Random Thoughts

Legislation to restrict guns is a lot like legislation to restrict abortion - it's a tough sell at the federal level because of that pesky Constitution so it requires a friendly court and and a lot of lawyers. States, of course, can do it more easily. Some states have ways to restrict abortions and some states have ways to restrict guns. Gun restriction proponents like Vice-President Joe Biden would probably like to restrict abortions too. America is the only civilized country that still allows late-term abortions on demand, but abortion doctors don't rush into schools and go on an abortion…

Next Sunday Italians will vote to change the composition of the two houses of parliament: the "lower" Camera dei Deputati and "upper" Senato della Repubblica. And as often happens with Italian politics, things are complicated. So, despite this site is mostly visited for other reasons than trivialities about politics in foreign countries, I thought I would provide here my own short-sighted, biased panorama of the situation. Italy was led until the end of 2011 by Silvio Berlusconi, who had to resign under strong pressure due to the emerging stories of his sexual relationship with underage girls…

If you are a long-time Thor comic book reader, you know Thor's hammer used to be really, really heavy. That means Thor used to be really, really strong.  Somewhere along the way Big Hulk lobbyists decided that the green guy should be the strongest character in Marvel comics,so writers gave him both virtually unlimited strength and decided that Thor's hammer, the creatively-named Mjolnir (doesn't it just sound like Norse should sound?) was magic, and that is why only he could lift it.  He wasn't the strongest guy around any more, which left it with being supernatural, kind of a cop-…

A group of political scientists says a growing field of research has found links to genetics and political preferences - well, sort of. They don't come right out and declare a genetic component determines whether a person will affiliate as a Democrat or a Republican - that is up for biologists to find, much like  mathematicians who invent time travel insist experimental physicists have to prove them right. Rather, they claim, individuals tend to have a broad, evolution-based orientation toward being more conservative or liberal about various elements, such as protecting their in-group.…

I’m going to go out on a limb, and write about guns. Specifically, handguns and so-called “assault weapons.” I’m not going to opine about what the law should or shouldn’t be, but only about the personal advisability of owning these kinds of firearms. Likewise I make no comment about shotguns and single-action rifles. If you enjoy owning them for skeet or target shooting, I’ve got no argument with you, and in fact I agree those activities are kind of fun. If you like them for dove or deer, more power to you, even though I don’t share your passion for hunting. Pistols Those statistics that say…

Two Asian charities have joined forces with the U.S. National Funeral Directors' Association (NFDA) to get people to start thinking about deathcare rather than healthcare. No, deathcare is not another tine in Britain's expanding Liverpool Death Pathway fork, it is a chance to think about the way your final exit is made, assuming you were told you are on the NHS' mandatory road to demise in time to plan.  Funerals used to be local affairs, someone came around and sold you a plot, and then a funeral director gouged your family for the big money in their moment of grief, but now it is a big…

During the short time that Roy Thomas took over as writer of the Fantastic Four from Stan Lee, the original writer, it got a lot better.  I know, I know, that is blasphemy.(1) There is a reason Stan Lee gets a cameo in every movie about every Marvel superhero - he co-created them all, he made them all famous. He is a bigger legend than the guys behind Batman or Superman, his economic impact rivals the GDP of many small nations. Still, when is the last time you read a good Stan Lee comic? Eventually, people are just phoning it in. And that had happened on the Fantastic Four by 1972. By…

Sometimes, conversations/threads have a useful life that extends beyond either the presently limited lifetime for comments stimulated by a particular article, or the context of the article that spawned them.  While each author has control over the content and lifetime of the comment sections of their own articles/'blogs, we (typically, and rightfully) do not have such power over the comment sections of other authors. So, I am creating this 'blog forum for the continuation of any such useful conversations/threads that I, in my sole judgement, deem appropriate. While I will invite those…

There was an old man and a second, older man who was considerably older than the old man; they were visiting a very old man.  The afternoon passed without them saying a word.  As the sun was low already, the old man said slowly: “I didn’t expect that I would come to think like this.” The older man slowly took a deeper breath, just barely audible to the other two old men, looked further into the distance and replied: “Yes.” The old man added: “And there is no point in telling.”  After a short silence, the older man replied: “That is why.” The very old man kept silent, and so…

If you subscribe to New Scientist, you can read an excerpt of "Science Left Behind" by their editors, drawn from the book and dealing with some of the more nonsensical ways progressives get catered to by politicians who are happy to check science, reason and data at the door if it will get out some votes; in this case by replacing plastic utensils in the Congressional cafeteria with corn-based ones that melted in soup and couldn't cut anything. This was supposed to appeal to the environmental movement - and it certainly did - but it did nothing at all to help the environment. Its cancellation…