Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Links

A liberal university prof, female, decides to find out about guns and is both sane and fair, though some friends are predictably horrified. This is the fifth in a series and all are worth reading, as I suspect future installments will be, as is her regular non- gun blog, particularly good on reading and writing, here.

I particularly liked this. Professor Amitai Etzioni, who is anti- gun, alleges that the Second Amendment probably means what it says and thatwe shouldn't talk about it.

She replies, wryly: "UD finds Etzioni’s analogies — an individual in possession of a gun is a deadly virus, a nerve gas — as well as his aristocratic conviction that the possibly correct reading of one of our nation’s more important documents ought to be kept from ordinary American citizens, pretty stunning. But she’s grateful he wrote what he did, because he’s playing a role she wants to cast in this series — the typical college professor — with verve and candor."

HT Chas.

Once again: meat is good for you! HT Michael Blowhard.

Brilliant post by LabRat at Nerds that links up- to- date evo theory, optimum group size, envy, and what this says about Big State and taxes. Probably a PRINT and RTWT.

Dr H links to Reid's Pigeon Day post below with pics.

Amazing parasitoids affect behavior even more than we know (read Zimmer's Parasite Rex, linked to on the site.)

More Zimmer: what is a species?, "When it comes to wolves and coyotes, it is hard to say quite where one species stops and another starts. “We like to call it Canis soup,” says Bradley White of Trent University in Ontario." And he hasn't even gotten to bacteria yet...

Rebecca on biophilia and lizard bites.

A frog that apparently breaks its own bones to use as weapons. Glad that didn't come out on April first...

One very cool wine label. HT Sari Mantila.

1 comment:

Mike Spies said...

Guns as sexual objects? C'mon, an academic ought to do much better than that.

I suggest that there is nothing as sacred and sexual to the American psyche as an automobile. Drive any interstate highway to confirm this. But academics drive cars. They play baseball, maybe, with a truly phallic device called a bat. Golf clubs? Pool cues? Hot dogs?

Academics often seem to feel that they are qualified to comment authoritatively on any subject, and their academic credentials somehow trumps the opinions of others. How delusional. Guns are BAD, so they are somehow transmuted to sexual objects. Are the academics so hide bound as to believe that sex is also bad?

The observation that, "When seconds count, the police are just minutes away." carries an irrefutable message that bears consideration, even by those who chose not to arm themselves.