Month: September 2010
New York Times Weighs in on Lead Ammo Ban
Of course they think it’s a disgrace that the EPA can’t ban lead ammunition, because why can’t we have a back door way to end the shooting sports and hunting as we know it? That would mean Heller and McDonald are without consequence, and we won’t be dismantling New York City’s gun laws in short order. It think that’s what the Times is really afraid of.
We Return to Better Political News…
I’m currently catching up on the insanity in Delaware, where it seems enough crazy broke out over the last couple of weeks to entertain folks on both coasts nearly 24/7 on Twitter.
But, there’s this bit of interesting news from one of my favorite local political news sites:
That means some Democratic-held seats have become more competitive, most notably Patrick Murphy’s 8th District, which now sits at No. 4 on the rankings. Republican challenger Mike Fitzpatrick’s strong fundraising, an anti-Democratic climate and polling data we’ve seen all contributed to this change. Political forecasters increasingly see the Bucks County race as a battleground. No race has become more competitive since we inaugurated the Power Rankings—it’s moved from No. 10 all the way to No. 4.
This fascinates me, and likely will until the morning after election day. Talking to people on the ground, there’s not much enthusiasm for Fitzpatrick – the GOP candidate looking to reclaim the seat he lost in 2006. However, there is quite a bit of enthusiasm for voting out Patrick Murphy – the Democratic incumbent who ran as a Blue Dog and has voted fairly far left.
Of course, nothing we see here in Pennsylvania compares to the level of political engagement we saw out in Hawaii. Their primary isn’t until next weekend, and yet we saw sign wavers every single time we got in the car (with some exceptions when we were driving late at night). There are signs in lawns and banners hanging off the sides of a huge number of homes. We found it was even common for businesses to get in on the political game by showing their support for various candidates. It’s very clear that the Djou special election win has energized the GOP there, and they are out in full force showing their support for their candidates. On the Democratic side, Mufi Hannemann, the primary challenger to former Congressman Neil Abercrombie for the Governor’s office, appears to have quite the enthusiasm advantage. His volunteers were out everywhere. We never saw any Abercrombie supporters (at least in person – beyond a sign in the yard) until our next to last day. Even then, it was one group doing one sign waving event.
Anschutz Sells Out
We really need to revive American manufactured precision small bores, because the European Manufacturers are going to be increasingly regulated into extinction, or forced to neuter their products. We nearly destroyed Smith & Wesson over less, and now I will never purchase an Anschutz product.
So What’s Happening in the World?
I guess I should find out, and report back. I’ve been so out of it, I haven’t even really been paying attention to e-mail. Obama could have ordered house-to-house confiscation, and I doubt I’d have realized. Definitely haven’t been reading blogs. Many thanks to my guest bloggers for helping fill in for me while I was gone. Normal blogging will resume as soon as I figure out what I’ve been missing.
But one story I will link to is from Marko, and I have to say, after that long flight back from Hawaii, bravo. My parents took the same approach, and even when we were older, it was mostly Imperial Pizza for the family. No fancy places for us.
Back Home
Our Hawaiian adventure is over. Arrived back on the east coast at Newark, New Jersey at 6AM. Too early for the trains to run. Feeling like a day just up and disappeared, I was too tired to wait for them to start running, so we rented a car, one way, at the Newark Airport and high-tailed it down the New Jersey Turnpike for home. The good thing about a two week vacation is you’re kind of glad to be home, and don’t have to keep living out of a suitcase.
The latest Hawaiian vacation trend seems to be taking the kids along. Let me amend that — taking your screaming kids along. You’d almost have a hard time believing we’re in a recession, that people have money for the whole family to go on vacation. We took driving vacations to such exciting destinations as Ocean City, New Jersey, Lewes, Delaware (I never did get to see the screen door factory, though) and one trip to Florida (we drove). When my parents went on vacations that required flying, we got dropped off at the grandparents.
Standards of public behavior for children have also definitely gone downhill. If my parents had taken us on a plane, there’s no way I would be permitted to run up and down the aisles, and wander the plane annoying people. On the flight out, the parents were busy getting liquored up, while their kids were having free reign over the incredibly cramped 757. I think if you have your bratty rug rats with you, and you’d rather drink than parent, you ought to be required to buy drinks for the whole plane. I believe I  will take this up with the FAA.
I think the root of this problem is you can’t smack your kids in public anymore, and parents seem to think there’s no problem with imposing their kids on the rest of the world. I would have gotten smacked if I had behaved like that. It almost makes this tame:
Burning the Koran: Really Stupid
If you want to get media attention, saying you are going to burn the Koran does that just fine. But it is wrong on so many levels. Let’s count them, shall we?
1. It anger Muslims, as opposed to persuading them. There are a lot of serious criticisms that can be made of the Koran and Islam, but burning the Koran isn’t a serious criticism. It’s childish. That pastor should have organized a daylong serious analysis of the Koran’s inconsistencies and the difficulties with reading its text that have been acknowledged by Muslim scholars since around 1000 AD. Would it have converted many Muslims? No. But it would not have generated the…firestorm (yes, that’s the word) of passionate rage. It makes America look stupid.
2. Book burning has become a symbol of fascism. Even the Catholic Church, when it maintained its list of prohibited books, did not burn books. Great: a Christian pastor uses a symbol of the Nazis. What were you thinking? Were you thinking?
3. It provides yet another example of an ignorant Christian pastor for the news media (which is constantly ignoring the many equivalent Islamic radical imams) to use to portray Christianity in a bad light.
4. It almost certainly increases the risk that some Muslim fanatic is going to kill some American somewhere–and there is nothing that we get in return for that increased risk. If some action that we took actually increased the possibility of winning the war against Islamofascism in exchange for that risk, it might be worth considering. But what does burning Korans buy us? Nothing.
I hope this pastor enjoys his brief moment of fame.
An Astonishing Film: Surrogates
I saw the ads when it came out, but my wife and I seldom go to movies. While grading papers today, I watched it on Netflix.
Yes, grading student essays is not so difficult that I can’t watch a movie at the same time. (One quirk of both my daughter and myself that just drives my wife crazy is that we can and often do multitask–doing several things simultaneously.)
Anyway, the essence of the movie (explained in the very well done minute or two opening so I am not spoiling anything for you) is that in the very near future, humans live their entire lives through robotic surrogates that give you all the sensations and experiences–but without the risks. Many people never actually leave their homes–they rely on their surrogates to go everywhere, including doing their jobs. Of course, the robots don’t age, or get fat, or ugly. And if the surrogate dies, you can’t get hurt. Or can you?
To say that this is an astonishing commentary on our technologically deranged society is quite clear. I would blog some more about this–but blogging is perilously close to a surrogate form of social behavior!
There are so many cliched sci-fi premises that have been done again and again and again (such as time travel stories) that to really make it interesting requires a really astonishing piece of writing. And to get some thoughtful social commentary at the same time? Excellent!
The Obama Administration is keeping up appearances – Health Care Edition
Once again, the Secretary of HHS is threatening insurance companies who say they are raising rates in response to the coming Health Care Reform. This kind of thing is, if nothing else, disturbing because of the assymetry of power between a federal regulatory agency and the industry it regulates. If thre is fraud, prosecute it. Making threats is simply an attempt to suppress speech.
Presidential image on Flickr
I saw this picture on the White House Flickr stream a couple days back, and though, “wow, that’s a majestic office.”
BTW – the photog is a genius, IMHO, and has a real eye for a picture. Check out the Flickr stream for yourself.