Tag: Isaiah Mustafa

Do Not Panic

Yesterday, two elementary students were injured when a nutcase wearing black and spewing nonsense about the President opened fire with a gun.

Mark my words, by Monday some parent will be insisting that outdoor recess be abolished as “too dangerous.” The argument will be nothing more than “What if something like this happens again?? Better safe than sorry!”

But before we start herding all the children into the gymnasium, let’s look at some facts. According to these guys, there are over 38,000,000 elementary school students in the United States. The nice folks at the Census (plus my pocket calculator) say it’s only 37,811,132. For simplicity’s sake, let’s just say 38 million. This doesn’t include high school students.

Now then, how many students have been injured by guns at an elementary school? This is sufficiently rare that a Google search for “elementary school gun” turns up a collection of stories of kids expelled for having guns, toy guns, water guns, BB guns, stories of gun scares, etc.. Add the word “injured” and yesterday’s item fills most of the first page. If we go to Wikipedia’s page on “school shootings”, we find that in the last three years exactly 34 people have been killed in school shootings, including incidents on college campuses and high schools, including faculty and other adult victims. In fact, there have only been 27 school shooting incidents on elementary, middle, junior high, and grade school campuses in the United States ever, including yesterday.

So, we have a literal less than one in a million chance of being shot at school. You have more chance of dying today in a car wreck than being involved in a school shooting ever.

By way of contrast, an American child has a one in 3 chance of being overweight or obese, putting them at increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, sleep apnea, cancer, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and a host of other life shortening problems.

You want to play the “won’t somebody think of the children” card? Send them outside for recess. Let them go play.

In Closing: Could you pass the citizenship test?; People other than me are calling the foreclosure mess fraud (perhaps the BAMTOR Principle will crumble and people will go to prison?); if everybody eats there then how come I never see them?; disconnected; demented; decline of business casual (it’s all your fault!); and smell like a monster.

Good Riddance

Yesterday, Mayor Daley the Younger of Chicago — not to be confused with his father — announced that he would not seek a 7th term in office. Quicker than most people can eat a Chicago-style hot dog, speculation began that Rahm Emanuel would run for the position. This speculation is serious enough that even CNN is speculating about who might replace Mr. Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff.

My answer? Is James Baker available?

I kid of course. But the point remains that leaving the White House would be the best thing to happen for the Obama Administration, even if President Obama doesn’t know it. Mr. Emanuel is the biggest problem facing the Democratic Party today, alienating core constituencies by saying stuff like “F*** the UAW” and completely ignoring the grass-roots support that got his boss elected. He’s a symptom of a faux-populist White House that gives half-measures on everything and then wonders how come nobody is happy with the half-assed results.

Seriously. Run, Rahm, Run! Get your tuchus out of Washington and back to Chicago, where that kind of “Because I’m in charge and said so” politics actually works. It’s the best thing for everybody.

I wanted to embed this, but it’s disabled. Try this version instead:

In Closing: low Vitamin D levels linked to heart failure and schizophrenia; bike helmets; antibiotic beer; caught evolving; more people might vote if there were better candidates; instant karma; rich people sure are different; how to save Social Security; how to study; War is Over??; on Craigslist; infrastructure is not a boondoggle; dumbass; Ms.; tuition; we know the economy sucks!; and let Isaiah Mustafa do your voicemail message. On a horse.

Oh, and Happy New Year.

Shorties Lake

Latte Economy Revisited: It turns out that more Americans think it is important to create jobs — and specifically manufacturing jobs — than worry about the deficit. Dave doesn’t think we have a Latte Economy; he thinks we have a “Cake or Death” economy.

Education Researchers Don’t Need Statistics: A real scientist looks at the “good kindergarten teachers will help your kids earn more money” study. Unfortunately the figures don’t add up.

Left of Center, Maybe: Great quotes. “If we were a right-of-center nation, you could win an election by saying you planned to eliminate Medicare and Social Security. After all, this would be an effortless way of leaving the unprecedentedly bloated defense budget intact while still cutting big ‘gubment.’ Instead such a proposal is grounds for getting you burned in effigy.” Also, “The reality: the majority of Americans are actually progressive whether or not they call themselves that. Poll after poll finds when Americans are asked how they feel about issues like the minimum wage, protecting the environment, gay rights and even gun control – the majority agrees with the Left.”

Follow up: Dipak Desai’s competency hearings are beginning.

You’ve got to read this and pass it on!: Ok, if you’ve been reading me for a while you probably know all this, but MoveOn’s got the top 5 Social Security myths. And they’re delightfully blunt about the motives of the people who keep spouting them.

Speaking of which, talk to Granny about where she gets her information on the health insurance reform bill: It turns out that a lot of senior citizens are very misinformed.

Funny Thing, Most of Us Get Fired for Not Doing Our Jobs: Five years ago I said “If you have moral problems with doing your job, you must quit. Today. Otherwise, you are saying your morals only matter when they inconvenience others. A vegan waitress knows she will have to serve meat unless she works in a vegetarian restaurant; a recovering alcoholic realizes he should probably not go to bartender’s school; pacifists normally don’t enlist in the armed forces.” This week a judge said yeah, you don’t have a right to only do the parts of your job that you like, and you don’t have the right to re-write your professional guidelines to suit your moral qualms.

It had been months since I linked Pandagon and now I’m doing it twice in one post: Some conservatives are in a tizzy that President Obama is sitting down to an interview with Barbara Walters and a few of her friends… on her daytime show aimed at a mostly SAHM audience. Here’s a little secret — it turns out that women have had the ability to vote since 1920, and the sort of women who can take the time to watch daytime TV have the time to get to the polls.

Fine, how do YOU want to measure it??: 10 key indicators show that yes, global climate change is real. That’s what most scientists call global warming these days so freak snow doesn’t confuse the small-minded.

It sure would have been nice for someone, like say the news media, to have pointed this out in 2002: Hans Blix on the fact that he found no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq because there were none.

How nice for somebody, I guess: Health insurer Aetna made more money last quarter — even though they had less revenue — because of lower costs (that is to say, less paying for actual health care).

And finally: an interview with Isaiah Mustafa, “The Old Spice Guy.” Turns out he’s got some acting parts that involve wearing a shirt. Also turns out he’s a P90X guy.