Musings from Southern New Mexico

Month: January 2013 (Page 2 of 3)

Aussie Gun Control

Frum pointed this op-ed in the New York Times by former conservative Australian Prime Minister John Howard:

I Went After Guns. Obama Can, Too.
JOHN HOWARD
January 16, 2013
SYDNEY, Australia

I was elected prime minister in early 1996, leading a center-right coalition. Virtually every nonurban electoral district in the country — where gun ownership was higher than elsewhere — sent a member of my coalition to Parliament.

Six weeks later, on April 28, 1996, Martin Bryant, a psychologically disturbed man, used a semiautomatic Armalite rifle and a semiautomatic SKS assault weapon to kill 35 people in a murderous rampage in Port Arthur, Tasmania.

After this wanton slaughter, I knew that I had to use the authority of my office to curb the possession and use of the type of weapons that killed 35 innocent people. I also knew it wouldn’t be easy.

Our challenges were different from America’s. Australia is an even more intensely urban society, with close to 60 percent of our people living in large cities.

Because Australia is a federation of states, the national government has no control over gun ownership, sale or use, beyond controlling imports. Given our decentralized system of government, I could reduce the number of dangerous firearms only by persuading the states to enact uniform laws totally prohibiting the ownership, possession and sale of all automatic and semiautomatic weapons while the national government banned the importation of such weapons.

The fundamental problem was the ready availability of high-powered weapons, which enabled people to convert their murderous impulses into mass killing.

Passing gun-control laws was a major challenge for my coalition partner: the rural, conservative National Party. All of its members held seats in nonurban areas. It was also very hard for the state government of Queensland, in Australia’s northeast, where the National Party was dominant, and where the majority of the population was rural.

In the end, we won the battle to change gun laws because there was majority support across Australia for banning certain weapons. And today, there is a wide consensus that our 1996 reforms not only reduced the gun-related homicide rate, but also the suicide rate. The Australian Institute of Criminology found that gun-related murders and suicides fell sharply after 1996. The American Law and Economics Review found that our gun buyback scheme cut firearm suicides by 74 percent. In the 18 years before the 1996 reforms, Australia suffered 13 gun massacres — each with more than four victims — causing a total of 102 deaths. There has not been a single massacre in that category since 1996.

Few Australians would deny that their country is safer today as a consequence of gun control.

I’m not sure I can add anything substantive to the results of a well thought-out approach to minimizing the availability of assault/terror weapons to the general public. But I should say one thing I’ve been telling everyone I know: “If you can’t do it with a standard bolt-action high-power rifle, then it is illegal or should be.”

The Citadel

I’m not thinking of the South Carolina school that, as I found while seeking a military college with which to crush my soul, had rather recently begun admitting the lesser races. Admitting, I should say, as in “allowing in,” rather than “acknowledging the existence of.” The latter had probably occurred some time earlier. Perhaps years, even. Also, there are apparently now vagino-Americans in residence (or whatever the lesser gender is now called).

No, this Citadel is a planned right-wing loon (RWL) escape from society and into the freedom afforded by certain people knowing their place. In this case, the certain people know that their place is outside. Outside the cold grey walls of the cold grey crackpot Disneyland inhabited by cold grey rubes.

In other news, crackpot Jesus Glenn Beck is planning his own kook farm. I assume he will call it Rube Ridge Ruby Ridge, in honor of a fellow white separatist gun nut patriot. And David Koresh. And other such heroes whose women knew their place. Doubtless, his victims investors will have plenty of funds available, having made so much money on gold.

All I can say is, good luck.

And shine on…

h/t Balloon Juice

An Interesting Point on Planned Failure

In the room at the entry of my parents’ house sits an antique desk dating to the turn of the last century. On this desk sits a brass lamp, not quite so old. On the base of this lamp is a brass plate congratulating its original owner for some achievement or other in the year 1922. What is of interest? After more than 90 years, the original bulb yet burns. That is what I thought of when I read a posting at David Frum’s blog from his friend John Gardner entitled A Snowball’s Chance of Economic Recovery. The author says he has an epiphany while looking at still functioning decorations from Christmases long past:

Christmas lights that are over half a century old and still working. A couple of Snowballs and their successors, the GE Lighted Ice (small pieces of plastic on top of a colored bulb giving an overall impression of ice) give out every year, but the vast majority go on. Cool to the touch and providing a soft light, they are close to the ideal light for a natural tree. Of course, they were made in the United States.

An economy based on planned obsolescence or rapid turnover of items of poor quality may generate more sales, at least in the short run; an economy based on quality will endure. Some companies in a variety of industries are (re)discovering this, but their range is too often limited, either by region or by cost. The true genius of postwar General Electric and so many other icons of American industry was that real quality at a reasonable cost was available for the masses – and made here at home.

Light bulbs that last decades are hardly an innovation. But how would our societal philosophy change if we made cars to last essentially forever? This would require serious systems engineering from the drawing board on, but it already done with aircraft. Aircraft are engineered with ease-of-maintenance as a key design factor. Items that are destined to wear out are replaced at specified times. Why is this not done with cars? I suppose some idiots want the “freedom” to get cheap shit from China and replace it all time and again. For those with no foresight, the enormous downstream cost is worth it in “right now” dollars.

Global Warming Disproven

Yesterday and today were “snow days,” as referred to in to common vernacular. I was excused from work due to extreme weather conditions. In Minnesota, such conditions are known as “April.” But for those with an IQ near room temperature, this is solid proof that Global Warming was made up by the secret Muslim Kenyan Negro who is in cahoot with the entirety of the non-quack scientific community and fatty-fat-fat-fat Al Gore to make up Global Warming to take away our guns and force our children to gay marry the lesser races in secular ceremonies so the U.N. can sell us into foreign buttsex slavery.

For the mentally defective, you see, a 2°C rise in the frigid winter temperatures means that the denizens of Buffalo should be walking about in t-shirts in January. It is difficult for some to see that, perhaps, Butte, Montana in January plus 2°C equals still goddamned cold. You see, a couple of degrees of temperature makes practically no difference to humans. To the general population, however, spring starting a few weeks early may be disastrous. But I get that not everyone is involved in the science of climatology. Hell, I’m not. I am involved in optics, though. In order to calculate attenuation of laser radiation through the atmosphere, I use some fairly complicated equations. Among the variables I use is the atmospheric CO2. It turns out that carbon dioxide has such a pronounced effect that it must be included even though it is barely above what would be considered trace amounts. This caused me to look into CO2 in the atmosphere, and the place to look is Mauna Loa. When you do this sort of research, this is what you find:

Carbon dioxide readings from Mauna Loa

Carbon dioxide readings from Mauna Loa

If you follow it back as far as it goes, this is what you see:

Following the same trend back to the days of muscle cars

Following the same trend back to the days of muscle cars

Because the easily influenced by obviously false arguments are, well, easily influenced, we can expect nothing to be done. No real scientist disputes the facts. Global warming is taking place and is largely anthropomorphic. The only dispute is as to how great a disaster it will produce.

The Persecuted Christians

Little Green Footballs linked to a Think Progress article, AFA Warns That Christians Will Soon Be Treated Like Blacks in Jim Crow Era.

Two teenagers, apparently being treated exactly like modern Christians.  From Radio Diaries

Two teenagers, apparently being treated exactly like modern Christians. From Radio Diaries

I am often familiar with songs for many years without ever understanding the lyrics. I never paid attention to the lyrics of “Strange Fruit” as sung by Billie Holiday (written by Abel Meeropol, according to Radio Diaries). One day a few years ago, however, I saw a video of “Strange Fruit” with this picture or one much like it. Now Billie Holiday’s beautiful voice disturbs me. What I hate most about this particular picture is the man in the tie (front and second from the left) and his female companions. Regardless of the transgressions of these young men (probably aggravated uppitiness), the expressions of those three individuals in the crowd reflect sick minds.

Somehow I missed the hundreds of Christian lynchings that have been apparently happening in America every year. Perhaps I should do a better job keeping up with the news.

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