From the sidebar, via @rdbrewer4 and VA Viper, a fun video.

It's just great. There's a joke at about 2:20 you have to be real fan to appreciate. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:56 AM | Comments (116)
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Yup.

The purpose of the present study is to determine the effects of state-level assault weapons bans and concealed weapons laws on state-level murder rates. Using data for the period 1980 to 2009 and controlling for state and year fixed effects, the results of the present study suggest that states with restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons had higher gun-related murder rates than other states. It was also found that assault weapons bans did not significantly affect murder rates at the state level. These results suggest that restrictive concealed weapons laws may cause an increase in gun-related murders at the state level. The results of this study are consistent with some prior research in this area, most notably Lott and Mustard (1997).

One of the odd things about Progressives' Gun Panic is their apparent belief that normal, law-abiding citizens will just go Kill-Crazy if they have a gun.

This is absurd. It always has been absurd. It always will be absurd.

A generally lawful citizen will have a marginally higher rate of committing an act of gun violence (especially suicide) simply because of the ease of access to the weapon. Even law-abiding people will have a small increase in opportunistic gun violence, given ease of access.

But this small effect is small beans compared to the number of gun attacks by non-law-abiding people which are deterred or prevented by armed citizens.

I think the Gun Control folks actually have it mind to disarm the non-law-abiding people. But that's hard to do -- most criminals can't legally own a gun, and the law doesn't seem to stop them -- so they decide upon the easy goal of disarming law-abiding folks.

After all, law-abiding folks will abide by the law-- so disarming them is relatively easy, whereas disarming the six-time liquor store bandit and killer isn't so easy. That guy isn't giving up his guns, as his occupation depends on guns, but hey, maybe the average law-abiding citizen will give up his guns, if we threaten him with jail.

And then they can claim victory for having disarmed the 90% of the populace that does nothing at all illegal or hostile with guns. They'll just ignore that the 10% of the population that causes all the chaos and murder still has their guns -- 90% on any test will get you an "A," after all.

Posted by: Ace at 11:15 AM | Comments (319)
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There are some things you're just not allowed to say, some Sacred Writs too holy to undermine with so much as an "ironically enough."

The Russian ship, Akademic Shokalskiy, was stranded in the ice while on a climate change research expedition, yet nearly 98 percent of network news reports about the stranded researchers failed to mention their mission at all. Forty out of 41 stories (97.5 percent) on the network morning and evening news shows since Dec. 25 failed to mention climate change had anything to do with the expedition.

In fact, rather than point out the mission was to find evidence of climate change, the networks often referred to the stranded people as “passengers,” “trackers” and even “tourists,” without a word about climate change or global warming.

Chris Turney, the expedition’s leader, is a professor of climate change at the University of South Wales. According to Turney’s personal website, the purpose of the expedition is to “discover and communicate the environmental changes taking place in the south.”

...

According to Fox News, Turney admitted “we’re stuck in our own experiment.” They reported on Dec. 30, that a statement from the Australasian Antarctic Expedition said, “Sea ice is disappearing due to climate change, but here ice is building up.”

An alleged news story from a Canadian paper calls those noting the irony of this situation "climate-change deniers."

ut the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, which sought to retrace the steps famous Australian Antarctic geologist Douglas Mawson tread 100 years ago to see how the landscape had changed, was also mocked by climate-change deniers making hay of the fact that a group of researchers devoted to tracking global warming would get stuck in ice they claim is melting.

"Making hay" now includes "noting obvious ironies."

Something this writer herself did-- she is one of the very few reporters to note the irony of the situation. First paragraph:

Fused between thick sheets of Antarctic ice after numerous failed international rescue efforts, the ship full of climate-change scientists could have spent New Year’s Eve despairing the dicey — and ironic — situation in which they’d found themselves.

But you mustn't laugh too much at the New Gods. They will get angry, and throw a hurricane at you.

Posted by: Ace at 10:15 AM | Comments (323)
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Yup. Of course he prefers a single-payer disaster but he calls the current disaster what it is, which is a disaster.

In an op-ed published at the New York Times, Moore wrote, "Obamacare is awful."

"For many people, the 'affordable' part of the Affordable Care Act risks being a cruel joke," added Moore. "The cheapest plan available to a 60-year-old couple making $65,000 a year in Hartford, Conn., will cost $11,800 in annual premiums. And their deductible will be $12,600. If both become seriously ill, they might have to pay almost $25,000 in a single year."

Even the Husky Huckster can add a premium to a deductible and sum up the out-of-pocket expenses for the "Affordable" Health Care Act.

The more the planners plan, the more they fail, and the more power they require to implement new fixes to their plans.

Posted by: Ace at 09:43 AM | Comments (163)
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#smarttake.

A professor who teaches constitutional law courses at the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice penned a Christmas Day essay blaming “southern White radicals” for the disastrous, slow-motion train wreck failure that has been the rollout of the Affordable Care Act.

The essay, by Gloria J. Browne-Marshall at the website Politics in Color, is entitled “2013: A Year of Racial Challenges.”

“[S]outhern White radicals vowed to stop implementation of the Obama-care law leading one to wonder if Tea Party members would oppose affordable healthcare if it came from a nonBlack [sic] President,” writes Browne-Marshall.

Instapundit wryly notes: "Seems like this sort of statement might indicate a hostile environment toward white southern students at John Jay, one that might deny them educational opportunities."

If a professor is so ignorant and hate-filled as this, that's probably true. It's embarrassing to even have to explain to this "professor" that "southern white radicals" opposed HillaryCare, too.

The Daily Caller calls the ensuing paragraphs "profoundly disconnected." That's too charitable.

In January, President Barack Obama began his second term. However, southern White radicals vowed to stop implementation of the Obama-care law leading one to wonder if Tea Party members would oppose affordable healthcare if it came from a nonBlack President.

It was 150 years ago that Abraham LincolnÂ’s military order, the Emancipation Proclamation, ended slavery in those same rebellious southern States. Then, as the fight for freedom continued race-based criminal laws replaced slave laws.

In February, Christopher Dorner, African-American, began a killing spree he said was triggered by racism. A well-respected Los Angeles police officer and veteran of the Naval Reserves, DornerÂ’s Manifesto revealed he was fired after reporting excessive force by LAPD.

Dorner claimed the abundance of racism he experienced on his job, and at all-White schools he attended, drove him to kill. Dorner allegedly took his own life when trapped by police. Some called Dorner insane others said a modern-day Nat Turner, referring to the leader of a Virginia slave rebellion in 1831. However, the possibility racism was a core issue in this case was disregarded.

She continues listing her long list of racial resentments in this stream-of-consciousness manner.

Posted by: Ace at 08:44 AM | Comments (308)
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Happy Thursday.

Obamacare snafu will keep 16,000 Iowans from using their health coverage -- assuming they actually have health coverage -- for about six weeks.

Those Antarctic global warming advocates stuck in the ice were finally rescued.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:53 AM | Comments (238)
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Well I hope you guys are happy on this new year's day. Especially after those damned teenagers broke in and trashed the place last night. Oh and if anyone knows where the toilet is please email me or one of the cobs.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:31 PM | Comments (513)
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• Snapchat Hacked
  
• New Year, Old Problems
  
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• The Problems With Common Core
  
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• Coulter: The Anus Monologues
  
• Iraq War Vet Makes First Legal Pot Purchase
  
• Please Congress, Do Less
  
• Men Without Women: Is There A Male Friendship Crisis?
  
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• Who Says True Love Is Dead
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 AM | Comments (466)
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Michael Moynihan looks back at the Year That Was Incoherent and Silly.

With blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, and all the other platforms I have forgotten about, we were promised a great democratization of media, a Gutenberg press in the hands of everyone who could muster an opinion about anything. And the media has been democratized (please spare me the heavy breathing about the sinister Koch brothers, Murdoch, Buffett, Bezos, Omidyar, and Soros), which has brought us more entry-level journalists, more stupid journalism, and a permanent public record of every half-witted brainwave from every impulsive Twitter user.

...

[I] watched in wonderment as serious magazines and newspapers hung on every revolutionary word of actor and self-appointed pundit Russell Brand, who in 2013 decided he was the monster who has turned on his creator, attacking capitalism, celebrity culture, and corporate control of the media (while skillfully not rejecting the lucrative paydays they provide).

...

Try, if you will, to digest these paragraphs from a recent Brand column on the supposedly corrupt British parliamentary system, surely a contender for the worst column ever published in a mainstream newspaper:

“That politics is bereft of altruists, philanthropists and idealists but instead throbs and bristles with stunted show-offs, who, granted flatter abs and cuter noses, would be jiving and caterwauling on Britain’s Got Talent or staring with glum vacuity down the barrel of a camera in a mock corridor in Holby City.”

I suspect someone bought Brand a thesaurus for Christmas.

“This pith squirt stings because we want our politicians to be motivated by high ideals and compassion and not to secretly seethe every time Harry Styles impeccably saunters through the public mind with hair that gently binds his scalp to the heavens and mankind to the angels.”

...

Brand later informs readers, those drooling sheeple conditioned by corporations, that the British Parliament “is a deeply encoded temple of hegemonic power.” What any of it means is anyone’s guess.

He then goes on to discuss Salon.com, saying it's now a college student newspaper.

via @rdbrewer4.

Posted by: Ace at 11:35 AM | Comments (353)
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This post was originally written on January 17, 2011, just days after the Tucson shooting. It was never published, however, and I don't quite remember why. Possibly because I was on vacation, but it's also possible I simply liked this post on Designated Villains, which I wrote and posted the next day, better. MSNBC's decision to make the Romneys, who are very much off the national stage right now, the butt of a joke reminded me.

I meant to write about this last week when Sarah Palin was forced into the center of the news cycle, but some family stuff distracted me. Just as offstage villainy is central to liberal attempts to frame the Tea Party as the Designated Villain of modern American politics, Designated Evil is necessary to sustain the liberal claim that Palin is dumb, but devious, and ditsy, but dangerous.

Designated Evil is when an author of fiction portrays something utterly unremarkable as the Worst. Thing. EVER. The simplest deed will provoke gasps of astonishment at its apparent evil. The technique is supposed to help the reader figure out who the good guy and the bad guy are. The trope fails when the thing being designated as Evil isn't really that bad at all. The audience recognizes that they're being played for fools.

Much of the media's coverage of Sarah Palin falls into the Designated Evil category. Remember when she wrote notes on her hand for a speech? There was breathless media coverage, usually in the vein that she must be an idiot or a political novice to have used notes. This is a Designated Evil. Most public speakers use notes. In fact, the much-acclaimed-for-his-public-speaking President of the United States doesn't just use notes, but simply reads all of his speeches. Nevertheless, an entire news cycle was consumed by Sarah Palin's "hand job", as many outlets referred to it.

Remember when she offered a prayer "that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God"? Again, it became a media feeding frenzy. That she could have the hope that the U.S. military is doing God's work was fodder for another round of vilification, even though such prayers are quite common.

Other examples of Designated Evils related to Palin include the ridiculous coverage of her "refudiate" tweet, a word which Oxford Dictionary later declared "new word of the year." Palin's decision to fly home to give birth fuels Andrew Sullivan's Trig Trutherism to this day, even though the decision was made with the consultation of a doctor. Her unexceptional use of the term "blood libel" made all the papers last week. She was then called out for "inserting herself into the President's news cycle", as if he owns the media or something. All are Designated Evils because they're not really evil or even remarkable and yet, the media cannot help but exhaust themselves with breathless coverage.

In fiction, Designated Evil occurs when there is a disconnect between the author's values and the readers'. In political reporting the disconnect is simply between the values of liberals and conservatives.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:08 PM | Comments (398)
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