Stones Cry Out

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.

Where is commerce gravitating more and more, and thus where is your identity becoming more important?

President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today.

It’s "the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government" to centralize efforts toward creating an "identity ecosystem" for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said.

To the Left, the absolute perfect spot for the US government is, basically, wherever you go, physically or digitally.  Instead of a national ID system, your Internet identity is essentially the same thing.  Of course, they claim that this is not a national ID.

"We are not talking about a national ID card," [U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary] Locke said at the Stanford event. "We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy, and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities."

It’s run by the national government, and it’s to identify you to the entire digital world.  What other euphemism would you prefer? 

Like a lot of folks, I’ve been watching a lot of news coverage of this past weekend’s shooting in Tuscon. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.

A couple of thoughts about the tragedy and its aftermath:

1. I never fail to be surprised at the lengths people will go to score political points from such a tragedy. I think most voters see such politicians for what they really are and they’ll get their just desserts the next time an election rolls around.

2. A Predictable Tragedy in Tuscon in today’s Wall Street Journal is a worthwhile read. And no, it doesn’t have anything to do with political speech. Instead, it focuses on one of the most underreported aspects of the story: the fact that the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, had untreated mental illnesses. As long as we continue to ignore the problem of how we as a society deal with treatment of the mentally ill we’ll see these type of events continue to occur. All you have to do is look back at similar events and see how many of the perpetrators had a history of mental illness.

3. A related point to #2 above: Tuscon police missed the warning signs about Loughner’s behavior?

4. Another question that is begging to be asked and answered: why weren’t the police at Congresswoman Giffords’ event? If the political rhetoric is as dangerous as Sheriff Dupnik says then why didn’t he have any deputies there to provide security?

5. A natural response in the aftermath of a tragedy such as this is to talk about passing tougher gun control laws. But consider this quote:

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms… disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” –Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishment, quoted by Thomas Jefferson in Commonplace Book

6. Leave it to Michael Ramirez to provide astute media analysis.

When discussing / debating  creation and evolution, if you happen to be presented with a “that’s just a God of the gaps” rebuttal, remember that it indicates at least two things: 1) the person is committed to materialism (with no materialistic justification, by the way) and, 2) the person is admitting there are gaps.

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.

I grew up in cities like Syracuse, NY, Pittsburgh, PA and Cleveland, OH.  I learned to drive in Cleveland in January.  I know how to drive in wintery weather.

Now, part of that ability to drive was partially contingent on the snow removal equipment of those cities.  They got lots of snow and had the plows and salt to deal with it.  Even with that, though, sometimes you still wouldn’t see the lines on some major roads in Cleveland for a couple of months.  In some years, the plows kept the mounds of snow off to the side and the streets level, but the only lanes were those made by the tire tracks of previous travellers, so it wasn’t always asphalt you were driving on.  You had to learn how to navigate in the snow.

But driving on snow and driving on ice are quite different, and driving on ice requires quite a bit more care.  If the roads were snowy, and the temps low, you could generally get around up north.  Still, snow tires were always a good idea.  If the roads were icy, snow tires or not, you had a decision to make; stay home or brave the ice.

I say "up north" because nowadays I’m down south.  This past weekend, the weather folks knew that the perfect snowstorm was coming our way.  A low pressure system was throwing moisture up our way, and frigid temps were coming down from the north, and, depending on where you were, you could get 7 inches of snow (extreme northeast Georgia).  In the metro Atlanta area, the Sunday afternoon before it hit they were predicting 2 to 3 inches.  At 9pm, on cue where we were, the flakes started coming down.

One hour later, by 10pm, we had those 3 inches already, and the snow continued to come.  Three inches an hour is serious even by northern standards.  By the morning, we measured the snow on my deck at 5 inches.  And later that morning, sleet put a nice crust on the snow.  And the streets.

Now, up north, the trucks would’ve been out in force and things might have returned to almost normal.  But down here, there are a few things working against a quick return to normal.

Plow and salt trucks are very expensive to maintain.  A huge majority of that money would be wasted if the city of Atlanta had the same size fleet as Pittsburgh or Syracuse.  Thus, for something that used to happen once every 5 years (according to native Atlantans), it made no fiscal sense. 

The temperatures down here don’t stay significantly below freezing for any length of time.  Two things come from this.  First, the snow and ice usually melt away pretty quickly, so after one day or so it’s typically all gone anyway.  But if it’s not gone, the temps will stay close to freezing and thus melt during the day and freeze during the night, turning the streets into ice rinks.  And like I said, even northerners rightly think twice about driving on that.

And you typically can’t buy snow tires for any price down here.  Tire stores have no reason to take up warehouse space with them.

So generally, it takes a much smaller amount of snow down here to shut the city down than it does up north.  This particular snowstorm has been particularly tough for a few reasons.  In addition to the speed at which the snow fell, and thus putting our ‘fleet’ of snow removal equipment at an immediate disadvantage, there was a layer of warm air in the upper atmosphere that developed and gave us the morning sleet, coating snowy roads and making travel extremely dangerous.  Cars have mostly stayed off the road, but trucks have had to continue, and the number and locations of so many jack-knifed 18-wheelers have essentially shut down interstate 285, the circle around Atlanta.  At one point yesterday, I-285 from about the 3 o’clock position to the 8 o’clock had half a dozen problems, many of them shutting down the highway in one direction or the other.  Trucks who’s destination is not inside 285 are normally required to take 285 around the city.  Today, they’re telling everyone to stay off 285 because it’s such a parking lot, and allowing trucks through the city.

And of course, not a snow tire to be had, so people will stay off the roads.  Salt and sand on the roads get the clearing started, but actually, traffic over those roads help those elements do their job.  But there is precious little traffic out there because we have neither the properly equipped cars, nor (in the case of many native Atlantans) the skill to navigate the roads.  And those of us who can navigate would rather not be out there anyway.

Compounding this is the fact that, between now and Saturday, the number of hours that the temperature will be above freezing can be counted on two hands, and overcast skies will keep the Sun from helping out today.  We’re stuck with this situation, in one form or another, until the weekend.

Needless to say, the local TV stations been plastered with weather and traffic news.  The news of the recent apparent assassination attempt on a US Congresswoman has only barely peeked through that.  The usual busy roadways are virtually silent at rush hour.  We’ve been getting the most out of our first free month of streaming movies on Netflix. 

And so please understand the tweet by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Sunday editor when he wrote, "Dear northern transplants, we don’t care how much snow y’all got back home. 5" is a lot for here. Love, Atlanta."  I’ll admit, I had a bit of that attitude when I first moved here.  I understand it now.

Oh, and by the way.  Just today, our company president, based in Boston, sent out a warning to employees in the northeast US that they may want to work from home tomorrow.  They’ll be getting twenty inches and wind gusts up to 50 miles per hour.  Hey, there are storms that even Boston folks stay home for.

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.

I noticed a remark yesterday to the effect of “taxing the rich more still polls well” as an argument for the Democrats being for higher taxes “on the rich.”

Long ago I noted that “conservative/liberal” for many people tend to mean “more conservative/liberal” than I because most people view themselves as somewhat average. I’d offer that the tax the rich notion follows that same suit. That is to say, “the rich” means “people who make substantially more than I ever expect to earn.” In that sense, “tax the rich” is just another “tax somebody else” please and is to my view very suspect in that it really is just a way of trying to get free stuff/money by putting the hurt on some other fellow. 

The American virtue of self-reliance (as celebrated by Emerson) is fading fast. Why does the left hate it so? 

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.