Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Money

Volume:

James Hamilton (2011:Feb.16). "Money and reserves," Econbrowser.

James Hamilton (2011:Feb.18). "How the Fed prints money without any ink," CNNMoney.com (Fortune).

Greg Mankiw (2011:Feb.21). "Is the Fed printing money?" Greg Mankiw's Blog.


d
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What's happening in Wisconsin?

A lot. That's why it's so difficult to comment on.

It's hard to untangle the mess.



http://teacherportal.com/salary/Wisconsin-teacher-salary
http://teacherportal.com/salary/Texas-teacher-salary
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2011/03/longhorns-17-badgers-1.html

http://reason.com/blog/2011/02/21/wisconsin-protests-myths-vs-fa
http://reason.com/blog/2011/02/22/wisconson-gov-scott-walker-on
http://reason.com/blog/2011/02/23/wisconsin-the-new-name-for-exc
http://reason.com/blog/2011/02/24/heres-how-not-to-use-quotation
http://reason.com/blog/2011/02/23/koched-out-of-their-skulls
http://reason.com/blog/2011/02/24/evil-koch-bros-support

Dick Cohen is not exactly what I'd call a right-wing hack:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/21/AR2011022103775.html

"The top 21 donors to political campaigns in last 20 years include 12 unions (if you count the NEA and AFT), all of which are strongly or leaning to Democrats to the tune of about $327m. Koch Industries, those evil villains, come in 83rd place at $11m, 10% of which went to Democrats. So explain to me again how it is that the Kochs are buying elections & crushing the poor downtrodden weak unions?" -Steve Horwitz
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php?type=A

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/03/02/union_rights_that_arent/


Updates:
http://agoraphilia.blogspot.com/2007/05/d-statistics.html
http://agoraphilia.blogspot.com/2011/03/unions-education-and-simpsons-paradox.html


More Reading:

Unions:
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Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Placeholder

Response to recent NPR story:

John Burnett (2011:Feb.04). "Texas Lawmakers Aim For Guns On College Campuses," National Public Radio [NPR].

================================================================

Burnett begins his article with a loaded question; that is, one based on a straw man argument:
"Is the answer to mass shootings on college campuses to arm students and staff?"
No one advocating for the campus carry issue ever said it was "the answer," but forming the question in this way certainly allows Burnett to frame the debate to our detriment from the get-go...

"Eight states are considering legislation that would allow people to carry a concealed handgun into the lecture hall, the library or the dorm."
Burnett tries his hardest to make it sound like these eight states are part of some crazy super-minority of states. A less inherently-biased wording of this sentence might read: "In addition to the [however-many] states that already allow campus carry, eight more states..."


"Ground zero for the debate is Texas, where a proposed law would remove "premises of higher education" as gun-free zones."
This isn't a huge point, but while I'm at it and critiquing the rest of the article, I don't think Texas should be considered "ground zero" for the debate. I wish Texas had been at the forefront of this issue, but the initial wave has passed, other states took the lead as early-adopters, and we've been watching safely from the sidelines for a number of years, and are just now trying to get into the game. The most dire predictions of the professional alarmists have not come to pass, and campuses haven't become shooting galleries or war zones in any of the other states that have implemented campus carry.

"Right now, so-called gun-free zones, I think, ought to be renamed Victims Zones," says state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, a San Antonio Republican who is sponsoring a bill that would allow handguns on campuses. "I just don't want to see a repeat in Texas of what happened at Virginia Tech."
Just for clarification (and to bolster the first point I made in my rebuttal), I don't think Sen. Wentworth is saying campus carry would have prevented the Virginia Tech massacre. All CHLs (concealed handgun licensees) are asking for is the chance that the Virginia Tech victims were denied... not the chance to play mall ninja and stalk the halls for the chance to tactically engage a shooter like Cho, but the chance to defend themselves as a last resort if there is no path of escape and the police have not yet arrived.

"Wentworth was referring to the massacre at Virginia Tech in 2007, when a student killed 32 people on campus and injured many others before turning the gun on himself."
Not just any student... but a student who was able to stalk the halls with impunity for xxxx minutes, with absolutely no fear of an armed victim possibly/potentially turning the tables on him.



"Last September, the University of Texas at Austin had its own scare. Colton Tooley, a 19-year-old math major wearing a dark suit and ski mask, started shooting an AK-47 assault weapon in the air, then ran into a library and committed suicide."
Was it ever determined to be an actual AK-47? You know, one for which a $200 tax stamp should have existed? And Burnett should make up his mind... was it an AK-47, OR was it an "assault weapon" (a legal term that no longer applies in most states after 2004)? I haven't followed the case closely, but I have seen absolutely no confirmation that Tooley, in fact, had an AK-47. I can tell you one thing, though... if I were a journalist tasked to write an article on the topic which would see national exposure on NPR, I would have found out for sure. This just seems like irresponsible journalism, to me...




"No one else was shot. Campus police were praised for their quick response."
I'm not sure what their response time was, but even 30 seconds wouldn't have been quick enough (through no fault of their own) had Tooley actually decided to shoot anyone besides himself. I would caution any reasoning person against using the fact that no one else was shot to somehow infer that there is no case to be made for campus carry.



"Wentworth and other supporters of the proposed law say a citizen with a handgun can possibly take out a campus shooter before police arrive 'because when seconds count, the police are only minutes away'."
First of all, notice the phrasing here... 'can possibly'. That is exactly the point. No advocate of campus carry is guaranteeing that "a citizen with a handgun" (for the record, not just any "citizen with a handgun," but an actual, licensed CHL) will be able to take out a campus shooter before police arrive. Second, the strategic inclusion of the adage "when seconds count, the police are only minutes away" makes it seem like supporters of campus carry are derisively anti-police (instead of merely stating a logistical fact).

I would also be very interested in knowing whether Sen. Wentworth actually made this quoted statement to Burnett, or whether he attributed it to Burnett as "a supporter 'of the proposed law'." Conflating the two as an opportunity to stuff a quote in Sen. Wentworth's mouth seems, to me at least, to be sloppy journalism.



"Two years ago, Texas lawmakers rejected a bill allowing concealed-carry on campus. Since then, Republicans have gained a supermajority in the Legislature, and the controversial law has come back stronger than ever."
This is an "argument" (I'm being charitable here) that I see time and time again from the anti-campus carry crowd... Texas lawmakers "rejected" this bill no more than they "rejected" anything else that didn't make it to an up-or-down vote last session! Republican and Democratic legislators were playing politics with another issue (Voter ID, if memory serves), there was a filibuster, and the clock ran out for a lot of bills (representing a lot of different issues). I'm sure proponents of increased funding for education wouldn't have described an education bill as "rejected" if it was among those bills that ran out of time last session, so to describe the campus carry bill in this manner just strikes me as silly (if not disingenuous).





"With 50,000 students, the UT-Austin is one of the biggest schools in the country. Two years ago, the student government, faculty council and President Bill Powers came out against the bill to permit hidden pistols in university buildings; it's legal for license holders to carry on the campus grounds. Powers says his position has not changed."


I'm not surprised that a university president came out against a campus carry bill. It's not at all surprising that the chief politician on a college campus wants the last word on who can be armed in his fiefdom. Besides, even if he doesn't have his own little security entourage, it's not like he has to worry about walking across campus to his car at 2am after the library closes...



"Friday night comes on our campus once a week," he says. "Mixing youth, handguns and partying is, in my view, a mix for serious concerns about safety on campus."
Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC) has already done the heavy lifting when it comes to rebutting this fallacious argument, so I won't beat a dead horse here.

So... since President Powers is referring only to safety on campus, let's restrict our analysis to same: How many CHLs actually live on-campus, President Powers? You do know that legalizing campus carry wouldn't change the rules on who can legally carry a concealed handgun, don't you President Powers? And you also know that it wouldn't change the rules prohibiting CHLs from being intoxicated... right, President Powers? Because certainly you've done your homework on this issue and weren't just [if you'll pardon the expression] 'hip-shooting'... right, President Powers?

President Powers (and NPR, by proxy) is trying to make it sound like they're going to be handing out pistols and concealed handgun licenses out to freshmen at orientation, which is completely disingenuous.


[should I snip out the section about Corey, which was actually decently-written?]


"When John Woods moved on from Virginia Tech to graduate school in Austin, he thought he had left behind the rampage that killed two of his friends."
He did leave behind the rampage... unless Burnett (and NPR) is trying to rhetorically link the law-abiding campus carry movement in Texas with the [whatever] rampage in the "victim disarmament zone" that was Virginia Tech circa 2007.


"People think of colleges as just being classrooms, but there's a lot more going on here," Woods says. "We have hospitals on campus. In some cases there are preschools, sensitive labs where there are hazardous materials."
On the subject of hospitals, there are sufficient remedies at law. "Hospital carry" has been legal since [year?], and there have been [number?] incidents with lawful CHLs. I don't know about UT, but here at Texas Tech access to the preschool is restricted... and even then, current Texas law restricts carry... [?] (which wouldn't change under any of the proposed "campus carry" bills). And as for the "sensitive labs... [with]... hazardous materials," exactly what is Mr. Woods trying to say?



"And this is also something where the Legislature is taking away higher education institution's abilities to make any policy on the issue."
[Should I make an argument here, or let it go?]

"At the student union, math major Logan Healey responds with sarcasm when asked about the proposed conceal-carry law: 'So, our suggestion to stop people from bringing guns to campus is to allow other students to bring guns to campus so we can have gunfights.'"
Will they never stop with the straw man arguments? No one wants gunfights. Campus carry advocates want the opportunity to make a last-ditch effort to defend themselves if there is no escape route available and the police have not yet arrived and taken out (or otherwise stopped/subdued) the gunman.
[I tried to find out if Mr. Healey might be a plant by looking him up on Facebook, to see what orgs he belongs to (e.g. Brady, SfGFS), but he does not appear to be on Facebook]

"His friend, Bethany Ellerbrook, chimes in: "That's an awful idea. I hate it.'"
You're right, Bethany... gunfights are a horrible idea. I hate it, too. Even more than those gunfights, though, I hate the idea of one-sided 'gunfights', such as these.
[I tried to do the same for Ms. Ellerbrook and, while I did find her on Facebook, I didn't see anything that leapt out at me, organization- or cause-wise. Interestingly, I did not find Mr. Healey in her Friends List.]

"The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence reports that 22 states have rejected similar legislation. One that did not is Utah, where the University of Utah in Salt Lake City has had a concealed-weapon carry law for five years."
[Should I make an argument here, or let it go?]

"I'd say the vast majority of our student body doesn't even know about that law, or if somebody does have a handgun in class, I bet you 95 percent of the people would never know about it," says Chase Jardine, president of the student body.
That's kind of the point of "concealed," Mr. Jardine... except it's 100% of people who are not the concealed handgun carrier.

"Asked what his own opinion is, he says he's indifferent: 'It's just not a topic people talk about.'"
If campus carry advocates would just be allowed our rights in the rest of the state to extend to where we spend a large portion of our day (for school or work), we wouldn't talk about it, either!
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Monday, February 7, 2011

TCCC

TCCC/SCCC Articles from the last year or so:

These are the main movers and shakers against campus carry:

Update: Campus Carry Passes the Senate!


TCCC Officers:
  • 2010/2011
    • Nathanael "Nathan" Barker, President
    • Blake Rupard, Vice-President (later chosen as State Director for SCCC-Texas)
    • Joshua "Josh" Hull, Treasurer
    • Justin Wharff, Communications Director (Spokesperson)
    • Royce Fletcher, Events Coordinator
    • Andrew "Drew" Paxton, Legal Officer

  • 2011/2012
    • Royce Fletcher, President (resigned; left TTU to join Navy)
    • Michael Whistler, Vice President (promoted to President after Royce resigned, per TCCC Constitution)
    • Ashli Wieck, Vice President (elected at First General Meeting, 9/14/2011, to fill vacancy left after Michael's promotion)
    • Matthew "Matt" Legler, Treasurer
    • Justin Wharff, Communications Director (Spokesperson)
    • Kate Wiseman, Events Coordinator (1st semester only; graduated Dec. 2011)
    • Andrew "Drew" Paxton, (position created to subsume Legal Officer position from Year1)


Citations:

ABC 'study':

More:
Self-defense:

NRA Armed Citizen



Ashley Cowie, Florida State University:

  • http://www.glamour.com/magazine/2012/02/choose-your-side-should-college-kids-be-allowed-to-carry-guns
  • http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2011-01-09/story/fsu-student-orange-park-killed-fraternity-shooting
    "shot and killed early Sunday morning in an off-campus fraternity house"
    So... this happened off-campus, not on-campus.
    "Evan Wilhelm, a 20-year-old junior from Ponte Vedra, was showing his rifle to friends"
    And Wilhelm was only 20 (too young for a concealed permit in Texas; not sure about Florida), and this happened with a rifle (concealed carry on campus is about handguns, not rifles).
    "Wilhelm, 20, told police he had been drinking earlier in the day"
    It is illegal under Texas law to be both under the influence of alcohol and carrying concealed; I'd imagine this is the case in Florida, as well.
    "didn’t know the gun was loaded. He was showing how a flashlight attachment worked when it went off"
    First, that he '[d]idn't know the gun was loaded' is a violation of Rule #1 of Cooper's Four Rules of Firearms Handling:
    All Guns Are Always Loaded
    Second, I'm unfamiliar with any 'flashlight attachment' which involves manipulation of the trigger.
    Third, "it went off," my ass.  Guns don't "[just] go off."  Barring safety defects in older guns (especially derringers), their triggers must be manipulated.
    In short, I'm calling bullshit on his story.
    "His booking information at the Leon County Jail also lists an alias of Austin Felver"
    So now this guy has an alias?!?  Gee, what a fine, upstanding young man... I'm sure he easily could have qualified for a Florida license!  /sarcasm
    "The shooting took place in Heritage Grove, a large complex of apartment buildings that houses several fraternities along with other FSU students. Firearms are prohibited on the campuses of all public universities in Florida, but while Heritage Grove is off campus, FSU spokeswoman Browning Brooks said Lambda Chi has a policy that requires residents to sign a lease stipulating that no guns will be brought on the property"
    How's that policy workin' out for you?
    Now, lest I come across as insensitive... I *am* sensitive to Ashley's tragedy, as well as Amy and Robert's loss.  But that sensitivity does not include rolling over and playing dead in the face of their attempts to exploit this tragedy for political gain.  For a sense of perspective, just how sensitive is Amy Cowie to Amanda Collins' tragedy?  (their opposing viewpoints were presented in the same Glamour article)  I'm sure she probably thinks/feels like Collins is attempting to exploit /her/ tragedy for political gain.  Anyhow, there are enough distinguishing factors in the Ashley Cowie case that /should/ make it less than useful for attempts to obstruct campus carry... yet they persist in attempting to shoehorn it into a referendum against campus carry.  My personal opinion/reading of this case and the circumstances around it is that the Cowies' arguments are more generally anti-gun and less anti-campus carry, specifically.
  • Google search: cowie fsu off-campus amy OR ashley
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