Category: Current Events

For Monday:

Daryl Metcalfe wants to impeach Kathleen Kane for refusing to defend the state’s marriage laws. Just the kind of thing we want Corbett to have to deal with as we head into a shaky re-election campaign.

Gun T-Shirt ruines Joan Peterson’s vacation, and it looks like the Ugly American may be an ugly Australian. Yes, it’s an offensive T-shirt I think someone would have to be a jerk to wear, but usage is different in other cultures, and someone noticed this looked like non-American usage of the c-word. Don’t let your bigotry get the better of you on vacation!

Looks like another showdown is shaping up in Illinois. They won’t leave well enough alone.

The War on Women continues.

The front-runner in the New York Mayor’s race thinks Bloomberg didn’t go far enough on gun control. He doesn’t think there’s enough socialism to Bloomberg’s activism.

Another school shooting in Nevada.

UPDATE: Colorado wrestles with guns in pot stores. Federally it’s going to be problematic, because selling drugs is a federal crime, and there are sentencing enhancements if you have a gun with you. Additionally, there are federal crimes for carrying a firearm during the commission of other federal crimes.

CNN is finally releasing the story about how there was no AR-15 involved in the Navy Yard Shooting. Note this:

A U.S. law enforcement official said Monday that gunman Aaron Alexis unleashed a barrage of bullets using an AR-15, a rifle and a semi-automatic handgun. Authorities believed the AR-15 was used for most of the shooting, the official said. The news prompted Sen. Dianne Feinstein, one of the strongest proponents of a ban on assault weapons like the AR-15, to issue a statement the same day asking, “When will enough be enough?”

So who were these US Law enforcement officials? This is rank speculation on my part, I want to be clear: but the Administration has a certain amount invested in seeing his gun control agenda through. While it easily could have been a mistake, I do have to note:

• A lie will get halfway around the world before the truth can get its pants on.
• The media can be expected to parrot anything they can get their hands on in a mass shooting, and the shooter having an AR-15 comports with their agendas and biases.
• Regardless of the truth coming out now, people will continue to believe an AR-15 was involved, because they barely pay attention.

Which makes me wonder if those leaks about the AR-15 weren’t intentional, and meant to drive the narrative. It’s tin foil hat territory, but this Administration has set new standards for tin foil hat whackery.

I normally don’t comment on foreign affairs, both because it’s off topic, and because I tend to agree with Tam these days when it comes to foreign intervention. But since our imminent intervention in some other damned fool thing in the Middle East is what’s dominating the news, I thought I might opine.

I don’t really think the United States has a dog in a fight between Baathist Alawites and Sunni fundamentalist Al-Quada supporters. I also am not too concerned about how efficiently they can kill each other. But I am concerned about how efficiently they may be able to kill Americans depending on who gets their hands of all the fun toys when the dust finally clears.

If WMDs were enough justification to insert ourselves into Iraq, why isn’t it justification enough to insert ourselves into Syria? Especially given we know the Syrians have WMDs. We’ve seen them use them on their own people within the past few weeks. We’re not going on a bunch of outdated intelligence and fuzzy pictures presented in front of the United Nations like we were in 2003.

If all we’re going to do is launch some air strikes and lob a few cruise missiles, I’d prefer to save the money and trouble. I’d also prefer there to be some Congressional approval. If Bush can do it, so can Obama. I don’t think such things should be done by a President unilaterally. I’m also not too enthusiastic these days about the whole Middle East Democracy project. We tried that experiment, and I’m not convinced the results are worth it. Going in an taking the WMDs away from the combatants, and then letting them resume doing whatever it is they want to do to each other, is a fine, limited goal. Beyond that I don’t care what they want to kill each other with.

If the Obama Administration decides to go into Syria to secure the WMDs, I’m fine with that, provided Congress also approves. I was fine with the Bush Administration doing the same thing in 2003. Beyond that, there’s plenty of room for partisan bickering. But I think keeping WMDs out of the hands of unstable, mass-murdering fascists and religious fanatics ought to be something both parties can get behind.

Massad Ayoob has some commentary and some links to evidence the jury never got to see in the Zimmerman trial.

What if Zimmerman didn’t have a gun? You keep seeing this in the media, as if we can really know, and if this isn’t anything more than wild assed speculation. It’s utter nonsense.

Maybe he wouldn’t have gotten out of the car. Maybe he would have gotten beaten to death. Maybe he would have ended up in a coma for two months, and recovered. Wouldn’t that be a better outcome? Maybe he would have not gotten involved in his neighborhood and stayed home like a good scared little citizen. Maybe he would have had it out with Tray and they could have gone for ice cream afterwards.

Who knows and who cares? What if Hitler had gotten accepted into art school? We’ll never know.

Gun news is slow, since the media is focused on other things for the moment, like how racist America is. In the mean time, those of us in the Northeast are baking. It’s not often I’ll say I’d trade Houston for its weather, but:

Today we’re getting a break on humidity. Dewpoint today is under 70, whereas it’s been 70-72 the past several days. I learned from my days being an avid hiker, before I got too busy and too fat, that dewpoint is the number to watch. A lot of people think relative humidity is the important number for comfort, but dewpoint, which tells you how much moisture is actually in the air, is a more reliable measure. Dewpoints below 60 are generally comfortable, even if it’s fairly hot out. You can go do a long hike, even in 90 degree weather, and do fine if the dewpoint is below 60. From 60-65 you can generally manage, but pushing closer to 65 you’ll start to feel the suck. At 65-70, it’s generally pretty uncomfortable. Anything above 70 is unbearable even if the temperature is not that high. You’ll be dripping with sweat with even minor exertion. I’ll take 105 in Phoenix over this crap any day of the week. Dry heat is much easier to deal with. On days like today, I just try to stay indoors and not do much that requires physical exertion, which conveniently is generally what my jobs requires.

But that’s not to say it doesn’t still suck. Few houses built here before the 1990s were built with central air conditioning. Most people who have it in older houses retrofitted it, which is expensive if you don’t have forced-air heat. My house has hot water baseboard heating and no AC, so retrofitting is more pricy. The open floor plan of the house is nice, but in summer it makes AC difficult. I’m relying on a 14,000 BTU/hr portable unit downstairs, and a 6000BTU/hr Wal-Mart special window unit upstairs. They’ve been running flat out for days without cycling. Not good. But they are keeping the house reasonably comfortable. Right now my office is 80 degrees, with a dewpoint of 63 degrees indoors. That’s pretty good. I’d call that a beautiful day if it was outside. Eventually, I’m going to get another 14,000 BTU portable unit for upstairs, which should hopefully be enough to do the whole house, and let the units cycle a bit even in craptacular heat and humidity such as this.