George Zimmerman makes bond

Boy, I wish that I had been able to listen to the bail hearing today.  I have read a news account available here of the hearing, but it isn't nearly the same as listening to it.  This seems to be key to me:

During further questioning by O'Mara, Gilbreath admitted that the state has no evidence who started the fight. There is also no evidence that Zimmerman didn't walk back to his car after chasing Martin on foot, as the defendant has claimed. . . .

This seemed to be the strongest response, but, without some more detail, it seems pretty weak.

However, he said that Zimmerman's statements, as well as his description of the injuries he suffered, are contradicted by other evidence in the case. . . .  "I think you don't have all the evidence," he said. "Please be patient and wait for the trial." . . . .

A new photo shows some of the harm that Zimmerman faced from Martin.

Earlier the NY Times had reported:

In the video, which shows Mr. Zimmerman in police custody shortly after Trayvon was shot, Mr. Zimmerman’s face and head show no obvious signs of injuries or blood. . . . .

Has the NY Times ever heard of someone getting cleaned up after they have been attacked?

"More Guns, Less Crime? Author Makes Case In Fresno"

The crowd was well over 125 people (I stopped counting at 125 and I hadn't gotten to a lot of the audience).  Some news coverage of my talk in Fresno:

Posted: Apr 19, 2012 11:31 PM PDTUpdated: Apr 19, 2012 11:31 PM PDTBy Monty Torres - emailFRESNO, Calif. (KMPH) -
     More guns less crime?
     The author of a controversial book by that title laid out his findings in Fresno Thursday.
     John Lott spoke before a sizable crowd at Fresno State, Thursday.
     In researching his book, "More Guns Less Crime," Lott says he analyzed crime data for every county in the United States between 1977 and 2005.
     What he found, he says, is that gun bans don't work, but gun ownership does.
     "Can they name one place in the world where we've had a gun ban and murder rates have gone down?  I can't find such a place.  Every place that's had a gun ban has seen murder rates go up at least some and most quite a bit.
     Lott also says American burglars spend twice as long as British burglars casing a house before breaking in because, they say, they're afraid of getting shot. . . .

How are these comments by Ted Nugent a threat against Obama?

Could someone please explain to me why Ted's comment represents a threat to Obama? From Mediaite:

Ted Nugent’s remarks about President Obama at the annual National Rifle Association convention in St. Louis have earned him a follow-up conversation with the Secret Service. On Sunday, the singer remarked that “if Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will be either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” The Secret Service, which investigates all threats against the President, confirmed to New York Magazine’s Daily Intel blog that they have in fact flagged Nugent’s comment. “We are aware of it, and we’ll conduct an appropriate follow up,” the agent told the magazine. . . .

Giving a talk in DC on new book "Debacle"

This coming Monday (April 23rd) I will be giving a talk for "Conservatism on Tap."  I promise an interesting talk for people!

CNN driving me nuts

I am stuck listening to CNN today, and over and over again they are talking about the Buffet Rule and how it is only trying to make sure that Millionaires and Billionaires pay at least the same tax rate as the middle class.  But they never once mention the reason that taxes on dividends and the capital gains on stock are set lower than their income tax rate.  The notion that these wealthy are already paying the higher corporate income tax rates in the world on their share of what these companies earn and that these dividend and capital gains taxes are on top of that apparently is something that they have never heard about.

Another cost of Dodd-Frank

The House Financial Services Committee says that the Dodd-Frank law will cost private sector 24 million man-hours per year.

A sign of the times changing: DC politician goes to shooting range

From the Washington Times:

When one of the District of Columbia’s top political leaders is willing to spend a day at the shooting range with a new gun owner, it’s a sign the capital city may be ready to put aside the past. For 30 years, Washington banned handguns, only to face a Supreme Court rebuke in 2008. Now the city is about to make it easier for law-abiding residents to legally own a firearm.
On Tuesday, the D.C. Council is expected to pass the Firearms Amendment Act of 2012 under expedited procedures so it can take effect this summer. The ordinance will do away with many of the expensive and time-consuming hurdles to registering a gun in the District that were put in place after the court’s decision.
D.C. Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown, who will vote for the bill, has made a 180 on gun rights. Last fall, when I began my series “Emily Gets Her Gun,” about the process of getting a legal handgun in the District, I asked Mr. Brown if he thought the city was adhering to the high court’s decision that the gun ban was unconstitutional.
He didn’t answer directly. “The real question is how do we reduce crime, how do we get people back to work,” Mr. Brown said. “When you do that, so you can reduce crime, so it reduces the fear of crime.” I pointed out that higher gun ownership always leads to less crime. . . .

Obama's inner circle

Talks during coming days

The first four talks will be on gun control issues.
San Francisco Federalist Society, Lawyers Chapter, April 17, 2012, 4 Embarcadero Center, 17th Floor. People arrive at 5:45 pm and things get started with the program at 6:15.


University of Santa Clara Law School, April 18, noon to 1:15 PM


Sacramento State University, April 18, 7 PM, contact c_hallen@u.pacific.edu


Cal State University Fresno, April 19, 1 PM, 
contact Neil O'Brien, Vice President

Young Americans for Liberty- CSU Fresno Chapter

P.O. Box 2187

Clovis Ca, 93613

Cell: (760) 898-9898

Email: neil@ntrdinc.com

Web: http://www.yaliberty.org/chapters/chapter/82

On April 20th, Alan Stock is putting on a book signing for me for "Debacle" and some of my other books from 4pm-6pm at Mundo in downtown Las Vegas.  It should be a lot of fun.

Climate models have done a horrible job predicting recent trends, but they can't even explain the past

Predicting the future is much harder than simply running a regression that explains the past.  The whole point of a regression is to fit a line to data.  Presumably they must have used past data at some point to get their idea of what causes climate to change.  If they can't go back then and explain the changes, it probably means that their models deviated then from the results that they had previously gotten.  The whole thing is pretty troublesome.  From Watts Up with that:

One of the main points of criticism of the CO₂-dominated climate models is that they fail to reproduce the temperature fluctuations over the last 10,000 years. This surprises no one as these models assign scant climate impact to major factors, i.e. the sun. As numerous IPCC-ignored studies show, the post-Ice Age temperature curve for the most part ran synchronously with solar activity fluctuations. The obvious discrepancy between modeled theory and measured reality has been brought up time and again.
The journal Climate of the Past Discussions has published a new paper written by a team led by Gerrit Lohmann of the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Bremerhaven, Germany. The group compared geologically reconstructed ocean-temperature data over the last 6000 years to results from modeling. If the models were indeed reliable, as is often claimed, then there would be good agreement. Unfortunately in Lohmann’s case, agreement was non-existent.
Lohmann et al plotted the geologically reconstructed temperatures and compared them to modeled temperature curves from the ECHO-G Model. What did they find? The modeled trends underestimated the geologically reconstructed temperature trend by a factor of two to five. Other scientists have come up with similar results (e.g. Lorenz et al. 2006, Brewer et al. 2007, Schneider et al. 2010). . . .

Another radio interview on "Debacle"

An interview that I did with Radio America is available here.

Another mention of my book "Debacle"

James Antle has another mention in the American Spectator of my book available here.

In other words, if taxpayers -- and potential job creators -- pay more taxes we can afford more Solyndras. Such boondoggles will create jobs, at least until they go belly up and lay everyone off. There is a word for an economic strategy of taxing some millionaires to give government loans to other millionaires. It can be found in the title of a new book by Grover Norquist and John Lott: Debacle. . . .

From today's New York Times on my research: Women's suffrage

I guess that this is some of my research that is considered politically acceptable. This is from part of NANCY FOLBRE's piece today:

A large proportion of all public social spending, ranging from public education to Medicare and Social Security, is devoted to dependent care. Women have long favored such expenditures more than men. Historical research by the economists John Lott and Lawrence Kenny offersconsiderable evidence that the extension of voting rights to women in the United States contributed to the rise of public-sector spending. A more narrowly focused study by Grant Miller shows that newly enfranchised women voted for candidates who supported new public health-care programs that significantly reduced child mortality. Robert Shapiro and Harpreet Mahajan have documented persistent gender differencesin policy preferences and R. Michael Alvarez and Edward J. McCaffery more specific gender differences in fiscal preferences. . . .

Could Romney really pick Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno (R) as his running mate?

While Gov. Luis Fortuno isn't polished, he comes across as honest and sincere. Being from poor, poverty stricken Puerto Rico would give him an authenticity that few Democrats could match. I don't think that Romney is enough of a risk taker to pick him, but it would be pretty neat. A Hispanic would be awesome. There are basically three others: Rubio and the governors of NV and NM. The governor of NV, while very popular, would cause a revolt among conservatives as he broke his no tax increase pledge. Rubio claims that he isn't interested and he has only been in office for less than two years. The governor of NM is a woman, popular, and dealing with a heavily Democratic legislature so she has strong bipartisan credentials. But she also has only been governor for two years. In many ways, the governor of Puerto Rico would be a good pick, but again I don't see Romney picking him. From The Hill newspaper:

Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno (R) is a sleeper pick for the No. 2 spot on the 2012 presidential ticket, according to GOP strategists. Republican front-runner Mitt Romney has kept his cards close to his chest on vice presidential prospects, saying that it would be “presumptuous” to think about it before winning the nomination. But in a recent interview with Newsmax, he described Fortuno as “a solid conservative and a firm leader.” He also dubbed Fortuno “one of the great leaders of our party.” Republican strategists say that whomever Romney picks, the selection has to resonate with Hispanic voters. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is by far and away the leading Hispanic candidate for Romney, but there are others. They include New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and Fortuno. In January, Grover Norquist, the influential head of Americans for Tax Reform, said Fortuno would “be a great vice presidential candidate.” . . .

"Stand Your Ground" Law background

The piece is mainly about Marion Hammer, but it does have some discussion about the Stand Your Ground law. From CNN:

The case of 77-year-old James Workman inspired the law that became Stand Your Ground. The retired oil worker from Pensacola was living in a trailer outside his hurricane-damaged house when he shot and killed 35-year-old Rodney Dean Cox on November 3, 2004. His wife was on the phone with 911, and he had fired a warning shot first. Prosecutors declined to prosecute Workman, ruling the shooting was justified under the legal theory that homeowners have a right to defend themselves and their property from imminent harm. "It was months before he knew whether or not he was going to be charged with a crime for simply defending his own life and his property," Baxley said. "That is not right, and Marion talked to me about this bill that would firm up the self-defense posture." . . . Stand Your Ground sailed through Florida's House of Representatives 92-20 before clearing the Senate, 39-0. Opposing it seemed like political suicide in Florida. Hammer's position resonated with his constituents, Baxley said. . . . .

Obama campaign tries to make him look good on gun issue

Former Ohio governor Ted Strickland has a very pro-self-defense record on gun ownership, but he has a very heavy lift in trying to claim that Obama has a good record on guns. In today's Politico he writes:

I’d put President Barack Obama’s record up against Romney’s any day. The president has made clear that he supports and respects the Second Amendment, and through three years in office he’s done exactly that. The NRA may not always agree with the president, but the American people know where he stands. . . .

If you are interested in seeing some of Obama's record on guns, please click here. See also this piece that I wrote for Fox News available here.

358,335 concealed carry permits in Washington State as of April 5th

From Dave Workman:

Back on Nov. 9, 2011, this column checked with DOL to find there were 345,786 active CPLs on the books. Five weeks later, on Dec. 19, that number had jumped to 348,660 active CPLs and as this column reported on April 5, the number had climbed more significantly to 357,782 issued CPLS. That’s a total of 11,996 new CPLs in five months, and subsequently, KING 5 News checked and in one day, the number had jumped to 358,335 active CPLs. That's 553 CPLs in one day. . . .

Iowa had issued 36,373 concealed handgun permits by December 28, 2011.