Why Am I Not Surprised...

That the Deciderator's NASA allowed the one satellite monitoring global warming to slowly die?

Step 1: Deny there's a problem, based on lack of data.
Step 2: Claim the science is muddled.
Step 3: Deny funding to any hardware or studies that might unmuddle the science.
Step 4: Deny there's a problem, based on lack of data.

They do this with medical marijuana as well.

Because Some Things Should Be Offered With No Further Comment

Officials Warn Against Hoarding Manure.

I've Blogged Before, And I'll Blog Again...

About guns.

Full Disclosure, I own, but am not currently in possession of, a 9mm Handgun, a .30-30 Rifle and a 12 Ga Shotgun (the Wee Pedant being who she is, I'm inclined to require unlocking procedures akin to nuclear weapons release before I bring them into my home). Having said that, I am highly ambivalent about unlimited gun rights.

Maybe I've run too many ranges, but the vast majority of my fellow citizens have no more business possessing firearms than they do possessing crystal meth. Too much potential for misuse. Allow a liberal interpretation of the 2nd Amendment and eventually someone's kid blows his own head off. And now this.

Apparently open carry leads to, shall we say, serious consequences.

Soccer mom in Pennsylvania horrified fellow soccer moms by openly carrying a holstered pistol to a soccer game. She had her carry permit revoked then reinstated 8 days later. She's dead now, in an apparent murder/suicide at which her three children (now orphans) were present. Domestic dispute.

Which leads to my point. I will emphasize this for the "Guns don't kill people, people kill people," folks out there. The presence of a gun in any highly emotional situation immediately raises the stakes to life and death. Instantly. Am I saying that the gun in this caused the violence? No. Did the gun make it lethal? You are fucking-A right it did. Were her fellow soccer game attendees unreasonable in being worried (batshit upset, more like) at someone carrying a gun to events that time and again in this country devolve into shouting matches or violence between coaches, refs and parents? Abso-fucking-lutely not.

So let's be honest about the bargain we make when we interpret the 2nd Amendment the way we've decided to. We are arguing for MORE accidental or spur of the moment homicides. Look at that chart again (or for the first time). Other than the District of Columbia (a special case...if you carved out any poverty stricken zone that compact in this country, you'd get that result), the top ten per capita (corrected for population size, in other words) firearms death states you get in order are Alaska, Louisiana, Wyoming, Arizona, Nevada, Mississippi, New Mexico, Arkansas, and Alabama.

(Bitter Sarcasm) Clearly the strong gun control laws in those states has led to poor defenseless citizens gunned down by rampant crime. (/Bitter Sarcasm)

As it turns out there's a high correlation between a shitload of guns, and a shitload of gun deaths. As Eddie Izzard says, "And the National Rifle Association says that, 'Guns don't kill people, people do,' but I think the gun helps, you know? I think it helps. I just think just standing there going, 'Bang!' That's not going to kill too many people, is it? You'd have to be really dodgy on the heart to have that…”.

So I own guns. I enjoy firing guns. I am comfortable around guns (the Army saw to that). But I DON'T FUCKING KID MYSELF about the implications of the firearms culture in this country. More people die because of it. Period. Either own up to it, or give up your guns, damnit. Quit blowing sunshine up your own ass about what you're doing...

This Caught My Eye

Matt Ygelsias on the limits of the bully pulpit:

The arrow is "The Speech"...




Apparently, this is pretty much what happens everytime a President talks up an issue. Matt's claim is that it is pernicious to maintain the fiction that Presidential will alone determines this...the Green Lantern Theory.

Yglesias:

It’s not just that media commentary overemphasizing the president’s ability to shape opinion is inaccurate, it has a really detrimental impact on people’s ability to organize and effect political change. People are strongly encouraged to believe that the key to achieving policy change is to elect a president who’s friendly to their views. Then when that turns out to be insufficient they don’t move on and do additional organizing in House and Senate races. Instead, they tend to become frustrated with the president they worked to elect. But why blame the victim of congressional obstruction rather than the perpetrator? Well, people always seem to find a way to tell themselves, if only the president had fought harder he would have gotten it. He must have lost because he didn’t really care.

Three Levels In

Via Wil Wheaton, Via John Rogers, from Cory Doctorow:

Is that enough levels of geek?

A Load Of Fatuous Crap

"An armed society is a polite society,"--Robert Heinlein

See the title. Firstly, we're talking the gateway drug to Ayn Rand. And Ayn Rand is beyond fatuous crap. Heinlein has some redeeming qualities, whereas Ayn Rand specializes in telling pubescent pimply faced boys that the highest goal in life is to be a self centered asshole. Like they need encouragement in that.

But beyond that, the statement is demonstrably false. I thought of this post while I was listening to an NPR report on the way to work this morning about Afghanistan. Afghanistan is, not to put too fine a point on it, the NRA's wet dream of a society.

Damned near every Afghani has a gun, most of them have automatic weapons, and the majority of them either own or, in a pinch, could easily put their hands on a rocket launcher. Wayne LaPierre would LOVE it there. There are a lot of adjectives that leap to mind when thinking about Afghani society. Polite isn't high on the list. Polite isn't even ON the list.

Insular, tribal, violent, sectarian, vicious, dangerous. They are on the list. Polite? Nope. I'm not saying that Afghan society would be Nirvana without weapons. It wouldn't. Thousands of years of Afghan history make it the way it is. But Heinlein claims that the presence of a large number of weapon carriers makes a society polite. A priori, and regardless of culture. And he's wrong. What makes it worse is that he knew, or SHOULD have known, that he was wrong.

History is loaded with societies where an armed society is a violent society. The example Heinlein plainly had in mind is actually in contravention to his claim. The American West may have been "armed", but it requires rose-colored hindsight to consider it "polite". It was a lot more "Deadwood" than "How The West Was Won".

Here is what an armed society is: in thrall to the people most likely to use weapons to get their way. Most of whom are Ayn Rand's favorite type of person: sociopaths.

The fun part is, by carrying carbines to town hall meetings, conservatives are attempting to strongly imply they are the latter, whilst pretending to the fictional condition. Polite isn't what they're doing. Ask Tiller. Ask the kids at that Unitarian Church in Tennessee. Polite isn't on the agenda.

Maureen Dowd Goes There

Normally, MoDo annoys me, but today she went there. When Maureen Dowd notices the problem that the GOP has with a Black man as president, the GOP has a BAD problem...

I’ve been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer — the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other, a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie, Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would indoctrinate kids — had much to do with race.

I tended to agree with some Obama advisers that Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids — from Father Coughlin against F.D.R. to Joe McCarthy against Truman to the John Birchers against J.F.K. and the vast right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton.

But Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president — no Democrat ever shouted “liar” at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq — convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it.

You follow the Southern Strategy...it leads right THERE. And it doesn't even take a detour.