Month: December 2012

To me, and lots of others, it's obvious that guns kill people. My first blog post on this subject contains inarguable facts to that effect. The United States has 35-50% of the world's civilian owned guns, but only about 5% of the world's population. We rank #1 in firearms per capita. Our intentional homicide rate is three times that of Canada. Our firearm-related death rate is five times that of Canada.  State comparisons lead to the same conclusion: guns kill people; people don't kill people. States with strong gun laws and low rates of gun ownership have the lowest firearm…

I gave myself Antifragile for Christmas. My wife wrapped it up after I handed her the Amazon box. I've been happily reading the book for the past few days.  The subtitle of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's lastest work (he wrote The Black Swan) drew me in: "things that gain from disorder." What a marvelous notion. Fragile things break when stressed. Robust things stay the same when stressed. And antifragile things benefit when stressed -- like Hydra, which grows two heads whenever one is cut off, or bones, which get stronger when they support heavy weight. Several chapters in, Taleb is well…

I just finished watching Lawrence O'Donnell's spot-on commentary about the NRA's shameful commitment to arming mass murderers with the most powerful available weapons.  Watch it. Especially if you're a NRA member. This is what you're supporting with your NRA dues: mass murder. If you don't want to be an accomplice to the next killing of innocent children, cancel your NRA membership. Truth is powerful. O'Donnell speaks the truth. Truth-telling can change the world. I sure hope it brings about changes in our gun laws. Other countries have the same video games we do. Other countries watch the same Hollywood movies we…

I'm happy John Boehner's "Plan B" approach on the fiscal cliff was shot down by his fellow House Republicans. Now we're back to zero, pretty much, which is a good place for Obama to be. Progressives have been increasingly irritated at Obama for doing what he said he wouldn't: negotiate with himself. Like Obama said, he's come more than halfway in his talks with Boehner.  Republicans like to forget that Obama campaigned for re-election on letting taxes go up on the richest 2% of Americans, those couples making more than $250,000 a year. The remaining 98%, which includes 97% of…

Here's the most disturbing image that sticks in my mind after all the media coverage about the killing of 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school: Television footage of people right here in Oregon buying record numbers of military-style assault weapons similar to, if not exactly the same as, the Bushmaster .223 semiautomatic rifle used in the killings. A gun store owner said that he had amazing sales after two people were killed at the Clackamas Town Center attack in my state. But the day after the Connecticut massacre, he said sales were even higher, record-breaking. That's…

When Americans talk about gun control, as, thankfully, we're back to doing after the horrific murders of twenty children and six adults at an elementary school in Connecticut, plus the killer's mother at her home, two irritating features of political discourse in this country bug me. First, too many people approach social problems with a religious sort of attitude. Meaning, they cling to supposed transcendent principles without grounding them in here-and-now reality. Example: talking about the Second Amendment and gun rights as if these were unalterable sacred truths, rather than choices made by fallible humans. Second, too many people refuse…

Today its being reported that 26 people, including 18 children -- eighteen children, NRA! -- have been killed at an elementary school by a gunman. This follows two people, plus the shooter, being killed at a mall here in Oregon a few days ago. But, hey, we keep hearing, "It's too soon to talk about policy implications, about ways to reduce gun violence, about stronger gun laws." Including from the White House. Like I've said before, and will keep saying, because it's an unarguable fact: Guns kill people. People don't kill people. This is a lie: "guns don't kill people;…

Raising the federal debt ceiling should be automatic. That's how things worked before the Tea Party crazies got into Congress. Consider the facts, from Wikipedia: Every President since Harry Truman has added to the national debt expressed in absolute dollars. The debt ceiling has been raised 74 times since March 1962, including 18 times under Ronald Reagan, eight times under Bill Clinton, seven times under George W. Bush and three times (to August 2011) under Barack Obama.  ...The process of setting the debt ceiling is separate and distinct from the regular process of financing government operations, and raising the debt ceiling neither directly…

I loved this column by Maureen Dowd.  A Lost CivilizationThe Republican tribe is being wiped out, and not by plague, drought or Conquistadors. I'll miss them. Sort of. Well, not very much. OK, actually not at all. But hopefully there will be a few specimens kept around in a political zoo so we can remember what they looked like, way back when.  Some excerpts: Too bad the Republican Party didn’t have my mom to keep it on its toes. Then it might not have gone all Apocalypto on us — becoming the first civilization in modern history to spiral the…

Tax wisdom from Jill Lapore in her November 26, 2012 piece, "Tax Time", The New Yorker. Taxes are what we pay for civilized society, for modernity, and for prosperity. The wealthy pay more because they have benefitted more. Taxes, well laid and well spent, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare. Taxes protect property and the environment; taxes make business possible. Taxes pay for roads and schools and bridges and police and teachers. Taxes pay for doctors and nursing homes and medicine.  During an emergency, like an earthquake or a hurricane, taxes pay for…

Just when I thought the Republican Party couldn't get any crazier, their political insanity ratchets up another notch.  I can almost understand why the not-so Grand Old Party disdains minorities, the poor, homosexuals, abortion rights advocates, secular humanists, and other people who don't fit in the small confines of who modern day Republicans consider to be morally acceptable. But disabled people? That's a new low. Which was reached yesterday when the Senate failed to ratify a United Nations treaty that protected the rights of disabled people -- including disabled American veterans who, along with Sen. John McCain, strongly favored the…