Unintended Consequences

So the left, figuring that a mass shooting might give gun control some traction, begins discussing gun control.

The rest of us, figuring they might try something like that, rush out and double the sales of guns.

Don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows.

Science Marches Onward

Here's a piece on a Genomics award for the first person to develop human skin with sub-dermal spider silk, strong enough to render the body at least minimally bulletproof.

It crosses my mind that skin so augmented would also be resistant to the usual sagging and bagging that age tends to bring on.

Yet another approach to the sub-dermal bra?

Of course it could also make putting on weight or a pregnancy rather uncomfortable too.

Gifford Shooting

Now that the shooting has been largely sorted out, and all the relevant facts known, I can say that most of what is going on is depressingly predictable.

Already some of the best-known whack jobs in the house have rolled out gun control legislation almost as though it had been moldering in their desks for the last 4 years, a tacit admission that unless you represent a very safe district, supporting gun control is an invitation to disaster. Current offerings would revive the "assault-weapon ban" and ban sales to people adjudged to be mentally unstable, neither of which would have affected the outcome of the shooting.

Expanding on this, one other offering would ban criticism of elected officials, lest the "dear leaders" be offended or something, and another would bring back the "fairness doctrine", AKA the "Hush Rush" bill, again the primary objective being to silence dissent in any form.

What kind of government wants to disarm its citizens, and prosecute dissent?

One more thing: In my lifetime I've seen a few politically motivated assassinations. Since 1960, how many of the assassins have been right-wingers? I don't remember any.

Aside: How long will it be before someone on the left accuses Rush Limbaugh of being the spotter for Sarah Palin over on the grassy knoll?

Salt Shaker

It looks like we're in for some actual snowfall, with our favorite predictive source, who's never more that 80% off calling for 5-10 inches, up from 3-6 earlier. They're now saying that the 10" number may turn out to be closer to reality when this stops. When waqtching the wearther reports, pay no attention to the actual numbers, but watch the trend. By the time the storm is over they've generally gotten it exactly right.

So far it's break out the push broom and salt shaker to keep ahead of the 3/4" we've gotten so far. Here's a salt shaker:
Ah, Coffee, is there anything it can't do? Just fill with driveway salt, and it lays a nice uniform scattering as you stroll along.

Weather predictions being what they are, I'll probably wake up Monday unable to see out the windows for the drifts.

A Tale Of Two Congressmen

I write letters to congressmen on the off chance that if enough of my fellow constituents do so as well, it may influence his vote on issues. I recently wrote to one about efforts in the Senate to abolish or at least neuter the Senate rule regarding the filibuster and the Senatorial hold, which allows a Senator to slow down the progress of legislation.

To my memory, I remember it being used by Dems to impede civil rights legislation in the 50's and by Republicans to impede Obamanomics in the last two years. Absent the filibuster, the Senate is just a carbon copy of the house where legislation passes without much consideration beyond party politics.

The response I got, from Senator Bennett who described himself as a cautious moderate Dem in the last election was:

As you may know, the filibuster is a procedural tool, sometimes used by a minority of Senators to delay the Senate from proceeding to debate or a vote on legislation. Over the past two years, partisan games have prevented the Senate from moving forward on important issues such as economic recovery and creating jobs, in part due to the current rules of the filibuster.

Abuse of the filibuster is an important issue to me and I have taken actions to reform the broken filibuster process. In March, I introduced a common-sense proposal to reform the filibuster process as part of my Plan for Washington Reform.

Revealing himself to be a loyal tool of the administration. Later, I wrote representative Coffman about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, including my standard closing line about the ATF:

The Congressman is in total agreement with you that we need to severely reform Fannie and Freddie, if not do away with them altogether. Their actions have been extremely harmful and taxpayers need to stop paying for this. The Congressman also supports making major overhauls to the ATF. He was a co-sponsor on H.R. 2296, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives Reform and Firearms Modernization Act of 2009, which was introduced by Representative Steve King last Congress.

So someone's working for me out in the swamp.

Get your humor fix on the topic. Go here.

Balancing the Budget

Speaker Boehner recently couldn't think of any programs he'd de-fund, I suppose, without a poll or two telling him which ones affect his own constituents the least.

He'd better start thinking of some soon. It's why his party currently controls the House.

As I remember, the outgoing congress never actually passed a budget, which is the first responsibility of the House, but rather, in the waning hours of the year, passed a continuing resolution that lets things go on as they are until March. So come March, the House will get to take up the budget once more. This time I bet we'll see some movement on the issue, although I bet we see some pretty egregious efforts at bribery too.

Balancing the budget isn't hard, you just have to realize that a lot of agencies got as big as they are today by channeling monies into powerful congressmens districts. Thus Republicans from farm states seem to think that tarrifs against foreign agricultural products are a good idea, when coupled with subsidies for locally produced produce. Which is why we pay twice the world price for sugar, for example, and soft drinks are sweetened with corn and beet sugar instead of the better-tasting and cheaper cane sugar.

Budget suggestion: Reduce the Department of Agriculture to a low-level advisory board. Current Budget = $94B

Some 40% of the U.S. corn crop gets burned in our gas tanks in the form of ethanol, which I've ranted about before here. The Department of Energy was originally created to help us become independent of foreign oil, but so far has only made the situation worse.

Budget suggestion: Abolish it. Savings $26B

Not sure what the Department of Education actually does, bit if we reduce it to a committee to establish competency tests for 4th, 8th, and 12th grades, that would certainly suffice. Savings = $59.2B

Department of Homeland Security. Our very own stasi, only without actually doing anything to improve security. Drop your pants and bend over. Savings = $44.3B

Housing and Urban Development. Guarantees loans to people so that banks don't have to worry about defaults (as much). Budget suggestion: Abolish it. Savings = $45.6B

There's 269 billion without trying very hard, and yes, there are some features that it would be worthwhile to retain, but only about 10%. Toss in the $500B the administration is currently proposing to acquire lands, mostly in western states, and there's 3/4 of a trillion bucks right there.

See? Nothing to it.

Rainmakers

Here's an interesting new technology that so far shows signs of working by causing rain to fall out of season in the UAE. The UAE has the advantage of being located downwind of a large body of water.

Several other places would seem to be properly situated for this trick to work.

And here I thought all those ionizers were good for was giving a technological ambiance to fern bars.

Reasoned Discourse

In some circles this is a euphemism for "Talk to yourself, I'm not listening.", and Lord knows we gunnies have been vilified to the point we get a bit touchy when someone comes along a begins parroting the Brady Bunch talking points du jour.

It can work out, however hard that may be to believe, as noted on Popguns blog.

Is loving story weeth happy eending.
B. Badenov

Gun Law

Ian Argent thinks the Macdonald and Heller decisions have opened parts of the NFA 34 to repeal.

He also includes some historical footnotes about the NFA I wasn't aware of. Of course there's always a good story behind the scenes of any piece of legislation, usually better yet for the bad stuff.

401K watch

In Europe, where the administration seems to be getting a lot of inspiration, several countries have come up with clever ways to rob Peter (that would be the peasants) to pay off Paul's (that would be Prime Minister Paul to you) overcharged credit card. It's fairly simple. You know all that boodle the peasants have been hoarding in anticipation of retirement on a better scale than the national pension plan? Well, it's more urgently needed to avoid a national bankruptcy a la Greece, than to buy anyone a better grade of dog food.

Admittedly, in this country, the government has long since cleaned out the Social Security fund, leaving behind a stack of IOU's. Retirees who have paid into the fund are being paid from the general revenues, which leaves that much less for the general pork and such, you know, like national defense.

Proposals were floated last year to nationalize peoples 401K's and replace whatever's in them with government bonds. This got quashed fairly quickly as no politician wants to be the target of angry geezers with firearms and bad eyesight, but if it can be done there, it can be at least proposed here.

If such a thing is proposed, you can bet you won't hear about it in the local fish wrap until the legislation is up for a final vote, and probably not until the day of the vote. Keep your eyes peeled, as we used to say.

Darwin Awards

Voting is now open for the coveted 2010 Darwin Awards. I can think of several people I sincerely wish could win one of these, unfortunately none of them are on the list.

My favorite was the double-double.

The Chicago Way

The race for Mayor of Chicago is warming up, and promises to provide at least a modicum of entertainment for the rest of us who, at least, don't have to live there.

Rahm Emmanual wants to be Mayor, and the current Duke of Chicago, Daily, seems to be backing him. The election commission, who owe their jobs to the Duke, decided that moving away for two years doesn't disqualify anyone from being a resident, so he can run.

Rahmbo for Mayor
Because you like your kneecaps

The slogans just write themselves. The way politics works there is that potential candidates announce themselves, the party machine picks the winner, and enough dirt or bribes are dug up or offered that come election day only one name appears on the primary ballot. In the general election, the same technique is followed, with emphasis on the dirt. Getting to be Mayor in Chicago is thus, mostly a matter of having your opponents whacked, figuratively speaking, early on.

Now another candidate has come forward, addressing an issue near and dear to the hearts of every resident of Chicago; race.

Pressure to unite around one African-American candidate has been bubbling here for months, in part out of fear that the city’s black vote would be split — diminishing its influence and all but ensuring that a white candidate (like Rahm Emanuel, the former White House chief of staff) or a Latino candidate (like Gery Chico, a former board of education leader) might win on Feb. 22.

Yeah, we all know what's really important: Patronage and pork.

CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN for MAYOR
Because America Needs Another Detroit

The above was Stacy McCain's slogan, but hey, they just write themselves, don't they? Still, enough like this, and it actually becomes possible for a Republican to win, at least until all those lost voting machines are found in the trunks of abandoned Cash For Clunkers cars.

Predictions

This time of year, predictions are very much in vogue. The brave and the bold make theirs early, and the meek and timid look these over and cherry pick the ones they like best to put together a late list.

I made mine last month.

Of the major pundits so far, I like Bill Quick's list the best. As an eternal optomist, I note that even the ones with short-term unpleasantness attached, have the potential to provide long-term benefits.

The Future of Transportation, Stop-N-Go

While perusing the predictions for 2011 from Frank J. (see June) I ran across a call for the introduction of the Next Great Thing from Government Motors, an electric car that you charge by shaking it.

Now I've seen flashlights that worked on this principle, which were probably the inspiration for that shake-me-Elmo exerciser and running joke widgett, but this may be the real deal. Considering the stop and go traffic I endure daily on the trip home from work, I'm guessing the car should arrive in my driveway with more charge on it than when I left from work.

As a plus (?) it gives CDOT an excuse to delay any further improvements to the traffic situation around here, as the congestion is actually useful in keeping the vehicle charged.

Humanitarian Aid

And Happy New Year to all of you out there. It seems our cousins Down Under are suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous weather, at least in Queensland. Torrential rains associated with a tropical cyclone are causing flooding over vast areas just north of Brisbane.

This would normally be a routine tragedy, but the affected area includes the town of Bundaberg, home of Bundaberg Rum. The distillery is located only one block from the river, and I fear the worst. This is a chance for the administration to strengthen our ties with an ally for a change, by donating a piddling $1B toward the fabrication of a complete distillery on an ocean-going barge, and quickly tow it to Australia to fill the gap while the old distillery is rebuilt. I hereby volunteer to lead the project and see to it's proper installation.

From the look of the pictures, we would be able to anchor it over the existing parking lot, where it could become a permanent fixture as soon as the water recedes.

To make things more interesting, it is now being reported that crocodiles and snakes are being washed into peoples homes by the flood waters. Bundaburg drinkers know how to deal with crocs.