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Trayvon Martin case
I'm not sure if the jury, the crazy legislation, the prosecution or some combination is responsible for the travesty that is the Trayvon Martin case. If it's just the legislation, I wonder if George Zimmerman is going to be able to rest easy knowing that he now lives in a place where armed men may confront people in the street, armed or unarmed, ( Read more... ) -
Trying to stay in practice here ...
I'm getting lazy about posting here and even checking LJ, which is not a great thing because limiting my posting to Twitter and Facebook tends to limit me to writing one sentence comments on G&M stories and the like. A few comments about this and that ( Read more... ) -
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I regularly see people on FB making posts about global warming in an effort to prove that warming is actually occurring, in response to GW critics. This always baffles me. Few objecters to AGW are objecting to the claim that warming is occurring, except the complete nutters, like Drudge, etc. Most of the ones w/ even half a brain, are objecting to ( Read more... ) -
Camp 30 in Bowmanville
A post about my explorations of Camp 30 in Bowmanville: link -
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I know that there's much consensus that the tragedy in Connecticut demonstrates the need for stricter gun control. But I'd like to know more about why people think this. Are people suggesting a full out ban on weapons? It sounds like the guns this dope used were purchased by his mother. Secondly, it seems he had no criminal record, so how exactly ( Read more... ) -
Nate Silver's GOP bias
Not only did Nate Silver correctly predict the outcome in all the states but his vote share projection was incredibly accurate. For the swing states, where his model really mattered and where he had the most data, he was off by an average of only .3 per projection. (standard deviation of the difference between projected and actual was .9) But his ( Read more... ) -
On elections
A couple of election related pet peeves:
In the context discussion of the amount spent to get a presidential candidate I often hear points noting that the amount spent this year ($6 billion) is no more or even less than some amount that American consumers spend on some sort of non-essential good or service, e.g., candy or whatever, or that it's a ( Read more... ) -
On garbage pickup fees and universal health care
I remember having a discussion with a friend once about the prudence of a municipality charging a nominal fee (~$1) for each bag of garbage it picked up. I argued in favour of the policy as I thought it would discourage waste and, I argued, my friend should also support it based on his support for the principles of free market economics. Surely a $ ( Read more... ) -
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FWIW, i've been thoroughly enjoying "the Killing" on Netflix, great show, wasn't surprised to learn it's based on a Danish show. All the good murder mysteries are coming out of Scandinavia these days. -
Rushing a shooter
Someone on FB posted that we should all resolve to "rush" a shooter if we ever find ourselves in a situation like the one in the Colorado theater. I said that if I found myself in such a situation, I'd worry about my obligations to my family first. I wouldn't put my life at significant risk to save a bunch of strangers in a movie theater if there ( Read more... )