Tight Formation

Our Latest on Guns And Society
With various proposals beginning to appear on gun control, we thought it might be useful to see how they may play out in the real world. For example, gun control advocates want to limit or eliminate the availability/sale of assault rifles and high capacity ammunition magazines. So, the thinking goes, people like Loughner and Lanza could not use these weapons to kill...what, as many people? Presumably, they could still get access to more conventional weapons, so - and we are straining to be objective on the logic - even though they could still shoot people in a crowded school or theater, the carnage would not be as bad. Is that the argument? Would Newtown be less of a tragedy if only five children were killed? Of course not. Which brings us back to the rationality of the gun control argument. Blogger Derecho Washington argues - if he is being serious - for Federal buybacks of ALL guns. It is a completely unrealistic suggestion, but at least is more logical than a partial ban on this or that.

And so we return to our central argument on the issue: namely, American culture. Madmen will continue to do great violence if the culture desensitizes them to violence. For the record, we are neither adamantly for nor against the assault weapon/ammunition ban. Ban them if you will, but at the same time ban violent video games, bring pressure on Hollywood to tone down the violence in movies, identify people at risk for mental illness and hospitalize them if necessary, make divorce and single motherhood the exception, and encourage rather than mock the role of religion in society...for starters.


Windy
Unlike the A.I.G. rescue, however, the government’s wind-down of its G.M. bailout is expected to lose money. The Treasury Department’s break-even pricepoint is generally estimated at about $53 a share, following the car maker’s I.P.O. (NYT, 12/19/2012)

Obama's much vaunted GM bailout in which he used our tax dollars to save the jobs of union workers who would vote for him and give him campaign contributions funneled through UAW dues. The Treasury will sell 200 million shares at $27.50 by year-end. Do the math. 


The Rising
Given what we know now, there is almost no way that the feared large temperature rise is going to happen. Mr. Lewis comments: "Taking the IPCC scenario that assumes a doubling of CO2, plus the equivalent of another 30% rise from other greenhouse gases by 2100, we are likely to experience a further rise of no more than 1°C."

A cumulative change of less than 2°C by the end of this century will do no net harm. It will actually do net good—that much the IPCC scientists have already agreed upon in the last IPCC report. Rainfall will increase slightly, growing seasons will lengthen, Greenland's ice cap will melt only very slowly, and so on. (Matt Ridley, WSJ, 12/18/2012)

Addendum (we'd like to see): Reached for comment on these latest findings which contradict their position, Gore and McKibben declared again that climate change is "settled science, because we say so."


Charges
The attack in Benghazi and the Obama administration’s explanation of what happened and who was responsible became politically charged issues in the waning weeks of the presidential campaign, and Republicans have continued to demand explanations since then. Susan E. Rice, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, took herself out of consideration for secretary of state after Republican criticism of comments she made in the aftermath of the lethal attack threatened to become a divisive political battle. (NYT, 12/18/2012)

Editor's note (we'd like to see): And by "Obama administration" we mean specifically President Obama and Hillary Clinton.