I often hear claims that studies show that gun control does not reduce fatalities; I personally suspect that good gun control laws do reduce fatalities, and here's an instance where they almost certainly saved a lot of lives:

On March 3rd 2006, one Mohammed Reza Taheriazar, originally from Iran, tried to run over students at the University of North Carolina with a rented Jeep Grand Cherokee.  Fortunately, his driving skills wer poor, and nobody was killed: six students were treated at the hospital, three more treated at the scene.  Taheriazar claimed that he was trying to kill Americans "to avenge the deaths of Muslims worldwide."

I have no idea if this is good research or not, but the results are definitely entertaining.  An study published in article published in the Journal of Research Into Personality, Professor Jack Block finds that kids who whine and complain a lot tend to grow up to be Conservatives, while the self-confident, resilient, self-reliant kids tend grew up to be liberals.

(I found this at Democratic Undergound;  link to Toronto Star article.)

The blogosphere is abuzz this morning with news that two more US deaths (and one in Canada) may have occured from RU-486, the "chemical abortion" drug.  This brings to six the total number of US deaths that have been linked to RU-486.

Any death is a tragedy; but these deaths must be put in context.  The FDA determines drug safety based on alternatives - if a drug is considered to be safe if it is as safe, or safer, than alternative treatments (or doing nothing).

In the case of RU-486, we can say that a pregnant woman has three alternatives:

After the Constitutional Convention, A lady asked of Ben Franklin:

"Well Doctor what have we got - a republic or a monarchy?"

"A republic", replied the Doctor, "if you can keep it."

Senator Russell Feingold has introduced a resolution to censure our president for violating the law. The violated law in question, as we all know, is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).  Harry Truman said that "The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know".  Bearing this in mind, what does history tell us about our presidents violation of FISA?  Is it a trifling to be ignored?  A molehill that Feingold is trying to turn into a mountain?  Or is it a dangerous new milestone in the path toward the end of the Republic?

According to yesterday's column by Robert Novak, polling indicates that both Karl Rove and Robert Novak are in deep voodoo:   

"Interviews of 1,003 voters last Nov. 5-16, conducted for the Democratic Leadership Council, showed 59 percent felt Rove should quit while 25 percent said he should not. Comparable figures for DeLay were 63 percent and 24 percent. While DeLay faces trial in Texas after being indicted in a campaign finance controversy, Rove has been investigated but not indicted in the CIA leak case.

On October 17 1929, Irving Fisher issued the following statement:

"Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau. I do not feel there will be soon if ever a 50 or 60 point break from present levels, such as (bears) have predicted. I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher than it is today within a few months." 

One week later, the stock market crashed, dropping from a high of 381 on 9/3/1929 to a low of 41 on 7/8/1932 - almost a 90% drop.  It took roughly 25 years for the stock market to recover back to its peak.

W. "Mitt" Romney used the occasion of a Martin Luther King tribute breakfast on Monday to blast the Massachusetts teacher's unions.  Talking about opposition to charter schools, The Boston Herald reports that our governor remarked:

"Sad to say that the teachers union and their supporters will fight these answers with every tool they have,... They will distort and deprive, they will torture and twist, but don’t forget, to them, it’s first about compensation and jobs. To you, it’s about kids and their future”

I decided to put Romney's assertion to the test - is there any evidence that Massachusetts teachers only care about money?  Are they a bunch of rotten hacks, as Romney implies, or - perhaps they are professionals doing a good job?

Let's look at the numbers and see what we can find out:

It may come as a surprise to many, but once again we fail to find evidence that the United States has particularly good healthcare for an industrialized nation.  According to our own government's figures, 42 countries have better infant mortality rates than do we - including Cuba.

To put this in perspective, if our rate (6.50 infant deaths per 1,000 live births) were improved to match that of #1 ranked Singapore (2.29 infant deaths per 1,000 live births), the lives of 17,859 babies would be saved each year in the US.

The NSA domestic wiretap situation is pretty complex to begin with, and the Fringe Right is making it even more complex by throwing out misleading information.  Since I often find myself explaining many of the details to folks, I thought that it would be useful to put together a quick guide to common questions.

• What happened?
• What's the big problem here?  Why are many people upset?
• Why might this be illegal?
• What exactly does the executive order do? 
• Why is this different from what happened before?
• What's the big deal about the NSA spying in the United States?
• What's the big deal about the spying on US citizens in the US without a warrant?
• What is FISA?
• What is the FISA court?
• But what if we need to establish a wiretap even faster than the FISA courts can rule on it?
• What if the FISA courts are too strict, and prevent important wiretapping?
• Didn't Presidents Carter and Clinton also issued executive orders for warrantless spying?
• Didn’t Congress’s post-9/11 resolution give the President the right to spy on US citizens in the US?
• We’re at war!  Can’t the President wiretap phones without a warrant to protect us during a time of war?
• Doesn’t the President have the right to do anything necessary to protect us?
• Didn't exposing this secret program help terrorists?
• Will Bush be impeached if the executive order is unconstitutional?
• Didn't The Supreme Court Authorize the President To Wiretap Without A Warrant in Katz v. U.S.?

What happened?