Opining Online

I have to wonder if he didn’t wait so long just to embarrass some of the legislators. Shreveport professor Jeff Sadow separates the winners from the losers here.

Biggest winner: Naturally, the people of and their state of Louisiana.

Here’s the NYTimes article.

This thrills me because now I don’t have to help get nearly a million signatures for a recall petition.

In other Louisiana budget news, Jindal used his line item veto power to cut state funding of $500,000 from Shreveport’s Robison Film Center. According the Shreveport Times (longer quote than usual because this link will disappear in a week or so)

Included in the cuts was $500,000 in new funding for the Robinson Film Center. The nonprofit’s officials said they weren’t depending on it, yet its absence will reinforce the need to raise money in other ways.

In all honesty, why does Hollywood need the help of a nonprofit? I suggest they hit up a few of the millionaire (megamillionaires?) coming into town to make movies for a donation or two. Even more galling to me is the way this group was going to use the money

…the film center had intended to use the new money to build its endowment. Not getting the money will not affect its current programming or daily operations.

Good Grief.

Non Sequitur writes:

What I would like to do now is establish a “blog trialogue” with the authors of the Electric Venom and Opining Online blogs. We are going to take a look at various aspects of the Second Amendment and gun laws in the US and bounce some questions off of each other. It may or may not be an effective process, but we are going to try! Comments on any and all of the blogs are welcomed with regard to this trialogue.

He fires the first shot in my direction.

I think that both of us agree that firearms are tools and, as such, it’s kind of silly to affix blame for crimes on tools. A car is just a tool, but when somebody runs over and kills a pedestrian with their Ford F150, the truck didn’t do it, the driver did. We don’t have laws that outlaw an F150 because it is used more often in pedestrian killings and we don’t hold Ford Motor Company or the local Ford dealer responsible for the pedestrian death. But we do outlaw certain kinds of firearms and we have tried to hold firearms manufacturers and dealers responsible for crimes committed by individuals who used their products. Long set-up, eh?

We’ve tried a lot of regulations that seem to fly in the face of logic and that also seems to be less than effective. Hell, DC has had their silly handgun ban for many decades and it is still one of the most dangerous places to live in the country in regard to handgun violence. SCOTUS stated that reasonable restrictions are allowable under the Constitution. One would think that reasonable should equal effective, but maybe not. My question to you is multi-part: What is the definition of a reasonable restriction on firearms? How do we determine if that restriction is effective? And, should those reasonable restrictions be harmonized, uniform, across all the States (or should individual jurisdictions be allowed to have their own rules?)? What say you, Ms. Opining?

What is the definition of a reasonable restriction on firearms?

In Heller, the Court holds that the Miller decision restricts the 2nd Amendment right to “those in common use for lawful purposes”. Further, it is stated that the Court’s opinion

should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.

While I personally think that restrictions on carrying firearms in certain places simply renders them defenseless, the SC has specifically allowed such laws. Thus they are for now legally reasonable.

The Court also held what I’ve always considered a most unreasonable restriction on firearms to be unconstitutional

…the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense…is unconstitutional.

While “conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms” is a reasonable restriction to prevent straw purchases and sale of those “dangerous and unusual weapons,” it is not reasonable to impose ‘cooling off’ periods, limits on the number of guns that can be purchased in a certain time frame, or to require a proof of need for licensing.

Therefore, I would define a reasonable restriction as one that does not inhibit the ownership or use of firearms for lawful purposes by a law-abiding and competent adult or of a juvenile under that adult’s guidance.

How do we determine if that restriction is effective?

Data, data, and more data, honestly compiled and analyzed without an agenda.

The restriction that I think will the least effective is the restriction on the mentally ill, because it will be very difficult to enforce without establishing a database of those with such diagnoses. Because these are considered medical conditions, privacy and HIPAA concerns would be difficult to overcome. Further, will this restriction cover all mental illnesses listed in the DSM? If so, would smokers diagnosed as addicted be ineligible to own a gun?

The next least effective restriction is that on felons. It will certainly be more effective than one on the mentally ill because there is already a database and laws prescribing a greater sentence for a crime committed using a gun. This does not really restrict ownership, it just allows punishment for it. So it’s effectiveness is an after-the-fact one. Better than nothing.

Should those reasonable restrictions be harmonized, uniform, across all the States?

Incorporation of the 2nd Amendment into the 14th Amendment should happen. I was somewhat disappointed that wasn’t addressed in Heller. Other than that, no.

Open carry makes perfect sense in parts of the country, while it might create a little chaos in San Francisco or New York City. The SC did not hold that reasonable restrictions must be made. Unless the restriction goes beyond reasonable, each state (and probably jurisdictions within a state) should be allowed to define their own.

And now I get to ask questions!

They will be aimed at Electric Venom and will be posted as an update right after I take a nap!

Continued from Part 1. (I couldn’t sleep, so why wait for tomorrow?)

Under our plan, Congress might require gun makers in the aggregate to reduce gun homicides from 12,000 to, say, 7,000 in 10 years, with appropriate interim targets along the way. Individual firms would each have their own targets to meet, based on the extent their guns are currently used in homicides. Or Congress might simply leave it to neutral experts to determine just how much of a numerical reduction should be required — and how quickly. Either way, the required decline would be substantial.

Translation: We don’t really know how this would work, but be sure it would be a draconian task for the gun manufacturers.

How would gun companies go about reducing gun deaths? The main thing to emphasize is that this approach relies on the nimbleness, innovation and experimentation that come from private competition — rather than on the heavy-handed power of governmental regulation. Gun makers might decide to add trigger locks to their guns, or to work only with dealers who meet certain standards of responsibility. They might withdraw their semiautomatic weapons from the consumer market, or even work hand in hand with local officials to fight gangs and increase youth employment opportunities. Surely they will think up new strategies once they have a legal obligation and financial incentive to take responsibility for the harm their products cause.

Again, we have no idea how this might work, but surely the gun manufacturers will think of something if they want to stay in business. Of course, if they fail… well, it certainly isn’t “our” fault.

Performance-based regulation leaves it up to them to decide. This is the same outcome-based approach that the No Child Left Behind program takes concerning schools. Through No Child Left Behind, parents and school officials set achievement targets for students, and schools then have to figure out how to meet the targets.

How’s that working out for schools? How’s it working out in terms of good education for our children? I wonder what would happen if mandatory gun safety training were required in schools?

Similarly, performance-based regulation is used in a variety of pollution-control schemes and is becoming the preferred global strategy to combat climate change. For example, under pressure from coalitions of environmentalists, scientists and citizens, regulatory bodies are ordering public utilities to sharply cut their carbon emissions. The companies are responsible for designing solutions to best achieve that goal, which could include switching fuels, changing the way they produce electricity, installing scrubbers on smokestacks and so on.

It’s quite different to encourage technology to come up with a cleaner way of producing something. If gun manufacturers are polluters, then cleaning up their act is taking responsibility for what they do. However, asking them to clean up somebody else’s act is unfair at best.

Sen. Michael D. Enzi (R-Wyo.) has put forward a proposal along the same lines to target tobacco. Typically, anti-smoking organizations lobby Congress to give the Food and Drug Administration regulatory power over cigarette companies, and press locally to increase tobacco taxes, run more government anti-tobacco ads and boost enforcement of bans on sales to minors. Under Enzi’s performance-based regulation plan, however, the tobacco companies would simply be told by Congress that they have to cut their customer base by about 50% in 12 years. It would then be up to the companies to figure out how to curtail smoking rates.

Now we’re getting to the real purpose — cutting the number of customers, thus cutting the number of guns manufactured, thus finally closing the doors of gun manufacturers permanently. Why not just say so? Why all this “performance-based” BS?

Why heck, why don’t we just make it illegal for criminals to own guns. (<sarcasm) Maybe we should have the tobacco companies give them free cigarettes so they will be unhealthy and not live as long too. After all, isn’t smoking going to be illegal someday soon if all the nannies have their way?

So how exactly might this work in the case of gun makers? For more than half of all gun homicides, law enforcement officials are able to identify the precise type of lethal weapon that was used. From that data, reliable statistical projections can be made to determine each company’s approximate share of all homicides. Each company’s quotas would be based on the data, and tied to an ever-decreasing number of deaths.

You could rephrase that as tied to an ever-decreasing number of crimes. How does the country benefit by placing law-enforcement into the hands of gun manufacturers?

Why not look at the data and see if there are other types of precise information that can be culled? Is there data about how many of these murders were related to illegal drug use? Domestic violence? The criminal record of the deceased? Perhaps the gun manufacturers could use that data to lobby for decriminilazation of drugs, thereby ending “drug wars” and monetary sustenance of some gangs?

What if the gun manufacturers lobbied for more and better resources for victims of domestic violence, including men as well as women?

Would these efforts at reducing crime count?

A more fine-tuned strategy would set different gun-death-reduction quotas based on the specific weapon — with larger reductions mandated for guns that are more commonly used in homicides.

See part 1. Fourth paragraph from the bottom.

If gun makers fail to reach the performance targets, they would face substantial financial penalties that would hike the cost of the guns they make and drive home the huge negative social consequences they now cause.

Where’s the evidence that gun manufacturers cause “huge negative social consequences”? Can there be no credit for “positive social consequences” such as crimes deferred and deaths prevented by the presence of guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens?

What about my bonding with my son-in-law at the range? Is that not positive in the long run? What about the rangemasters suggestion that I dump my husband and move to Arizona? You have no idea the positive social effect that had on me!

Performance-based regulation is not about the government denying people access to guns. It’s not an academic theory about the underlying causes of gun deaths, nor is it a restriction on the right of law-abiding citizens to bear arms. Instead, it is a practical way to align the gun companies’ interests with the public interest and, ultimately, to save lives.

No, it’s a poorly disguised method to drive gun manufacturers out of business, thus depriving law-abiding citizens the opportunity to buy a legal product.

Jeffrey Fagan is a professor of law and public health at Columbia University. Stephen D. Sugarman is a professor of law at UC Berkeley.

Occupants of two coastal ivory towers think the rubes residing between them cannot figure out that their idea is not in our best interest.

UPDATE: Armed Liberal at Winds of Change has a good idea. 

Jeffrey Fagan, Columbia University and Stephen D. Sugarman, UC Berkeley have a plan. A Plan. A PLAN!  They want to ”Make firearms manufacturers figure out how to reduce the 12,000 shooting deaths each year.”

This year, about 12,000 Americans will be shot to death. It’s a staggering figure, and even though lawmakers have continued to pass gun-control laws to try to bring the number down, they have not significantly reduced the murder rate. Indeed, for the last decade, guns have steadily remained the cause of about two-thirds of all homicides.

Guns don’t cause homicides. How many times does it have to be stated that guns are tools? Simple machines, really. It’s been said so much to so many people who have their hands over their ears singing “lalalala I can’t hear you” that it’s become trite. That doesn’t make the statement false. I’m as tired of saying it as “gun-controllers” are of not hearing it.

Oh, I wonder why all those gun-control laws “have not significantly reduced the murder rate?” Could it be, as I wrote above, that guns don’t cause homicides?  

Gun manufacturers insist that these deaths are not their fault, preferring to pin the blame on criminals and irresponsible dealers. They have fiercely resisted even minimal restrictions on sales and have simultaneously washed their hands of responsibility for this “collateral damage.”

Unless a gun manufacturer pulled the trigger, then they are not at fault. How unspeakably sad and irresponsible it is that they prefer to blame crime on criminals instead of the tools the criminals use! And aren’t irresponsible dealers criminals by definition? Aren’t they already charged with doing background checks, etc… ie, acting responsibly?

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court made the problem a little more difficult to solve, ruling in District of Columbia vs. Heller that the individual’s right to bear arms is indeed protected by the 2nd Amendment — and making it clear that some laws banning guns would have a difficult time passing constitutional muster in the future.

Actually, the Court’s ruling should make it easier for reasonable legislation to be effective. There will less effort expended on making and trying to enforce unreasonable junk laws designed primarily to make someone feel good.

What is to be done? The conventional regulatory approaches seem to be failing.

No shit Sherlock. Got any more shocking news for me? Regulations imposed on lawful businesses and lawabiding citizens have little effect on criminals and their enterprises.

 A more recent strategy, in which victims or municipalities bring lawsuits against gun manufacturers or retailers, seems legally and politically unpromising since the 2005 passage of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which shields gun manufacturers from civil liability.

“… seems legally and politically unpromising?” Yes, I’m laughing. To be totally fair, I have to consider whether this entire article was written as a parody. Unfortunately, it fails equally whether a parody or presented seriously.

We propose a new way to prod gun makers to reduce gun deaths, one that would be unlikely to put them out of business or to prevent law-abiding citizens from obtaining guns. By using a strategy known as “performance-based regulation,” we would deputize private actors — the gun makers — to deal with the negative effects of their products in ways that promote the public good.

How about we deputize lawmakers to deal with the negative effects of their legislation in such ways? Lemme see, where was it I recently read that the regulations and bans they came up with are not doing the public any good?

Let’s define “public good” while we’re at it. To me, it’s a public good to have individual free choice. Or, for argument’s sake, let’s call it free will. Both the criminal class and the law-abiding class have a choice of tools and actions taken with that tool. Is the public good served by limiting the choices of the good people while having limited (if any) effect on criminals?

Would not the public good be better served if the law-abiding are better armed than the criminals and the criminals knew this? What public good is served by announcing to the criminal that in certain places nobody will be armed to prevent them from doing their crime?

In other words, rather than telling gun makers what to do, performance-based regulation would tell them what outcome they must achieve: Reduce deaths by guns. Companies that achieve the target outcomes might receive large financial bonuses; companies that don’t would face severe financial penalties. Put simply, gun makers — whose products kill even when used as directed — would have to take responsibility for curbing the consequent public health toll.

In the first place, this kind outcome based requirement would result in certain guns presumed to be preferred by criminals or affordable by criminals, being considered bad, morally wrong in some way. Criminals aren’t necessarily stupid, they choose a tool based on the same considerations non-criminals do. Does it perform well? Is upkeep minimal? Can I afford it? Is it too large or too small for my hands? Many other factors come into play also, I’m sure.

And, second, what industry will be next? Automobiles? Liquor manufacturers? Bars? Swimming pool builders? Knifemakers?

I’m tired now. Reading and thinking about this level of insane gobbledygook is tiring. Part 2 tomorrow!

UPDATE: While allowing my self-imposed 10 minute break before proofing my work, I see that Instapundit has linked to Kevin D.’s take (over at Dean Esmay’s place) on the same article.

My headline originally used the word “confer” in stating what the 2nd Amendment does. But that is wrong — the Bill of Rights enumerates rights already possessed and limits the government’s ability to take them away.

It’s not that legislatures won’t try and judges won’t agree with them. Or that legislatures will try to make laws that further insure these rights and judges will disagree with them. The Constitution may not be a “living” document, but interpretation and (misinterpretation) of it are alive and well.

For the best commentary from people who actually know what they are talking about, head on over to The Volokh Conspiracy. 

Unbelievable. In order to decrease the number (ie, costs) of emergency C-sections, UK news reports that statins will (?) be prescribed in the last three months of pregnancy. Supposedly, a low cholesterol count increases the ability of uterine to contract decreasing length of labor.

Oh, and did I mention that this is for obese women? Because of course your cholesterol is high if you’re obese! Why, it’s just a given, right? And did anybody mention that an increase in cholesterol and triglycerides is normal in pregnancy regardless the mother’s weight?

But what is the cost of slightly reducing the number of emergency C-sections? Why it’s just deformed babies, some so severely they die within a month of birth.

It’s time to put a stop to the “war” on obesity. It’s killing us.

Etymology. Callimachus explores word-pairs. His post led me to wonder what the etymology of “punish” is. That search led me to Etymologically Speaking, where I’ve spent the last two hours.

Some of my favorites:

Oh, and “punish.”

Gue

Eric at Classical Values posts about IBM’s using chip cooling technology and lenses to amplify the power of the sun that a photo voltaic cell can produce. It doesn’t sound like technology that would work well (at its present stage) because, as his co-blogger and commenter, M. Simon, points out, of water vapor.

I could see maybe Phoenix working with this, but I suspect Louisiana’s humidity and rainfall might be a bit of a disadvantage.

However, at the end of the post, Eric points out that E-Fuel Corporation is marketing a home distillation unit that can produce up to 25 gallons of ethanol per week at a price of $1.00/gal. Considering the unit is going for about $10,000, it’s not economically feasible except for those much richer than I am.

However, I seem to remember some relatives in the not so distant past that knew all about the distillation process and obviously knew how to set it up for less. Much less. Dad, you remember how? I think there may be some copper tubing in our storage shed.

That techology is very suited to the South, where the technology has been understood for generations.

I have read some (by far in the minority, but enough to be easily noticed) horrid comments about Ted Kennedy’s brain tumor diagnosis - intimations that he deserves this because of past actions or because of his liberal politics.

Enough already. Very young children get malignant, non-operable brain tumors. What did they do to deserve theirs?

What did I do to get lucky and have a treatable benign brain tumor? I’m no better than those children, I guarantee you.

This is the same type of thinking that considered AIDS a punishment for being homosexual.

The  polity needs to grow up.  

UPDATE: DJ Drummond says it more eloquently and nicer than me.

…Cancer is a damnable enemy which respects no moral boundaries. It will attack a Republican just the same as a Democrat, a man or a woman with equal energy. Cancer is a horrifying malady, one which seeks to kill its victim, but only after excruciating torture. I know it too well, from my own cancer to my mother’s recent return of Breast Cancer, to the deaths of old friends and some new ones (and children - the damned thing goes after children as if it were the devil himself). No one deserves Cancer, and any victory over Cancer is a good one, one to celebrate.

How I would have loved for The Anchoress to be wrong. Her prediction:

Someone - probably Keith Olbermann or Chris Matthews - will go completely over the top and say that the Kennedy illness will not mark the “end of Camelot…how fitting that it is being revived this very night by Barack Obama, Ted Kennedy’s handpicked successor to the enduring legacy,” or some such gag-inducing nonsense.

Unfortunately, she was not wrong. She accurately predicted the media malignancy that will make Ted Kennedy’s serious illness “all about Obama.”

Brain tumors, malignant or benign, are not about politics. This is a man’s life, his future quality of life, the ordeal his family will endure - that’s what we’re talking about here, not his past mistakes and foibles and certainly not about the next Democratic nominee, whoever that might be.

I’m also a bit disgusted about the “pre” eulogizing being done by some of Kennedy’s democratic colleagues. He’s not dead yet and from all the reports seems to be as alert and cognitive as ever. Imagine what it must feel like to hear your funeral years before it might happen.

That’s the breaking news on Fox right now. The “expert” they are speaking with is Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist. He says that most brain tumors in older people are benign, citing meningiomas.

He also made it sound like the surgery to remove any old meningioma is a breeze, patients recover and go on with life as before. Well, as the proud owner of a meningioma, I say not exactly.

For one, he’s a pathologist, not a surgeon. He probably doesn’t have many of his patients complaining about complications.

Second, he’s not a neurologist or neuropsychiatrist. He is probably as familiar with the physical structure of the brain as either one, but… perhaps he’s not as familiar with the peculiarities of minor damage to any area of the brain.

The thought that Kennedy might have a brain tumor has crossed my mind several times since I heard the news of his hospitalization. Mine was discovered when I thought I had a mini-stroke, or TIA. I was worried enough that I sat in the ER for 5 hours after all symptoms subsided to find out. I think Kennedy got, um… more aggressive treatment than I did.

For his sake, I hope it’s a meningioma, I hope it’s small, not near any major bloodworks, and that radiation is considered as the first course of treatment. This isn’t about politics, I wish him well.

Here’s one shot of my brain tumor, before radiation treatment.

UPDATE: AP is reporting that Kennedy’s tumor is a malignant glioma. Not good news.

At least some part of the body gets better with age. John McCain’s campaign should jump on statements like 

“It may be that distractibility is not, in fact, a bad thing,” said Shelley H. Carson, a psychology researcher at Harvard whose work was cited in the book. “It may increase the amount of information available to the conscious mind.”

and

“A broad attention span may enable older adults to ultimately know more about a situation and the indirect message of what’s going on than their younger peers,” Dr. Hasher said. “We believe that this characteristic may play a significant role in why we think of older people as wiser.”

and

“If older people are taking in more information from a situation, and they’re then able to combine it with their comparatively greater store of general knowledge, they’re going to have a nice advantage.”

Obama should be worried that the article indicates that an ability to ignore distractions, though quicker, ultimately results in assimilating incomplete information. In his case, I think it is not only a desire to not be ”distracted” but also an ingrained part of his temperament.  

via Instapundit

I want one of these! Preferably turbocharged.

Sure he’s not perfect, but Bobby Jindal is for Louisiana more than just a breath of fresh air; he’s a breath of refreshingly clean air.

Yep, for the first time since 1990, when I moved to Louisiana, I can say I’m genuinely proud of our Governor.

Here he is on Jay Leno.

John Brignell, in March of the zealots, explains why fun has gone out of style. In doing so he also explains a lot of other stuff. Consider yourself warned.

Every age has its dominant caste. This is the age of the zealot. Twenty years ago they were dismissed as cranks and fanatics, but now they are licensed to interfere in the every day lives of ordinary people to an unprecedented degree. When Bernard Levin first identified the new phenomenon of the SIFs (Single Issue Fanatics) many of us thought it was a bit of a joke or at most an annoyance. Now the joke is on us. In that short time they have progressed from being an ignorable nuisance to what is effectively a branch of government. They initiate legislation and prescribe taxation. They form a large and amorphous collection of groups of overlapping membership, united and defined by the objects of their hatred (industry, tobacco, alcohol, adiposity, carbon, meat, salt, chemicals in general, radio waves, field sports etc.) Their success in such a short time has been one of the most remarkable phenomena in the whole of human history.

He may be wrong on his timeline, as I remember hearing as a child, “If it’s fun, you better do it now before it goes out of style.” Back then “style” meant “approved,” but today it’s called “political correctness.” I also remember coming to the conclusion nearly 40 years ago that everything caused cancer.

I’ve been fed up for quite a while, it seems.

The common factors in these campaigns of zealotry are:

• Creation and maintenance of a myth

• Ignoring all evidence countering the myth

• Ad hominem attacks on opponents

• Encouraging authoritarian governments to impose taxes and reduce individual freedom

• Promotion of limits and constraints that are simply invented without reason

• Collusion by the establishment media

• Damage to science and its methods

• Elimination of things that make life bearable

• Making some people very rich whilte impoverishing the lives of almost everyone else

They will not be satified until they have you shivering in a cave, sipping thin gruel.

It’s rare that I come across an essay this long in which I find almost nothing to disagree with.

(via Junkfood Science)

I did not hear the speech, but have read the transcript. Twice, so far.

He has salvaged his campaign. He hasn’t yet convinced me to vote for him should he survive Hillary at the convention. He is still far too liberal lefty socialist.

You can watch the speech on his website.

My fear is that this speech is going to do more dividing than uniting. He’s not painted a nice picture of either race and offered no strategy for bringing them closer other than proposing common enemies which, as President, he will do something about:

…we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

It’s certainly needed, as Jeff Sadow points out.

Imagine if Hillary Clinton could have changed her vote for the Iraq war to ensure that it would happen, then could change her vote to be able to campaign that she voted against it.

It gives a whole new meaning to “I voted for it before I voted against it.”

Requiring complete consistency for politicians (or anyone else) is unreasonable. Anybody should be able to change their mind, but I expect a legislator to have thought about the matter up for vote and to vote honestly as MY representative, not as a representative of their future personal gains, such as re-election. I’d like to think they thought about carefully enough not to change their mind 8 hours (or less) later.

At least some of us get it. No, wait. I think the majority of us get it. Follodor points out why gun buybacks don’t work - people are not as stupid as the government hopes they are.  I think I might substitute “most politicians” for “government” in that statement, but meaning is near the same.

Then again, why do we not-so-stupid people keep electing stupider-than-us politicians?

I could vote for a McCain/Romney ticket - put Huckabee on it anywhere and I am OFF. I could vote for an Obama ticket, but put a Clinton on it and I am OFF.

Where do I stand? Does that make me a moderate, undecided, ignorant (don’t answer that…)

What’s up?

My strong point issues are the war  - I’m a hawk and ever so in favor for it and when are we going to do a surge in Afghanistan and… code pink can go to hell.

Then immigration - why do we want to punish 12 million (or however many) people because of where they were born? Amnesty is the only feasible answer. Close the border also, if you must, but give amnesty.

Healthcare? Hell, the high cost of health care is because we, the spoiled, demand so much of it. Regardless what medical scientists want us to believe, they cannot cure everything or always diagnose it in time. Too bad… but true.

So… again - the open-ended question that my attorney has advised me is not wise - Where do I stand when compared with the rest of America? Am I that different?

Bill Jempty of Wizbang has chosen Mississippi State Representatives W. T. Mayhall Jr, Bobby Show, and John Read to receive his Knucklehead of the Day award.

These three morons have sponsoring the following legislation:

An act to prohibit certain food establishments from serving food to any person who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the state department of health; to direct the department to prepare written materials that describe and explain the criteria for determining whether a person is obese and to provide those materials to the food establishments; to direct the department to monitor the food establishments for compliance with the provisions of this act; and for related purposes.*****

(2) Any food establishment to which this section applies shall not be allowed to serve food to any person who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the State Department of Health after consultation with the Mississippi Council on Obesity Prevention and Management established under Section 41-101-1 or its successor. The State Department of Health shall prepare written materials that describe and explain the criteria for determining whether a person is obese, and shall provide those materials to all food establishments to which this section applies. A food establishment shall be entitled to rely on the criteria for obesity in those written materials when determining whether or not it is allowed to serve food to any person.

House Bill 282 was introduced Friday, Feb. 1.

Sandy Szwarc, of Junkfood Science fame asks:

Is this a tongue-in-cheek bill, meant to point out how absurd the war on obesity has become? Or do lawmakers actually believe the myths that gluttony is the cause for obesity and that it is the government’s role to force people to eat and live how it deems best?

Rep. Mayhall answered her question that the bill was serious, though regrettably (hallalujah!) he doesn’t believe it will pass. He hopes it will call attention to the problem and what obesity is costing the Medicare system.

What is obesity causing the Medicare system? Someone want to give me some hard figures on that? I don’t want “but it must be costing because fat people are unhealthy!”