10 Sep 2004
Kerry Tells Bush to 'Get Real' on Assault Weapons (Reuters)

If it wasn't obvious before, it should be now: idiocy has no political affiliation. The ban on so called assault rifles was a bogus political move by Bill Clinton iin 1994: the "dangerous" banned weapons are semi-automatic rifles, the full auto versions have been outlawed since the 1930's. I would ask you to note the weapons used most often in gun violence: handguns and shotguns. How did banning more than 10 shots in a clip effect those weapons?

The ban on semiautomatic assault rifles certainly didn't deter the DC snipers, now did it? And a terrorist using a such a gun is ludicrous: these are folks who routinely smuggle RPG's, for Pete's sake!

Get real, indeed Sen. Kerry.

Reuters - Democratic candidate John Kerry on Friday said President Bush's failure to fight for a renewal of a ban on assault weapons will make it easier for terrorists to get the lethal weapons.

(link) [Yahoo! News - Top Stories]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Skewed poll questions helped shape American bias against Saddam

This is actually kinda hopeful news:

Rather than showing a gullible public blindly accepting the rationales offered by an administration bent on war, our analysis reveals a self-correcting public that has grown ever more doubtful of Hussein's culpability since the 9/11 attacks.

If the American public can really look at issues this way, despite political scientists misgivings, then maybe there's hope for the Republic after all. But it still proves Mark Twain's famous dictum that there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics.

Why were so many Americans, as early as the first anniversary of Sept. 11, convinced that Saddam Hussein was behind the terrorist attacks in the United States? Did their mistaken belief that the Iraqi dictator was responsible for the attacks result from the Bush administration's information campaign to convince the public to go to war in Iraq, or was something else at work? A new study -- the first to investigate U.S. public opinion about who was to blame for the Sept. 11 attacks -- finds that there was, indeed, ''something else.'' ''News coverage and presidential rhetoric may have replaced Osama with Saddam over time,'' write the authors of the study, ''but Saddam was on the short list of most-likely suspects from the beginning for most Americans.''

(link) [Science Blog]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Coffee pact aims to help growers

This offers an interesting peek into the workings of a true commodity market: and how producers under such a system routinely get screwed.

Four of the world's largest coffee companies agree a voluntary pact to help improve conditions in producer countries.

(link) [BBC News | World | UK Edition]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link