The legal gun won this fight or...

How different things might have been at Virginia Tech if Seung-Hui Cho hadn't had the only gun on campus.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Kevin O'Brien

Plain Dealer Columnist

Arthur Buford is dead, and that's a sad thing.

Arthur had his whole life ahead of him. He was just a kid, after all - a 15-year-old freshman at John F. Kennedy High School.

What he didn't know, as he approached Damon Wells' house in southeast Cleveland on Saturday night, was that his whole life consisted of just a few more seconds.

Arthur had a gun, which he and another youngster apparently thought would give them the power to take something from Wells, who was standing on the front porch.

Whatever Arthur's plan was, it unraveled. It didn't account for the possibility that the guy who looked like an easy mark would have permission from the state of Ohio to carry a concealed weapon, or that he would bother to arm himself just to walk to the neighborhood store and back.

Arthur's plan depended on catching Wells off-guard. But Wells wasn't off-guard. He had a plan of his own, against the day when someone like Arthur might come along.

Wells' plan was to avoid becoming a crime victim, and that's how Arthur ended up dying of several gunshot wounds to the chest.

Wells hasn't given The Plain Dealer much more than monosyllables, and I don't blame him. What would he say? That he's sorry he was prepared? That he's sorry he defended himself?

Unless he's a man without a conscience, he probably finds it regrettable that it came down to a him-or-me situation. But it's clear that he's not a man devoid of the desire to go on living, so he's got to be glad that it turned out to be "him, not me." But you can't just come out and say that sort of thing without the sensitivity police coming after you, so the less said the better.

The real police, however, aren't planning to charge Wells with anything. They say the shooting was justified.

It's just about impossible to argue that, but here come the arguments.

Arthur's relatives and friends are upset that the law isn't going after Wells.

They want someone to blame - other than Arthur. But they shouldn't be allowed to bully the police or the city administration into taking action against a guy who was minding his own business on his own porch when suddenly confronted by an armed teenager.

Then there's the conceptual side of the argument - the big-picture side that says citizens shouldn't be allowed to have guns and certainly shouldn't be allowed to walk around with them.

This kind of incident proves knee-jerk gun foes wrong, and they know it.

"This is one of the few where they actually used it [a legally carried concealed weapon] to stop a crime," Toby Hoover of the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence grudgingly told a Plain Dealer reporter.

But there are more than a few such cases. There are thousands every year, all over the country.

And where are the statistics on gun crimes committed by holders of concealed-carry permits? Something tells me that if they happened at anything approaching the rate of the hundreds of thousands of crimes perpetrated against unarmed Americans every year, we'd be hearing more about them.

The fact is, the concealed-carry "threat" has turned out to be malarkey, just as it was in the many states that debated such laws long before Ohio.

Three of my last four columns have had to do with young people getting killed, and that's a sad thing. In two of those cases, a teenage boy was in the wrong place at the wrong time, doing wrong when someone shot him.

In the third, 32 college students were doing what they were supposed to do.

After I wrote about last week's outrage at Virginia Tech University, I got a series of sneering e-mails from a reader, along the lines of, "Next, you'll be suggesting that teachers should be armed."

I think I'll take him up on that.

Damon Wells is about the same age as the students killed at Virginia Tech. He's got his whole life still ahead of him, and because he was prepared, he'll actually get to live it - presuming he escapes thug-enforced street justice.

How different things might have been at Virginia Tech if Seung-Hui Cho hadn't had the only gun on campus.

From Cleveland Plain Dealer

The day after the VT massacre syndicated radio personality Mark "Great One" Levin interviewed economist and author John R. Lott. Lott's groundbreaking book, "More Guns, Less Crime", was published by University of Chicago Press and is available everywhere including Amazon. An audio record of the interview (16:06 MP3) is here.

Tags: Virginia Tech Shootings Kevin O'Brien More Guns, Less Crime John R. Lott Mark Levin

The Single Square TP Technique Explained:
Singer Sheryl Crow wants us to help save the planet by using only "one square of toilet paper per sitting". Crow's brother goes one step further and suggests washing out the single square for future use! As many military old timers know, the "one square method" does work. Details here; audio from Rush Limbaugh program (8:37 MP3) today where caller Delbert explains. Not for the dainty.
Rosie O'Doozie says "one square's not enough for me"!

Remember, only one sheet per sitting! By the way, is that roll installed properly?

Tagged: Rosie O'Donnell Sheryl Crow toilet paper Rush Limbaugh single square tp
sheryl crow

Connecticut Needs An Official Punk Rock Song?

A bill to designate an official Connecticut polka song has prompted a call for an official Connecticut punk rock song! The Hartford Advocate reports (3/29/07):

When State Planning and Development Committee Clerk Eric Stroker heard the bill, he decided Connecticut needed to be the first state to adopt an official punk-rock song........The song he’s proposing, “Connecticut Fun” — recorded in 1983 by an informal, ad-hoc group of Connecticut punk musicians recording under the name Punkestra — is pretty much the least offensive song recorded under a punk banner except for maybe the Chipmunk Punk album. It’s unabashedly pro-Connecticut, with lyrics imploring listeners to come out and enjoy punk music in the state. (You Tube video of the song below)



Now hyper enthusiasm takes over as State Rep. Diana Urban (D-North Stonington), a proponent of the idea says:

“It’s hilarious.”

“We can move something like this through the legislative process, and it gives us a chance to step back and giggle a little. I’d love this to be the state punk-rock song. If you can’t step back and have a little fun, then you’re taking yourself too seriously,” Urban said."

Further unbridled praise: "Incas Records owner Joe Snow, who recorded the song in 1983 (says), the song captures a seminal moment in Connecticut punk.

“The recording of that song was probably the single most unifying moment in Connecticut music history,” Joe Snow said.

He added: “If it were up to me, not only would it be the official Connecticut punk-rock song, it would be the official state song of any genre.”

Wow! Maybe it's just me but I think any self respecting punker would disdain anything official, musical or otherwise, and especially anything that promotes giggles. We note, however, that other suggestions have been made including a song titled Connecticut is for F*****g
from a group calling themselves Jesus H Christ and The Four Hornsmen of the Apocalypse. The song begins......

We live in the dullest state
Package stores all close at eight
Malls are full of optometrists
And restaurants we hate
Swimming across Lake Quassapaug
Stealing makeup, catching frogs
Cutting our feet on broken bottles
As we wade in the Shepaug
It’s true for horses, cows and dogs…

Connecticut’s for f*****g
That’s all there is to do.
I love to listen to classic rock
and have sex with you.

(complete lyric here-adult content
or listen here MP3)
It is a funny song. Their debut video is below which contains a fragment , at the end, of Connecticut's for F*****g

Joe's Pub Video CD Release Launch


Tags: Punk Rock Connecticut Official Songs

Sample of Statements Requiring a Purge of Talk Radio (According to Media Matters):

1. ____ called Rosie O'Donnell, co-host of ABC's The View, a "fat witch," claimed that O'Donnell has "blubber ... just pouring out of her eyes,

2. ____ claimed that there are three reasons that an illegal immigrant "comes across the border in the middle of the night": "One, they're terrorists; two, they're escaping the law; or three, they're hungry. They can't make a living in their own dirtbag country."

3. _____ said that McKinney's "new hair-do" makes her look "like a ghetto slut," like "an explosion at a Brillo pad factory," like "Tina Turner peeing on an electric fence," and like "a shih tzu.

4. _____ stated that if the country is faced with an impending national disaster, then "hell, yes, we should save the rich people first. You know, they're the ones that are responsible for this prosperity."

5._____ stated that "since [Sen. Barack] Obama [D-IL] has -- on his mother's side -- forebears of his mother had slaves, could we not say that if Obama wins the Democratic nomination and then wins the presidency, he will own [Rev.] Al Sharpton?"

6. _____ proclaimed: My "cat's taught me more about women, than anything my whole life" because his pet cat "comes to me when she wants to be fed," and "[s]he's smart enough to know she can't feed herself. She's actually [a] very smart cat. She gets loved. She gets adoration. She gets petted. She gets fed. And she doesn't have to do anything for it."

7. _____ stated that Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf "should be baking pies, not running a major city."

8. _____ agreed with a caller's assertion that illegal immigrants "bring corrupting influences" to the United States, including "a third-world value system" that "can corrupt the education system." _____ replied: "Absolutely. And that's why the dropout rate is so high."

9._____ played audio clips from Barbara Walters' interview with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, portions of which aired on the March 16 edition of ABC's Good Morning America, and called her a "double-talking slut." _____ added: "She's an empty mind-slut. She'd peddle anything for a ratings point." _____ went on to call Walters a "mental prostitute" and said, "I think that the woman is vermin. I think she's dirt."

10. _____ declared that "[t]he radical homosexual agenda will not stop until religion is outlawed in this county," adding that gay people "threaten your very survival." _____ also stated that homosexuals are "all not nice decorators" and warned: "Gay marriage is just the tip of the iceberg. They want full and total subjugation of this society to their agenda."

Have fun guessing who said these things that Media Matters finds so horrible. That group is leading the surge for the purge of talk radio. Note that there are no lefty commentators on their hit list. Oh, did you hear the Michelle Malkin / Malik Shabazz exchange on the O'Reilly show. Listen here for audio (5:27 MP3) of Michelle's interview with Malik Shabazz (2 days ago). Shabazz blames the "N" word on George Washington! Another audio here (5:25 MP3) with her interview with Opio Sokoni about rappers and the "N" word.

Tagged: Broadcast Censorship Politically Correct Speech Media Matters Bill O'Reilly Malik Shabazz Michelle Malkin

Imus Fiasco: The Marketplace Responds

We guess that the number of these shirts we see on the street will tell us something about our public discourse and whether something really evil occurred on the Imus radio program last week. See how an unfettered marketplace responds quickly to punish bad people all the while spreading their hateful ideas. The most disturbing aspect of the fiasco was the role of the race hustlers, Sharpton and Jackson, who are probably the least qualified people on the planet to cast the first stones. In his comments on The American Thinker, Duncan Maxwell Anderson notes:

In the post-Easter crucifixion of the "Imus in the Morning" radio show that substituted for news this week, the hypocrisy would make a Pharisee blush. All of a sudden, it's supposedly shocking that Don Imus referred to the Rutgers girls' basketball team with language that is routine on millions of "rap" recordings willingly bought by white and black kids alike for lo these 20 years.......

Never mind, even, that such jokes have been a staple of Imus' show for decades. Where have these shocked detractors been? Over the years, he has referred to Gwen Ifill of the New York Times as "a cleaning lady," called tennis-playing Venus and Serena Williams "animals" and compared the forwards of the New York Knicks to gorillas. Race aside, he routinely uses foul and sexually degrading language to middle-aged women who are guests on his show.

Curiously, those abused women on his show, strident feminists all, usually giggle appreciatively. I refer to columnist Maureen Dowd, reporters Andrea Mitchell, Claire Shipman, and Cokie Roberts, and plagiary-challenged historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, to name a few. But then again, they are usually on his show to promote their books....

Tagged: Don Imus American Thinker nappy-headed ho's

Pelosi's Spring Fling!

Ahh, it's Spring Break and this "Girl's Gone Wild". Nancy Pelosi has undertaken a personal and extra-constitutional jaunt to the Middle East to undercut U.S. foreign policy, to hobnob with our enemy in Syria, and to make a fool of herself.

"Stretch"* Pelosi and Bashar "The Chinless Thug" Assad

Pelosi later (now in Saudi Arabia) sidestepped a question on how she felt about the absence of female Saudi council members, saying: "I am very pleased that after 200-plus years in the U.S. we finally have a speaker. It took us a long time."

And what a disgrace that speaker is!

Here she is Chic to Sheik....**

I'm obviously disappointed. I think it is, in fact, bad behavior on her part. I wish she hadn't done it, but she is the speaker of the House, and fortunately I think the various parties involved recognize she doesn't speak for the United States in those circumstances. She doesn't represent the administration. The president is the one that conducts foreign policy, not the speaker of the House.

V.P. Dick Cheney (Rush via Drudge)

*h/t Mark Levin for the "Stretch" moniker.

**h/t Drudge

Tags: Bashar Assad Mark Levin Syria Nancy Pelosi

The Brit Hostages......



OK, so the hostages are being released. Good, I am happy for them and their families. There they are smiling and waving for the cameras in their new (Iranian provided and ill fitting by the looks of them) suits. Their military uniforms discarded along with any semblance of esprit and discipline. No resistance whatsoever by these marines and sailors to their seizure in Iraqui waters and no cover or protection from the mother ship not far away. It seems that every last one of them provided whatever theatrics their captors suggested. Am I wrong in suggesting that such supine obedience to the propagandistic whims of third world islamofacists is shameful and further enables the Iranians' nefarious aims?

Back in their uniforms.....

Home at last: After leaving the plane the sailors lined up for photographers

Source: This Is London

Tags: British Sailors Marines Faye Turney British Hostages

The Owners of Defeat......



Photo of the Day..........

The Wireless Art


"As soon as completed, it will be possible for a business man in New York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his office in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any telephone subscriber on the globe, without any change whatever in the existing equipment. An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its bearer to hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a political leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In the same manner any picture, character, drawing, or print can be transferred from one to another place. Millions of such instruments can be operated from but one plant of this kind. More important than this, however, will be the transmission of power, without wires, which will be shown on a scale large enough to carry conviction. These few indications will be sufficient to show that the wireless art offers greater possibilities than any invention or discovery heretofore made, and if the conditions are favorable, we can expect with certitude that in the next few years wonders will be wrought by its application."

Those are the words of Nicola Tesla in an article titled "The Future of the Wireless Art" which appeared in Wireless Telegraphy & Telephony, 1908. Tesla, the much maligned and eccentric genius, had long sought the answer to electrical transmission without wires. Now tentative advancements have been made and a U.S. company has introduced a system for charging small devices, i.e. cell phones, at a short distance through the air using radio waves.

(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- How much money could you make from a technology that replaces electrical wires? A startup called Powercast, along with the more than 100 companies that have inked agreements with it, is about to start finding out. Powercast and its first major partner, electronics giant Philips, are set to launch their first device powered by electricity broadcast through the air.

It may sound futuristic, but Powercast's platform uses nothing more complex than a radio--and is cheap enough for just about any company to incorporate into a product. A transmitter plugs into the wall, and a dime-size receiver (the real innovation, costing about $5 to make) can be embedded into any low-voltage device. The receiver turns radio waves into DC electricity, recharging the device's battery at a distance of up to 3 feet.

These are baby steps, but first steps.
Oh, and here's a funny ad from "Energy Star" featuring the first static electricity powered home:



Tags:Nicola Tesla PowerCast WirelessPowerTransmission

Remember Me! (Video)

Now, More Than Ever........



....They Need Our Support.

Watch This Video by Liz Palmer on You Tube; it will bring tears to your eyes but it is inspiring. The images are stills from the video.
Technorati: Iraq War Support the Troops Liz Palmer