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This may be helpful:

Self-Defense: An Endangered Right

Is it helpful? The answer is no. I produce reputable links to show that there is a difference between what the UK & the USA classifies as Violent crime and you produce a partisan link that is long on rhetoric but short on citations. Perhaps in my (admittedly) skimming of the article I missed the citations to the raw data that was mentioned...
As for the assertion that "since handguns were banned in 1998, handgun crime has more than doubled." Do you have a citation for that? As yet, I have been unable to find any information prior to 2000/2001. The link I did find shows that there was an increase from 2000/2001 that peaked in 2003 / 2004 and has fallen substantially since then.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/116483/hosb0212.pdf (page 69)

This may be helpful:

Self-Defense: An Endangered Right

. . . An amazing trend of nearly 500 years of declining interpersonal violence in England reversed abruptly in 1954 as violence began to increase dramatically. In 2001 Britain had the highest level of homicides in Western Europe, and violent crimes were at three times the level of the next worst country. “One thing which no amount of statistical manipulation can disguise,” the shadow home secretary, Oliver Letwin, pointed out in October 2003, “is that violent crime has doubled in the last six years and continues to rise alarmingly.” Indeed, with the exception of murder, violent crime in England and Wales is far higher than in the United States. And while the American murder rate has been in decline for more than a decade, the English murder rate has been rising. You are six times more likely to be mugged in London than in New York City. More than half of English burglaries are “hot burglaries”(someone is at home), while in America, where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners more than the police, only 13 percent are “hot burglaries.” As for the effectiveness of stringent gun control, since handguns were banned in 1998, handgun crime has more than doubled. Gun crime has recently been described as spreading “like a cancer.” Units of British police are, for the first time in their history, routinely armed, and American policemen are being hired to advise British departments.

I guess there is no way she could own a knife also. Or pepper spray, or a taser, or mace. Without a gun the elderly are generally helpless against a knife wielding rapist?

Knife fighting tends to be pretty physical. The mismatch between a 90 year old woman and a 20 year old man is pretty substantial, don't you think? As far as I know, pepper spray and tasers are illegal for private citizens to possess in the UK.

Are stun guns legal in the UK?

It is against the law to import:High voltage electric 'stun guns'.
Pepper sprays, CS gas canisters and other self defence sprays.
High-powered air rifles.
Martial Arts weapons such as death stars and swordsticks.
Knives that have a concealed blade or a sharp point such as belt buckle blades.

Besides that practical problem, there is another:

Self-Defense: An Endangered Right

The withdrawal of a basic right of Englishmen is having dire consequences in Great Britain, and should serve as an object lesson for Americans. Today, in the name of public safety, the British government has practically eliminated the citizens’ right to self-defense. That did not happen all at once. The people were weaned from their fundamental right to protect themselves through a series of policies implemented over some 80 years. Those include the strictest gun regulations of any democracy, legislation that makes it illegal for individuals to carry any article that could be used for personal protection, and restrictive limits on the use of force in self-defense. . . .

Read this bit of madness - and there are far too many cases like it: Five years in prison for acting in self-defence

There are attempts at reform, but there doesn't seem to be enough movement.

A rather different example: Elderly Woman Shoots at Intruder

Just a few more additions -

When Good People Do Bad Things

Political Culture with Thomas Sowell: Free Markets and Marxism
Dr. Sowell was a Marxist for a decade.

Leftists Will be Shot in the U.S. When Marxists come to power

How A Failed Commune Gave Us What Is Now Thanksgiving

RESULTS OF COMMUNISM / SOCIALISM

Reflections on Communism Twenty Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall

The Divergence between Theory and Practice

Richard Pipes of Harvard University has argued that in addition to these proximate causes, the fundamental cause of the collapse “was the utopian nature of its [the regime’s] objectives.” That is to say, the Soviet system from its earliest days pursued goals that were both unrealizable and unpopular, including the attempted creation of “the new socialist man.”11 Those utopian efforts demanded a waste of resources, vast amounts of coercion and fraudulent political propaganda. Martin Malia of the University of California at Berkeley made a similar point: “Of all the reasons for the collapse of communism, the most basic is that it was an intrinsically nonviable, indeed impossible project from the beginning. However important in its genesis were the heritage of Russian backwardness and authoritarianism, or the personal ruthlessness of Lenin and Stalin, it is Marxism that was the decisive factor . . . making communism the historically unique phenomenon it was. And the perverse genius of Marxism is to present an unattainable utopia as an infallibly scientific enterprise.”

These Western assessments of the nature of communism—utopian or otherwise—have great bearing on the disputes and explanations regarding the collapse of the Soviet Union. Thus, one set of the responses to the collapse was shaped by the belief that it occurred because, as Malia and Pipes argued, the system sought to achieve utopian goals inspired by Marxism. In other words, the collapse occurred because theory and practice converged (i.e., Marxist theory compelled communist systems to pursue unattainable utopian goals). The theoretical foundation or blueprint itself was flawed, not viable, as Malia put it. Milovan Djilas, the Yugoslav communist politician who later became a critic of communist totalitarianism, also believed that “the [communist] idea itself contained the seeds of its own inglorious, future collapse. . . . Such visions may encourage us to sacrifice . . . but they are also opiates to the soul. . . . The idea dried up in proportion as the reality legitimized by it grew stronger.”13 . . . .

. . . The reasons leading to the collapse included both sets of factors: some of the ideals or theoretical propositions of Marxism were clearly adopted and zealously pursued but they had adverse, unintended consequences. For example the collectivization of agriculture retarded food production, and state controlled industrialization created a huge, inefficient bureaucracy, diminished incentives of the workers, and contributed greatly to the concentration of political power. Marx and Lenin (initially) believed that communist ideals would command broad popular support and therefore little violence or coercion will be required to implement them. They also believed that all forms of human misbehavior will “wither away” after the proletarian revolution and the seizure of the means of production. As Leszek Kolakowski put it, “Marx seems to have imagined

I would rather get killed by something i had a chance of defending myself against than something killing me instantly.

Two points -

1. Most people shot by pistols recover if given medical care.

2. Your comment comes to the heart of the difference on this issue: You would rather get killed than have a weapon to defend yourself.

So, yes, it is comforting knowing that punks in dark alleys are not carrying guns.

When you are old and infirm, they will still be there with clubs and knives, and you will be unarmed and at their "mercy." You won't have the chance that these people do, as things stand, and neither will your friends and loved ones. All the advantages accrue to the thugs. What a cruel thing.

80-year-old Flint man fires shots at five robbery suspects
Elderly Woman Shoots at Intruder

And this is probably why: Self-Defense: An Endangered Right

No doubt there are also many cases of old men and women being shot by attackers, probably sometimes with their own gun.

I expect this sort of thing is quite impossible in your mind.

80-year-old Flint man fires shots at five robbery suspects
Elderly Woman Shoots at Intruder

If only there was more to go on.

Tough Targets - When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens

Although the new technology may have an impact, it appears unlikely there will be significantly more restrictive gun control laws passed at the Federal level in the US. The public and the facts are against it overall. In various states, such as New York, Colorado, and California, there have been a number of new, highly restrictive laws passed, that at least in some cases are unpopular, are opposed by the police, and are unlikely to survive challenges in court. The brilliant governor in New York managed to get a law passed that outlawed even police weapons - New York is in the best of hands although California is a contender as well.

The idea that ordinary citizens can't protect themselves with guns is ridiculous.

Tough Targets - When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens
Stories That Happened In MI

What about the murder rate?

Murder by Numbers

Gun control's general effect on crime?

Two Cautionary Tales of Gun Control
Crime soared with Mass. gun law
England has worse crime rate than the US, says Civitas study

Self-Defense: An Endangered Right

The withdrawal of a basic right of Englishmen is having dire consequences in Great Britain, and should serve as an object lesson for Americans. Today, in the name of public safety, the British government has practically eliminated the citizens’ right to self-defense. That did not happen all at once. The people were weaned from their fundamental right to protect themselves through a series of policies implemented over some 80 years. Those include the strictest gun regulations of any democracy, legislation that makes it illegal for individuals to carry any article that could be used for personal protection, and restrictive limits on the use of force in self-defense. . . .

Political support for more restrictive nation gun control measures in the US has fallen.

USA Today: Support for gun control bill falls below 50%
During a manhunt, 69 percent of voters want a gun
NRA Has 54% Favorable Image in U.S
Dems push gun control agenda in DC, but not in battleground states

Although the new technology may have an impact, it appears unlikely there will be significantly more restrictive gun control laws passed at the Federal level in the US. The public and the facts are against it overall. In various states, such as New York, Colorado, and California, there have been a number of new, highly restrictive laws passed, that at least in some cases are unpopular, are opposed by the police, and are unlikely to survive challenges in court. The brilliant governor in New York managed to get a law passed that outlawed even police weapons - New York is in the best of hands although California is a contender as well.

The idea that ordinary citizens can't protect themselves with guns is ridiculous.

Tough Targets - When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens
Stories That Happened In MI

What about the murder rate?

Murder by Numbers

Gun control's general effect on crime?

Two Cautionary Tales of Gun Control
Crime soared with Mass. gun law
England has worse crime rate than the US, says Civitas study

Self-Defense: An Endangered Right

The withdrawal of a basic right of Englishmen is having dire consequences in Great Britain, and should serve as an object lesson for Americans. Today, in the name of public safety, the British government has practically eliminated the citizens’ right to self-defense. That did not happen all at once. The people were weaned from their fundamental right to protect themselves through a series of policies implemented over some 80 years. Those include the strictest gun regulations of any democracy, legislation that makes it illegal for individuals to carry any article that could be used for personal protection, and restrictive limits on the use of force in self-defense. . . .

Political support for more restrictive nation gun control measures in the US has fallen.

USA Today: Support for gun control bill falls below 50%
During a manhunt, 69 percent of voters want a gun
NRA Has 54% Favorable Image in U.S
Dems push gun control agenda in DC, but not in battleground states

That "danger point" is completely reliant upon the value of the so-called "climate sensitivity" factor, our understanding of which changes each year as we increase our knowledge of the climate system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity

There have been numerous studies lately (post IPCC AR4) pointing to a low climate sensitivity factor, which would change the value of "the danger point" upwards from 350 ppm as well (450 ppm IIRC, but that's from memory based on the below mean).

http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/wp-content/uploads/gsr_042513_fig1.jpg

(Please see image content, not domain name, for actual references)

after killing off regulations, the large corporations would have an even larger stranglehold on the marketplace, as there would be no anti-trust laws to keep them from colluding, price-fixing, etc. and any competitor who tried to enter the field would be crushed before they could get a foothold.

This sounds scary, but the reality is that a burdensome regulatory system favors large entrenched companies over start-ups. Back when Microsoft was smaller, they didn't like government, but these days they have a ton of lobbyists in D.C. just like every other major company.

Do you remember the days when IBM was "the evil empire" and ruled computing with an iron fist? Tell me, which anti-trust law was used to take them down? Oh wait, that didn't happen. IBM fought the anti-trust courts to a stand-still until the Reagan administration just gave up on it, and then the rapid evolution of desktop computers took away IBM's monopoly position. Whatever you think of Microsoft and IBM now, back then Microsoft did us all a service by helping yank the rug out from under IBM. (Microsoft now lives in fear that mobile computing and/or browser-based apps will do to Windows what Windows did to IBM mainframes.)

Market forces can allow a nimble start-up to take market away from an entrenched monopoly. But if that monopoly is cemented in place by laws, it's basically impossible for the start-ups to even get off the ground. Imagine if IBM had been able to get a law passed that payrolls could only be computed on a computer "certified" by a government agency, and the certification was a morass of red tape and fees. IBM would have just tasked a few of their full-time lawyers to navigating the red tape, would have coughed up a few fees they could easily afford, and would have relaxed knowing that no little uncertified desktop computers could undercut their monopoly.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2012/10/19/lift-the-regulatory-burden-on-small-businesses

And I'm not convinced that anti-trust laws are well-written or completely beneficial to the economy.

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/case-against-antitrust

The rest of the world thinks that attitudes to guns in the United States are pretty fucked up.

No, not the entire world, although certainly many Europeans and leftists in general. But here is some material for you to gain some insights.

Tough Targets - When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens
Stories That Happened In MI

Two Cautionary Tales of Gun Control

Self-Defense: An Endangered Right

The withdrawal of a basic right of Englishmen is having dire consequences in Great Britain, and should serve as an object lesson for Americans. Today, in the name of public safety, the British government has practically eliminated the citizens’ right to self-defense. That did not happen all at once. The people were weaned from their fundamental right to protect themselves through a series of policies implemented over some 80 years. Those include the strictest gun regulations of any democracy, legislation that makes it illegal for individuals to carry any article that could be used for personal protection, and restrictive limits on the use of force in self-defense. . . .

England has worse crime rate than the US, says Civitas study

Cheers

The rest of the world thinks that attitudes to guns in the United States are pretty fucked up.

No, not the entire world, although certainly many Europeans and leftists in general. But here is some material for you to gain some insights.

Tough Targets - When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens
Stories That Happened In MI

Two Cautionary Tales of Gun Control

Self-Defense: An Endangered Right

The withdrawal of a basic right of Englishmen is having dire consequences in Great Britain, and should serve as an object lesson for Americans. Today, in the name of public safety, the British government has practically eliminated the citizens’ right to self-defense. That did not happen all at once. The people were weaned from their fundamental right to protect themselves through a series of policies implemented over some 80 years. Those include the strictest gun regulations of any democracy, legislation that makes it illegal for individuals to carry any article that could be used for personal protection, and restrictive limits on the use of force in self-defense. . . .

England has worse crime rate than the US, says Civitas study

Cheers

Almost overlooked your probable provenance. Sorry lad, you're in a bit of a hard place there, but I can understand your confusion over the rights enjoyed by American citizens.

Self-Defense: An Endangered Right

The withdrawal of a basic right of Englishmen is having dire consequences in Great Britain, and should serve as an object lesson for Americans. Today, in the name of public safety, the British government has practically eliminated the citizens’ right to self-defense. That did not happen all at once. The people were weaned from their fundamental right to protect themselves through a series of policies implemented over some 80 years. Those include the strictest gun regulations of any democracy, legislation that makes it illegal for individuals to carry any article that could be used for personal protection, and restrictive limits on the use of force in self-defense. . . .

Figure it out.

Some Techies Hear Call of the Shooting Range
Tough Targets - When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens
Stories That Happened In MI

Your comments are uninformed and hateful. Try educating yourself.

Tough Targets - When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens
Stories That Happened In MI

Sorry, but that is rubbish.

Tough Targets - When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens

Some supplemental reading:

Self-Defense: An Endangered Right

Sorry, but that is rubbish.

Tough Targets - When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens

Some supplemental reading:

Self-Defense: An Endangered Right

No, it suggests that you can legally buy and possess one.

You're curious? Try this:
Tough Targets - When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens
Joyce Lee Malcolm: Two Cautionary Tales of Gun Control

Waaaaaa! Googling shit is hard! Waaaaa!

http://www.cato.org/blog/youre-eight-times-more-likely-be-killed-police-officer-terrorist

31,076 gun deaths in 2012.
 
20,000 of those were suicides. Since the US suicide rate is comparable to other countries it seems that those people would commit suicide anyway by other means if a gun weren't available. It is dishonest to include this statistic in a gun regulation debate.

Out of the remaining 10,000, take out those committed by felons (who are banned from owning guns anyway) who wouldn't care about any gun laws, plus justifiable homicides in self-defense by citizens and by the police, and you find that number beginning to look far less impressive.

Now, you have to ADD the number of people who would have lost their lives if they did NOT have a gun ( http://www.cato.org/guns-and-self-defense )

Then you have to decide if the number of deaths is the only criteria to consider. Is it better to increase the rape statistics by one or to add a dead rapist to the "gun death" statistic? You can "improve" all kinds of statistics very easily: banning driving over 5 mph with 20 years prison penalty for violations would overnight save 10s of thousands of lives each year. Killing a healthy person and harvesting his organs to save 5 dying patients would improve statistics too - 1 death is better than 5, right?

Then, even the proponents of Feinstein/Obama style gun laws (such as banning black plastic guns but allowing brown wooden ones, limiting capacity etc) would admit in the end that they won't make a single bit of difference. After all, those exact same laws were tried before by Clinton so its not like we don't know.

Finally, none of the above matters. It's a basic human right to defend one's own life and the lives of one's family and the only way to do that realistically is by owning a gun. By denying someone that right you are denying them their basic humanity and treating them as interchangeable part of a machine, to be sacrificed if needed as long as the machine as a whole would benefit as measured by some statistic.

Yes. But luckily, you've got plenty of guns, which once again proved their usefulness on this occasion, by... Oh, never mind.

Snark - sometimes it makes you look edgy and clever, sometimes it just makes you look stupid.

Crime soared with Mass. gun law
Joyce Lee Malcolm: Two Cautionary Tales of Gun Control

Tough Targets - When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens

Tough Targets - When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens

And the number of people 'saved' id dwarfed by the number of people killed.

Sorry, but no. Tough Targets - When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens

Add to that, no one else saw these 'robbers'. SO you have an old guy who fired two shots and claims there was 5 armed people that fled.

I call bull crap.

And I call Jack - as in, "You don't know...."

But here is one for you, can you figure out why that sort of thing might not be reported?

The drift I see is that most of the articles there have no proof there where other people being shot at.

Knock yourself out: Stories That Happened In TX

The CATO Institute seems to disagree with your statement about doubling the usage of many classes of drugs.

Penalties for possession of a certain amount are totally non-existent, and if you are caught over, most of the time, you're given a warning unless it's some obviously commercial amount.

The laws are as lenient, as I have read them in full, when they were passed oh so long ago.

http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/drug-decriminalization-portugal-lessons-creating-fair-successful-drug-policies

Fukushima's problem was caused by flooding in the basement where diesel generators were.

Not according to Kirk Sorensen, a nuclear technologist who operates the site energyfromthorium.com who for Forbes wrote the article Explainer: What Caused The Incident At Fukushima-Daiichi. At first he writes "The tsunami destroyed the diesel generators that provide power to drive the pumps that circulate the water coolant through the reactor that removes decay heat." But a bit later he writes generators ran "until their day tanks emptied" of diesel fuel. If emergency generators were running then they could have been refueled. The hard part would of been finding the people who were willing to put their lives at risk. However anyone who supports nuclear power should be so willing, if they aren't willing to put their own lives at risk why do they support putting other people's lives at risk?

All of the mentioned things could potentially cause enough problems in nuclear plants, but they would need to huge (like >7.75 magnitude earthquake *directly* under the reactor)

The title of the article Earthquake threat to nuclear reactors far higher than realized sums it up pretty well. Risk from earthquake is up to 24 tymes higher than previously thought.

people should be smart enough to shutdown the reactor & do other preparations in time as hurricanes can be detected way earlier than tsunamis/earthquakes.

And what of tornadoes? They aren't as predicable as hurricanes. And at specific points they strike they are more powerful than hurricanes.

The biggest reason I oppose nuclear power though is because nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don’t. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

If all energy subsidies were dropped, including for fossil fuels and nuclear power then geothermal, solar, wind, and other clean(er) energy sources would be more cost competitive. Coal get tens of billions of dollars in subsidies. Without government loan guaranties Wall Street would not finance nuclear power. And if fossil fuels had to pay all of it's costs, instead of passing on external cost to others, their cost would be higher.

Falcon

Interactive map of SWAT screwups

Why do you focus on one "primary energy source" instead of using different sources? I want solar where appropriate, wind where appropriate, and geothermal where appropriate. I also want government to stop all energy subsidies.

That is my strongest reason for opposing large subsidies it -- it does not work in the large, and oh yeah, that complete unfairness of stealing from one person to subsidize another

Guess what? Someone above provided this , External Costs of Coal Plants, however I already have this: International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI). Energy Subsidies Favor Fossil Fuels Over Renewables. And of course there's this:
Nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don’t. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

Coal and other fossil fuels are massively subsidized. As is nuclear power. Here's Rep Edward Markey bragging My Climate Bill 'Has Huge Subsidies For Clean Coal! Huge!' . Oops, it appears the video is not there now. At least it's not playing for me when it used to. In the video though he says coal, nuclear power, and corn based ethanol get Billions of dollars each in subsidies.

Falcon

Nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies.
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don’t. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

Oh, about CATO:
"The Cato Institute is a public policy research organization — a think tank – dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace. Its scholars and analysts conduct independent, nonpartisan research on a wide range of policy issues."

Falcon

Nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies.
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don’t. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

Oh, about CATO:
"The Cato Institute is a public policy research organization — a think tank – dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace. Its scholars and analysts conduct independent, nonpartisan research on a wide range of policy issues."

Falcon

The "cuts" are in fact cuts only from the increased baseline.

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/fairy-tale-spending-cuts

Actually, the sequester doesn't cut federal spending at all, or rather it cuts it only in the Washington sense of any reduction from projected baseline increases is a cut. In reality, even if the sequester goes through, the federal government will spend more every single year.
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/fairy-tale-spending-cuts

Spending will still go up, just not as much.

Also eliminating laws which require contracts to go to the lowest bidder. Removing discretion in procurement is as bad as having no oversight at all - it means the people making the decisions have no leeway when they see a bid they know can't quite work out, even if it would be very hard to prove why conclusively.

There was an example of this a while ago, where a bid to provide ammunition to the US army was made fraudulently, was incredibly low, and wound up killing a bunch of people when the guy who put it in's factory that was repackaging old Chinese bullets to the US army blew up in the middle of the town, killing 30 or so workers.

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/firing-blanks-afghanistan

In a civilised society

Well, there's your mistaken assumption right there. In a civilized society, cops don't kick homeless people in the face; they don't rally 'round the abuser and protect them when someone reports such an act; they don't fire the person reporting the act, and they don't intentionally wipe out their reputation. In a civilized society, all of the above go differently.

But in the society we actually have, this kind of thing, and this, is endemic, and eventually the people being abused, while being told to act civilized by the people committing the abuses, will decline to co-operate, and then the rest of us start having discussions like this one.

Well I don't think it's well established that executions deter crime

It is 100% certain that an executed criminal will not commit another crime. So yes, execution deters crime.

Well the alternative to execution is generally life in prison (if they're not exonerated) so even if they commit more crimes it will just be against other criminals (which I'm guessing you wouldn't mind).

I'm sure you've heard of agent provocateurs, the reality is if someone is really looking to take your rights away they're not going to take away your guns, they're going to try to goad you into using them.

So... you figure his trainer was kicking that homeless person in the head in order to goad the (then) trainee cop into later attacking the police department? I have to say, that's a stretch. Not buying it. :)

Yeah... I wasn't saying that. You're saying a violent escalation makes the authorities afraid and keeps them in line, I'm saying agent provocateurs are proof that the government will actually encourage violent escalations against them in order to discredit you or take away your rights.

we've just lost the right not to be policed by drones

We never had such a right. After all the flowery verbiage dissipates, rights actually exist only in the context of someone with violent recourse available to them willing to stand up for a claim to a right. Almost always a group standing up for a member; (this case is particularly interesting because it's a member standing up for a group.) That's never been the case with drones; the government has repeatedly said it's ok to use them, and, they were already in use.

I didn't mean a literal legal right, I meant a strong social more against them being used regularly, but I could be mistaken and that was already the case.

When people start shooting drones down (and it's an absolute certainty that they will), that's when you'll develop some rights in the matter.

Uhhh no, that's when boatloads of people will start getting prosecuted for shooting down drones.

good cops have lost some ability to speak up about abuse without colleagues comparing them to this guy

As clearly demonstrated, there was no ability to speak up, to be lost. There can only be a gain in this department.

we've lost some right to walk down the street without being shot by some crazy cop

No, again, we didn't have any such right. Happens all the time. Rarely is there any blowback to the cop. And then there's this.

Neither are binary problems, you can make them a little better, or a little worse, this dude made both worse.

just like the 9/11 bombers made airports a hell of a lot less free

No, that was your legislature. Had nothing to do with the bombers, other than as an excuse. It'll backfire anyway. I stopped flying then; so did a lot of other people. We keep electing stupid, rich people. We keep getting stupid laws designed to benefit the rich.

Nah, your legislature, I'm Canadian (not that much better but we're not the ones driving it). And yes, the bombers were an excuse, just like this dude might be, are you starting to get it.

Not my war; it's this cop's. And near as I can tell, he's already won. He got his message out, he's generated a huge upwelling of sympathy, there's a lot of discussion of just how bad the cops really are, they haven't even caught him but he's already done more damage to them than remains available to do to him, he may yet do m

Well I don't think it's well established that executions deter crime

It is 100% certain that an executed criminal will not commit another crime. So yes, execution deters crime.

I'm sure you've heard of agent provocateurs, the reality is if someone is really looking to take your rights away they're not going to take away your guns, they're going to try to goad you into using them.

So... you figure his trainer was kicking that homeless person in the head in order to goad the (then) trainee cop into later attacking the police department? I have to say, that's a stretch. Not buying it. :)

we've just lost the right not to be policed by drones

We never had such a right. After all the flowery verbiage dissipates, rights actually exist only in the context of someone with violent recourse available to them willing to stand up for a claim to a right. Almost always a group standing up for a member; (this case is particularly interesting because it's a member standing up for a group.) That's never been the case with drones; the government has repeatedly said it's ok to use them, and, they were already in use. When people start shooting drones down (and it's an absolute certainty that they will), that's when you'll develop some rights in the matter.

good cops have lost some ability to speak up about abuse without colleagues comparing them to this guy

As clearly demonstrated, there was no ability to speak up, to be lost. There can only be a gain in this department.

we've lost some right to walk down the street without being shot by some crazy cop

No, again, we didn't have any such right. Happens all the time. Rarely is there any blowback to the cop. And then there's this.

just like the 9/11 bombers made airports a hell of a lot less free

No, that was your legislature. Had nothing to do with the bombers, other than as an excuse. It'll backfire anyway. I stopped flying then; so did a lot of other people. We keep electing stupid, rich people. We keep getting stupid laws designed to benefit the rich. Eventually the public will figure it out.

This isn't a war you'll win, the most you'll do is create an enemy.

Not my war; it's this cop's. And near as I can tell, he's already won. He got his message out, he's generated a huge upwelling of sympathy, there's a lot of discussion of just how bad the cops really are, they haven't even caught him but he's already done more damage to them than remains available to do to him, he may yet do more, and the very, very large number of people who have been handled unfairly by the cops are all watching, no doubt while they take notes. A *lot* of people perceive him as a hero.

Finally, the police have been the enemy for many decades, and we didn't create the situation. They did. From bashing heads in Chicago to the "silent blue line" to beating "suspects", to confiscating people's cameras, money and property, they created the enemy that is them. Now some reaping comes, and in the final analysis, I can't say I'm the least bit surprised, except perhaps only in that it took so long.

Base load is simple there are two clean methods hydro that's pretty much tapped out.and atomic. The solution has been staring us in the face for decades build more long life reactors of a standard design.

In a free market nuclear does not work. Nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies
...
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don’t. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

Falcon

Solar and wind and every other new-wave energy source is just a way to supplement base load. If you know anything about electricity generation, you should know that the world depends on base load energy: energy generated from reliable sources that accounts for like 70% of all energy usage, i.e. coal, gas and nuclear. Until we find a solution for base load energy like fusion or invent god-like batteries or power lines made of superconductors that cost $100 per mile, everything else is a pipe dream.

There already is a source for baseloads. Of course some are dirtier than others, but coal which is the dirtiest energy source can be dropped as a fuel. Natural gas can be used for baseloads, as can geothermal energy. And with a national smart grid while solar energy doesn't produce energy wind will somewhere, maybe even right next to a solar farm. But until energy storage technologies signficantly improve natural gas can be used, fazing out coal and nuclear power.

And as for nuclear power, in a free market it would not be used. Nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies. People complain regulations raise the costs of nuclear power in the US. However the world leader in nuclear power is France and even in France government not businesses decide what's built.

"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don’t. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

Falcon

I know that all the NRA fans will come up with all kinds of suggestions for why making killing easy is supposed to make the world safer, but from a very safe country where guns, even in the hands of law enforcement, are an extremely rare sight, I say: Hurray for sanity and common sense!

Rather!

(1) USA is #1 in donations per capita, and #3 in volunteering of time.

(2) Government-forced "aid" should not exist - all charity should be voluntary. When given voluntarily, in a free market environment where charity institutions compete on the basis of merit, aid tends to be far more effective. What is the point of giving money to some third-world dictator if it only strengthens his power and makes his "subjects" worse off in the long run?

(3) You cannot compare a country as large and diverse as the USA to a couple of small hand-picked homogeneous Northern-European nations. These few small countries have a remarkable culture and work ethic; they were the first in the world to go capitalist and industrialize, and they have been coasting off the economic momentum ever since. Why not compare USA to a slice of Europe with a comparable population of 315 million? The per-capita numbers will definitely be in USA's favor!

(4) The "wretched refuse" immigrants from those countries that left for America are now wealthier than those that stayed! Comparing apples to apples, I bet Scandinavian-Americans / Dutch-Americans / etc also give more to charity than their counterparts that have remained in Europe.

(5) A large country is also disadvantaged in "foreign aid" numbers - someone from Utah helping a Hurricane Katrina victim doesn't count, while an Austrian giving to a charity in near-by Albania does.

(6) Lest you forget - it was USA that paid to save the world from a multitude of global socialist threats over the past century, from Fascism to Soviet Communism to Baathism, including clandestine ops that have saved many countries from going socialist in the first place. Chile would be just another Cuba if not for the USA! The same could be said about dozens of other countries as well. But, instead of recognition and gratitude, all USA gets in return is jabs from economically-illiterate punks who once saw an emotionalist Michael Moore movie and now think they have a monopoly on truth!

(7) Foreign aid might be a national religion in places like Norwaystan, which has so much natural resources per capita that they're ridden with guilt over it, but most Americans make their money the hard way. USA has no ancient monarchies and noble houses passing wealth from generation to generation. It also doesn't have a history of colonial tyranny on the scale of the Belgians, and no ghosts of war and genocide like the Germans. We (and I'm a naturalized USA'ian, by choice and conviction) don't need to use foreign aid to fig-leaf our guilt!

(8) What most people fail to understand is that, before being redistributed, wealth must be created in the first place, and therein lies the chief virtue! Putting your money into the private sector (including "microcredit") instead of giving it away also does tremendous good. Poor people of this world benefit from technological innovation and investment far more than they do from simple handouts of aid! Give a man a fish, and he may eat for a day; give him freedom and a more rational way of life, and he will never be hungry again!

--libman

http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/policy-report/2004/3/cpr-26n2-1.pdf

A lot of people play games with statistics. Statistics in the US are pretty much meaningless, when it comes to an armed population. Anyone who manipulates numbers seems to have an agenda, so they manage to make the numbers say whatever their agenda demands.

The fact is, most of our most dangerous cities are the very cities with the strictest gun control laws.

Go ahead, read the report. Tell me how safe it is to live in a country with very strict gun control laws.

Okay, how about this. When out hunting you don't need hundreds of rounds, and even if for some reason you do you don't need high capacity magazines.

Sorry, but wrong.

You could even buy your own and keep it at the range, or even keep it in your house but keep the cartridges at the range.

Right, pull the other one!

Perhaps, some day, the home of a British subject will be a castle again.

A school teacher, who had two 9mm handguns and a rifle. I say there's a good chance she was mentally unstable too.

Pot, meet kettle?

I can understand your thinking though. Things have only recently started to be made right in Britain after a long period of decline:
Self-Defense: An Endangered Right (March/April 2004)

The withdrawal of a basic right of Englishmen is having dire consequences in Great Britain, and should serve as an object lesson for Americans. Today, in the name of public safety, the British government has practically eliminated the citizens’ right to self-defense. That did not happen all at once. The people were weaned from their fundamental right to protect themselves through a series of policies implemented over some 80 years. Those include the strictest gun regulations of any democracy, legislation that makes it illegal for individuals to carry any article that could be used for personal protection, and restrictive limits on the use of force in self-defense. Britons have been taught, in the words of a 1992 Economist article, that such policies are “a restraint on personal liberty that seems, in most civilized countries, essential to the happiness of others.” The author contrasted those policies with “America’s vigilante values.”

The result of that tradeoff of rights for security has been disastrous for both. Many Americans, either unaware of, or unconcerned with, the perverse impact of British policy, insist that our public safety demands a similar sacrifice. But an examination of the experience of the British people offers a cautionary tale. A few examples underscore the situation in Britain today.

A homeowner who discovered two robbers in his home held them with a toy gun while he telephoned the police. When the police arrived they arrested the two men, and also the homeowner, who was charged with putting someone in fear with a toy gun. An elderly woman who scared off a gang of youths by firing a cap pistol was charged with the same offense. The government is now planning to make toy guns illegal.

The BBC offers this advice for anyone in Britain who is attacked on the street: You are permitted to protect yourself with a briefcase, a handbag, or keys. You should shout “Call the Police” rather than “Help.” Bystanders are not to help. They have been taught to leave such matters to the professionals. If you manage to knock your attacker down, you must not hit him again or you risk being charged with assault. . .

. . . The impact of such policies on public safety has been stark. An amazing trend of nearly 500 years of declining interpersonal violence in England reversed abruptly in 1954 as violence began to increase dramatically. In 2001 Britain had the highest level of homicides in Western Europe, and violent crimes were at three times the level of the next worst country. “One thing which no amount of statistical manipulation can disguise,” the shadow home secretary, Oliver Letwin, pointed out in October 2003, “is that violent crime has doubled in the last six years and continues to rise alarmingly.” Indeed, with the exception of murder, violent crime in England and Wales is far higher than in the United States. And while the American murder rate has been in decline for more than a decade, the English murder rate has been rising. You are six times more likely to be mugged in London than in New York City. More than half of English burglaries are “hot burglaries”(someone is at home), while in America, where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners more than the police, only 13 percent are “hot burglaries.” As for the effectiveness of stringent gun control, since handguns were

California's K-12 has been gutted by repeated budget cuts

Spending can vary greatly by area. LAUSD spends $25,208 per student.

For CA Statewide K-12, "Total per-pupil expenditures from all sources are projected to be $10,610 in 2011-12 and $11,246 in 2012-13".

There are indeed huge variances by region. Districts with higher costs of living, high growth (necessitating new construction), and more special needs students will have higher per pupil costs.

But always be careful when citing CATO, they're not exactly...rigorous... in their methodology. See this EPIC review of CATO's per-pupil claims. And I quote: "The report presents large “real” costs per pupil. However, the spending numbers calculated for the report actually double count, adding in both capital construction and debt service. The use of flawed data renders the report to be of limited value in policymaking." (emphasis added).

I would provide my own analysis of the LAUSD claims, but the CATO report failed to properly cite its sources (it actually indicated an incorrect page number) and methodology. Per the review I am citing, another group was able to nearly replicate the CATO result by double-counting capital construction and debt services (which the author compares to adding the purchase price of a house plus the mortgage payments).

California's K-12 has been gutted by repeated budget cuts

Spending can vary greatly by area. LAUSD spends $25,208 per student.

For CA Statewide K-12, "Total per-pupil expenditures from all sources are projected to be $10,610 in 2011-12 and $11,246 in 2012-13".

I think you touched on the counterargument (that has been very well made): while state money is loose, bank money (the overwhelming majority of the economy) is very tight. Because banks are still recapitalizing, the money supply is very tight. I'm not a fan of CATO or Hanke, but I still have to credit him for making the case on this. He also did a good EconTalk podcast about hyperinflation where he explains this in detail.

I'm not prepared to say whether or not the fed fucked up yet. I think we're going to have to leave that one to the history books and just agree that we don't really have sufficient understanding of all the what-ifs at this time. My gut says they stopped things from getting far worse, but that these policies are simultaneously slowing a recovery and setting a path for a new bubble.

Even if the kid was bragging about breaking into houses, and even if Zimmerman was aware that Martin broke into houses, that doesn't clear Zimmerman: A citizen with evidence of somebody else's criminal behavior that isn't in immediate danger is supposed to notify the police, not shoot the alleged criminal.

What I'm assuming they're claiming they're after is evidence that Martin was a violent person who was likely to have responded to Zimmerman by assaulting him.

Zimmerman has always articulated from day one that he shot to stop the active attack. That he only got out of his car to give the relevant information to the 911 dispatcher of Martin's whereabouts. That Martin came back to confront ZImmerman, threw a punch and continued to beat him while he was supine on the ground. Being on the ground with an attacker actively slamming your head into the concrete pavement is reason enough for using deadly force to stop and attack.

Zimmerman has never said that he shot Martin for looking suspicious. The media has latched onto speculation --as if it were fact-- that ZImmerman merely shot someone for walking around. The media has put forth the accusation that Stand Your Ground laws allow for this to happen legally when nothing could be further from the truth.

P.S. Guess which state was the first to enact a Stand Your Ground Law? California. Yes. Hardly the red state bastion of the NRA.

Here's a very informative video about what Stan Your Ground laws are really about: http://www.cato.org/multimedia/events/stand-ground-laws-self-defense-or-license-kill

Right, but things like this make me doubt the 'scientific consensus':

It's important to understand the denominator when looking at these kinds of lists. You have 100 people with a PHD that doubt the consensus. Over 34,000 science doctorates are turned out each year. The Intelligent Design people put out these kinds of lists as well. They are meaningless when you consider the denominator.

One series of these e-mails called out the journal Climate Research, which had the audacity to publish a paper surveying scientific literature that didn't support Mann's claim that the last 50 years are the warmest in the past millennium... Editors resigned.

There is a very good reason that they resigned. It became clear that the journal was the victim of 'pal review' - http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=427 . Basically Pat Michaels was submitting papers directly to his CATO institute colleague and free market sympathiser Chris De Fraitas which were then rubber stamped. These papers were easily shown to be bunk and made the journal a laughing stock. The chief editor resigned saying that certain Climate Research editors were systematically publishing methodologically flawed papers.

That article I linked gives an explanation as to how 1) water vapor is far more effective a 'greenhouse gas' than carbon dioxide

This is not unknown to scientists, and is specifically why scientists are worried about Carbon. Added carbon will heat the atmosphere. A warmer atmosphere will hold additional water vapour. Additional water vapour will warm the atmosphere... etc. This is what is known as a feedback. Currently there is about 4% more water vapour in the atmosphere due to atmospheric warming.

and 2) carbon dioxide levels rise after the globe warms up, not before. The argument sounds credible to me.

This is only half true. Carbon levels will rise when the globe warms, but of course it can also rise for other reasons such as the burning of fossil fuels. BTW, a hotter world will release more carbon into the atmosphere which will warm the world... looks like another feedback.

Did you read the Super Freakonomics chapter about global warming? It says that just 20 years ago people were complaining that we were entering a cooling period and we had to do something to warm the globe up.

We have a survey of the literature from over 20 over years ago called the IPCC FAR. http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/far/wg_I/ipcc_far_wg_I_chapter_08.pdf . The conclusion was: "Global mean temperatures have increased by 0.3 - 0.6 C over the last 100 years. The magnitude of this warming is broadly consistent with the theoretical predictions of climate models." Looks like the Freakonomics guys are out to lunch.

Hint: There's a reason people are starting to call it "climate change" now instead of "global warming".

To a scientist these mean different things. They use Climate Change when they are referring to changes in climates, and global warming to refer to the warming of the globe. Politically though it was Republican strategist Frank Luntz who suggested using Climate Change rather than Global Warming because it sounded less scary: http://www.ewg.org/files/LuntzResearch_environment.pdf

Because stuff like the ClimateGate emails makes it seem like a lot of those 'experts' care more about being right

Science is fiercely competitive. Of course they care about being right. It's a meritocracy.

Well, you don't need to ask becasue scientific consensus among the experts clearly say yes, it is real, and yes we are the cause for temperature changes on top of normal cycles.

Right, but things like this make me doubt the 'scientific consensus':

One series of these e-mails called out the journal Climate Research, which had the audacity to publish a paper surveying a voluminous scientific literature that didn't support Mann's claim that the last 50 years are the warmest in the past millennium. Along with the CRU head Phil Jones and other climate luminaries, they then cooked up the idea of boycotting any scientific journal that dared publish anything by a few notorious "skeptics," myself included.

Their pressure worked. Editors resigned or were fired. Many colleagues began to complain to me that their good papers were either being rejected outright or subject to outrageous reviews — papers that would have been published with little revision just a few years ago.

Patrick J. Michaels is senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute and author of Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don't Want You to Know.

More by Patrick J. Michaels
So what is Pauchari's response to all of this? Denial.

"IPCC relies entirely on peer-reviewed literature in carrying out its assessment and follows a process that renders it unlikely that any peer reviewed piece of literature, however contrary to the views of any individual author, would be left out."

That's just not true. The last IPCC compendium on climate science, published in 2007, left out plenty of peer-reviewed science that it found inconveniently disagreeable.

These include articles from the journals Arctic, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Earth Interactions, Geophysical Research Letters, International Journal of Climatology, Journal of Climate, Journal of Geophysical Research, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Quaternary Research.

Link showing the actual emails is here.

No one else has presented in credible argument to the contrary in decades.

That article I linked gives an explanation as to how 1) water vapor is far more effective a 'greenhouse gas' than carbon dioxide and 2) carbon dioxide levels rise after the globe warms up, not before. The argument sounds credible to me.

" The extreme haste with which seemingly the entire world immediately accepted the idea of Anthropogenic"
This is false. The theory is over 100 years old. it has a lot of data to support it.

Did you read the Super Freakonomics chapter about global warming? It says that just 20 years ago people were complaining that we were entering a cooling period and we had to do something to warm the globe up. Hint: There's a reason people are starting to call it "climate change" now instead of "global warming".

Protip: When anyone uses the 'medieval warm period' of proof against AGW, they have no clue what they are talking about.

Can you go into why that is the case?

Seriously, experts in the field agree, and you pull a 'scientist' that isn't an expert. Why would you give a few non experts more credence then the experts?

Because stuff like the ClimateGate emails makes it seem like a lot of those 'experts' care more about being right and proving global warming to be true instead of figuring out what the actual science is.

The popular term "third party" (used to refer to all U.S. parties other than Rems and Dems) is unfair - only one can be in third place. Libertarian Gary Johnson is the candidate of the third largest party. Greens and other commies / theocrats are 4th, 5th, etc. They don't get the bronze medal - they didn't earn it!

The Libertarian Party candidate got 2.6x the Constitution Party votes and 3.3x the Green Party votes in the last POTUS election. In 2012, LP has ballot access in 48 states plus DC (and still fighting for the others). GP could only get its act together in ~37 states, CP in ~26.

About 15-20% of USA'ians poll as libertarian (fiscally conservative, socially liberal), even though most vote for a lesser evil (or don't vote at all). Small-l libertarians are gaining leverage in the Republican Party, which greens don't have with the Dems. Just compare Ron Paul's 2008 fundraising numbers to those of Dennis Kucinich! Gary Johnson is presently polling third, and his votes could really grow if the Romney campaign implodes.

--libman