Yearly Archives: 2011

Why Guns Need To Be Controlled

Delbert Huber shot and killed Timothy LarsonDelbert Huber, an 81-year old Kandiyohi County Minnesota man, got into a verbal argument with 43 year old Timoth Larson. Huber settled the dispute by blasting Larson with his gun. Larson is dead. Larson was a special ed teacher at St. Michael-Albertville Middle School West.

Twenty Two year old Mattisha Houston killed Joseph Wells in Houston. She was shooting at a tree in her back yard, missed the tree, and Wells was killed while watching his TV.

Timothy Huber, the son of Delbert was also arrested. [source]

This is not the usual sort of thing I like to point out, but since it was close to home I thought I’d mention it .

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Johnnie Flow armed herself with a handgun last February, because she felt her family was being threatened. The gun was not legal, and apparently there was no attempt at safety training.

Then, her 3 year old son go thold of the gun and shot her other kid, 2-year old Payton, in the stomach.

Johnie says:

“I’m not a bad mother,” Flow said. “Anybody who knows me knows my babies mean the world to me. That was just a freak accident.”

Ah, Johnnie, sorry, no. You are a bad mother. That was not a freak accident. That was you having a loaded gun that was not locked away. You turned one of your kids into a victim of gun violence, and the other into a perp. That does not mean that you can’t be a good mother, but just saying that you are a good mother because you want it to be true is a stupid as leaving a loaded gun in reach of your toddlers.

Also, you are reproducing too fast. Slow down.

The victim was release from the hospital on Saturday.

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Confront Sudan

A petition:

Change US policy to confront the government of Sudan for ongoing mass atrocities and act to protect innocent civilians

Recent events in Southern Kordofan, Blue Nile, Abyei and Darfur prove that the government of Sudan is continuing to use the same deadly methods that it has employed for years against its own people: attacking civilians on a broad scale with its army, militia and air force; limiting and blocking humanitarian assistance to millions displaced by attacks; and focusing US attention on negotiations that are not honored. It is time for significantly escalated action by the United States consistent with the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. Condemnations of new war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are necessary, but not sufficient.

8 years after the start of the Darfur genocide, it is time for escalated action by the US to stop the genocides and mass atrocities in Sudan.

Sign Here

German Semi-Wild Child = Fake? And other matters

L’enfant sauvage, the 1970 movie by Truffaut, depicted a plausible case of a “wild child” … a person left at very young age in the wild, who then grew up in the absence of human culture. Such wild children are rare, and most of them are not real, or at least, not as wild as originally claimed.

A team of psychologists who were interested in the phenomenon and related questions (like, how is language learned?) attended the opening of that movie during the same week that they were informed of the existence of another wild child of sorts, Genie. Genie, later depicted (very indirectly) in the 1994 movie Nell, was not left in the woods. She was left in the closet, but still grew up without much human interaction.

Continue reading German Semi-Wild Child = Fake? And other matters

Will Bachmann run for Congress or not?

Michele Bachmann
If Michele Bachmann plans to be president, why is she leaving the people in her district hanging?

If she does not become President of the United States and the Free World and stuff, that is.

Increasingly, as her apparent irrelevance in the presidential race, which has been very dissapointing to me, sets in and congeals like bad Minnesota Jello, this question becomes important. Is she or is she not going to run for re-election to Congress?

Continue reading Will Bachmann run for Congress or not?

Gobal Warming is Melting the Ice Caps

My first job as an archaeologist in Boston (having moved there from New York) had to do with Deer Island, the northern of two islands that separate Boston’s Inner and Outer Harbors. The actual archaeology was uninteresting but the historical research was fascinating. Among the things I learned is that Boston’s Inner Harbor regularly froze over. It no longer does. When the Continental Army placed the British in Boston under Siege at the beginning of the Revolution, the idea of holding off an assault until the harbor froze over was routine. No one expected the harbor to not freeze over. More recently, the harbor is generally open all winter, and when it does freeze over, it is a significant bother.
Continue reading Gobal Warming is Melting the Ice Caps