Proposed law for Georgia allowing guns stored in cars

Bob Barr has an op-ed on a proposed law in Georgia that would allow people to store a gun in their car(link here).

Incentives matter even among birds: threats to destroy nests ensure that other birds raise cowbirds' offspring

Raise my kids, or else! People have long wondered how cowbirds can get away with leaving their eggs in the nests of other species, who then raise the baby cowbirds. Why don't the hosts just toss the strange eggs out? Now researchers seem to have an answer _ if the host birds reject the strange eggs, the cowbirds come back and trash the place.

The so-called "Mafia behavior," by brown-headed cowbirds is reported in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"It's the female cowbirds who are running the mafia racket at our study site," Jeffrey P. Hoover, of the Florida Museum of Natural History and the Illinois Natural History Survey, said in a statement.

"Our study shows many of them returned and ransacked the nest when we removed the parasitic egg," he explained.

Hoover and Scott K. Robinson of the Florida museum studied cowbirds over four seasons in the Cache River watershed in southern Illinois.

While cowbirds leave their eggs in many other birds nests, the researchers focused on warblers in the study because warblers usually accept and raise cowbird eggs.

To see what would happen, Hoover and Robinson watched where the cowbirds left eggs in warbler nests, and then removed some of them.

They found that 56 percent of the nests where cowbird eggs were removed were later ransacked.

They also found evidence of what they called 'farming' behavior,' in which cowbirds destroyed a nest to force the host bird to build another. The cowbird then synchronized its egg laying with the hosts' 'renest' attempt.

"Cowbirds parasitized 85 percent of the renests, which is strong supporting evidence for both farming and mafia behavior," Hoover said. . . .

Texas may end new gun ban in foster homes

There has never been a problem with guns in foster homes, but that didn't stop the new ban from going into effect. The article has a useful discussion about how the regulation is interfering with the ability of those families to go hunting.

AUSTIN – A new state rule prohibits firearms in foster homes where severely emotionally disturbed or mentally retarded children are living, but a Dallas-area lawmaker calls the regulation unnecessary and has moved to overturn it.

Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville, said foster parents shouldn't be barred from keeping guns in their homes, and after hearing from constituents upset about the rule, he has filed a bill to force the state to return to a previous regulation that focused on weapons storage. The new provision affects about 1,500 abused and neglected children, about 7 percent of Texas foster children, officials say.

The Department of Family and Protective Services said Monday that it knows of no Texas foster child who has been injured or killed by a gun while in care. "But our research has identified guns as a risk to children," said Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the agency. . . .

France: Film police violence, go to jail

As one news director I know said, "unbelievable."

The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday. . . .

Scooter Libby Trial Verdict

Former Senator Fred Thompson (R-Tennessee) on the verdict: "There was no indication that a law had been violated ... When you put too much power in the hands of unelected, unaccountable people who have every incentive to focus massive resources onto one particular person -- who gets the plaudits in the media for doing so -- it's a bad thing. And many, many times an injustice can occur."

The Lancet estimate of 650,000 Iraqis Dying a Fraudulent Claim?

The statistics made headlines all over the world when they were published in The Lancet in October last year. More than 650,000 Iraqis – one in 40 of the population – had died as a result of the American-led invasion in 2003. The vast majority of these “excess” deaths (deaths over and above what would have been expected in the absence of the occupation) were violent. The victims, both civilians and combatants, had fallen prey to airstrikes, car bombs and gunfire.

Body counts in conflict zones are assumed to be ballpark – hospitals, record offices and mortuaries rarely operate smoothly in war – but this was ten times any other estimate. Iraq Body Count, an antiwar web-based charity that monitors news sources, put the civilian death toll for the same period at just under 50,000, broadly similar to that estimated by the United Nations Development Agency.

The implication of the Lancet study, which involved Iraqi doctors knocking on doors and asking residents about recent deaths in the household, was that Iraqis were being killed on an horrific scale. The controversy has deepened rather than evaporated. Several academics have tried to find out how the Lancet study was conducted; none regards their queries as having been addressed satisfactorily. Researchers contacted by The Times talk of unreturned e-mails or phone calls, or of being sent information that raises fresh doubts. . . . .

Walter Reed Veteran Medical Care and Public Provision

When will people make the connection between the problems at Walter Reed for veterans and the lack of incentives that exist in public provision? This isn't a deep point, but I am not seeing it mentioned in the media. The question is whether any of those pushing for a single payer health care system will see the connection.

Ann Coulter on Edwards

When people got upset about Ann Coulter's comments about John Edwards I thought that she was referring to this incident about Edwards' obsession with his hair. Unfortunately, Edwards also went after Chenney's daughter being a lesbian during the vice presidential debate.

For those who want more background on Ann's comments see this from Hannity and Colmes.

That said, nothing at all is gained by calling others names. I think that it was a very serious mistake. Let the others look mean. Let others have a monopoly on name calling. I may be idealistic, but let us try to argue on ideas.

Dramatic Defensive Gun Use Saves Woman's Life

Jackson, Mississippi (March 5, 2007)

As customers watched in horror Sunday afternoon, a man stabbed a woman and attempted to set her on fire in the parking lot of a Jackson store, witnesses said.

The attack was stopped by a passer-by, who held the man at gunpoint until police arrived, witnesses said.

The suspect, Henry Watson, 42, was arrested and is expected to face aggravated assault charges, Jackson Police Department Cmdr. Lee Vance said. Watson's wife, Gracie Watson, 42, was transported to the University of Mississippi Medical center, where she was listed in good condition.

"It wasn't five minutes from when she had left my line when I heard a scream outside," said Theresa Stuckey, a cashier at the Family Dollar at 516 Nakoma Drive in Jackson. "I looked out, and (the attacker) was on top of her stabbing her, and stabbing her and stabbing her.

"She was screaming, 'Help, he's trying to kill me!' She was rolling on the ground, trying to get out of the way, but he kept stabbing her. He stabbed her about 20 times in the neck, back and arms."

As the attack continued, people were yelling at the man to stop and honking their horns, Stuckey said. She said she called 911.

"He was just standing over her hacking away," said Dolly Baker, who had just left the Save-A-Lot store next door when she saw the attack.

Baker said she watched the man pour gasoline on the victim then try to strike a match.

"He was literally trying to kill that lady in broad daylight," she said.

Baker said a passer-by stopped the attack.

"He told the man, 'Stop, or I'm going to shoot. And if you run, I'm going to kill you,' " Baker said. . . .

Thanks to Tom for sending this to me.

Some cities that require people own guns

Most are probably familiar with Kennesaw, Georgia or Love, Utah's requirements that citizens own guns. But there are a few others that people might not know about: Greenleaf, Idaho; Geuda Springs, Kansas; Virgin, Utah; and Cherry Tree, Pennsylvania.

UPDATE: N. W. Clayton informs me that "the Utah courts struck down the Town of Virgin's ordinance requiring residents to own guns shortly after it was enacted, due to the ordinance's violation of Utah's pre-emption law, which prohibits state and local government entities from enacting any firearms regulations without explicit authorization from the State Legislature. Ironically, this law was passed in the 1990s to prevent local governments from creating a checkerboard of gun-control statutes, but it applies to all firearms regulations, including regulations that require residents to own firearms."

He also pointed out: "On another matter, you may be interested to know that the Utah Legislature defeated a bill last week that would have prohibited firearms in faculty and staff offices at state-run colleges and universities. The University of Utah (also known as "the U", where I went to graduate school), after having seen the Utah Supreme Court declare the U's campus-wide gun ban to be illegal, begged the Legislature to grant individual faculty and staff members the authority to declare their offices "gun free". Under the proposal, if a concealed-weapon permit holder wanted to enter a "gun free" office, he would have to remove his weapon first. The bill required the university to install a storage locker somewhere in the vicinity of a "gun free" office, though this requirement had no enforcement clause and would likely have been ignored. A permit holder who entered a "gun free" office with his weapon would have been guilty of a criminal offense. If this bill had passed and I had gone to the U to speak with a professor who had a "gun free" office, and if no lockers were provided, I would have simply unholstered my loaded weapon and set it on the floor outside the office.

The bill did not address the issue of shared offices or office spaces with cubicles, both of which are common at universities. Also, even if lockers had been installed, I can imagine people freaking out when they saw someone unholstering and unloading a firearm in broad daylight. Furthermore, this would have defeated one of the purposes of concealed carry, which is to keep people from knowing who's armed and who isn't. The list of concealed-weapon permit holders is supposed to be kept confidential under state law, but this bill would have been a de facto way of forcing permit holders to declare themselves in public.

The substitute version of the bill that passed merely allows students in campus housing at state colleges and universities to request assignment to a roommate who does not have a CCW permit, though there is no requirement that that such a roommate assignment be guaranteed. Given that the list of permit holders is secret, and given that the U is prohibited from requiring students to declare whether they have a permit, I'm not sure how this will work out."

Concealed Handgun Permit Rate in Minnesota

More than 42,000 people are licensed to carry handguns in public in Minnesota, 19,147 of them in the seven-county Twin Cities area, the state Department of Public Safety reported Thursday. . . . .

The article makes a big deal of the fact that fewer people got a permit than was originally perdicted. If they had listened to my predictions, they wouldn't be making this claim. Second, the quote below is exactly what David Mustard and I argued in our 1997 JLS paper.

Since passage of the law, which overturned a system that gave police chiefs and sheriffs wide discretion to deny permits, the number of permits has more than tripled. The increase has been even more marked in the Twin Cities area, where law enforcement officials previously kept a tight rein on permits. . . . .

Is the draft Gore movement going anyplace?

The global warming issue doesn't seem to have dramatically helped Gore's chances of being president.

Even among Democrats only, Gore was seen by only 44% as having a good or excellent shot. This contrasts with 90% feeling that way about Clinton.

Yet, more problems with Wikipedia

This is not particularly surprising:

In a blink, the wisdom of the crowd became the fury of the crowd. In the last few days, contributors to Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia, have turned against one of their own who was found to have created an elaborate false identity.

Under the name Essjay, the contributor edited thousands of Wikipedia articles and was once one of the few people with the authority to deal with vandalism and to arbitrate disputes between authors.

To the Wikipedia world, Essjay was a tenured professor of religion at a private university with expertise in canon law, according to his user profile. But in fact, Essjay is a 24-year-old named Ryan Jordan, who attended a number of colleges in Kentucky and lives outside Louisville.

Mr. Jordan contended that he resorted to a fictional persona to protect himself from bad actors who might be angered by his administrative role at Wikipedia. (He did not respond to an e-mail message, nor to messages conveyed by the Wikipedia office.)

The Essjay episode underlines some of the perils of collaborative efforts like Wikipedia that rely on many contributors acting in good faith, often anonymously and through self-designated user names. But it also shows how the transparency of the Wikipedia process — all editing of entries is marked and saved — allows readers to react to suspected fraud. . . . .

Freerepublic has more information on Mr. Jordan:

This Essjay character is VERY typical of the Wikipedia administrator elite. The NYT has the basics, but they also leave out a lot about him.
Specifically - Essjay claimed to be a homosexual theologian and frequently espoused far left versions of Christianity in his article edits. He basically used his phony Ph.D. to browbeat his leftist point of view into articles on Christianity by citing himself as an expert.

He is also one of dozens of radical gays who CURRENTLY populate the upper tiers of wikipedia's administration. This guy is just the tip of the iceburg at Wikipedia.

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Some people are trying to set up an alternative to Wikipedia. Given the liberal bias of Wikipedia, they claim that "Wikipedia is "anti-American", "anti-Christian" and "anti-capitalism" according to US fundamentalist Christians who have set up their own online reference site, Conservapedia, to protect themselves from the evils of the world."

"Denying self-defense to GIs in Iraq"

It would be an interesting study to see what hapens to the number of troop deaths before and after the adoption of these rules. You raise the cost of defending people and it makes them more likely targets.

As part of President Bush's troop surge now under way in Iraq, he insisted that Iraqi leaders "lift needless restrictions on Iraqi and coalition forces." That's an important step, but a deeply ironic one, because it overlooks other unreasonable restrictions imposed on US soldiers – by the US government.

In 2005, the Pentagon amended its Standing Rules of Engagement (ROE). The new rules make it harder for US troops to boldly counter hostile acts, and they specifically allow commanders to limit the right of soldiers to defend themselves!

The United States seeks to bring peace to Iraq by winning the "hearts and minds" of the civilian population. Unnecessary collateral damage and innocent civilian deaths undermine this effort. Presumably, the new ROE, which allow unit commanders to "limit individual self-defense by members of their unit" after notifying the secretary of Defense, were adopted with a noble purpose in mind: to lessen civilian casualties. However, limiting the right of self-defense is too drastic and it puts soldiers at risk.

Commanders take these restrictions seriously. Newsweek magazine recently quoted Marine Capt. Rob Secher, who complained that "anytime an American fires a weapon there has to be an investigation into why there was an escalation of force." . . . .

NY Times also gets Jim Zumbo case wrong

The NY Times comments on the Jim Zumbo case:

Everyone knows what a prairie dog is: a chubby North American rodent that lives in a communal burrow and grows to be about a foot long. “Assault rifle” is a much touchier term. It is generally understood to be the kind of gun that soldiers use in wars and terrorists use on the evening news. But the gun lobby despises “assault rifle,” considering it a false, scary label tacked onto perfectly legitimate weapons by people who want to take away others’ rights.

That is a debate for another day. The question for now is whether the hunter, Jim Zumbo, deserved what he got after he wrote on his blog that hunters should shun what he called assault rifles — semiautomatics like the AR-15, a cousin of the M-16, and civilian knockoffs of the AK-47. “Excuse me, maybe I’m a traditionalist,” he wrote, “but I see no place for these weapons among our hunting fraternity.” He added: “To most of the public, an assault rifle is a terrifying thing. Let’s divorce ourselves from them. I say game departments should ban them from the prairies and woods.” . . . .

This is what I posted before:

The problem isn't that he made a political mistake, the problem is that this guy doesn't know what he was talking about. These military-style assault rifles are functionally the same as hunting rifles. A .308 caliber AK-47 "assault" weapon fires bullets that are no more powerful and at the same rate as a regular deer hunting rifle. They are both semi-automatic guns. This AK-47 is a civilian version of the weapon. It is not the military version.

Lunar Eclipse Tonight

But whatever the color, this is a show worth watching when the moon rises Saturday evening in the eastern sky and is eclipsed by the Earth’s shadow. You just have to be in the right spot.

In America, that means being east of the Rockies, ideally in New England, where the sky will be darkest during the eclipse. The farther west you go, the more twilight there’ll be in the sky — but there could still be plenty to see if you start looking east after sunset. For details on how to watch, check out NASA’s guide and map. Sky and Telescope magazine offers another guide. At MrEclipse.com, you’ll find a primer on eclipses as well as photography tips . . . .

Teacher's union is trying stop Utah Voucher Law

Surprise, the Utah teacher's union is trying stop the recently enacted voucher system in the state. It is understandable that the teacher's union dislikes competition. One positive note is that the teacher's union has tried petitions before on gun issues and they have failed (Utah's petition rules require that petitioners get signatures from across the state and not just liberal Salt Lake City and that lowers the chances of getting something on the ballot). Given that the union is probably more motivated this time, the odds are higher, but they still might fail. My guess is that once vouchers are in place for a while, it will be a lot like concealed handgun laws. People will wonder what all the concern was about.

Less than 24 hours after the Legislature adjourned, opponents of the school voucher program applied for a referendum petition that could land a final decision in the hands of voters in the next general election.
Utahns for Public Schools, a group formed to head up the task of gathering nearly 100,000 signatures — 91,998 to be exact — in the next 40 days, filed the application asking Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert to consider their cause.
"This is so important that the people in this state should get to vote on it," said Pat Rusk, former president of the Utah Education Association. "We are going to make sure that the citizens of Utah get to decide if they want their tax dollars going to private schools." . . . .

Hysterical police and fire department reaction to guns and ammunition held by collector

It would be nice if you actually had to violate some law before the police would confiscate the guns and ammunition that someone held. So police found "large amounts of guns, large amounts of ammunition"? "Each rifle was loaded"? Again, so what? I am willing to guess that there "could be a million bullets here" is an extreme exaggeraged guess. The reporter trying to scare the neighbors is just amazing. People living in LA might consider contacting KTLA.

Some commentary here.
The KTLA film can be seen here.

Thanks to Jason Mullner for alerting me to this.

No bounce from the Academy Awards

Is this a surprise when films get awards based on being politically correct or some inside the industry considerations?

The Oscars were like a four-hour commercial for a lot of movies. But the audience must not have been impressed.

Box office figures on Monday for "Dreamgirls," "The Departed" and some of other nominated films were lackluster at best. No matter what happens, apparently, no one wants to see "Babel." It's stalled at $33.8 million and it's playing in limited release. . . . .

Cars save lives compared to horses: Technology saves lives

Cars improved the air ... that's no bull

By DWIGHT R. LEE
Published on: 02/27/07
The motto of all environmentalists should be "Thank goodness for the internal combustion engine."

The abuse heaped on the internal combustion engine by environmentalists was never justified. But a recent story on cow flatulence in the British newspaper, The Independent, makes the environmental benefits from gasoline-powered engines even more obvious. Based on a recent study by the Food and Agricultural Organization, The Independent reports that "livestock are responsible for 18 percent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together."

Long before global warming became an environmental concern, however, the move from the power provided by animals to that provided by gasoline had greatly improved the environment. The emissions that came out of the tailpipes of horses were much more lethal pollutants that those now coming out of the tailpipes of cars. Horse emissions did more than make our town and cities stink; they spread fly-borne diseases and polluted water supplies that killed people at a far greater rate than the pollution from cars and trucks ever have.

Photochemical smog is clearly a health risk, but not nearly the health risk of cholera, diphtheria and tetanus that have been largely eliminated with the help of gasoline powered transportation.

Before the internal combustion engine it wasn't just cows, sheep and pigs emitting pollution down on the farm. Tractors and other types of gas-powered farm machinery eliminated the horses, mules and oxen that had provided most of the power necessary to grow and harvest our food and fiber. This not only reduced the problem that still exists from animal waste that environmentalists, with justification, still complain about. The internal combustion engine also eliminated the need to produce food to fuel millions upon millions of agricultural beasts of burden. It has been estimated that in 1900 it took about 93 million acres of land to grow the food for the farm animals that were replaced by current farm machinery. Most of that land has now gone back to woodlands, greatly increasing the number of trees that are reducing the problem of global warming by absorbing carbon dioxide.

The above consideration should have been enough to warrant an environmental shrine to the internal combustion engine. And now we find that by eliminating all those farm-yard animals, the internal combustion engine also eliminated vast amounts of methane-producing flatulence, which is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than the carbon dioxide produce by burning gasoline. . . . .

Gore Admonishing the Media to Report only One side of Global Warming Issue

This reminds me of Gore's book, Earth in the Balance, where he also argued that the media should only report bad environmental news and not good news because doing so would prevent us from making the necessary changes. Well, that book was published in the early 1990s. Of course, my guess is that things are biased in the other direction.

Also, there is a big jump between saying that there is global warming and that we should do something about it or that we should do any of the things that Gore is advocating.

I believe that is one of the principal reasons why political leaders around the world have not yet taken action," Gore said. "There are many reasons, but one of the principal reasons in my view is more than half of the mainstream media have rejected the scientific consensus implicitly — and I say 'rejected,' perhaps it's the wrong word. They have failed to report that it is the consensus and instead have chosen … balance as bias.

"I don't think that any of the editors or reporters responsible for one of these stories saying, 'It may be real, it may not be real,' is unethical. But I think they made the wrong choice, and I think the consequences are severe.

"I think if it is important to look at the pressures that made it more likely than not that mainstream journalists in the United States would convey a wholly inaccurate conclusion about the most important moral, ethical, spiritual and political issue humankind has ever faced." . . . .

What kind of judges has Giuliani appointed in the past?: Liberal Democrats

This does not seem very consistent with Giuliani's promise to appoint strict constructionists. In addition, I believe that I have heard him point to the types of judges that he has appointed in the past as a guide to what he would do in the future:

When Rudy Giuliani faces Republicans concerned about his support of gay rights and legal abortion, he reassures them that he is a conservative on the decisions that matter most.

"I would want judges who are strict constructionists because I am," he told South Carolina Republicans last month. "Those are the kinds of justices I would appoint -- Scalia, Alito and Roberts."

But most of Giuliani's judicial appointments during his eight years as mayor of New York were hardly in the model of Chief Justice John Roberts or Samuel Alito -- much less aggressive conservatives in the mold of Antonin Scalia.

A Politico review of the 75 judges Giuliani appointed to three of New York state's lower courts found that Democrats outnumbered Republicans by more than 8 to 1. One of his appointments was an officer of the International Association of Lesbian and Gay Judges. Another ruled that the state law banning liquor sales on Sundays was unconstitutional because it was insufficiently secular. . . . .

Supreme Court Going to Decide About Whether to Allow High Speed Police Chases

This is a case for the Supreme Court? The problem with the decisions at the district and circuit court levels is that the courts looked at what they thought were the costs and benefits from pursuit in those cases. Even if a particular pursuit turns out badly, the threat of pursuit may stop a lot of other crimes from occuring. It is too bad that the person in this case became paralyzed, but what about the other crimes that were stopped?

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments today in a case expected to lay down new rules about when and how law-enforcement officers can chase suspects and use their vehicles to stop them.

At issue before the court is whether a Georgia police officer went too far when he rammed his vehicle into the car of a driver who refused to pull over for speeding. The car went down an embankment, and the crash left the 19-year-old driver paralyzed from the neck down.


Civil liberties advocates and critics of police chases are concerned that a ruling for the officer in the case would give law enforcement the green light to use more aggressive tactics even for minor offenses.

Most Central Florida law-enforcement agencies have policies that prohibit pursuits when only traffic or minor offenses are involved, although some policies are more restrictive than others.

Law-enforcement officers across the country are concerned that a ruling for the driver would put them in legal jeopardy for split-second decisions at crime scenes.

But even if the court rules in favor of the deputy, don't expect area law-enforcement agencies to change how they deal with fleeing suspects, one veteran Central Florida police official said Sunday. . . . .

As the chase continued on Georgia Highway 74, at speeds of up to 90 mph, Scott took over and led the pursuit.

Seconds later, Scott asked permission to use the PIT maneuver, and his supervisor responded over the radio: "Take him out; take him out."

But they were traveling too fast on a wet two-lane road for the maneuver, so Scott rammed Harris' Cadillac in the rear, sending the car down an embankment.

Harris was paralyzed and was never prosecuted.

He filed a lawsuit against Scott, alleging violation of his rights under the Fourth Amendment's guarantees against unreasonable seizures and excessive force. . . . .