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Some devices send out mysterious compelling signals to our brains, demanding to be used. A toothbrush and a vacuum cleaner, not so much. But as my friend Andy Lippman observed, a TV “needs watching”. Frodo’s ring wanted to be worn, and a gun wants to be fired at something. There are guns and guns, and [...]
Archive for the ‘Feeling Safer Yet?’ Category
December 20th, 2011
Keith says he not only doesn’t use his cell phone when driving (CWD), but doesn’t talk to people when they are driving. Good for Keith, and the NTSB, which has recommended a flat ban on using cell phones while driving, hands-free or not. Our designated ‘conservative’ columnist, Debra Saunders, weighs in with one of her [...]
November 16th, 2011
Category: Constitutional politics, Crime Control, Feeling Safer Yet?, Firearms, Law Notes, Vote Casting and Counting
Well, this makes sense–if we make it nearly impossible for felons to regain their right to vote, they’ll surely want to regain their right to fire weapons instead.
May 3rd, 2011
Commenting yesterday on how the United States discovered Bin Laden’s whereabouts: “I would assume that the enhanced interrogation program that we put in place produced some of the results that led to bin Laden’s ultimate capture,” said former Vice President Dick Cheney on Fox News. That’s right! He would assume it. He wouldn’t try to [...]
December 22nd, 2010
Tom Coburn took 9/11 first responders hostage — and might have won.
December 8th, 2008
Category: Energy and Environment, Feeling Safer Yet?
George Bush insisted that the only way to fund the auto companies’ bridge loan was to take it from funds earmarked for enhancing automobile fuel efficiency. This will help oil prices stay higher, allowing governments like Iran’s to buy off its population with subsidies. I’m sure that the mullahs in Tehran are delighted.
July 15th, 2008
Category: Feeling Safer Yet?, Terrorism and its control
Only Mark Kleiman could get to the heart of the FBI’s counter-terrorism challenges with a bike and a hair dryer. He’s quite right: the FBI’s “transformation” ain’t pretty. Just last month, a Senate report found that FBI headquarters did not meet security standards to handle classified information. The new head of intelligence at the FBI [...]
July 14th, 2008
Category: Feeling Safer Yet?
The FBI turns 100 this month. Here are 5 gifts I’d love to get the Bureau: 1. An electronic case file system that actually works. 2. Phone books that stop labeling analysts “support,” the catch-all category for non-agents that lumps analysts with secretaries, janitors, and mechanics. 3. Filling the 38% of international counter-terrorism supervisor positions [...]
June 25th, 2007
Category: Feeling Safer Yet?, Terrorism and its control
Finishing up John Lewis Gaddis’ The Cold War: A New History, a passage on the Marshall Plan resonated with me, in chilling fashion. Gaddis observes (pp. 103-104) that the exhausted Soviet Union could never have competed with the Americans in resuscitating European economies after the Second World War: The Americans had another advantage, however, that [...]