’s words, but I find them quite reasonable.
14. Faint praise for Mr Obama.
15. A career to not seek.

Best laid plans and all. Anyhow, good morning all.

1. Yah think? Ditto.
2. In a Paul Harveyish voice, “The rest of the story, err, bailout.
3. Government and (a) movement.
4. Legal correspondence (HT: MM).
5. One definition of libertarian principles. 
6. Another smart guy comes out of the closet.
7. Financial crises and government.
8. Eastward.
9. What the left wants for the US, or more accurately … the unintended consequence of the other things the left wants for the US.
10. Place and distance.

More tonight.

A longer list this time.  I took a vacation from blogging during — if you’ll forgive the expression — Christmas vacation, and this video comes out.  Nina Totenberg apologizes for using the term "Christmas party".  Is this really a taboo among liberals?  Or are liberals in the press really this out of touch with the rest of America?

Here are six good reasons why embryonic stem cells will never make it out of the lab and into the bodies of sick people.  But money will still pour into it because, hey, it’s money!

Palestinians fired a Qassam rocket at a kindergarten, hurting one teen passing by.  I didn’t watch much news over vacation, but I’m sure this was all over it.  Right?  I mean, it would have been if Israel had done it, so I’m just supposing.

It’s amazing how stark the double standards are regarding leaks.  Julian Assange didn’t mind dumping data that is life-or-death to some of our Afghani informers, but hated it when leaks about his own legal troubles came out.  Really?  And there are other news reporter groups that hate it when they get leaked. 

Iran is shipping missiles to Venezuela.  Hey Hollywood, this is just fine, right?  (Chavez blames all the failures of socialism on others, and so this paranoia is bound to give him cause to use such weapons.  So, no, it’s not al right.)

No, the polar bear is not endangered.  So says the Obama administration.  Really.  And Bruce McQuain notes that, really, endangered status is more about power than it is about the environment.

The (Democrat-controlled) Congress blocked the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the US.  I guess Obama has no one to blame for this other than … Bush.

Twenty years ago, and continuing as recently as 2009, it was predicted that global warming would bring much milder winters with less snow because of the temperatures.  Ski slopes would be barren and snow would vanish from places as far north as Scotland. Now, however, they’re saying that all that snow we got, even in the deep south, is because of global warming.  The link has a good round-up of weather vs predictions.

More power to this guy, who quit his job, got some legal education, and started suing e-mail spammers.

Why do atheists whine about not being invited to a prayer event?  Hey, you don’t like an inauguration that includes a prayer service?  Go out and win an election, and run your inauguration any way you want.

Good day.

1. Recycling done right.
2. Some quotes as inspiration.
3. Gitmo as recruiting tool is a unexamined truth for the left, alas.
4. I’m not lawyer, but that doesn’t seem like a very parallel example to me.
5. Badging.
6. Keynesian economics and an example. This is a similar article, and the study noted should be important for upcoming budget/tax discussions (behind subscription wall alas). As a quick summary, a good number of studies of countries over the last 30 years and their strategies between taxation and cost cutting were examined in light of whether they were successful in controlling deficits and budgets. The upshot is cost cutting needs to be the primary tool and raising taxes doesn’t work well.
7. As to that study, it’s what we aren’t doing, alas.
8. Icon and the East.
9. Watch tech.
10. Poetry in motion.
11. A book noted.
12. A comparison of religion and harmful practices.
13. Libertarianism doesn’t need to be caricatured to be called Utopian. One just has to point out that the actual libertarian society in the US, namely the Western/backwoods folkway of the 18th and early 19th century as noted in Albion’s Seed is horrifying to most of those who claim to be Libertarian. And if you are repelled by the actual examples of a political philosophy you espouse, that seems problematic.
14. East vs West.

Good day. Just a few today.

1. Patterns found.
2. St. Stephen the protomartyr.
3. Narnia and Nativity.
4. Zooom.
5. Repurposed head tube.
6. Calculus?
7. Bank bailouts.
8. Cricket races of sorts.
9. It occurs to me that is a relationship for which I have little to no understanding, one in which a spouse turns to legal redress for such a thing is not a marriage which has any common ground with mine.
10. A trend.
11. Brandon provides some good links for winter reading.

Good day.

1. Israel and Islam.
2. Somebody still thinks that conservatives dominate the media. Whatta jamoke.
3. A gift suggestion. Another here.
4. Zoom juice.
5. Mr Obama and detention.
6. Cinema noted.
7. Music appreciated … and it got our puppy barking.
8. Christ is born … 100 short stanzas.
9. That’s right. It doesn’t have to be partisan. It needs to be personal. 
10. Shadowing the Nativity.
11. Breaking silence?
12. Verse. And more verse.
13. A SCOTUS brief.
14. Do like the challenge/response “Christ is Born/Glorify Him” better than Merry Christmas/Happy New Year.
15. On Prayer.