Another victim of gun violence.

Mark Allen Wilson was killed yesterday.
He was a victim of gun violence.

But you won't hear about Mark Allen Wilson from Sarah Brady.
You won't hear about Mark Allen Wilson from Dianne Feinstein.
You won't hear about Mark Allen Wilson from Charles Schumer.
You won't hear about Mark Allen Wilson from Josh Sugarman.
You won't hear about Mark Allen Wilson from the Million Mom March.

One reason that you won't hear about Mark Allen Wilson from any of these well-known members of the anti-gun movement is that Mark Allen Wilson was a gunowner who had a Texas Concealed Handgun License.

Another reason that you won't hear about Mark Allen Wilson from any of these people is that Mark Allen Wilson gave his life yesterday defending David Arroyo, Jr. from his father, David Arroyo, Sr.

David Arroyo, Sr, had just killed his wife, Maribel Estrada, outside the Smith County Courthouse in Tyler, Texas; apparently the two were parties in a bitter child support dispute.

Mr. Arroyo, Sr., who was wearing a bullet-resistant vest and a flak jacket, was eventually stopped and killed by police officers after he fled the scene of the murders.

One last point: It is a known tactic of the anti-gun crowd to direly predict "Wild West scenarios" and "streets running red with blood" whenever concealed carry legislation is proposed in a state legislature.

Concealed carry laws for almost ten years, and in all but a handful of states have proven these predictions to be grossly wrong.

In the vast majority of incidents involving concealed carry, the weapon is never fired; merely displaying the weapon is enough to defuse the situation.

The story of Mark Allen Wilson is the exception to the rule. It is is what used to be known as a "dog bites man" story.

And one last thing:

There's an award for people who save lives under special circumstances. I hope that someone who has first-hand knowledge of what Mark Allen Wilson did today will find these words and nominate him for it.

Hillary Clinton and Iraq

While listening to Roger Hedgecock fill in for Limbaugh today he mentioned that Hillary had declared that the insurgency in Iraq was a failure. Belmont Club and Austin Bay discuss her participation in a congressional trip to Baghdad [ABC News].

Roger also had read off a list of positive developments in Iraq (probably compiled from Chrenkoff) one of which was the Iraqi stock exchange, which has been operant for some months now.

The first thing that came to my mind was whether Sen. Clinton would try to repeat her previous market success by trying to turn a quick hundred G's in camel futures.

Nixon's gotta be chuckling about the Eason Jordan scandal.

His dislike for most of the MSM wasn't exactly a secret.

The only thing that this scandal hasn't gotten so far is its own graphic.

So I've created one.
Feel free to post on your own blog.


DISPLAYED AT 240 X 162



DISPLAYED AT 120 X 81



Y'all have fun, now.

Now this is an Olson that I'd like to meet.

...civilized people go armed to say 'I am self-sufficient. I'll never burden others.' They're also saying 'If you need my help, here I am, ready'- yes, a contradiction, but a pretty noble one, I think. Independence is the source of freedom, the first essential ingredient of mental health....

"Armed people are free. No state can control those who have the machinery and the will to resist, no mob can take their liberty and property. And no 220-pound thug can threaten the well-being or dignity of a 110-pound woman who has two pounds of iron to even things out. Is that evil? Is that wrong?

"People who object to weapons aren't abolishing violence, they're begging for rule by brute force, when the biggest, strongest animals among men were always automatically 'right.' Guns ended that, and social democracy is a hollow farce without an armed population to make it work.

"Wear a gun to someone else's house, you're saying, 'I'll defend this home as if it were my own.' "

Spoken by Clarissa Olson in The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith.

Evidently it takes a libertarian to write science fiction that isn't set in a totalitarian environment.

This guy's essays are pretty darn good, too.
Don't miss On A Clear Day You Can See Bulgaria - But Who Wants to Look?

Charles Murray and the Three Laws of Social Transfer Programs

While reading Toward Liberty - The Idea That is Changing the World, I found the following gem buried in one of the Cato Institute essays:

Law #1: The Law of Imperfect Selection- Any objective rule that defines eligibility for a social transfer program will irrationally exclude some persons.

Law #2: The Law of Unintended Rewards- Any social transfer increases the net value of being in the condition that prompted the transfer.

Law #3: The Law of Net Harm- The less likely it is that the unwanted behavior will change voluntarily, the more likely it is that a program to induce change will cause net harm.


Charles Murray, Losing Ground; American Social Policy 1950-1980

Simply brilliant.

Can America Survive?

--- disclaimer: I'm a Ben Stein fan ---

I just finished Ben Stein and Phil DeMuth's ''Can America Survive?'' ISBN 1-4019-0333-9 New Beginnings Press 2004

It's well-researched, written to be entertaining and contains numerous facts which can be used to disconcert one's liberal friends in discussions of contemporary issues.

Two examples:

The United States was not the major slaveholding nation in the Western Hemisphere: that would be Brazil, whose total number of slaves was six times that of the US.

Heard any calls for reparations from Brazil lately?

46% of the people classified as "poor" in the U.S. own their own home which is typically 3 bedroom, 1.5 baths, with garage and porch or patio.

This house, incidentally contains more square footage than the dwelling of a typical [read:middle-class] resident of Paris or London.

The chapter on Phariseeism is worth the purchase price alone.

On the mainstream media and the blogosphere

F.A. Hayek, in The Road to Serfdom, proved that central economic planning not only didn't work, but that it must lead to totalitarianism, becuase the only action planners could take when their initial attempts at central control failed would be to implement more strict and punitive measures. If you haven't read it, I personally consider it to be the most important book written during the twentieth century.

It occurred to me last night that the howls of outrage from the MSM about blogs are also manifestations of a failure of central planning/top down control: the central planning and top down control of the flow of information. They are in the process of discovering that to those who are bereft of plumage, the drafts are quite chilly.

Why a blog? (with apologies to Chico Marx)

Why indeed?

Why freakin' bother?

To be another low-traffic blog unknown to any except for family, friends and acquaintances?

No.

It has been said that the Web (and Usenet, which preceeded it) can be described as a vast junkyard containing large stacks of flaming Yugo and Lada carcasses; but every now and then, and only to those who search diligently, a Bugatti or a Silver Ghost in mint condition can be found.

That's my goal.

Being imperfect, I'll fall short of that.
A Hewitt I am not. (Yoda am not I, either.)

So little signal, so much noise.
There is much to discuss.

I read voraciously-- and I don't just read new releases.

I am a disciple of Hayek, and think that Thomas Sowell is probably the smartest man in America. P.J. O'Rourke is undoubtedly the funniest smart man in America. Walter Williams is a close second.

Look for a "Currently Reading" sidebar to appear soon.

Look for the list of books in MobileDB format to be posted as well. How I derived it is fodder for another post.

And posters (when you come) don't post anything you wouldn't want your momma to see.

'Nuff said.