Author: VD

The Obama administration backs down on the ammunition brass ban:

Responding to two Democratic senators representing outraged private gun owners, the Department of Defense announced last night it has scrapped a new policy that would deplete the supply of ammunition by requiring destruction of fired military cartridge brass.

It’s pretty simple. The American people will put up with a lot. Most are idiots and will fall for just about anything so long as the government can somehow manage to put a positive spin on it. But, no matter how sneakily you try to do it, if you go for their guns, they will kill you politically. If there’s one non-negotiable, it’s guns. And, ultimately, that’s probably the only one that really matters.

I always find it quite funny when an atheist declares that he just couldn’t manage to read The Irrational Atheist, as if this is some sort of meaningful criticism. Do they really not realize that this says absolutely nothing about the book, that it is simply an open admission of their own incapacity? GP emails:

i was unable to read beyond page 6 because it became obvious that you have only one agenda and that is to push and promote your christian views. you are saying that your book is not a religious book but you are lying. you have no interest in any scientific discussion. therefore, i will say with disgust: ” take your christian god (all three of them) and shove it up your ass” maybe islam can offer me more.

Six pages into The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins is still rambling about Albert Einstein. Six pages into The End of Faith, Sam Harris is pontificating about a continuum of faith and laying the foundation for his illogical argument that the moderates of one religion are somehow responsible for the behavior of another religion’s extremists. Six pages into god is Not Great Christopher Hitchens is declaring that he doesn’t need anyone policing his behavior, something his recent companions in Syria would probably dispute. Just as no one could possibly respect the opinion of the Christian who blew off the New Atheist books after six pages due to this nonsense, to say nothing of their obvious agenda to push and promote their atheist views, no one can possibly respect the opinion of the atheist who does likewise with regard to my book, or, for that matter, any other book.

Needless to say, GP is not only godless, he’s also clueless. I never claimed TIA did not have a religious theme or that I have no agenda, I merely stated, correctly, that the book is not a theological work and contains no arguments for God’s existence. Or arguments for intelligent design, Young Earth Creationism, or any of the many things that most atheists would much rather discuss than the many obvious logical and factual flaws in the New Atheists’ arguments. As for my supposed non-interest in scientific discussion, GP would be hard-pressed to explain chapters two and three, Defining Science and The Case Against Science.

Of course, he wouldn’t know about them, having only read to page six. And while I wish GP good fortune in his future religious endeavors, I’d be very surprised if he made it through The Cow.

Two groups of third-world immigrants to Minnesota may point to the problem:

Autism is terrifying the community of Somali immigrants in Minneapolis, and some pediatricians and educators have joined parents in raising the alarm. But public health experts say it is hard to tell whether the apparent surge of cases is an actual outbreak, with a cause that can be addressed, or just a statistical fluke.

I find it interesting that the influx of Hmong in the 1970s didn’t see a big increase in autistic Hmong, but the recent influx of Somalis did. Obviously, the vaccine schedule has been significantly increased in the last thirty years, which makes me tend to suspect that it will eventually be discovered that some sort of system overload is taking place.

It’s a real pity that scientists can’t be bothered to study the problem using the scientific method rather than using statistical measures that are bound to be flawed. Vaccines may not ultimately prove to be the causal factor, but they’re the most logical culprit and the vaccine defenders are being both irresponsible and anti-scientific in their constant refusal to support unbiased scientific inquiry into the matter. There is hysteria on both sides, but the fact that one side is defending a massive industry, not its own children, makes its position significantly less than credible.

Again, I’m not calling for the banning of all vaccines or anything, as irresponsible vaccine defenders often like to dishonestly claim of the opposition. I merely want to see a proper long-term study of two populations performed, wherein one group receives the full vaccine schedule and the other receives no vaccines. It’s an eminently doable, perfectly sensible and properly scientific approach, so why are the vaccine defenders so utterly opposed to the notion?

After all, the alternative isn’t that parents will simply shut up and go along with the program, it’s that they’ll continue to opt out of it and refuse vaccines they otherwise would have allowed their children to receive. Nobody gives a damn what scientists assert or “studies show” anymore since modern scientists are so politicized and corrupt. Either show the science or shut up; the mere possession of a white coat and a science degree no longer convinces anyone.

Now we know why they were so obsessed with uncovering the nonexistent right-wing conspiracy:

For the past two years, several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics have talked stories and compared notes in an off-the-record online meeting space called JournoList…. POLITICO contacted nearly three dozen current JList members for this story. The majority either declined to comment or didn’t respond to interview requests — and then returned to JList to post items on why they wouldn’t be talking to POLITICO about what goes on there.

So, it seems journalism has its own little group of would-be Bilderbergers. What a surprise! One thing I’ve noticed is that you can usually tell what a left-winger is doing in secret by paying attention to what he accuses the right of doing. And this quote tells you all you need to know about the factual reliability of the liberal media:

“Defending the off-the-record rule, Klein said that “candor is essential and can only be guaranteed by keeping these conversations private.””

In other words, if a left-leaning blogger, political reporter, magazine writer, policy wonk or academic is communicating openly in public, candor is inessential and cannot be guaranteed. In short, you should assume they’re probably lying.

UPDATE – Speaking of connections that liberals hide from public view, it turns out that the brother of newly minted anti-Wall Street crusader Jon LeibowitzStewart, Larry Leibowitz, is the head of US Markets & Global Technology at NYSE Euronext. As long as you’re on the side of the angels now, Jonny boy, why not have brother Larry on the show for a public skewering?

This report from John Hawkins may help explain why I’ve always been so amused by those who attempt to dismiss me and other WND writers by claiming we write for a fringe news site that no one actually reads. I don’t know how reliable the Alexa stats are, but I have occasionally been privy to WND’s server stats over the past few years and WND had more daily readers than some major metropolitan newspapers had daily subscribers three or four years ago:

1) Fox News: 260
2) Wall Street Journal: 383
3) The Drudge Report: 748
4) New York Post: 888
5) WorldNetDaily: 2,692
6) Newsmax: 3,264
7) Free Republic: 3,988
8) The Washington Times: 4,717
9) TownHall: 5,986
10) The Rush Limbaugh Show: 7,624

The truth is that one’s media profile doesn’t always reflect the size of one’s actual online audience. Judging by the regular appearances by its contributors on Fox, you would think National Review was massive, but it’s primarily influential in a world of politics that only represents about one percent of the total national audience. It’s also interesting to see that the Mises Institute did so well. Of course, as we saw twenty years ago in the world of talk radio, that which the dominant form of media attempts to marginalize will tend to steal the audience from that media as new technologies provide a means of circumnavigating the gatekeepers.

Speaking of which, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is now defunct, mourned by no one who didn’t receive paychecks from it. Hopefully the demise of the San Francisco Chronicle will soon follow.

“And as the other papers fail into the Web we will hear, again and again, about the Internet, about Craigslist, about The Drudge Report, and a hundred other reasons these papers are dead. What we will never hear is that their editorial policies and news slanting were part and parcel of their demise. We will never hear about the willed insults, slights, and snubbing of fully half of their potential circulation pool. Journalists and editors write a lot about “taking personal responsibility” when it comes to others. You never hear them write that about themselves. There’s no mea culpa among liberal newspaper journalists these days. There’s only “The Internet ate my newspaper.”

Speaking of the Internet, since Blackfive averages twice as many visitors as Vox Popoli I assume this blog would probably rank somewhere in the top 150 right-wing sites. It’s hard to know, though, since so many “big” blogs with lots of links elect to hide their Sitemeter numbers, which I suspect means that their daily readerships aren’t quite as big as their feeds and links would lead you to believe. Another odd thing I noticed is how much longer visitors tend to linger here than they do at other, better-trafficked blogs. For example, the average visit to Pharyngula is 8 seconds. The average visit to Blackfive is 69 seconds. The average visit here is 140 seconds. Having a large audience is great and all, especially if you’re trying to generate ad income, but I much prefer people taking the time to read what I write. And if they happen to have anything interesting to add to the discourse, so much the better.

The Obama administration shows its true colors:

From now on, remanufacturers of military brass will not be able to buy surplus brass from DOD–actually from Government Liquidators, llc.–the corporation that sells surplus materials for the U.S. government. At least, not in any form recognizable as once-fired brass ammunition. Now all brass ammunition will have to be shredded, and sold as scrap. Georgia Arms, who brought this to our attention, is the 5th largest ammunition manufacturer of centerfire pistol and rifle ammunition in the U.S.

Looks like it’s time for the gun defense lobby to start contacting Congress. The politicos are afraid to go directly after guns, so they’re targeting the ammunition. And the ammunition manufacturers should show some courage as well… by refusing to sell to any state or federal agency until the new policy is abandoned.

A trial lawyer at a law firm with ties to Nancy Pelosi is the new head of the NFLPA:

In a year in which sweeping and historic change has come to Washington, D.C. on a national scale, the NFL Players Association followed suit with the trend Sunday night, electing D.C.-based attorney DeMaurice F. Smith, a relative unknown quantity in NFL circles, as the union’s new executive director, SI.com has learned….

Smith is a partner at the law firm Patton Boggs in Washington and has no significant NFL ties. According to union sources, Smith seized control of the favorite’s role for on Saturday in Maui, when he wowed the union’s 32-man board of player representatives with an hourlong presentation, heavy on detail, regarding his plan to lead the union in its upcoming collective bargaining agreement negotiations with the NFL.

Smith, whose law firm is extremely plugged in to the political landscape of Washington, D.C., and has ties to the Obama administration, told the players that he would be able to prompt Congressional pressure on the NFL to bargain in good faith. Smith mentioned to the players that he felt some of that bargaining pressure could be created through Congress challenging the league’s tax exempt status, as well as its long-held anti-trust exemption.

I think we can safely conclude that the effective partnership aproach to the relationship between the Upshaw-led NFLPA and the NFL owners just came to an abrupt halt. Contrary to some of the sports media reports, Patton Boggs is actually closer to Congress and Pelosi than the White House and Obama, although I don’t know if that can really be considered an improvement. The fact that Smith based his campaign on his ability to “win [against the NFL]” indicates that he’s not likely to rein in the natural tendency of a players’ union to adopt a short-sighted and self-destructive approach to negotiations. But, on the positive side, Smith cannot possibly be worse than the idiotic Troy Vincent would have been, given that Vincent – quite seriously – thought that threatening the owners with a player’s league in 2011 was a viable approach.

The first sign that Smith isn’t going to be a disaster will be if instead of beginning by hammering the greedy owners, he starts talking about addressing the rookie salary situation, which harms the owners, the veteran players, and the league’s competitive balance in the interest of less than a dozen powerful agents.

UPDATE – Okay, so it doesn’t look so good. In his first call to reporters, Smith said: ““There isn’t a day where I don’t hope for peace, but at the same time there isn’t a day where we don’t prepare for war.”

Don’t Believe the Hope

Four days. Just four days. That’s how long it took for the panglossian pundits to declare that the economic destruction that has seen trillions of dollars evaporate in a mushroom cloud of debt and derivatives is rapidly coming to an end. Last week, the S&P 500 rose 10.7 percent, recovering less than 13 percent of its total decline from 1255 in September. This sharp, but very short-term rise already has long-time permabulls such as Larry Kudlow suggesting that instead of pushing back their predictions of economic recovery from mid-2009 to the end of the year, economists should be considering the possibility of GDP growth in the second quarter.

Hope springs eternal in the mouth of the financial whore whose income is derived from market churn.