Obama and College Sports

"Arctic Sees Massive Gain in Ice Coverage"

Ice gains occurring now at both poles:

Data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has indicated a dramatic increase in sea ice extent in the Arctic regions. The growth over the past year covers an area of 700,000 square kilometers: an amount twice the size the nation of Germany.

With the Arctic melting season over for 2008, ice cover will continue to increase until melting begins anew next spring.

The data is for August 2008 and indicates a total sea ice area of six million square kilometers. Ice extent for the same month in 2007 covered 5.3 million square kilometers, a historic low. Earlier this year, media accounts were rife with predictions that this year would again see a new record. Instead, the Arctic has seen a gain of about thirteen percent.

William Chapman, a researcher with the Arctic Climate Research Center at the University of Illinois, tells DailyTech that this year the Arctic was "definitely colder" than 2007. Chapman also says part of the reason for the large ice loss in 2007 was strong winds from Siberia, which affect both ice formation and drift, forcing ice into warmer waters where it melts.

Earlier predictions were also wrong because researchers thought thinner ice would melt faster in subsequent years. Instead, according to the NSIDC, the new ice had less snow coverage to insulate it from the bitterly cold air, resulting in a faster rate of ice growth.

Most concern has focused on the Arctic regions, rather than Antarctica. Recent research has indicated Antarctica is on a long-term cooling trend, for reasons which remain unclear. . . . ,

Thanks very much to Gus Cotey for this link.

Gun Sales (even if very costly) start in DC on Monday

The "$125 fee to transfer each handgun" is going to be stiff and combined with all the other hoops that one has to jump through there might not be too many people who get guns. That said, at least it is possible now to own a gun.

WASHINGTON - District residents will be able to buy handguns starting next Tuesday.
The District began registering handguns in mid-July in response to a Supreme Court ruling that overturned the city's long time ban. But, as of last month, only 11 handguns had been registered.

The low number could be because there was no way for residents to buy a handgun and get it transferred into the city. That's about to change.

"I do think the numbers will go up some once you can purchase in the District," says D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier. "I don't think it's going to skyrocket."

Because there are no gun stores in the city, residents have been unable to purchase a handgun. The guns registered so far have either been illegal guns that were registered under the amnesty program or guns that were being stored out-of-state.

Federal law requires that guns purchased out-of-state be shipped from the dealer who sells the gun to another dealer in the state where the buyer is going to register the weapon.

Charles Sykes, the only licensed firearms dealer in the District willing to transfer handguns for individuals, tells WTOP his office in Anacostia will be open for business next week.

Sykes says he will be charging a $125 fee to transfer each handgun. Gun stores in Maryland and Virginia charge as little as $25 for the same service. Sykes says he gets between one to two calls a day about transferring guns. . . .

Another anti-gun politician has armed bodyguards: Tony Blair

Even across "the pond" you have politicians who understand the benefits from having guns to protect themselves.

A blundering bodyguard of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair left a loaded pistol inside a Starbucks bathroom during a pit stop while on duty.

The semi-automatic Glock 17 remained on the floor of the coffee shop’s only toilet for nearly 20 minutes as Blair's close protection officer tried to retrace her steps.

It was eventually found by a horrified Starbucks employee, who called police. . . .

Democrat directing investigation of Palin

Not much hope that this investigation will go smoothly.

ANCHORAGE -- A Republican state representative says the Democrat overseeing a legislative investigation into Gov. Sarah Palin's dismissal of her public safety commissioner seems intent on damaging her vice presidential candidacy. The Republican wants the Democrat removed from the post.

Democratic state Sen. Hollis French "appears to be steering the direction of the investigation, its conclusion and its timing in a manner that will have maximum partisan political impact on the national and state elections," state Rep. John Coghill said in a letter dated Friday.

Coghill, from North Pole, is on the Alaska Legislature's Legislative Council, the body that appointed French to oversee the investigation. The letter was sent to the council chairman, Sen. Kim Elton, a Democrat from Juneau, whom Coghill asks to convene a meeting to discuss whether French should be replaced.

The state Senate is controlled by Democrats, the state House by Republicans.

Coghill said the council instructed French, of Anchorage, to keep politics out of the investigation.

"He just failed that, in my view," Coghill told the Associated Press on Saturday. Coghill's letter was first reported in the Anchorage Daily News. . . .

Huffington Post relating Palin to Hitler?

Here is something from the Huffington Post:

Chris Kelly
Screenwriter
I'm Falling in Love with Sarah Palin's Story
The Huffington Post
September 2, 2008

Here's where I get off board with Sarah Palin's privacy: The baby blanket ... I also think big families like the Palins are great. Hitler was the fourth child in a run of eight, and Pat Buchanan says he grew up to be "an individual of great courage, a soldier's soldier in the Great War (and) a political organizer of the first rank." And Sarah Palin used to wear a Pat Buchanan For President button, so it's all cool. We're all on the same page there.

Note the misstatement about the Pat Buchanan button. It was very clear that she was a Forbes supporter in the primary and that she would wear the buttons for the very rare presidential candidates who came all the way out to her town in Alaska.

One step back, two steps forward on reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

While the government will take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the short-run, the long run goal is supposedly to turn this business over to the private sector. My concern is whether future administrations will follow through.

Mr. Paulson signals that he wants to remake the U.S. housing-finance system in the longer term, ditching the "flawed business model" of government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie and Freddie. This model has produced conflicts between the companies' desire to earn maximum profits for their shareholders and the public mission of supporting housing that has persuaded investors that the government would have to rescue them in a crisis.

The plan limits the size of each companies' mortgage portfolios to a maximum of $850 billion as of the end of 2009. After that, the Treasury intends for the mortgage holdings to shrink about 10% a year until they reach about $250 billion at each company. But that is subject to decisions that may be made by Congress and future administrations.

The government had to wade deeper into the mortgage market because for now "private markets are just not willing to put up the capital" for home mortgages at prices U.S. consumers could afford, said Susan Wachter, a professor of real estate and finance at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. Without government support for the mortgage market, home prices would fall much farther, exposing the country as a whole to greater economic strain, Ms. Wachter says. . . .

I know that Wachter is supposedly an economist, but the notion that you should subsidize the housing market to get the right number of homes is strange. Should the government subsidize computers or cell phones or some other products in the same way? If people value homes more than their cost, they will buy them. I am not sure what argument you can make for why houses should not only be subsidized but that they should be subsidized through interest rates. Subsidies mean that too much will be purchased, that people will purchase homes past the point where they value them, possibly getting even larger ones than they would otherwise get.

Amusing note: Sarah Palin apparently has a tattoo

She apparently lost a bet with her husband.

Palin Made a Bet With Her Husband About Whether Murkowski Would Get Into the Race — the Loser Had to Get a Tattoo. “Palin told The Associated Press that she and her husband, Todd, made a bet on whether Murkowski would run. If the governor says he’ll enter the race, Palin has to get the Big Dipper tattooed on her ankle. If Murkowski says no, Todd gets a wedding ring inked on his finger.” [Anchorage Daily News, 5/26/06]

So what would the Democrats have said if McCain had turned down Palin for VP because she had kids to take care of?

Dems make these charges and then back away. My belief is that they think that they can still get the points out there with relatively little damage to themselves. Anyway, here is yet another one of these statements.

An original member of Barack Obama’s finance committee said Friday that Sarah Palin is putting her career above her family by accepting the nomination as John McCain’s running mate.

Howard Gutman made the argument on “The Laura Ingraham Show,” telling the radio host that the Alaska governor should focus her energy on her unwed, pregnant teenage daughter.

“If my daughter had just come home at 17 years old and said, ‘Mom, Dad, I’m pregnant, we have a family problem,’ I wouldn’t say, ‘You know what we’re going to do? We’re going to take this private family problem … I’m going to go on the international stage and broadcast it to the world’,” he said.

Gutman later added: “If you take a daughter who’s got this emotional strife and subject her to the most intense scrutiny of the world at this time in her life, I think you’ve put your career above your family. . . .

Zogby claims that McCain's lead has gone from 2.5% to 3.8%

Zogby has McCain getting a small bounce from the convention. The previous poll came after Obama's talk as well as the Palin announcement, so some of the benefit to McCain might have already been produced.

Diesel vehicles get more mpg, but the government puts higher taxes on their fuel

Business Week has a discussion here in their article on why Ford won't be selling its 65 mpg car in the US.

Yet while half of all cars sold in Europe last year ran on diesel, the U.S. market remains relatively unfriendly to the fuel. Taxes aimed at commercial trucks mean diesel costs anywhere from 40 cents to $1 more per gallon than gasoline. . . .

More people watched McCain than Obama's acceptance speech. So much for the claims that Obama still generates so much excitement

McCain had 38.9 million watching him, and Obama had 38.4 million. A 500,000 person difference. McCain got males and whites. Obama got women and blacks.

A survey of people in Florida who watched both conventions on TV

The big problem that you have in looking at polls of people who watched conventions is something called sorting. Republicans watch Republican conventions and Democrats watch Democratic conventions. The problem is probably even worse than that because it is usually the more hardcore in those groups who watch. A similar problem comes up with polls after presidential State of the Union addresses. This SurveyUSA poll is the only one that I have seen that looked at people who watched both the McCain and Obama acceptance speeches. These results just make me wish that more than 40 million people watched each of these talks.

3) Asked of 499 who heard both speeches
Margin of Sampling Error for this question = ± 4.4%
Who has the better plan for Iraq? McCain? Or Obama?

57% McCain
38% Obama
5% Not Sure

4) Asked of 499 who heard both speeches
Margin of Sampling Error for this question = ± 4.4%
Who has the better plan for energy independence?

57% McCain
38% Obama
5% Not Sure

5) Asked of 499 who heard both speeches
Margin of Sampling Error for this question = ± 4.5%
Who has the better plan for health care?

47% McCain
44% Obama
10% Not Sure

6) Asked of 499 who heard both speeches
Margin of Sampling Error for this question = ± 4.5%
Who is stronger on the environment?

48% McCain
44% Obama
7% Not Sure

7) Asked of 499 who heard both speeches
Margin of Sampling Error for this question = ± 4.5%
Who is stronger on education?

51% McCain
42% Obama
7% Not Sure

8) Asked of 499 who heard both speeches
Margin of Sampling Error for this question = ± 4.5%
Based on what you now know, are Democrats more interested in reaching out to Republicans? Are Republicans more interested in reaching out to Democrats? Are both parties equally interested in reaching out? Or, is neither party truly interested in reaching out?

23% Democrats Reaching Out
38% Republicans Reaching Out
15% Both Equally
21% Neither Truly Interested
2% Not Sure

9) Asked of 499 who heard both speeches
Margin of Sampling Error for this question = ± 4.5%
If you were placing a bet today, would you bet that Barack Obama will be elected president? Or, John McCain will be elected president?

40% Barack Obama
55% John McCain
5% Not Sure

Remember when the state of Texas took 440 children away from their parents? Well, they now claim that only one child is alleged to have been harmed.

The newest report is here:

Texas officials say more than 440 children seized during an April raid on a polygamist ranch can safely live with their parents or guardians.

Authorities feared some girls were being forced into underage marriages and boys were being raised to be perpetrators. The Texas Supreme Court later ruled the action was too broad and ordered the children back to their parents. The Associated Press has learned that so far the custody cases for 235 children have been dropped, and Texas Child Protective Services says more cases are likely to be dropped. Only one child - a girl allegedly married FLDS leader Warren Jeffs when she was 12 - has been returned to foster care.

Obama's campaign throws out 12,000 flags after his convention speech

Fox News has this story:

John McCain’s presidential campaign prepared to chastise Democrats Saturday over leaving behind piles of miniature American flags after Barack Obama’s nomination acceptance speech last Thursday in Denver.

Boy Scouts have arrived with 84 trash bags full of bundles of flags at the site of a McCain rally scheduled to begin at 12:30 p.m. local time in Colorado Springs.

The campaign says the flags were recovered from Invesco Field after the Democrats concluded their convention there, and they are going to be used as part of the warm-up ceremonies before McCain takes the stage for the rally.

FOX News has been told a vendor at Invesco Field found the flags, which were going to be thrown out, and turned them over to the McCain campaign. . . .

Right now Fox seems to be the only news media outlet covering this story.

Duke students write up presentation that I made this past week

The long write up can be found here:

Sept. 4, 2008 — The Law School’s Federalist Society kicked off its lecture series Sept. 3, with a far-ranging talk on economics by John Lott, a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland whose most recent book is Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don’t . . . .

A video of the presentation is available here.

Associated Press Quotes Sarah Palin out of context to make her appear extreme

The Associated Press has what appears to be a very controversial statement by Sarah Palin:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told ministry students at her former church that the United States sent troops to fight in the Iraq war on a "task that is from God." . . .

Indeed, this is the main point of the article, not some minor side bar, as the AP titles the piece: "Palin: Iraq war 'a task that is from God.'" (See also this.) One would think that this is a major investigative journalist find. There is only one problem: the reporter made up the story. Go to about 5:47 into the video:

"Pray for our military. He is going to be deployed in September to Iraq. Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending them[U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God, that is what we have to make sure that we are praying for, that there is a plan and that that plain is God's plan."

By cutting off the end of Palin's statement the Associated Press completely alters what Palin is saying. She is made to appear that she is asserting that the war is God's plan when she was really saying that we have to pray to made sure that this is God's plan. The point is even clearer if one listens to her in the video.

"TOP 7 MYTHS, LIES AND UNTRUTHS ABOUT SARAH PALIN"

My son Maxim has his first news story up at Fox News here reviewing the news coverage regarding Sarah Palin.

Some comments on Maxim's piece can be found here and here.

Chicago's Murder Rate Still Very High

So much for the gun ban wokring:

125 Shot Dead In Chicago Over Summer
Total Is About Double The U.S. Troop Death Toll In Iraq

CHICAGO (CBS) ― An estimated 125 people were shot and killed over the summer. That's nearly double the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq over the same time period.

In May, cbs2chicago.com began tracking city shootings and posting them on Google maps. Information compiled from our reporters, wire service reports and the Chicago Police Major Incidents log indicated that 125 people were shot and killed throughout the city between the start of Memorial Day weekend on May 26, and the end of Labor Day on Sept. 1. . . .

Thanks to Anthony.

McCain's Speech Tonight

I have to confess that I only listened to his speech (I am staying at a professor's house here in Clemson and I couldn't figure out how to get his TV to work), so possibly it came off better if one could see it, but I found large portions of the talk boring. The list of couples that he wanted to help in different parts of the country seemed to be meaningless. I am not even sure in most of those cases how he was saying that he would help them (the one exception was the military person who had died in Iraq). The notion that McCain made about we wouldn't have the bickering in Washington if politicians were there to serve the people and not their own interests, was simply silly, if romantic. The reason that there is a big battle is because so much is at stake. If you want to solve that problem, you need to make the government smaller.

On the other hand, McCain is probably the first president to so openly endorse vouchers for education. I also liked McCain's statement that he couldn't wait to introduce Palin to Washington.

McCain may not be a flashy speaker and his content may only be OK, but at least he has Palin on his team. It may be a while before her true impact becomes clear.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's highly anticipated speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night nearly matched the record-setting numbers of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

Palin pulled in 37.2 million viewers across broadcast and cable networks, according to Nielsen Media Research.

That's 55% higher than Day 3 of the DNC, when her Democratic counterpart, Joe Biden, and President Clinton took the stage (24 million).

It's also up a sharp 99% from the Republican convention's third day in 2004 (18.7 million) and easily bests the numbers viewers attracted by George W. Bush when he accepted the nomination (27.6 million). In fact, it came close to upsetting Obama's historic address last Thursday -- the most-watched convention speech in history (38.4 million viewers).

Two Talks down this week, three more to go

Two fun talks today. There was a good crowd a Duke Law School. I got to have dinner with an old friend from graduate school, Craig Newmark and his wife Betsy.

New Obama ad claims that McCain will make abortion illegal

Politico has this discussion:

Obama’s new radio ad, airing widely in at least seven swing states, tells voters McCain “will make abortion illegal.” It’s airing as McCain courts female voters with the addition of the staunchly anti-abortion governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, to his ticket. . . . .

The campaign didn’t release further details of the ad buy, but Politico readers reported that it’s airing in Florida, Virginia, Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and Colorado. . . . .

1) Abortion was not illegal in any states prior to Roe v. Wade. There were always exceptions for the life and health of the mother, where some states left it up to the doctor to decide and other states left it up to a panel of doctors to decide whether the mother's life or health was endangered if she didn't have the procedure.
2) Even if Roe was overturned, which seems quite unlikely at the moment, the decisions would be left to the states. I have a hard time believing that any of the states mentioned would ban abortion. Virginia, Iowa, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Colorado all have Democratic governors who support abortion rights.

Obama contends that he has more executive experience than Palin

Obama compares his heading his presidential campaign to Palin being the mayor of Wasilla? Is this serious? The state of Alaska has a $10 billion budget and employees 25,000 people. Fox News has this story:

Barack Obama contends that he is more experienced in executive matters than Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin because he has managed his presidential campaign for the past 18 months.

Speaking on a cable news channel Monday night, the Democratic presidential nominee said he is better prepared to handle a disaster like Hurricane Gustav because of his pursuit of the White House.

“Well, my understanding is that Governor Palin’s town of Wasilla has, I think, 50 employees. We’ve got 2,500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe $12 million a year. You know, we have a budget of about three times that just for the month. So I think that our ability to manage large systems and to execute I think has been made clear over the last couple of years,” Obama said.

John McCain’s spokesman called the suggestion “laughable.”

“For Barack Obama to argue that he’s experienced enough to be president because he’s running for president is desperate circular logic and its laughable. It is a testament to Barack Obama’s inexperience and failing qualifications that he would stoop to passing off his candidacy as comparable to Governor Sarah Palin’s executive experience managing a budget of over $10 billion and more than 24,000 employees,” said spokesman Tucker Bounds.

UCLA Professor Tim Groseclose questions the race based admissions process at UCLA

One can find Tim Groseclose's discussion of the events here:

Statement by UCLA chancellor Norm Abrams to faculty committee overseeing admissions process:

First, I want to say how much I favor and respect faculty governance. I don't want to pressure you. . . . I wan to report to you what we are hearing from the outside world. Several constituencies of UCLA are distressed and upset about the very low numbers of African American freshman. . . .

He advocated a "Holistic" approach where application readers would put particularly weight on the essays written by the students in admissions. Apparently, the new process was going to be used to discern the applicants race. Tim Groseclose writes:

[It was later announced] African-Americans were over-represented among the application readers whom he had hired, and Asian-Americans were under-represented. . . . It is obvious that the admissions staff was under intense pressure to admit more African Americans. . . .

New Op-ed at Fox News: Media Coverage of Palin and Biden

The new piece starts like this:

First impressions count a lot. The media coverage this last week introduced the Republican and, to a much lesser extent, the Democratic Vice Presidential nominees to the American people. The coverage not only tells us something about how people will view the candidates, it also tells us something about the media and the parties themselves.

Obviously, the media’s coverage may reflect just the information it is given, not necessarily bias. Negative coverage of a candidate may mean either that there are some real problems with the candidate or that the other party is raising concerns that the media is merely passing on to their readers. A CNN headline conveys this point quite well as some Democrats came out immediately on Friday morning saying that “Palin could be a ‘disaster.’” Also on Friday, Barack Obama “backed away” within hours from a campaign press release that Politico described as “ripping” into Palin.

By contrast, the ad the Republicans released immediately after Joe Biden’s nomination took a different tack. It pointed to statements Biden had made disparaging Obama during the primaries and extolling the virtues of John McCain.

The announcements of both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin generated massive amounts of news coverage. A simple Google news search shows that there were 26,572 stories the Saturday that Obama told the country that Biden was his vice presidential pick. McCain’s pick of Palin generated 11,293 stories.

What is interesting is the theme of these stories. For vice presidential nominees, I searched a whole range of terms to see how the media described the nominees: experience, abortion, conservative, moderate, liberal, safe, risky, etc., using Google News searches. (Lexis-Nexis yielded roughly similar relative rankings.)

For Biden, the top ten terms found were: experience (excluding "executive experience") (69%), abortion (21%), liberal (11%), safe (7%), long-winded(5%), moderate (5%), plagiarism (3%), gun-control (2%), executive experience (2%), and exaggerate or exaggerated (dealing with exaggerated claims he made about his college grades and accomplishments that helped end his 1988 race) (1%).

For Palin, the top ten were: conservative (49%), abortion (44%), brother-in-law (picking up claims that she improperly tried to get her ex-brother-in-law fired) (17%), corruption and oil (17%), risky or risks or risk (16%),glass ceiling (13%), Quayle (10%), exciting (9%), inexperience OR "lack experience" OR "limited experience" (8%), and bold (8%). . . .

Continue reading it here.

The coming ice age?

Daily Tech has this interesting discussion about the Sun's energy output:

But this year -- which corresponds to the start of Solar Cycle 24 -- has been extraordinarily long and quiet, with the first seven months averaging a sunspot number of only 3. August followed with none at all. The astonishing rapid drop of the past year has defied predictions, and caught nearly all astronomers by surprise. . . .

In the past 1000 years, three previous such events -- the Dalton, Maunder, and Spörer Minimums, have all led to rapid cooling. One was large enough to be called a "mini ice age". For a society dependent on agriculture, cold is more damaging than heat. The growing season shortens, yields drop, and the occurrence of crop-destroying frosts increases.

Meteorologist Anthony Watts, who runs a climate data auditing site, tells DailyTech the sunspot numbers are another indication the "sun's dynamo" is idling. According to Watts, the effect of sunspots on TSI (total solar irradiance) is negligible, but the reduction in the solar magnetosphere affects cloud formation here on Earth, which in turn modulates climate. . . . .

Here is a question: If this proves true, will those who have been advocating carbon taxes begin to support carbon use subsidies? I doubt it.

Interview on Steve Malzberg's about Obama's views on guns

Here is an mp3 of my interview today with Malzberg.

Talks this week.

Duke University Law School at noon on Wednesday, September 3rd -- Freedomnomics
Campbell University Chapter School of Law at 4:30 PM on Wednesday, September 3rd -- Gun control
Elon Univ. School of Law at noon on Thursday, September 4th -- Gun Control
Clemson University Economics Department at 7:30 PM on Thursday, September 4th -- Freedomnomics
Clemson University Economics Department during the late afternoon on Friday, September 5th -- media bias

"Sarah Palin Rifle Training"

Thanks to James Fowler, Jr. for sending me this link.

Gun and Ammo Sales Soar before Hurricane hits, Interesting what people are getting the guns

The Times-Picayune has this:

Gun, ammo sales are brisk ahead of storm
by Chris Kirkham and Brendan McCarthy, The Times-Picayune
Friday August 29, 2008, 9:32 PM

On what would normally be a slow summer weekday, the three employees at Gretna Gun Works Inc. frantically tended to a crush of customers admiring the racks of shotguns and rifles lined up behind the glass counter.

Among the patrons: a jewelry store owner from eastern New Orleans with plans to stand guard through Gustav; two uniformed Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office deputies inquiring about additional firearms; and an avid hunter who was in to pick up a 12-gauge he dropped off for cleaning.

"It's hurricane season, you definitely want it back now, right?" employee John DeRosier said with a grin as he handed the Beretta shotgun back to the owner.

In yet another sign of hardened sensibilities in post-Katrina New Orleans, managers of gun shops and sporting goods stores across the area report a spike in gun and ammunition sales this week. . . .

Firefighters and other emergency personnel required to stay behind are among the more frequent customers, store managers said.

"I just don't think people want to be caught with their pants down, " said Robby Lack of Destrehan, who was walking out of an Academy sporting goods store this week with ammunition for the shotgun and two pistols he owns, along with gasoline containers and other hurricane supplies. . . .

Kevin Griffin, a manager at the Jefferson Gun Outlet in Metairie, said crowds in the store this week resembled the first day of hunting season. Even though the storm's path is still up in the air, residents are buying ammunition just like necessities such as batteries and water, he said.

"It's just like any other hurricane supply, " Griffin said. "People are getting ready." . . .

5.3% of Washington State Adults have Concealed Handgun Permits

With over 4.8 million adults living in Washington State, there are about 258,000 permit holders, about 5.3 percent of the adult population. The Kitsap Sun has this discussion here:

The license, or CPL, allows them to travel with a hidden gun among an unknowing public. License holders jumped from about 179,000 to 258,000, 43 percent, between 2003 and 2007. . . .

Judge Dick Posner on Kelo and Guns

I was reading Dick Posner's recent piece in the New Republic on the Heller case, and I have to admit I am quite puzzled by his arguments. Take this comment about Kelo:

Another illuminating contrast to Heller is the recent Kelo decision. The Supreme Court held that the just compensation clause of the Fifth Amendment does not forbid a state to condemn private property and, having thus seized it, to turn it over to a private developer. The decision provoked outrage by conservatives, who oppose condemnation because it infringes rights of private property. They should not have been outraged. All the Court did was unshackle government from a potential constitutional constraint, and by doing so toss the issue into the political arena. And sure enough, in the wake of the decision a number of states, under pressure from property interests, curtailed their eminent domain powers. . . .

"All the Court did was unshackle government from a potential constitutional constraint"? If you took this approach across the board, it is not clear what the point of a constitution would be. How can a constitution protect a minority if it merely tosses questions back to the political arena?

Appearing on Steve Malzberg's Show on NYC's WOR at 5:45 PM

It is always fun to be on Steve's show. We will start off talking about my piece last week regarding Obama's view on guns.

Mark Levin Interview on Obama

Here is a very short segment from the Mark Levin Show on 8/28 where Mark was nice enough to have me on to discuss Barack Obama. You can listen to the MP3 file by clicking here.

Daily Kos gets it completely wrong again: Assertions that Sarah Palin is really the Grandmother of Trig, not mother

The Daily Kos had this "explosive new" post yesterday: "Sarah Palin Is NOT The Mother." Well, Trig was born in April and it turns out that Bristol is now five months pregnant. Does the Daily Kos really believe that Bristol got pregnant a second time in March? It is hard to think through how obnoxious these attacks are to different people.

Here is a picture of the supposedly not pregnant Sarah Palin.

This attack was based in large part on pictures using the date of the newspaper publication and not the date of when the picture was actually taken. Here is one picture in an article from March, 2008. The problem is that you will note that the ages on the picture are a couple of years off. For example, Track Palin is now 19 years old, not 17. Do these crazies over at these blogs really believe that newspapers will get a new picture every time they run a story on the governor?

Now the Daily Kos is now bizarrely claiming that Palin supports Alaska's secession. Get this for a typical claim: "Since McCain never vetted Palin before putting her on the ticket . . . ." Below are Palin's welcoming remarks. Governors have these remarks all the time for various conventions in their state. It is a mere courtesy, nothing more.



Thanks to information from Nicki Fellenzer.