A man apparently angry over a poor performance evaluation entered an Ohio State University maintenance building early Tuesday and opened fire, killing a manager before turning the gun on himself, police said.
But we all know this couldn’t have happened because OSU is a gun-free zone.
The university’s response was truly bizarre.
E-mail alerts were sent to students warning them about the shooting, the university said.
Yep. Send ’em an email. That’ll keep the kids safe when the gunfire is already over. At least the students aren’t fooled by the system.
The student newspaper, The Lantern, published an article Sunday saying that students were questioning the effectiveness of such e-mail alerts after three serious crimes last week.
Duh. A system that sends you an email after a shooting or sexual assault (last week’s crimes) isn’t terribly useful in helping you avoid being shot or raped by the criminal. Look how helpful it was to the OSU employee who was killed today.
When will we drop the charade that gun-free zones are either gun-free or safe?
Activists in the Tea Party movement tend to be male, rural, upscale, and overwhelmingly conservative, according to a new national poll.
Yep, just a bunch of angry white men. (Note that they don’t report the racial make-up of the respondents but we all know that rural, rich conservatives are all white, right? Right?) The poll numbers came from a telephone survey in which 124 (of 1,023) respondents indicated “they had taken active steps to support the Tea Party, such as donating money or attending a rally.”
A whopping 124 respondents and CNN takes polls like this seriously? You have got to be kidding. Really, you don’t have to be a statistician to know that in a country of 300 million, a political movement which has drawn tens of thousands of rally attendees (and the ire of the mainstream media) cannot possibly be accurately described by 124 people. They claim a sampling error of 9 points. As a mathematician I find that claim highly dubious, but even if accurate no self-respecting pollster would stake any credibility on that error. Interestingly enough, when I revisited the article, the complete poll data was no longer available.
This is neither responsible, unbiased journalism nor reliable statistical work. But it’s good enough for CNN to run it as a headline on their Politics front page.
The police responded quickly, but not soon enough for the three who died. When will we drop the pretense that “gun-free” zones are gun-free…or safe? At least one student showed the common sense we need.
Gina Hammond, a UAH student, told WAFF that she lobbied the University of Alabama trustees to allow students with gun permits to carry their weapons on campus. She was turned down.
“I’m scared to go back to school,” Hammond said. “However, if they were to allow me to carry my pistol on campus, I would not be as scared.
“… I’m sorry that nobody in that room had a pistol to save at least one person’s life,” Hammond said.
It’s long past time to rethink the policy that provides target-rich environments and turns the law-abiding into victims.
“This is a tragedy of immeasurable proportions and a terrible a blow to our community,” said U.S. Rep. Parker Griffith, R-Ala., in whose district the shootings occurred. “Now is a time for thoughtful prayer for those affected.”
No. Now is a time to allow the innocent to protect themselves.
They give shows to people like Joy Behar. Sure Fox has Glenn Beck, but Joy has all of his fanaticism without his boyish charm, quick wit, or sheer entertainment value. (Ratings clearly bear out the disparity in popularity between the two.) He’s often outlandish, but she’s purely vitriolic.
Consider this recent segment, during which she spent a few minutes with Eve Ensler (author of “The Vagina Monologues”) bashing Sarah Palin.
In a very tired continuation of the common leftist theme that conservatives simply aren’t very intelligent, Behar and her guest are appalled that someone who isn’t a proponent of anthropomorphic global warming (AGW) could possibly run for Vice President. At one point Behar, obviously disgusted, says,
Every scientist of any note believes in it but Sarah Palin doesn’t believe in it.
“Every scientist of any note” does not include
Joanne Simpson, the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, later one of NASA’s lead weather researchers, president of the American Meteorological Society, and recipient of the AMS’ Carl-Gustaf Rossby Award
Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner in physics
William Happer, Princeton University physicist, chair of Princeton’s research board, winner of Germany’s Humboldt Award, the American Physical Society’s Broida Prize and Davisson-Germer Prize, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ Edison Prize
Freeman Dyson, Princeton University physicist and mathematician, co-founder of Operations Research (field of mathematics) and creator of the Dyson Series (math again), unified quantum electrodynamics theories, and more; winner of the Lorentz Medal (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) and Max Planck Medal (German Physical Society)
Claude Allegre, French Socialist and geochemist who once espoused the theory, winner of the Crafoord Prize (which, like the Nobel Prizes for sciences, is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences), Wollaston Medal (Geological Society of London), and Golden Medal of the French National Center for Scientific Research
Richard Lindzen, MIT Professor of Atmospheric Science, winner of the American Meteorological Society’s Meisinger and Charney Awards, American Geophysical Union’s Macelwane Medal, and the Leo Prize from Sweden’s Wallin Foundation
William Gray, Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, pioneer in hurricane forecasting
Antonino Zichichi, Italian nuclear physicist and president of the World Federation of Scientists
Khabibullo Abdusamatov, Russian astrophysicist, supervisor of the Astromeria project (International Space Station) and head of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ space research
Sallie Baliunas, Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist, winner of the American Astronomical Society’s Newton Lacy Pierce Prize
Roy Spencer, principal research scientist, University of Alabama (Huntsville) and U.S. Science Team Leader for NASA’s Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (used by satellites to measure temperatures), former senior scientist for climate studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center; winner of the American Meteorological Society’s Special Award
Jan Veizer, Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa, winner of Killam Award (Canada Council), Hutchison and Logan Medals (Geological Association of Canada), Miller Medal and Bancroft Award (Royal Society of Canada), and Leibniz Prize (German Research Foundation)
This is a short list of just a dozen, and is hardly exhaustive. The Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works details more than 700 international scientists who are skeptical of AGW. Looks like Palin is in some pretty impressively stupid company.
Wonder why some of us refuse to watch CNN? Hacks like Christiane Amanpour, who deliberately misstate the facts in order to push a liberal agenda. Here, for example, she insists that the water torture of the Khmer Rouge—which resulted in thousands of murders—is identical to the waterboarding employed by the CIA under Bush (starts around 4:15). Regardless of where you stand on waterboarding, the methods of the CIA and the Khmer Rouge aren’t even similar (except in their use of water) much less identical. She may be correct in abhorring waterboarding, but that doesn’t justify the quite intentional falsification she employs. She’s entitled to her own opinion. She’s not entitled to her own facts. That’s simply propaganda, not journalism.
I’ve added a new page to the site to provide contact information for Arizona businesses that post signs banning the possession of handguns. Please feel free to send additions. I will post them when I can verify company policy and contact information.
Many of us tend to encapsulate the Christmas story by having it end tidily with three wise men bringing gifts to a cuddly little baby. Some of us know better…
An eight-year-old boy was given an assignment in class to draw something that reminded him of Christmas. His picture got him sent home and ordered to undergo a psych evaluation because of its violent imagery. What did he draw? Machine gun-toting Santa? No (though I think that’d be pretty cool). Vampire Rudolph feasting on elves? No. Headless Frosty with a chainsaw? No.
Read that again. The blatant and pernicious anti-Christian bias in our educational system could not be more clear.
Here’s a news flash for the uninformed: the Christmas story has a really violent, bloody episode just before the plot’s climax. If you don’t include the death and resurrection of Christ then Christmas has no meaning whatsoever. This young boy demonstrated what very few adults do—a complete understanding of the meaning of the holiday. Rather than punish we should emulate.
For a supposed Constitutional scholar, lawyer, and professor, our President doesn’t appear to know the document at all. To wit:
U.S. Constitution, Article 1. Section 9. No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.
Ergo without the express consent of the Congress, Obama’s acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize is strictly unconstitutional, as it is awarded by a committee of five persons elected by the Norwegian Parliament (see <http://nobelprize.org/nobelfoundation/org_structure.html>).
Of course devoted Obama supporters will say this doesn’t matter. It should be noted they also have no respect for our Constitution.