January, 2013 archive
What You Don’t Know Won’t Hurt Them 0
Dick Polman reviews the gun nuts’ war against facts. A nugget:
In 1992 and 1993, a team of respected gun research experts – financed and sponsored by the CDC – concluded that keeping guns in the home actually increased the risk of homicide and suicide in the home. The studies were published in the New England Journal of Medicine (homicide study, here). The gun lobby freaked out. The studies flatly contradicted the lobby’s contention that guns in homes make people safer.
The gun manufacturers freaked out, too. If word got around that gun-owning households were less safe – and, worse yet, if future researchers came to that same conclusion – gun manufacturers might sell fewer guns. And since the abiding goal is to increase revenue and maximize profits, the solution back then was obvious. Future gun violence research had to be squelched.
Read the rest.
For Sale 0
The Commander Guy celebrates the lost cause by pointing out what cause was lost.
A. P. Ticker Visits the Piggie Farm 0
Warning: Language
Football uber Alles 0
Manti Te’o’s on-line romance seems to be all the rage today.
Both sports columnists at my local rag wrote about it.
But, as Dave Zirin points out, whatever hypocrisy or lies or foolishness or gullibility that story represents, it does not trump the routine rottenness that permeates big-time sports. A nugget:
And Notre Dame is not an exception.
QOTD 0
Art Buchwald:
Every time you think television has hit its lowest ebb, a new program comes along to make you wonder where you thought the ebb was.
The Dreams in the Field House* 0
The local Babbitts are once again salivating over throwing public money into a sports palace
Earlier this month, an attempt to build an arena in Virginia Beach with a National Basketball Association franchise as the anchor tenant was suspended when the company that would have operated the arena couldn’t agree to terms with the team that sources identified as the Sacramento Kings.
“Every time we’ve gone through this drill, we haven’t been as ready as we need to be,” Villanueva said. “Hopefully, this will make us ready when the future comes calling again. This would be a good opportunity for regional cooperation.”
More at the link.
One of the reasons that the last play failed to score a basket was public resentment of the secrecy attending the plotting planning to pull it off.
This would appear to be appear to be an attempt to allow more stuff to get done more quickly, perhaps before the resentment can take hold.
What is it about large men with small balls that makes Babbitts want to throw taxpayers’ money at them?
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*With apologies to Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 0
Job prospects for process servers still look bright in Florida:
Though statewide home sales are up and prices are on the rise, the widespread glut of unpaid mortgages continues to beat back a full recovery.
Florida wrested the top dishonor from Nevada, which had posted the highest state foreclosure rate for five years in a row, RealtyTrac vice president Daren Blomquist said. Nevada had the second-highest rate last year and Arizona came in third.
The legacy of the banksters continues, with interest (paid by you, not by them).
Fearsome Trolls 0
Speaking of trolls, Funny or Die has a parody:
“Mythological Claptrap” 0
Jay Bookman writes in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Let me be blunt: That is mythological claptrap. But like a lot of mythological claptrap, it can push weak-minded people — the Timothy McVeighs of the world — to do stupid and dangerous things.
And whom does he cite as his authority? Justice Scalia.
Follow the link for the evidence.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Below 350k.
(snip)
Estimates for first-time claims ranged from 340,000 to 385,000 in the Bloomberg survey of 50 economists after an initially reported 371,000 in the prior week.
(snip)
The four-week moving average of claims, a less-volatile measure, dropped to 359,250 from 366,000.
Details and qualifications at the link.
Twits on Twitter 0
Twits with complete sentences.
A Second Amendment Right-To-Annoy 0
Mary Jo Mellone asks, “What about my right–to be let alone?”
I cannot go comfortably to the mall, parking lot, church, hair salon — it is hard to keep these mass shooting scenes nicely lined up in memory — because somebody who is sure the world is out to get him can arm himself and then go out and prove his point. Even the last refuge of our peace and tranquility, the national parks, are no longer either; you can pack heat, and I have to sit next to you on the tour bus.
The Voter Fraud Fraud Just Keeps on Going 0
The Republican steal-the-vote campaign is reheating up.
GTA vs. NRA 0
At Psychology Today, Jonathan Gottschall examines the credibility of claims that violence on television, in movies, and in video games leads to shootings. A nugget:
Video games don’t kill people. Gun nuts kill people.