Brad Klippert Against Gun Control

As a police officer, 8th LD State Representative, Brad Klippert, doesn't think that stricter laws on gun ownership are necessary. He's tough enough to face whatever arsenals are out there and you should be, too. He opines that the problem isn't guns, it's people.  I'm looking forward to the legislation he will introduce to help make mental health care more accessible to those who need it.   Yeah, really.  I am.

The G.O.P.’s Existential Crisis

Paul Krugman provides a short list of problems that threaten the continued existence the Republican Party as it is now constituted.
1. The party's real goal is to eliminate the welfare state, Social Security and Medicare.  But these programs are too popular to attack directly.
2. The indirect attack is to first reduce taxes and revenue then to use the lack funds as an excuse to cut the programs.
3. The idea is to use other sources of strength, such as white resentment, national security, and working class dislike of change to establish power, then to use that power against the programs.
4. But these sources of strength are now liabilities. There are now more Hispanics than southern whites. Women's rights are stronger than anti-abortion and anti-gay support.  And they failed to get Osama Bin Ladin.

Their goals are now so far out of reach that they have no effective strategy whatsoever.

Gun control in Israel and Switzerland

Contrary to a frequently-invoked myth. Israel and Switzerland are not gun-toting utopias.  In fact, Israel has found that when the IDF troops were required to leave their weapons at the base, firearm suicides went way down.  Maybe there is something to this gun control thing.

Way to Go, Guys

Tri-City representatives get a failing grade.

Mid-Columbia Reps. Bruce Chandler, R-Granger, Susan Fagan, R-Pullman, Larry Haler, R-Richland, Brad Klippert, R-Kennewick, Joe Schmick, R-Colfax, and David Taylor, R-Moxee, as well as Sens. Jerome Delvin, R-Richland, Mike Hewitt, R-Walla Walla, Jim Honeyford, R-Sunnyside, and Schoesler received "F" grades.

Thorium Not Proliferation-Proof

While thorium is quite valuable as a nuclear fuel, it isn't as proliferation-proof as first advertised.

Synthetic fuel vs. Crude Oil

A full-court analysis of synthetic fuel say that synthetic fuel from coal and/or non-food feedstocks could be competitive with oil-based fuels.  If we want to reduce the transportation carbon footprint, we have to use biomass.

X-47B Catapult Launch Makes Naval Aviation History

This is cool.  The future carrier-based drone has shown that it can be launched from a catapult.

Tracking Space Junk

Junk FM signals can be used to snapshot the location of all the space junk orbiting the planet at once.  With a few shot taken at appropriate intervals, the orbits can be predicted so that anything that might threaten a satellite can be dealt with.

Do millionaires move to avoid high taxes?

Millionaires don't move that much based on taxes. Especially when new tax rates are still below those in alternative destinations.

Sea levels rising faster than IPCC projections

Someone should be paying attention to this.  And this, too.

Citizens United and the Fall of the Roman Republic

Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni have an interesting piece on how big, no, HUGE money corrupted the quasi-democratic tradition of the Roman Republic.  Massive wealth led to large concentrations of power to the point that democratic practices became history and the Empire was born.