patrick.net

I'm so far out of my depth here it isn't funny but my understanding of sun spot events and massive doses of radiation is that they are short term events. Anyone that's ever had a satellite dish (especially the old 10 footers) knows that August can mean disrupted programming.

Expanded (can you hear me know) cell coverage may provide a constant background chatter that disrupts their ability to navigate? Couldn't we just SAY that it does and require a "cell permit" issued only to emergency medical personnel and have all other "un-authorized" transmissions triangulated and terminated?

One thing to note: Science is especially ignorant of things that we do not already know.

The problem lies not in keeping firearms away from psychopaths. It is about keeping psychopaths away from us. People is the problem. Always.

HARM,

Thanks for the link. It was more balanced than my being introduced to CCD (colony collapse disorder) AS A DIRECT RESULT of cellphone transmissions? They list so many possibilities (including retiring beekeepers) it's hard to say. Me personally I get a bad reaction when I get stung so I hope all the little f@ckers bite the big one.

Perhaps bees are not adapting fast enough and they will become extinct.

Scenario 8: Randy and Peter starts artificial honey factory. World peace becomes a fact. End to hunger is declared.

SFBB,

Well said. I'm sure you meant NRA not the NAR (which we're so used to bashing).

Scenario 9:

Artificial honey is plentiful (and cheap!) but near extinction of Blue Agave plant causes Surfer X to go ballistic creating Renter's Rebellion decimating the formerly peaceful enclave of Santa Barbara!

Topanga Canyon is reduced to ruin as roving gangs of tequila deprived maniacs roam the streets!

I will be sad if the bees go away. Honey on hot cornbread and other assorted biscuit type things is extremely nice.

Bees being affected by radiation isn't completely ludicrous, however we certainly don't know enough to start burning the cell towers and as has been noted, there are many other possible reasons for it.

However, it's important to study things like this. The bees having issues may point out something interesting about the magnetic field of the earth, cell phones, bee keeper retirement, etc. And if there is a human created issue, studying the early affected species contains the damage. If it's a natural macro event triggering it, the study may give us insight into many things wholly unanticipated. Many scientific discoveries involve people saying "Hmm... that's weird!"

DinOR,

Whoops... fruedian slip. Man, the NAR's gun control legislation would be hilarious to see. "They're not making any more guns! Buy the biggest gun you can or you'll be priced out forever!"

To bring the topic off gun control for just a moment, DQ just published it's most recent data for foreclosure/default activity for CA:

http://dqnews.com/RRFor0407.shtm

Some tidbits:

The number of default notices sent to California homeowners last quarter increased to its highest level in almost ten years, the result of flat appreciation, slow sales, and post teaser-rate mortgage resets, a real estate information service reported...

Loan originations peaked in August 2005. Adjustable-rate mortgage use for primary purchase home loans peaked at 77.8% in May 2005 and has come down since.

I didn't realize the portion of California primary home purchase loans that were ARMs was that high! Wow.

it's -> its

"we certainly don't know enough to start burning cell towers"

No. No we don't. One of the things I've always kind of struggled with is getting an accurate head count on..... insects? To me it seems hypothetical at best.

Hold still ya' little bastards! Oh great now I gotta start over!

skibum, thanks for the link

The gun equivalent would be “driving in car containing a weapon that is not locked down (in the trunk and/or in a safe cointainer).

I believe California has laws governing that.

Weapons that are small/concealable (HANDguns) should be very tightly regulated, both owning them and carrying/transporting them.

Absolutely not. This is the beginning of a dangerous slippery slope. Guns don't kill. People do. We should have an informant network for neighbors to report dangerous psychopaths and those who evade taxes.

Randy H Says:

> Why are there less bees? Perhaps because there’s
> less habitat, more contaminants, less pollination
> sources, too many monocrops?

Liberals have blamed SUVs for Global warming and cell phones for the drop in the bee population but both are directly related to the drop in the number of pirates worldwide.

As I have said, "global warming" is the biggest hoax of modern history.

justme,

I don't think ANY weapon should be outright banned, and I agree with your notion of escalating registration/responsibility on more dangerous weapons. I'd be perfectly happy knowing that if you went through a several week/month training course and installed an achored closet sized save in your house, you could buy a bazooka. Finding an acceptable bazooka range to use it in (out in the middle of a desert somewhere is the best you can do, i'd think) would be difficult, but some people just love the military hardware.

Making people responsible for their guns legally promotes responsible gun ownership. Responsible gun ownership gives you the benefits the NRA always goes on about while cutting down on the societal problems.

And if we had very responsible ownership/dealers in the U.S., you can bet almost all the guns criminals would be using are black market. And if that's the case, any black market gun-ring found should be prosecutable for attempted manslaughter regardless of any other charges, and if weapons used in crimes can be traced back to them, aiding and abetting and 3rd degree murder charges should be pressable on everyone involved in the black market ring.

Fear not! Pirates have been spotted on the California coast. All will be saved.

SFBB,

The second amendment is archaic in many ways.

Umm, a goodly portion of the rest of the Bill of Rights, as well as habeas corpus has come under fire for being "archaic" in recent years. Not surprisingly, much of the ciritcism comes from people in power who want even more power. Colonial militias can be considered archaic today, but I don't think the right to defend yourself is.

RE: your points:

#1-4: Already the law of the land in most states, including CA. Some kind of more unified approach would be an improvement over the state-by-state patchwork, I agree.

5) Owners held accountable for their weapons. Your guns used in a crime makes you partially liable. You don’t like that? Keep your guns locked up well and inventoried. If your kid gets into the gun closet, goes to school and shoots up a bunch of people, you don’t get guns anymore. If somebody breaks into your house and steals those guns, you better report it ASAP. Gun merchants as well.

This is ludicrous. So, if a criminal steals my car and runs over a bunch of people while trying to escape the police, I --and my car delaer-- should have our driver's licenses permanently revoked? Why should anyone be punished for crimes other poeple commit? I can see the logic behind requiring parents to have child-resistant gun lockers and requiring people to report stolen weapons to the police, but this goes too far.

6) Military grade hardware should require even more extensive training and licensing requirements, including anti-theft instruction and documentation of secure holding facilities for them. (This can be in your own house, but it must be a built in, non mobile gun safe.)

This sounds fine overall, though what actually constitutes "military grade" has been open to debate for some time. Is it the "conspicuous" pistol grip or thumbhole (that makes your weapon easier to aim), or the 15-round pistol magazine in your pistol? Both have been arbitrailry banned in CA. I don't think private citizens really "need" a .50 cal sniper rifle, armor-piercing rounds, or a chain gun for hunting & self-protection, so I think we can agree on that much.

7) Blood Alcohol level maximums while packing. If you’re gonna run around with a gun, don’t be drunk. If only hunters would listen to this. (I’ve got funny stories, and fortunately no tragic ones about this.)

Hmmm... the current Veep comes to mind for some reason. Anyway, I believe this is already a crime in most states, so it's kind of a moot point.

8) Use of a gun in a crime is an automatic jail trip of good, long duration.

IANAL, but doesn't use of a "deadly weapon" in commission of a crime automatically escalate it to a felony and increase the jail sentence required?

Fear not! Pirates have been spotted on the California coast. All will be saved.

And there are pirates in Southeast Asia. Microsoft can attest to that.

skibum,

I'm hardly an expert but looking at the most recent DQ stats it would appear that many loanowners are further behind on their lines of credit than on their primary mortgages. These people must be facing some very tough choices and it looks like more evidence of "reset stress".

Those who propose regulations tend to have much faith in humanity, because those who regulate are no more than human, yet this is a paradox because regulations imply a lack of faith in humanity.

Back in the 90's there was an incident in Mulino, OR where the parents were at work and left a 7 year old "in charge". When the 5 y.o girl wouldn't do as the 7 y.o instructed, he shot her w/a hunting rifle.

As sad as the whole affair was what was even more depressing was the parents reaction. "This is a terrible tragedy". Really? First you put a 7 y.o in charge and leave hime w/access to loaded weapons? There was an investigation and it was (surprise) ruled an accident and the parents were not only *not* charged... they were allowed to keep their surviving children, no questions asked.

I realize that's an extreme example but it happened, and it happened here. Now some kid that didn't want the role of "parent" will get to live out his days knowing he killed his little sister. Great....

Parents should be liable for their children's actions. I hate bad parents.

DinOR,

That may be true. I wonder how much of that difference between primary loans and HELOCs is due to (a) people's psychological rationale of keeping up with the primary mortgage more rigorously compared to the HELOC, since the primary mortgage is what you consider "THE mortgage" for the house, vs. (b) those who get HELOCs are more likely to be FBs and therefore more likely to fall behind than the greater pool of mortgage borrowers.

Either way, these numbers are getting interesting. As I said earlier, it's shocking to me how many recent mortgages were ARMs. I thought even in CA it was more like 60% or so.

Peter,

No no! The moon landings are a bigger hoax by far!

That being said, I think it's fairly obvious that industrial activities CAN affect the environment in deletorious ways, often ways not understood at the time the industrial activities started. Macro-climate change is poorly understood, and the effects of greenhouse gasses imperfectly understood.

However, it does seem likely that the changes in greenhouse gas concentration is more rapid than at any other time we've gotten any reasonable data for, which is almost certainly driven by industrial activities.

Banning industrial activities and going back to a pastoral lifestyle is the only way to remove industrial influences on the globe. And it's a retarded idea.

Coming up with ways to ameliorate the rate of change is, in fact, a good idea. Equillibria systems deal very well with gradual changes. Short, sharp shocks, however can cause a great deal of turmoil. When you have many interconnected systems at equillibrium, predicting the effect of a hard shock in one (say, levels of greenhouse gases) on another (say, the ability for bees to navigate to their hives) ((Not that I'm suggesting SUVs make bees stupid! Just an example!)) is pretty much impossible. Simplified simulations let you make guesses, and we get better and better at modeling short term system reactions, but decades to centuries is the issue here.

There are a great many indications of climatic change, and quite a few indications that it may be unusually rapid climatic change. Global warming may very well be a misnomer born of inadequate modelling. If global average temperature goes up 2 degrees, we really can't say what will happen. We can make good guesses as what will happen to coastlines if all the ice in the world melts, but we can't even predict the exact rise in sea level if that occurs. We can't even predict for sure if the caps WILL melt totally with a specific degree hike in average global temperature. We have evidence that some areas of the world get colder even as average temperatures go up, which could offset loss of ice elsewhere. We don't understand planetary climatic change that well. Maybe we will if we manage to colonize several hundred worlds and live on them all for several thousand years.

We could very well be in a warming phase due to natural planet cycles. We could also be doing it purely with greenhouse gases. Or it could be a combination of the two.

Cutting down on the delta of greenhouse gasses is, at worst, hedging your bet that it's purely cyclical. If it turns out to slow the climate change to something easier to adapt to, sweet. If it turns out not to, well, we at least learned about making cleaner industries.

We could very well be in a warming phase due to natural planet cycles. We could also be doing it purely with greenhouse gases. Or it could be a combination of the two.

Yes. I agree we should do something about the environment and I like green technologies.

But I roll my eyes wherever some scientists say that unless we act in the next 10 years the process will be irreversible. We are not in a movie. :)

No no! The moon landings are a bigger hoax by far!

I do not know about that one.

skibum,

Given the "affordability" levels in CA can I go w/ both a) AND b)?

I have no idea what these people are thinking b/c wouldn't the lender in the 2nd position be able to begin the NOD all the same? Is there a sense that being behind (or further behind) on your 2nd vice your 1st is somehow less damaging? Or that it buys you more time?

Anyone?

All I know is that if the climate is changing, we can only react (like buying up future beach properties). It is laughable that some believe a few regulations can alter the course of Nature.

Even IF the moon landing was a hoax, the effects would be rather harmless.

On the other hand, "global warming" theorists purport to massively change the political landscape of the world.

I was working over the weekend (home stretch to tax filing) and one client told me that the last ice age may have been triggered when Hudson Bay (formerly seperate from the ocean) began spilling over and lowered salinity levels, which shut down thermal conveyors, which sent us into the ice age.

Sounds plausible enough.

And in the Bay Area, regular folks are not likely to be issued concealed carry permits.

Harm,

Reporting the gun as stolen would relieve you of liability for crimes. Loaning your gun to your drinking buddy who then shoots his wife and kids wouldn't. Keeping a bunch of guns in a poorly secured garage that you never check on and having the local kids break in, steal them, and wind up shooting themselves... attractive nuisance.

I also realize many of the laws are in effect. I think a clear federal gun law would be very helpful in it. And like I said, I don't think it should keep law abiding citizens from owning virtually anything they want to, provided they register and license it and keep it out of the hands of hoodlums.

And as for the car, if you leave the keys in the car, the windows down, and don't bother to report it as stolen and it winds up running over some old lady two weeks later, then yes, you should lose the car. You're not being responsible.

Guns are VERY dangerous in the wrong hands, even more so than cars, nailguns, baseball bats, knives, etc. If you've got them properly stored, they'd be very hard to steal, but not impossible. The prosecuters would have to show you were irresponsible with the storage of said guns for you to be liable. This wouldn't bite most gun owners on the ass. It'd bite the guy who sold his gun to a thug for more than it was worth because he could. The gun would still be registered to that guy, and he'd be liable. Or he'd report the gun 'stolen', and it won't take more than a few stolen gun reports from the same guy to figure out who's selling guns to criminals.

People should be responsible for their actions, including their irresponsibility in allowing access to their weapons by people other than themselves.

I should have been a little clearer on that point in the original post, but it was already a mini novel.

Guns are VERY dangerous in the wrong hands, even more so than cars, nailguns, baseball bats, knives, etc.

Wrong people are even more dangerous, with or without guns.

People should be responsible for their actions, including their irresponsibility in allowing access to their weapons by people other than themselves.

I agree. But only if they do not exercise reasonable caution.

Answering Astrid's earlier question

Can we be reasonable and try to[...]

When it comes to gun liberties, no. We cannot be reasonable. The problem with this issue is that it has been exploited by cynical politicians who lack any real ability to lead, so they pick this and a few other emotionally charged issues to polarize and paralyze us. Most people are "in the middle" on this and the other scream-fest issues. In fact, I'll go so far to say anyone who is *entirely* on one side or the other is very likely irrational and most probably suffers some form of mental illness.

But spineless politicians masquerading as leaders hate compromise and cooperation. They don't want to see reasonable, long-lasting solutions. These things put them out of work, and make it hard for them to get re-elected, because without their divisive rhetoric the electorate can readily see them for the blithering morons they usually are.

Without the spontaneous emergence of real leaders this issue and others will not be solved. Unfortunately most people with real leadership potential avoid politics like the plague, and instead find their calling in private commerce, professional sports, the military, transnational NGOs, hospital trauma wards, etc.

Wrong people are even more dangerous, with or without guns.

Let's see a single pissed off guy strangle 31 people to death on a college campus in one morning, then I'll aggree with you. Without guns, you have to space that kind of strangle action out over a decade. On the bright side, you get to send witty letters to the newspapers while doing it!

Gun control will not stop tragedies like that entirely, but it might make them a little less frequent.

And I was trying to suggest that reasonable caution should be sufficient to shield you from liabilty of stolen weapons. I'd just like to see irresponsible gun ownership liable, even if the only liability is that you are no longer allowed to own guns for a certain period, or forever for repeat offenders.

Back again to housing. The monthly homebuilder sentiment survey is down again, due to the subprime mess:

http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/16/real_estate/home_builder_index.reut/index.htm?postversion=2007041614

Not surprising news, but worth noting nonetheless.

I hope I won't be the last person to point out that several multiples of what happened at Virginia Tech today happens in Iraq everyday.

This is not to minimize the suffering of the students and families there (I know people who went there) but to point out we have wrought in Iraq.

@Randy H,

Well said, sir.

Let’s see a single pissed off guy strangle 31 people to death on a college campus in one morning, then I’ll aggree with you.

Perhaps not strangle... what about poison?

Or fire?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daegu_subway_fire

This disgruntled person "killed at least 198 people and injured at least 147." He did not have a gun.

Let's ban fire!