While it has been warmer, it didn't reach the forecast temperatures, getting to 37 degrees yesterday (45 was forecast) and to 38 degrees today (49 was forecast). Both Saturday and today it was overcast and foggy all day.
So much for our January thaw.
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I have to admit the gun control debate has spun out of control, with the gun-grabbers pulling on every emotional string they can find in order to get their way. Probably one of the more specious arguments they've been using is the “If it saves only one life...”. There's only one problem, that being that they may 'save' that one life, but cause two, three, or more innocent lives to be lost because people will no longer able to defend themselves.I've found that more than a few of the more rabid gun control advocates are incapable of looking at the whole picture, or worse, unwilling to look at what's happened when gun ownership is severely restricted or banned – violent crime and murder rates climb. All they focus upon is gun deaths, whether caused by criminals, police, or heaven forbid, average citizens defending themselves against those who wish to harm or kill them. They try to downplay the use of guns by law abiding citizens defending themselves. (By use, I don't automatically mean shooting a miscreant. Sometimes all that's needed is for the citizen to pull his weapon, thus ending the 'encounter' when the miscreant realizes he's picked on someone who turned out to be hunter, not prey, and he decides to go find someone else to victimize. I include that in the term 'use'.)
If they truly want to diminish the number of gun deaths perpetrated by criminals, then start by cracking down on gangs, both here in the US and across the border in Mexico. Gangs are the biggest contributing factor to violence and murder and are a source of many of the illegal weapons on the street. Disarming law abiding citizens makes no one safe. Goodness knows there are more than enough examples of that just here in the US (Washington DC, Chicago, etc.).
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And while we're on the topic of gun control, there's this by way of Chris Muir.*************
Today's TOAS will be abbreviated as Deb happens to have acquired my computer reading glasses, making it difficult to read the display. I am using my regular reading glasses, but it requires leaning forward to read the screen.*************
Bogie adds her voice to those calling out for the prosecution of David Gregory for violating DC's ban on high capacity magazines.As the saying goes, no one is above the law, even liberal media darlings. And Gregory should have known better (and probably did), yet he gets a free pass.
This sends the wrong message to the average American: The courts are not a place where you can expect justice.
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Eric the Viking makes a good point about the debt ceiling:...we're in this perpetual state of crisis because Congress (that is, the Senate) refuses to pass annual budgets.Indeed.
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Tom Bowler comments about the passing of Nobel Laureate James Buchanan, who received his Nobel in 1986 for economics. As Tom comments, “We are watching Buchanan's theories played out right before our eyes,” where he posited why bureaucracies had an incentive to expand their turf.Then there's this added by Tom:
It's surprising and more than a little disheartening how many people subscribe to the notion that government actors are so much more nobly motivated than the rest of us.Heh. Indeed.
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Assistant Village Idiot weighs in on liberalism, stating that “liberalism is more of a social than an intellectual set of beliefs. Certainly, liberalism is enforced socially rather than intellectually (though the claim of intellectual superiority remains, and is in fact part of the pressure).”His post certainly describes what I see as the problem with latter day liberal thought and pseudo-intellectualism – it sounds great in theory, but it doesn't work in the real world.