For those fearful of global warming: A New Source Discovered for Greenhouse gas: Plants

First it was forests cause global warming because their dark coloration absorbs so much sun light. Now comes word that:

German scientists have discovered a new source of methane, a greenhouse gas that is second only to carbon dioxide in its impact on climate change.

The culprits are plants.

They produce about 10 to 30 percent of the annual methane found in the atmosphere, according to researchers at the Max-Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany. . . .

Prison Inmates in Canada Vote for Liberals

And one wonders why the Democrats are fighting so hard to let felons vote?

Friday was voting day for prisoners across Canada. About 35,000 were eligible to vote, and many seemed to be voting Liberal in order to protect privileges that Conservatives threaten to take away.

"We're all voting for the Liberals, just because we want to keep our vote," Jeff Power, an inmate at Manitoba's Stony Mountain facility told CTV Winnipeg. "We don't want to lose rights like our TVs, stuff like that." . . .

The CBC also has a report with Mr. Power.

Fellow inmate Jeff Power had a red "L" for "Liberal" painted on the side of his head. He was jailed for drug trafficking and robbing two pharmacies.
He said he would not vote for the Conservatives because they've talked about tightening up parole rules.

"My dad was sentenced to double life, way before when there was no eligibility for early parole," Power said. "He killed himself. He couldn't live with it. It was like there was no hope for him." . . .

It is a little strange that both television networks interview the same prisoner. As to Mr. Power's dad, I am sorry that his dad committed suicide, but he must have done something nasty to get two life terms.

When gun laws cost children's lives

The risk of gun control laws. (I have written on this before, but it is nice to see the story updated.)

Jessica Lynne Carpenter was 14 years old on Aug. 23, 2000, the morning 27-year-old Jonathan David Bruce came calling at the Carpenter house in Merced, Calif.

Jessica Lynne knew how to shoot -- her father had taught her. And there were adequate firearms in the house to deal with what happened next.
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That Wednesday morning, Jessica was home with four of her siblings -- Anna, 13; Vanessa, 11; Ashley, 9; and John William, 7 -- in the San Joaquin Valley farming community, 130 miles southeast of San Francisco.

Bruce, an out-of-work telemarketer apparently high on drugs, was stark naked and armed with a spade fork. He cut the phone lines to the house shortly after 9 a.m., broke in, and immediately began chasing down and stabbing the children in their bedrooms.

Jessica Lynne tried to dial 911. The phone was dead. So she ran to the gun closet.

Then she remembered the new "safe storage law" that had just been enacted in California, and which her parents had told her about. When John and Tephanie Carpenter had left the house that morning, they had locked the gun closet so no one under 18 could get access to the family firearms ... as required by law.

Jessica's only option was to climb out a window and run to a neighbor's house.

By the time Merced County sheriff's deputies arrived at the home, John William and Ashley were dead. Anna was wounded but survived.

As deputies arrived, Bruce rushed them with his bloody spade fork. So they shot him dead. They shot him more than a dozen times.

The following Friday, the children's great uncle, the Rev. John Hilton, told reporters: "If only (Jessica) had a gun available to her, she could have stopped the whole thing." Maybe John William and Ashley would still be alive, Jessica's uncle said.

"Unfortunately, 17 states now have these so-called safe storage laws," then-Yale Law School senior research scholar John Lott, author of the book "More Guns, Less Crime," told me at the time. "The problem is, you see no decline in either juvenile accidental gun deaths or suicides when such laws are enacted, but you do see an increase in crime rates" perpetrated against the newly disarmed victims. . . .

Newest Canadian Election Polls

Newest Canadian polls continue to show Conservative lead. The Liberal handgun ban doesn't seem to making the big difference that the Liberals hoped for.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has not only been judged the winner of Monday's leaders' debate, he is now the leader Canadians most trust to become prime minister, a new poll says.

The poll, prepared by The Strategic Counsel for CTV and The Globe and Mail, had people picking the winner as follows (percentage-point change from the December post-debate poll in brackets):

Stephen Harper: 37 per cent (+26)
Paul Martin: 14 per cent (-7)
Jack Layton: 8 per cent (+2)
Gilles Duceppe: 3 per cent (-12)
DK/NA/Ref: 37 per cent

. . .

Here is how national support for parties is allocated (percentage-point change from polling conducted Dec. 30-31, Jan. 3, when the Grits and Tories were tied):

Conservatives: 39 per cent (+7)
Liberals: 28 per cent (-4)
NDP: 16 per cent (-1)
Bloc Quebecois: 12 per cent (-1)
Greens: 5 per cent (-1)
For the rest of Canada outside Quebec, the Tories hold a 43-31 lead over the Liberals.

In terms of momentum, Woolstencroft said the Tories may have stopped growing, but with 64 per cent of respondents rating them as having the most momentum, compared to 12 per cent for the Liberals, they have lots of breathing room.

In Quebec, the Tories continue to rise, while the Liberals fall and the Bloc hovers around the 50 per cent mark (percentage-point change from polling conducted Dec. 30-31, Jan. 3 in brackets):

Bloc Quebecois: 50 per cent (-2)
Conservatives: 23 per cent (+10)
Liberals: 16 per cent (-10)
NDP: 7 per cent (+2)
Greens: 4 per cent (unchanged)
The Conservatives have seen a four-point drop in support in Ontario in the last few days. Here are the current numbers (percentage-point change from polling conducted Dec. 30-31, Jan. 3 in brackets):

Liberals: 37 per cent (unchanged)
Conservatives: 36 per cent (+2)
NDP: 19 per cent (-2)
Greens: 8 per cent (unchanged)
Besides Quebec, B.C. is also contributing strongly to the Conservatives' overall growth in popularity (percentage-point change from polling conducted Dec. 30-31, Jan. 3 in brackets):

Conservatives: 47 per cent (+12)
Liberals: 26 per cent (-8)
NDP: 24 per cent (-1)
Greens: 3 per cent (-3)
The Tories remain overwhelmingly dominant on the Prairies.

"Why gun bans don't work … and what to do"

James Swan has a nice article on the failure of gun bans:

However well-intentioned, gun bans are likely to get the opposite
results of what they are intended to achieve. To stop them,
the shooting/hunting community needs to get pro-active. . . .

Canadian Conservatives look poised to take Canadian Election

The whole article is worth reading. It has a very detailed breakdown for polls across the entire country.

The survey also shows that the Conservatives are maintaining their lead ahead of the Liberals on the national front (percentage point change from a Jan. 5-8 poll in brackets):

* Conservatives: 38 per cent (+1)
* Liberals: 28 per cent (-1)
* NDP: 16 per cent (+1)
* Bloc Quebecois: 12 per cent (-1)
* Green Party: 6 per cent (unchanged) . . .

Illinois Gov failure to issue permits put many citizens in violation of state gun laws

It is nto just the risk to Illinois gun owners being arrested, but there is also a big cost to gun shops since people can't purchase a gun or ammunition without their card:

An untold number of Illinois gun owners may be unwittingly breaking state law because of a paperwork backlog at the Illinois State Police.

State officials acknowledged Friday that a rush of applications and a decline in staffing has resulted in a significant delay in processing Firearm Owner Identification cards.

That means any gun owner whose new card or renewed card hasn't yet arrived in the mail is committing a felony.

“They are technically in violation at that point,” agreed state police spokesman Lincoln Hampton.

. . . .

Texas Concealed Handgun Law After 10 years

Nice story recounting Texas' experience by Jerry Patterson:

AUSTIN - When the Texas Concealed Handgun Law took effect in 1996, pundits and naysayers predicted anarchy. Any minute, there surely would be mass violence as armed Texas citizens began roving the streets, settling arguments with gunfire. Certainly, several proclaimed, within a year there would be blood in the streets as Texas returned to the days of the Wild West.

Ten years later the facts paint a different picture. Texas under the Concealed Handgun Law isn't the Wild West, but the Mild West. No recurrent shootouts at four-way stops, no blood in the streets.

Quite the contrary, Texans are safer than before. . . . .

Thanks as always to Jason Morin.

New Op-ed on Mayor Bloomberg's promises for his second term

Mayor Bloomberg wants to take New York City's gun control regulations nationwide. At his swearing in ceremony earlier this month, Mr. Bloomberg announced his top priority for the next four years: a nationwide fight across America for more gun control, from Washington, D.C., to individual statehouses.

The current push for more gun control stems from the tragic murders of two New York City police officers last year, following in the wake of two officers killed in 2003 and 2004. Mr. Bloomberg has long supported every gun regulation possible, even banning off-duty or retired police officers carrying guns near city hall. He is already pushing for tougher gun control in New York state, claiming that otherwise law-abiding New York gun-owners - who already pass all the local, state, and federal gun control regulations - are an important way his city's criminals obtain guns. Those same motivations are behind the program that he now wants to take nationwide. . . . .

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell is in trouble

Can you name a governor who has continually pushed for tax increases, vetoed every tax cut sent his way, received an "f" from the Cato Institute for his economic policies, has a badly deteriorating road system as he takes road reconstruction money to give to public sector unions, had his bigger spending education program rejected by 80 percent of the state's school districts, supported a law that increased the salary of state employees (including the governor's office) by as much as 54 percent, and on and on. I don't agree with many of the complaints that this columnist has about Rendell and I am glad that Rendell has broken many of his promises (e.g., failing to reform health care insurance the way Rendell wanted or failing to push to increase the minimum wage), but then again I am not a Democrat and former Rendell supporter like this columnist is. Anyway, you can judge for yourself whether Rendell is in trouble.

Getting in trouble for carrying a concealed handgun in California

Here is a sad story of a woman who carried a concealed gun to defend herself against an abusive former husband only to run afoul of the law. I am not too surprised that this happened in California. She made was a simple mistake regarding the law, and now faces a real mess.

Kerry on Hunting

A great piece on John Kerry's attacks on Mitt Romeny for going hunting.

I was sitting on the commuter rail when I nearly laughed myself out of my seat while reading a discarded copy of Friday's Boston Herald. What was so funny? Not the comics, but this article on John Kerry criticizing Governor Mitt Romney's hunting trip at the "Sportsmen’s Challenge" at this week’s Republican Governor’s Conference.