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“Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

In the wake of the Arizona shootings the White House “team” is looking at Gun Control.   Both of the articles below mention “assault weapons,” the generic term that the anti-gunners always use to apply to weapons they want banned.  My understanding was that the nut case Jared Loughner used a Glock with a 33 round magazine.   I didn’t think that a Glock is an assault weapon, but apparently it is now.

Newsweek Article

USA Today Article

I still fail to understand why the Progressives go after the instrument rather than the individual that committed the crime?  What happened to personal responsibility?  Why don’t we enforce the laws on the books before we make new ones?  Why did Jared Loughner’s mental background not come up when he tried to purchase a weapon?

Richard Cohen of the Washington Post in a recent article (link) seems to think the gun is to blame.   Mr. Cohen references a study from the Brady Campaign that states that more Americans were killed by gun violence (651,697) in the 18 year period from 1979 to 1997  than were killed in wars (650,858) since 1775.

However, in the 651,697 figure there were 334,870 suicides (the largest category in the study) 278,865 homicides, 28,964 accidental shootings, and 8,998 from Unknown causes.  The only reason I can think of that you would include suicide in these figures is that you want to inflate the numbers.  I would think that if someone is going to do their self in and there was not a gun available, they would certainly find a way.  Maybe they would get in their car and crash it into a bridge abutment.  Over the same period of 1979 to 1997, there were 844,175 deaths in automobile accidents.  Mr. Cohen says that America is a violent society but maybe we are even more a society of poor drivers!

Medical malpractice in some form has become the third highest cause of death in the United States. It is estimated that approximately 12,000 people die from unnecessary surgery, 7,000 die from medication errors, 20,000 people die from various other errors in hospitals, 80,000 people die from infections acquired in hospitals, and an amazing 106,000 deaths occur every year bad effects of medications. Using these estimates, that would say that 3,936,660 people would die over an 18 year period.  Compare that to the 28,964 deaths that are attributed to accidental shootings in the 18 year period from 1979 to 1997, and it pales in comparison.

These statistics suggest that if I got in my car and went for a drive I would be four times more likely to be killed in an automobile accident than being the victim of a homicide.  I don’t even want to think about driving to the hospital!

I was watching your President last night give his state of the union address.  Well, I didn’t watch it all, I watched enough to see where it was going and switched over to an old episode of “Law and Order, SVU.”   Yeah, pretty desperate wasn’t it.  Barb has watched the Law and Order series for the whole time we’ve been married. I’m pretty sure that I have seen every episode at least twice. I really have to be wanting for something to watch to switch to L&O.  I think we have something close to 200 channels on DirecTV but there are times you just can’t find anything to watch. But, I digress.

Exciting speech.....

I was watching Biden in the background. Watching his expressions.  I kept thinking that he looked like someone else, someone fairly familiar but I couldn’t quite decide who.

Then it hit me.  Biden looks just like Walter. Jeff Dunham’s Walter.  I said to Barb, put a sweater on Biden and cross his arms and who does it look like?  She recognized it right away! Walter!

Jeff Dunham is a ventriloquist that has frequently been on the Comedy Central and various other TV shows as well as on his own DVDs.  We have several of his DVDs.  He is a stitch.  The character of Walter is a grumpy old man that really doesn’t have anything nice to say about anything or anybody.   Here is an example in one of his videos:

Listening to Walter reminds me of Biden too!   But, I think you will agree, that there is a striking physical resemblance. I also think that their heads may also be made out of the same material.

Makes more sense now……..

Young Cody Alicea of  Denair, California proudly displayed his American Flag on his bicycle.  However, school officials told him that for “safety reasons” he couldn’t ride his bike with the American Flag on it to school.   So young Cody called for some help, and got it.  Check out this video:

KCRA Video

Cool huh?   It is great to see a young man like Cody standing up for his rights.  And it’s great that the American Legion Riders came to help him out.  Can’t you imagine what what the school officials thought when Cody rode up with his “friends!”

This is one of the neatest things I have seen in a while!  Dolphins blowing bubble rings and then playing with them.  Check out this video:

http://wimp.com/dolphinbubbles/

Isn’t that just about the most interesting thing you have seen?  The fact that the dolphins have learned how to do this from each other is just amazing.

January 10, 2011 – This is the most snow I have seen in Georgia in my lifetime.  For the past week the local news and weather has been telling us that we had a big storm coming, and they weren’t kidding!

6 inches in my back yard

Sunday night at 9 PM the flurries started.  By 10 PM when I went to bed there was almost an inch on the deck.  This morning we woke up to 6 inches in the yard, about 5 inches on the deck.

Growing up in Georgia I remember having as much as four inches of snow.  In 1993 the Atlanta area had about 7-8 inches.  That snow paralyzed the city for several days.  But that was before I moved back to Atlanta, I was living in Sunny South Florida then.

It is a winter wonderland out side this morning.  The snow has stopped, but we are getting a little sleet right now.  The Weather Channel is forecasting sleet and freezing raid for the rest of the day, accumulation of only about .1 of sleet and ice is forecast, but that is enough to make the roads difficult to navigate.

Looks like a post card!

The real problem is to come.  We are not going to see any significant warming over the next week, so there won’t be anything to melt the snow.  With cars driving over the snow, turning it into slush that will re-freeze overnight, we’re in for some problems on the roads.

Winter Wonderland!

As I finish writing this blog, I notice that the sleet is picking up.  I was out about two hours ago taking these pictures and the sleet was very light.  It is picking up now, just at the Weather Channel predicted.  But, in the meantime, it sure is pretty!