KERNEN: “In spite of the government, you're doing OK.”SORKIN: “What is your latest read on the website, if you will.”BERTOLINI: “You know, I think too much is being made of the website. We've all had website failures from time to time, and this was a particularly big problem, but I think, really, is the program working behind the website—”SORKIN: “OK, so what about the pool?”BERTOLINI: “So right now we see that only 11 percent of the population is people that were formerly uninsured that are now insured. So we didn't really eat into the uninsured population. So, is the program working? We saw people that were very adept at shopping, so economics always works, so if I can find a cheaper policy versus the the one I already have, in the individual market, I'll go and buy that. We didn't see a whole lot of shift. As a matter of fact, employers shied away from moving their employees into public exchanges because they didn't like the way it rolled out. And so, we saw employers pull back from thinking about the public exchanges for their employees. So what we saw was a shift from the individual insured market onto the public exchanges where they could get a better deal on the subsidy.”
Monday, March 31, 2014
Sunday, March 30, 2014
- From the oral argument in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.
- MR. CLEMENT: . . . If they take away the health care insurance, they are going to have to increase the wages to make up for that. And they're going to have to pay the $2,000 penalty on top of it, plus they're going to have to violate their their own interest which is, we actually we believe it's important to provide our employees with qualified health care.
JUSTICE KENNEDY: Okay, the last is important. But just assume hypothetically that it's a wash, that the employer would be in about the same position if he paid the penalty and the employer pardon me, an employee went out and got the insurance and that the employee's wages were raised slightly and then it's and that it's a wash so far as the employer are concerned, other than the employer's religious objection, but just on the financial standpoint. Can we assume that as a hypothetical. Then what would your case be?
If Hobby Lobby were really indifferent between these two outcomes, would they be willing to spend all the money and time on fighting this case in court? There is the general issue of revealed preferences, and in this case employers are clearly indicating which choice they prefer by their actions. If it wasn't for the law, we know which choice they would prefer. We also know how that choice changes with the law in place.
Finally, Clement is clearly right that in order for Hobby Lobby's employees to be the same, they would not only have to have higher wages to compensate them for the lost insurance, but the firm would also have to pay $2,000 per employee. $2,000 per employee might not seem like much to the Justices, but say an employee is receiving $40,000 per year. Everything else equal in terms of insurance, would they be indifferent to their wages being cut by 5% to $38,000?
An analysis of polling data of whether people feel safer owning guns in their homes is available here.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Below is the relevant text of Piers Morgan's comments. Here a few comments.
1) Doesn't Piers recognize the irony that the Aurora movie theater and Newtown shootings both occurred where guns are banned? That the movie theater shooting occurred in the one movie theater out of seven showing the Batman movie near where the killer lived? That these attacks generally keep occurring where guns are banned?
2) Piers directly attacks the notion that more guns mean less crime. But he never in all his shows dealt with the evidence that when guns are banned murder rates go up, except in one show where he and Christiane Amanpour were dishonest about the facts for the UK.
3) In classic Piers, he attacks his opponents in the most personal terms: "cowardly," "bullied," attacking his opponents as motivated by making profits for gun makers ("death and profits for the gun manufacturers"). What is gained by Piers constantly attacking his opponents this way? He may never understand that is what many found objectionable.
With Piers continually repeating the same first two points over and over again, you would think that he would be embarrassed that he doesn't have a direct response to these two points.
This is the final episode of Piers Morgan Live. After 3yrs, 2months, 11 days and over 1000 shows, I am departing to spend more time with my cricket bat. . . .
And I want to say something more about that before I bow out. . . .
As my brother, a British Army colonel, says, “You’d always want an American next to you in a trench when the going gets tough.”
But that’s where guns belong – on a military battlefield, in the hands of highly trained men and women fighting for democracy and freedom. Not in the hands of civilians. The scourge of gun violence is a disease that now infects every aspect of American life.
Each day, on average, 35 people in this country are murdered with guns, another 50 kill themselves with guns, and 200 more are shot but survive. That’s 100,000 people a year hit by gunfire in America.
Now, I assumed that after 70 people were shot in a movie theater, and then, just a few months later, 20 first-graders were murdered with an assault rifle in an elementary school, the absurd gun laws in this country would change. But nothing has happened. The gun lobby in America, led by the NRA, has bullied this nation’s politicians into cowardly, supine silence. Even when 20 young children are blown away in their classrooms.
This is a shameful situation that has made me very angry. So angry, in fact, that some people have criticized me for being too loud, opinionated, even rude when I have debated the issue of guns. But I make no apologies for that.
As Sir Winston Churchill said: “If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time – a tremendous whack.”
My point is simple: more guns doesn’t mean less crime as the NRA repeatedly says. It means more gun violence, death and profits for the gun manufacturers. And to those who claim my gun control campaigning has been “anti-American”, the reverse is true. I am so pro-American that I want more of you to stay alive. . . .
Friday, March 28, 2014
As anyone should know, topics of controversy invite all sorts of misleading claims to be posted on Wikipedia (also here). Apple Computer is apparently not immune from this treatment. From AppleInsider:
At first glance, Wikipedia's article on the first California Apple v. Samsung trial appears to be an attempt to create an unbiased legal outline of events, one that is painstakingly researched and carefully sourced.
But as is the case whenever the free online encyclopedia ventures into a subject involving any sort of controversy, the side Wikipedia presents is the side of whoever has lots of free time and resources to devote to telling one.
A series of legal arguments and patent claims between Apple and Samsung that Wikipedia could have reported in factual depth is instead substituted with a slanted narrative flattering Samsung, a company that has, in its third year of legal wrangling with Apple, so far lost major infringement cases while winning no real significant legal recognition of any of its own patent infringement claims in any jurisdiction. . . . .
Thursday, March 27, 2014
From AFP via News Corp Australia:
A CHINESE man has gone on a killing spree following a dispute over family properties, leaving six people dead in a village outside Beijing, police said.
The 34-year-old, identified only by his surname Zhao, stabbed several people with a knife in Wanghua in Huairou, in the suburbs of the capital, before being overpowered by police, the Beijing Public Security Bureau said.
Six people died and an unspecified number of wounded were being treated in hospital, police authorities said on a verified account on Sina Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of Twitter. . . .
Click on figure to make it larger.
With the final measure of GDP growth during the first quarter of 2013 just being released (2.6%), I thought that I would graph out how GDP growth has preformed during the Obama "recovery." As economists know, during previous recoveries GDP growth grows much faster than the trend growth rate until GDP growth catches back up to trend. This is the first recovery where that isn't the case. As you can see from the above figure, GDP growth in the current recovery keeps growing more slowly than the trend rate.
Real GDP increased by only a paltry 1.9 percent in 2013. It was down from the already weak 2.8 percent in 2012.
With Republicans holding at 74 to 45 seat majority in the state House, Democrats couldn't even a third of Democrats to vote to repeal the Stand Your Ground law. From the Florida Courier:
In a rare procedural move, supporters of repealing Florida’s controversial “stand your ground” law forced a vote on repeal on March 20. The House debated and then voted down an amendment that would have led to the elimination of the stand your ground law by a vote of 83-31. . . .
The problem with gun control is that it mainly disarms law-abiding, good citizens. Yee fought for laws that stopped law-abiding citizens from getting guns, but behind the scenes he helped criminals get them. The statement below obviously refers to criminals getting guns. From Fox News:
. . . Despite his stances on gun control, Yee allegedly described himself as "agnostic" in these dealings.
"People want to get whatever they want to get. Do I care? No, I don't care. People need certain things," he said, according to the complaint.
Court documents say he was just one of more than two dozen people caught up in the five-year federal probe. Initially, agents were interested in going after Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, a notorious gangster who ran a Chinese criminal organization with ties to Hong Kong.
According to the FBI’s 137-page complaint, Chow and five other defendants laundered $2.3 million for undercover agents between March 2011 and December 2013. According to the FBI, the defendants were told the money came from crimes like illegal gambling, drug dealing and marijuana growing.
Chow, who was previously convicted on gun charges, was recently celebrated by the Chinese community in the area as an example of successful rehabilitation. He has been praised in recent months for his work in the immigrant-heavy community.
Most of the suspects netted in the FBI investigation are linked to the Chinatown brotherhood association that Chow heads known as Ghee Kung Tong. The group’s headquarters were raided Wednesday and members were charged with trafficking in illicit guns, liquor and cigarettes. . . .A few of Yee's tweets on gun control.
It seems Bryant makes a very simple and obvious point:
"I won’t react to something just because I’m supposed to, because I’m an African-American,” he said. “That argument doesn’t make any sense to me. So we want to advance as a society and a culture, but, say, if something happens to an African-American we immediately come to his defense? Yet you want to talk about how far we’ve progressed as a society? Well, we’ve progressed as a society, then don’t jump to somebody’s defense just because they’re African-American. You sit and you listen to the facts just like you would in any other situation, right? So I won’t assert myself.” . . . .
My advice is that this woman should get a new lawyer. I may think that gun-free zones are dangerous, but the bank is correct that only the government can be sued over constitutional violations. From Marketwatch:
Ivette Ros carries her 9-millimeter handgun almost everywhere, saying it makes her feel safe. Then she brought it to her job at Wells Fargo, where she worked as a branch manager, and it got her fired.
So Ros is suing the bank, saying it violated her constitutional rights and other protections afforded under Florida law. The bank, which bans employees from carrying guns on company premises, replied in a court filing that only the government, not a private employer, can be sued over alleged constitutional violations. The case in Florida is unfolding as part of a bigger debate on how far the rights of gun owners extend into the workplace.
Wells Fargo & Co. bans employees from bringing guns into work except in very limited cases, such as when employees are granted permission by a chief security officer at the bank. Says the bank: “Possessing firearms and weapons on company premises or at company-sponsored events is dangerous to team members and is strictly prohibited.” . . .
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
The Washington Post describes the results this way:
The increase in the disapproval numbers are a little similar. While the "strongly disapprove" haven't changed very much, both the lean and somewhat disapprove numbers have both increased.
To put this another way, as a measure of intensity, changes in the ratio of strongly disapprove to strongly approve can be seen here:
Negative views of President Obama have hit a new high, according to a poll.The AP-GfK poll shows 59 percent of Americans now disapprove of Obama -- a point higher than the previous high set in December.The media is noting that Obama's approval rating is down to 41% in the new AP poll, but the numbers are even worse when the approval numbers are broken down by strongly, somewhat, and lean approve. In the last survey in 2012, 29 percent strongly approved of Obama, but now it is down to 14 percent. For "somewhat" approve over the same time the percent has fallen from 21 to 10 percent. Where did it go up? The weakest category of "lean" approve. That has increased from 7 to 16 percent.
Obama's approval rating stands at 41 percent. That's the second-lowest figure the poll has ever found. . . . .
The increase in the disapproval numbers are a little similar. While the "strongly disapprove" haven't changed very much, both the lean and somewhat disapprove numbers have both increased.
To put this another way, as a measure of intensity, changes in the ratio of strongly disapprove to strongly approve can be seen here:
Click on figures to make table larger.
California State Senator Leland Yee is well known for pushing for more stringent gun control regulations. For example, on his website you can still find this announcement:
Click to make screen shot larger.
Just announced minutes ago from the Los Angeles Times: "Sen. Leland Yee, S.F. Chinatown figure arrested in corruption raids"
Fox News has this:
As part of the raids, Fox News has learned that the FBI also arrested multiple people including Raymond Chow -- one of the heads of the Ghee Kung Tong, a Masonic organization. Both federal and local authorities were searching locations on Wednesday morning in San Francisco and Sacramento; local TV stations spotted law enforcement searching Yee's office at the state capitol and even caught the senator being led away in handcuffs from his San Francisco home.
The FBI would not divulge details on what led to the arrests, or what the individuals are charged with, but local reports claim Yee has been charged with public corruption and bribery. . . .UPDATE: Now it is clear that Yee was arrested for trafficking firearms. Only in the ninth paragraph does the Los Angeles Times briefly mention that Yee has been a gun control advocate, though even this understates how important of an advocate Yee has been both in California and nationally. From the Los Angeles Times:
State Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) was charged Wednesday with conspiring to commit wire fraud and traffic firearms, part of a sweeping public corruption case outlined by federal prosecutors.The Los Angeles Times could have gone into this much more. But it was more than what the San Jose Mercury News mentioned in its 7th paragraph.
The charges sent shock waves through the San Francisco and Sacramento political establishments, as FBI agents searched Yee's Capitol office. . . .
The indictment alleges Yee and Jackson defrauded "citizens of honest services" and were involved in a scheme to traffic firearms in exchange for thousands in campaign donations to the senator.
Federal prosecutors also allege Yee agreed to perform official acts in exchange for the money, including one instance in which he introduced a businessman to state legislators who had significant influence over pending medical marijuana legislation. In exchange, the businessman -- who was actually an undercover FBI agent -- agreed to donate thousands to Yee's campaign fund, according to the indictment.
The indictment also describes an August 2013 exchange in which Jackson told an undercover officer that Yee had an arms-trafficking contact. Jackson allegedly said Yee could facilitate a meeting for a donation. . . .
The gun charges go against Yee's stand as a gun control advocate.
In 2006, Yee was named to the Gun Violence Prevention Honor Roll by the Brady Campaign for his efforts that included co-authoring a first-in-the-nation bill to require new semiautomatic handguns be equipped with ballistics identification technology known as micro-stamping.
In 2013, he stood with law enforcement officials and then-Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to propose a bill that would regulate assault weapons. . . .
The charges are particularly shocking given that Yee has been among the state Senate's most outspoken advocates both of gun control and of good-government initiatives. . . .CBS News in San Francisco doesn't even mention Yee was a gun control advocate. Of course, the left wing TPM and NPR don't mention the gun control angle in the body of their stories, though NPR does contain a note under the picture that it has of Yee.
When Todd Atkin made stupid comments in his 2012 Senate run in Missouri it was major national news. Braley's comments are also stupid, but we will have to see if it gets the same extensive national coverage.
This first video is simply amazing, with Bruce Braley attacking someone from Iowa for being a farmer and not being a lawyer!
At 1:45 into the video you have even Bill Press saying that he was stunned by how politically insensitive Bruce Braley's comments on the government shutdown was. Saying that Braley was too much "inside the bubble" of Washington DC's elites.
UPDATE: This is actually getting some national news stories, though it has a long ways to go to get the coverage afforded Atkin.
Iowa Press Citizen
The Associated Press
Fox News
CNN
WSJ
UPDATE: Survey done shortly before this latest scandal involving Braley showed that the race was pretty close. From Rasmussen:
Democratic Congressman Bruce Braley holds a slight lead over his three top Republican challengers in Rasmussen Reports’ first look at the 2014 U.S. Senate race in Iowa.A new statewide telephone survey of Likely Iowa Voters finds Braley with a 41% to 38% lead over businessman Mark Jacobs. He leads State Senator Joni Ernst 40% to 37% and runs four points ahead – 40% to 36% – of former U.S. Attorney Matt Whitaker. . . .UPDATE 2: More farm trouble for Braley. In order to try to fix the problems denigrating farmers, his campaign put out a press release, but it misspelled some basic farming terms. From Fox News:
“Bruce grew up in rural Iowa and worked on Iowa farms, detassling (sic) corn and bailing(sic) hay,” it reads.
After the typos were pointed out, Braley spokesman Jeff Giertz said on Twitter he lost his fourth-grade spelling bee by misspelling “journey.”
“I guess my old habits are hard to break,” he said.
Additionally, Buzzfeed reported on Thursday that a photo of an Iowa farm Braley posted to his Facebook page in 2013 is actually a photo of a farm in England. . . .
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
As the ABC Channel 7 TV news story above makes clear, the citizen with a gun who stopped the attack was a concealed carry permit holder. The video also notes that the police are putting in for an award for the permit holder. Fox News Channel 32 notes: "Berlin says that Silva stabbed a store security officer several times. He says a customer with a concealed firearm permit ordered Silva to stop, and police arrested him."
From the Detroit Free Press:
Acustomer with a handgun stopped a shoplifting suspect from slashing a securityofficer with a contaminated needle and syringe outside a Home Depot store inRoseville, police said.
Joshua J. Silva, 26, was arrested a short time after the incident Monday night . . . .
Silva was ordered held in the Macomb County Jail on $25,000 bond after being arraigned today on second-degree retail fraud, a one-year misdemeanor, and assault with intent to do great bodily harm, a 10-year felony. A preliminary exam is set for April 2 in 39th District Court in Roseville. . . .
Berlin said Silva began to fight with store loss prevention officers in the parking lot when they tried to apprehend him for stuffing a $179 battery-powered drill under his coat. Silva pulled a concealed syringe from his jacket and used it as a weapon . . . .
They said he stabbed one of the officers several times with the contaminated needle. Berlin said the victim had more than five puncture wounds on the top of his hand.
A customer with a concealed pistol license saw the fight, pulled out his handgun and told Silva to drop the syringe and get on the ground. Silva stopped fighting and sat down in the parking lot, police said, but jumped up and ran when he heard approaching police sirens. The loss prevention officers allowed him to run and police officers arrested him without further incident.
The citizen told police he got involved because the suspect was so violent and appeared to “be getting the best of” the loss prevention officers. He said he feared if he didn’t get involved, the suspect was going to kill one of the store officers, police said.The wounded loss prevention officer was treated at a local hospital. Neither he nor the good Samaritan was interested in a media interview, Berlin said. . . .
From the Orlando Sentinel:
"It strains credibility when 40 to 50 people a week show up with guns at the security checkpoint and then say 'I forgot.' They didn't forget their ticket. They didn't forget their pants. They've been on notice for over 12 years that guns are not permitted and it's time they be held responsible for violating the law." . . .To put this in some perspective, 16 million passengers travelled per week in 2012. 40 or 50 cases out of that is about 0.0003 percent. But it probably makes sense to say that 16 million is not the right group making the mistake here. Suppose we are dealing with the 5 percent of adults who carry permitted concealed handguns (putting aside non permit holders and that permit holders are relatively wealthier and are therefore more likely to be flyers). That would then be 800,000 (16 million times 5 percent). Then implies an error rate of between 0.005 and 0.00625 percent, or about 5 or 6 per 100,000 travelers.
Given the large majority by which this law passed Florida's House, the question is why this law hasn't been passed in other states. From the Washington Times:
. . . Over the past year, schools have increasingly punished children for playing games that involve pretend firearms. Now Florida is leading the nation in stopping this madness.
On Tuesday, the Florida Senate will hold a committee hearing on legislation that has become known as the “Pop Tart bill.”
The legislation got its nickname from an incident involving Josh Welch, a 7-year-old Maryland boy who was suspended from school in March 2013 for chewing his strawberry Pop Tart into the shape of a gun.
The Florida bill makes it clear that children in public schools will be allowed to simulate firearms while playing without risk of disciplinary action or being referred to the criminal or juvenile justice system.
The Florida House passed the companion bill Thursday by an overwhelming vote of 98-17. Republican Gov. Rick Scott’s spokeswomanJackie Schutz told me, “The governor supports the Second Amendment and our state’s self-defense law and will review any bill that comes to his desk.”
“Children should not be punished because some adult lacks common sense or the capacity for rational judgment,” said Marion Hammer, a former president of the National Rifle Association and the current head of its Florida lobbying operation. . . . .Some in Florida claim that the bill is an overreaction. From the Editorial page of the Tampa Tribune:
Gun rights are a conservative value, but adopting laws for nonexistent problems, which the Pop-Tart bill does, is a liberal tactic.
The measure, sponsored by Rep. Dennis Baxley, an Ocala Republican, and Sen. Greg Evers, a Pensacola Republican, is a hysterical reaction to an incident in Maryland last year where a 7-year-old boy was suspended from school for chewing his Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun. . . .Here are just a few cases from March 2013 on available here. The problem is that public schools have been using zero tolerance approaches to traumatize children about guns.
Florida has had its own cases. From October, 2013 in Fox News:
An 8-year-old Florida boy was suspended from school after using his finger as a pretend gun while playing cops and robbers with his friends.
Jordan Bennett was suspended for a day after administrators at Harmony Community School in Harmony, Fla., said the gesture was an act of violence, WFTV.com reported.
His mother, Bonnie, told the station she's concerned that her son may labeled violent with a suspension now on his academic record.
"He had nothing in his hand. It was a finger gun, a pretend gun," Bonnie Bennett said. "He didn't threaten violence. He didn't utter words that were inappropriate. He made a sound and used his fingers and that was it."
School district officials told the station its code of conduct prohibits students from playing with invisible guns. Bonnie Bennett believes there are more effective ways the district could have disciplined her son. . . .Zero tolerance has also destroyed other lives in Florida even if it wasn't involving a gun. From May 2013 in the New Miami News:
Kiera Wilmot got good grades and had a perfect behavior record. She wasn't the kind of kid you'd expect to find hauled away in handcuffs and expelled from school, but that's exactly what happened after an attempt at a science project went horribly wrong.
On 7 a.m. on Monday, the 16 year-old mixed some common household chemicals in a small 8 oz water bottle on the grounds of Bartow High School in Bartow, Florida. The reaction caused a small explosion that caused the top to pop up and produced some smoke. No one was hurt and no damage was caused.
According to WTSP, Wilmot told police that she was merely conducting a science experiment. Though her teachers knew nothing of the specific project, her principal seems to agree. . . .
After the explosion Wilmot was taken into custody by a school resources officer and charged with possession/discharge of a weapon on school grounds and discharging a destructive device. She will be tried as an adult.She was then taken to a juvenile assessment center. She was also expelled from school and will be forced to complete her diploma through an expulsion program. . . .
Either the Obama administration is simply dishonest or this is more evidence that they don't know simple math. Of course, both things might be true.
This ad for 25 to 34 year olds implies that there is a fifty percent chance of them having to pay at least $500 in medical bills over the course of a year. In other words, the expected medical bills over the course of a year are at least $250 (it would be more useful to simply state what the expected bills would be). In any case, the cheapest state insurance for a 27 year old under Obamacare is $142 per month, with most in the $200 range per month (see chart below). Could someone please explain to me how this section of the ad justifies the statement "I should really get insurance"?
Of course, the problem is even worse than this because if a young person does get hit with that $500 insurance bill, the insurance company isn't going to have to pick up the entire amount.
The reason why insurance is such a bad deal for younger people is that Obamacare is purposefully set up to transfer money from younger to older people. Younger people pay much more than what they would pay under true market insurance rates so as to subsidize and lower the prices for older people.
Monday, March 24, 2014
From Ben Swann's blog:
On Thursday, Idaho Governor Butch Otter (R) signed a bill, which would effectively nullify future federal gun laws, by prohibiting state enforcement of any future federal act relating to personal firearms, a firearm accessories or ammunition.
S1332 passed the house by a vote of 68-0 and the senate by a vote of 34-0. Alaska and Kansas have also passed similar laws. . . .
Introduced by the State Affairs Committee, the Idaho Federal Firearm, Magazine and Register Ban Enforcement Act, will:
“protect Idaho law enforcement officers from being directed, through federal executive orders, agency orders, statutes, laws, rules, or regulations enacted or promulgated on or after the effective date of this act, to violate their oath of office and Idaho citizens’ rights under Section 11, Article I, of the Constitution of the State of Idaho.”
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Saturday, March 22, 2014
My piece starts this way:
Can mass shootings be stopped or prevented? The Obama administration's political views prevent it from even considering certain obvious solutions.
On Tuesday the Department of Defense released its report on the Sept. 16 Washington Navy Yard shooting. But the report focuses solely on how mental illness of the assailant went unreported.
There clearly were mistakes. The Navy did not properly report multiple troublesome incidents during Aaron Alexis' active-duty service. The government did not tell his employer about any of these problems. When the private contractor noticed instances of psychological instability, it thought that they were aberrations, not part of a pattern, and didn't report these back to the government.
However, it would be foolish to believe that all potential mass shooters will be identified in advance. Even with better reporting practices, many will slip through the cracks. Besides, it is always much easier in hindsight to realize that people had mental health issues. Besides, mentally ill employees are not the only threat to military bases.
Determined terrorists pose a serious threat, too.
What should be done if the screening for mental illness fails? Or when there is a terrorist plot?
Currently, soldiers on military bases are not allowed to carry guns. . . .The piece is continued here.
The Berkeley Forum debate entitled “Guns, Crime and Freedom” included: CPRC president and economist John Lott, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Stanford professor Jack Rakove and Robyn Thomas, executive director of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The debate took place on October 25th, 2013, but the video of the debate has only just now been released.
Over the last few weeks it has been very easy to find a number of stories such as this from The Weekly Standard:
As of last week, bitcoin is probably functionally finished as a serious hope of ever achieving mass acceptance as a currency.
Because last week, someone stole half a billion dollars worth of bitcoins from Mt. Gox, the world’s oldest bitcoin exchange. . . .From The Economist:
THE father has been found in time for his child’s funeral. That would appear to be the sorry state of affairs in the land of Bitcoin, a crypto-currency, if recent press coverage is to be believed. On March 6th Newsweek reported that it had tracked down Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin’s elusive creator. And on March 11th Mt Gox, the Japanese online exchange that had long dominated the trade in the currency before losing $490m of customers’ Bitcoins at today’s prices, once more filed for bankruptcy protection, this time in America.
In reality, things are rather different. Evidence is mounting that Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto, whom Newsweek identified as Bitcoin’s father, is not the relevant Satoshi. More importantly, Bitcoin’s best days may still be ahead of it—if not as a fully fledged currency (see article), then as a platform for financial innovation. Much as the internet is a foundation for digital services, the technology behind Bitcoin could support a revolution in the way people own and pay for things. Geeks of all sorts are getting excited—including a growing number of venture capitalists, who know a new platform when they see one. . . .The bottom line is that the market is betting that Bitcoins are worth about $600 each. That is a long way from people thinking that Bitcoins are over.
Friday, March 21, 2014
Sharyl Attkisson was talking with Chris Stigall on WPHT when she explained how things work in Washington:
“I wouldn’t surprised if sometimes there is that level of cooperation with some questions. If I need something answered from the White House and they won’t tell me, I’ll call our White House Correspondent. They’re friendlier with the White House Correspondents in general. So the White House Correspondent may ask Jay Carney or one of his folks about an issue and they will be told ‘ask that at the briefing and we’ll answer it.’ They want to answer it in front of everybody. They do know it’s coming and they’ll call on you.
"There’s that kind of coordination sometimes. I wouldn’t be shocked if there’s sometimes more coordination. I don’t think it’s everybody on every briefing, every day. I’m pretty sure it’s not. But I think people would be surprised at the level of cooperation reporters have in general with politicians.”
Thursday, March 20, 2014
If you were already concerned about the short distances that electric cars could travel, do not go in either frigid or hot temperatures.
The average EV battery range in AAA’s test was 105 miles at 75 degrees but dropped 57% to just 43 miles at 20 degrees. Heat also sliced the cars' ranges but by not as much: The cars averaged 69 miles per full charge at 95 degrees, 33% less than in 75-degree weather. . . .If there is a 57% drop between 75 and 20 degrees, what happens if it gets really cold? I would assume that the distance drops even further. If the relationship is linear, these first two observations imply a distance of only 20 miles at a temperature of zero. My guess is that things are even worse than that as the drop off may increase with lower temperatures.
My op-ed yesterday at Fox News is available here. Well, Media Matters couldn't stay away from attacking my piece. Below I will try to give a quick point by point response.
Linking back to a post that Media Matters had on December 17, 2012, Media Matters claims, in their typical evenhanded fashion, that I have been "thoroughly discredited." My response to their claims is available here. Responses to other claims against me by Media Matters are available here and here.
Here are some responses to Media Matters' current claims.
The point here is not that doctors can't do this type of advising, but what the implications of such advice will be. My point is that my research finds that mandating that people lock up their guns actually encourages criminals to attack people in their homes and it increases death rates. My op-ed makes this argument clear on two points: having people lock up their guns doesn't reduce accidental gun deaths or suicides among children and that it increases deaths from crimes. Media Matters response is to cite a 1997 paper by Cummings, Grossman, Rivara, and Koepsell that uses panel data on accidental deaths and another is a poorly done case control study that is typical of public health researchers (Media Matters actually cites this last study twice as if it were two different studies), but they ignore that my research has discussed the earlier 1997 paper in depth and that there is a large literature on the problems with these "case control" studies (see chapter 2 here).
Here is one of my discussions on the 1997 paper:
So Cummings et al didn't even try to look at the net effect of safe storage laws on safety.
Besides referring to my comment as a conspiracy theory, Media Matters doesn't really address the concern. If doctors record gun ownership information and if this gets forwarded along with the general medical records that are being given to the federal government, the government will be able to do a simple search to see who owns guns. It would be useful for Media Matters to explain why my point is wrong.
The New York Times and Mother Jones articles depend on very unreliable initial news stories. The CDC has much more detailed data on these cases and they have information that might not have been revealed until later in the investigation. For example, in the case of an accidental shooting, the adult responsible might try to blame a child in the home for the tragedy because they believe that a young child will not be punished while the adult could end up in jail.
My results might be different in part because I use the cases identified by CDC and the New York Times and Mother Jones rely on initial newspaper stories.
See point number 1 above. Note also that the last two links in this paragraph are actually to the same paper.
Of course, this claim is also false. The 1996 budget amendment didn't stop the CDC from doing research and indeed government funded research from a public health prospective has increased dramatically since then. Over all, the number of medical journal articles on firearms either stayed the same or rose. Bloomberg only got his claim that the number of medical journal papers on firearms fell because he was actually measuring firearms papers as a percentage of all medical journal articles. Both firearms research and non-firearms research rose, but non-firearms research rose by a larger amount.
Because of Media Matters past altering of their posts without acknowledging that they have done so, here are screen shots of their current discussion.
Linking back to a post that Media Matters had on December 17, 2012, Media Matters claims, in their typical evenhanded fashion, that I have been "thoroughly discredited." My response to their claims is available here. Responses to other claims against me by Media Matters are available here and here.
Here are some responses to Media Matters' current claims.
1) "Seizing on a 2013 letter that Murthy's organization Doctors for America authored after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Lott expressed concern that Murthy's group "has advocated that physicians question parents about their gun ownership and counsel them not to own guns or always to store them locked up." This type of doctor-patient counseling is non-controversial and aims to prevent gun accidents involving children. The practice is also protected by the First Amendment and attempts to regulate doctors' speech have been struck down as unconstitutional."
The point here is not that doctors can't do this type of advising, but what the implications of such advice will be. My point is that my research finds that mandating that people lock up their guns actually encourages criminals to attack people in their homes and it increases death rates. My op-ed makes this argument clear on two points: having people lock up their guns doesn't reduce accidental gun deaths or suicides among children and that it increases deaths from crimes. Media Matters response is to cite a 1997 paper by Cummings, Grossman, Rivara, and Koepsell that uses panel data on accidental deaths and another is a poorly done case control study that is typical of public health researchers (Media Matters actually cites this last study twice as if it were two different studies), but they ignore that my research has discussed the earlier 1997 paper in depth and that there is a large literature on the problems with these "case control" studies (see chapter 2 here).
Here is one of my discussions on the 1997 paper:
The Cummings et al., supra note 15, research provides evidence of a 23 percent drop in juvenile accidental gun deaths after the passage of safe-storage laws. Juvenile accidental gun deaths did decline after the passage of the law, but what Cummings et al. miss is that these accidental deaths declined even faster in the states without these laws. While the Cummings et al. piece examined national data, it did not use fixed year effects, which would have allowed them to test whether the safe-storage states were experiencing a drop relative to the rest of the country. The simple dummy variable that they use is only picking up whether the average juvenile accidental death rate is lower after the passage of safe-storage laws. One potential problem with this approach is that any secular decline in accidental gun deaths would produce a lower average rate after the law even if the rate of decline was not affected by the law. Finally, because they did not break down the results by type of gun or, as we shall do later, by a more detailed age breakdown, they never observed some of the anomalies that we will show for some categories of accidental gun deaths (for example, for handguns) actually rising after the passage of safe-storage laws. In a recent interview with USA Today, Cummings stated “that, unlike Lott, he didn’t explore the possibility that gun-storage laws actually cause crime. ‘I guess I wouldn’t have, because it seems like a very implausible connection,’ Cummings says. ‘But I guess anything’s conceivable.’ ” (Martin Kasindorf, Study: Gun-Lockup Laws Can Be Harmful, USA Today, May 11, 2000, at 8A.)
2) "Finding a government conspiracy in Murthy's nomination, Lott also argued that Doctors for America's support for allowing doctors to document gun ownership means that doctors could forward this information to the government as a 'way of registering guns.'"
Besides referring to my comment as a conspiracy theory, Media Matters doesn't really address the concern. If doctors record gun ownership information and if this gets forwarded along with the general medical records that are being given to the federal government, the government will be able to do a simple search to see who owns guns. It would be useful for Media Matters to explain why my point is wrong.
3) "Turning back to the topic of gun safety, Lott wrote that if Murthy is "really worried about children's safety," he should focus on other dangers to children including "a swimming pool, chemicals and medications, bathtubs, water buckets, bicycles, cars and items that can cause suffocation. This argument is premised on the baseless assumption that Murthy has privileged discussing safe gun practices over other safety concerns. But as the Doctors for America letter cited by Lott notes, 'One of our most important tasks as health care providers is to counsel our patients about how to take care of themselves and prevent disease and injury. We counsel patients about tobacco cessation, educate them about diet, and remind them to wear seatbelts and sunscreen.'"
Sorry Media Matters, but the cases that I raised were not ones that were in Murthy's list, and I raised them for precisely the reason that they represented much greater risks in the home than the guns that Murthy is so fixated on. For car accidents, the risk exists even when children are wearing seat belts. If Murthy really wanted to advise parents of all the risks in the home and if he did it in order of risk, it would be a long time before he got to accidental gun deaths for children. From what I wrote at Fox News:
If Murthy really worried about children's safety, his time would be better spent advocating that doctors ask patients about other, greater dangers lurking around the children’s and their playmates' homes: a swimming pool, chemicals and medications, bathtubs, water buckets, bicycles, cars and items that can cause suffocation. . . .4) Media Matters then cites Tim Lambert, a computer scientist from Australia, to bolster their claim that my research can't be trusted, but they ignore that Lambert has been caught by a computer scientist at the University of Maryland making numerous false claims and fabricating discussions that were supposedly by me.
5) "Citing data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Lott wrote, "Accidental gun deaths involving children are especially horrible, but they are fortunately rare." Defining "rare" is subjective, but it is worth noting thatMother Jones used news reports to identify 84 children aged 12 and under who died in gun accidents in a one-year period in 2012-2013. The New York Times has reported that official figures on gun accidents involving children are undercounted "because of idiosyncrasies in how such deaths are classified by the authorities." Relative to other nations, accidental gun deaths involving children are not rare in the United States, where the CDC found children are nine times more likely to die in accidents compared to other high-income nations."
The New York Times and Mother Jones articles depend on very unreliable initial news stories. The CDC has much more detailed data on these cases and they have information that might not have been revealed until later in the investigation. For example, in the case of an accidental shooting, the adult responsible might try to blame a child in the home for the tragedy because they believe that a young child will not be punished while the adult could end up in jail.
My results might be different in part because I use the cases identified by CDC and the New York Times and Mother Jones rely on initial newspaper stories.
6) "In a final dubious claim, Lott wrote that "states that have mandated that people lock up their guns didn't see a reduction in accidental gun deaths or suicides for children or teenagers," citing his own research on the topic. But according to three studies published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, safe storage laws were associated with reductions in youth accidents and suicides."
See point number 1 above. Note also that the last two links in this paragraph are actually to the same paper.
7) "This figure is dated because of the NRA's largely successful effort dating to the 1990s to prevent the CDC from researching gun violence."
Of course, this claim is also false. The 1996 budget amendment didn't stop the CDC from doing research and indeed government funded research from a public health prospective has increased dramatically since then. Over all, the number of medical journal articles on firearms either stayed the same or rose. Bloomberg only got his claim that the number of medical journal papers on firearms fell because he was actually measuring firearms papers as a percentage of all medical journal articles. Both firearms research and non-firearms research rose, but non-firearms research rose by a larger amount.
Because of Media Matters past altering of their posts without acknowledging that they have done so, here are screen shots of their current discussion.
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