New York City's Mayor's Race officially Moves Into Weird Gear.

Joe Lhota's political bio: son and grandson of a New York City police officer and fire fighter pledges to cut taxes for billionaires and slash wages and benefits for city employees.

Wow. His mother should have thrown him out and kept the stork.

That awkward moment when a man isn't sure if he did a number two.

They say he only lacks charisma. A man can be short and dumpy and bald, but if he has fire, women will like him. If he's Joe Lhotta, women will like him about as much as a man who leaves the toilet seat up. Seriously. Joe Lhota has about as much fire as the 1962 Mets, and will be lucky if he finishes the season with the same winning percentage.

Too much of a good thing can be taxing. And taxing can be a good thing. Such as taxing billionaires to pay for after school programs. In fact, if most people new that teenagers were at school all day before their parents came home from work, they would find such news downright relaxing. 

Public education is a good thing, and too much of a good thing can be wonderful. Every child in New York has pre-school? Wonderful!

Joe Lhota talks about success. He climbed the ladder of success all right, wrong by wrong.

Cablevision CEO. MTA chairman. From one legalized monopoly to the other.

Oh, but he has experience!

Doing what? When we say Lhota at the debate last night, he looked like somebody who wasn't sure if he had farted or pooped his pants.

And apparently, after yesterday's Federal Appeals Court Ruling, anybody who lives in New York City's media market is going to see a lot more of J Lho in action. Basically, a millionaire in Alabama decided he wanted to contribute $200,000 to J Lho's Super Pac. The New York Times has the details here.

Ironically, as much as I despise unlimited corporate influence on political candidates and their campaigns (aka "bribery,") I do take comfort in knowing that the millions of dollars that J Lho spends will do nothing to stop his inevitable defeat one week and a half from now.

Not only is J Lho down 2-1 in all major polls, but this is a man who said he would run over the most adorable pair of kittens in the world. Even most cold-hearted people would have the common sense to keep something like that a secret if they wanted to win you over.

Why did the scary candidate say he would run us over with a subway train?

And that's Lhotta: There more there is to see, the less there is to like. You can't sell bad product, and right-wing millionaires should have learned that with Mitt Romney. Oh the irony: The party that brands itself as flag-bearers of fiscal responsibility can't even invest in a winning candidate!

But this race is about more than Lhotta. In a week and half, he will fade back into obscurity, where he belongs. Hopefully, in a year and half, every child in New York will have the oppurtunity to pre-school and get a head start life. 

Left? Right? Center?

What's a moderate? What's a liberal? What's a conservative?

I have decided to remove the phrase "liberalism" from the title of this blog because I found it ultimately self-defeating. All of my views could either be described as liberal, moderate, or conservative. Therefore, because each label is so stigmatized, I decided to toss them all in favor of something more universal. Also, "Yankee" and "Liberal" is somewhat redundant. So I redacted both words completely.

For starters, what is a conservative? One would think that a conservative would not run a budget deficit during a period of economic expansion. One would believe in conserving natural resources, and making wise investments for the future. In other words, balance the budget through reasonable taxation, use care and consideration with the extraction of fossil fuels, metals and minerals, and rebuild highways and bridges before they collapse and kill dozens of people.

Obviously, political "conservatives" jettisoned these principles eons ago. I could say that I am a "conservative" because I don't think I should be able to set my kitchen tap water ablaze, but apparently, in today's climate, that makes one a liberal. C'est la vie.

Is there a middle ground in all this? Good question.

Funny how the "center" leans towards the left.

What bothers me most about the term "moderate" is that it is a complete mental shortcut. To subrscribe to any of the "big three" political labels is a sin; none of them are sacred. Rather than explore all sides of an issue (because there are more than two sides to each issue), a "moderate" simply decides that between two arbitrary points is the answer. Between left and right, there is truth

Granted, that's sort of true. If one says that Karl Marx is left and Ayn Rand is right, then one could reasonably say that the truth lies exactly in between. Between an economy where the state owns everything and an economy where the state owns nothing lies "truth."

The inherent problem with this philosophy is that is assumes, without justification, that every ideological argument is between two equally spaced polar opposites.

The politics of guns in America is a shining example of this flawed ideological examination. The
media loves to portray the gun safety dialogue as a political battle between two opposite camps: Those who loves guns and those who hate them. While these factions do exist, it is a very small subset of a much broader spectrum. Universal Background checks is a fine example. Public polling showed somewhere between 85 and 90 percent support for a measure that would make it harder for criminals to get guns and give law enforcement a tool to apprehend wanted criminals. And ten percent of the country wants criminals to buy guns unencumbered because they need them to overthrow the government should they feel the need.

First of all, where would the "center" be in this equation? How can a person show up in a public place with an assault rifle strapped to his back, make vague threats about killing American soldiers, and wear a button that says "Another Responsible Gun Owner?" Nay. It should go without saying that a responsible gun owner is somebody who understands that a gun is dangerous in the hands of a criminal, and any American citizen who would make allusions to kill an American soldier is a treasonous fool. Period. Maybe it support for universal background checks isn't centrist, but, well universal, because support is virtually uniform across party lines.

So if you're one of those 85 to 90 percent of all Americans who thinks the government should actually do something, where do we fit in? Even though public polling shows that roughly one quarter of all Americans self-identify as "liberal," large majorities of Americans support issues that are identified with the political left, be it marriage equality, a progressive tax structure, or universal Medicare. Let's face it: what the right brands as "socialism" is just another word for organized compassion. And it goes without saying that organization and compassion are both very good things.

So if somebody asks me what I am, or what I believe in, I say I am an organized compassionist. Or a prairie populist. Or just a decent human being. What can I say? My parents taught me to help my neighbor, even if my neighbor lives a thousand miles away.

New Name, Same Old Story?

What this (new) iteration of this blog is about. Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love This Blog's New Name.

A little over two years ago I started this blog mainly as a thought experiment. I was fatigued, admittedly, that neither political party was willing to pay so much as lip service to income inequality. A merry band of lunatics decide to give both Tea and Parties a bad name.

The last straw, admittedly, was when taxpayer-funded, "liberal" NPR wouldn't even address income inequality in a discussion about public housing in America. The commentators merely recited some information that was readily available from Wikipedia and then took calls from people who used to live in public housing high-rises.

The callers shared some personal anecdotes. The details where different, but the stories where the same. Everybody felt grateful that they had a roof over their heads in time of need, but the overall experience was awful and oh, how good they felt to get away.

And no, none of them had an idea as to what could be done to improve the situation.

"Well there you have it," said the "liberal" host of the radio program. "And with that, we're out of time!"

I had to howl at the moon, and this blog--although futile--did prove a catharsis. A few months later, some ingenious young people decided to camp out in Zuccotti Park, and, if nothing more, income inequality finally got on the map of political discourse.

So why keep this blog going? Even though I rarely update it (I work nearly 50 hours a week), I just can't stop myself. Quite frankly, I am having a lot more fun over at Natural New York, where my wife and I take pictures of flowers and write snarky poems about them. And yet, I can't help but try and offer a few words here and there about the plagued political discourse in America.

However, much of what I have posted has been too partisan, too preachy, and too polemic to be considered good writing. At least that's my opinion. So, I will try harder to go against the grain of Internet idiocy, and double down on my commitment to quality over quantity. And, in honor of George McGovern, I have renamed this blog Prairie Populism.

Stay tuned, and feel free to tell me what you think. Compassion, Love, and Understanding are the Answer.

Until then, Peace Out!

Yes, this is still an Assault Rifle

The pistol grip enables the user of the rifle to aim repeatedly and accurately in a small amount of time. A hunting rifle is designed for one shot. Hence, hunting rifles do not have pistol grips.

Josh Moore holds his totally not-an assault rifle

Shawn Moore, an NRA-certified firearms trainer and licensed hunter, recently stirred up some controversy when he gave his son, Josh, a .22 calibre rimfire rifle for his birthday and posted the photo on Facebook.

Someone who saw the photo called their local child welfare service office, who in turn sent an official to investigate, which left Shawn Moore ripping mad. Moore called an attorney to help set the record straight.

"Just because it has a sexy look to it does not make (the gun) an assault firearm," said Evan Nappen, Moore's attorney. "

We have heard this argument, relentlessly from the NRA and their ilk in the weeks after Newtown. How dare anybody attack a poor, defenseless rifle, based on how the thing looks?

Sorry, but a semi-automatic rifle with a pistol grip is an assault rifle, no matter how you look at it. Here's why.


This is the the 9mm High Point-carbine semi-automatic that Eric Harris used to commit his assault at Columbine High School on April 20th, 1999. It looks very nondescript. It doesn't have the same, military-style look as an AR-15, or Josh Moore's .22 Calibre rimfire. But it does have a pistol grip.

This is Dave Sanders, a teacher and softball coach at Columbine High School.

In the security video tape of the massacre, he is seen running up the stairs, towards the classrooms, rather than outside the school. After directing hundreds of students in the cafeteria to safety, Sanders ran towards the classrooms, most likely to help warn others.

Eric saw Dave Sanders running towards the classrooms. With one hand firmly on the rifle's pistol grip, Eric was was able to quickly aim and fire not once, not twice, but three times at Dave Sanders.

The first two shots hit Sanders in the back; the third ripped through his neck and exited his face. He stumbled into a nearby classroom, where students saw their teacher vomit his own blood and teeth. Terrified to venture into the hallway, the students admitted whatever first aid they could, while another wrote on a whiteboard: ONE BLEEDING TO DEATH In hopes to get professional medical help.

But the professional help never came--not in time. By the time medical help did arrive, it was too late. Dave Sanders was dead.

One bled to death. Because the rifle had a pistol grip, Harris was ready to accurately aim and fire repeatedly in a matter of seconds. Harris' sawed of shotgun, or Dylan Klebold's Tec-9 handgun, would have been unlikely to deliver three fatal wounds at long range.

It's not cosmetic. It's a feature. To a soldier in an army, a pistol grip has a benefit. Sadly, it has a benefit to a homicidal maniac as well.

So let's not give whiny critics of gun safety an inch in this regard. Not now, not ever. A pistol grip is not about how it looks, but what it does.

Video Games? Or real life?

Less than 24 hours after New York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica's bombshell report on Adam Lanza and his death kill "scorecard," Senators from both parties have called on stricter regulation of video games. West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller criticized the "obscene levels of violence" in video games, while Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley said "there are too many video games that celebrate the mass killing of innocent people--games the despite attempts at self-regulation find their way into the hands of children."

Okay, timeout here. Did either Senators Rockefeller or Grassley actually read the article? Lupica's story, available here, says that Lanza had compiled a 7 foot by four foot "scorecard" of actual mass murders and attempted mass murders. The scorecard contained 500 names, complete with the number of people killed, and the exact make and model of each weapon used.

"It had to have taken years," said Lupica's source. "It sounded like a doctoral thesis, that was the quality of the research."

Two things here. First, Adam Lanza was crazed, immoral bastard. Second, to paraphrase Jon Stewart, it clearly wasn't the violence on video games that "inspired" Lanza to go on a shooting spree, it was the violence that was real, coupled with Lanza's own moral depravity.

I personally don't care much for most these so-called "shooter games," although I did play more than my fair share of Nintendo 64's GoldenEye back in 1998. It's not that I am a fan of these video games, it's that behavioral science does not validate claims that video games actually cause an increase in violent behavior. The opposite, is true in fact. And really, let's think about it. In Games like "Call of Duty" and "Medal of Honor," the shooter is an American soldier. How many of these "gamers" enlisted in the U.S. military after playing the game?

But that's not how certain people see the issue. We heard the same story about Eric Harris after Columbine. He played Doom. He also believed that humans should go extinct, and that he wanted to kill more people in a bombing of a public building than Timothy McVeigh, and that if he didn't follow through with his blaze of glory, he would have been a serial killer. All of this information was revealed in Eric Harris' home videos, made public in Dave Cullen's Columbine. 

So let's really examine the science here. In both cases, a truly disturbed individual* went on a shooting spree. In both cases, the perpetrators of said massacre were inspired by real-life violence. In both cases, the shooter(s) played video games. In both cases, the shooters had access to semi-automatic rifles that were legally purchased.

How sad that someone in a place of actual power and responsibility could see the evidence and arrive at the wrong conclusion.

What it means to be an American.

I hope you all had a Happy St. Patrick's Day. I know I did.

The Clancy Brothers with Tommy Makem and Sweaters.

While many of the faux Irish celebrant's were sleeping of their day-after parade hangovers, my wife and I got to enjoy the streets of Manhattan at our leisure. We studied some reference material at the New York Public Library before heading to lower Manhattan, where we enjoyed a St. Patrick's Day brunch at the Penny Farthing on 3rd Avenue and 12th Street. On our way home, we picked up some St. Joseph's Day cakes in Little Italy. Since my Mother is half-Irish and half-Italian, I have been able to enjoy the best of both worlds since birth.

I enjoy being who I am. But it's not just me.  Certainly, St. Patrick's day belongs to everyone. I had to let my wife know that she was Irish too, given how she looks so classy with her Emerald Green scarf. And that's just her. Again, it's all of us.

I remember when my father, who is not entirely Irish, told me the story of Ireland's orange, white and green. It was, he told me, a "food flag." The orange represented the corned beef; the green, cabbage. And the white represents the mashed potatoes!

This, by most accounts, comically false, but it was a true enough an explanation as for a 7 year-old to comprehend. It also may explain why my father won affection from his father-in-law. Irish folklore is essentially founded upon such metaphorical blarney. It's a reminder that are behavioral traits are not inborn. Cliché as it may be, it is true that while our differences make us unique, we are stronger bound by the similarities that bring us together. I reminded of this phenomena every day when I walk the streets of my neighborhood, which is populated by Hispanics, Koreans, African-Americans, and a few Belfasters. We live here because we don't care much for overpriced rent or hipsters. It's a good life.

I thought about this as I listened to the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem when my wife and I got home. I love their rendition of Bob Dylan's civil rights anthem, "the hour that the ship comes in."

And really that's what this country is all about. America: were a middle-class Jew can empathize with impoverished, segregated African-Americans and find mutual inspiration with Irish immigrants.

What a world.

The phony center on gun control

One thing that irks me about the American press is that it invariably likes to present all political news under one narrative: two opposing views that can never be reconciled. If anybody has a strong opinion, they are drowned out of the national debate, save only for those heroic journalists who opine about the "center."

Gun owner Gary Nutt of Kentucky proudly displays the only bullet he needs.

There are several problems with this news motif, but the most striking is that the "centrist viewpoint" put on a pedestal by the news punditocracy is either left or right, and right or wrong. Paul Krugman, for example, has all but devoted his bi-weekly New York Times column to debunking the "centrist" leanings of advocates for deficit reduction.

But that's another story. This weekend, I couldn't help but notice this New York Times story about a Waco, Texas couple who owns guns but doesn't much care for them.

"I'd love to see all guns destroyed," said Michael Kundu. "But I'm not giving mine up first."

The article goes on to explain the Kundu's ambivalence about guns, living in Waco (who wouldn't be afraid their neighbors?) and, here is the kicker: a call to moderation!

"It is these voices of ambivalence," writes Times reporter Susan Saulny, "that policy makers are say are likely to be drowned out."

Guns still poll better than Marco Rubio

To be fair, on the surface, "gun control" appears to be a contentious issue. Ask somebody if he or she believes in gun control, and there is a 50 percent chance that the response will be yes, and a 50 percent chance that the response will be no.

Ah, but one follow up question yields that most Americans do support specific measures to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and limit the deadly power that guns can inflict on innocent people, to "control" guns, if you will. 90 percent of Americans support universal background checks on gun purchases, 65 percent support a ban on high capacity magazines, and 55 percent support a comprehensive assault weapons ban.

90. 65. 55. These are all clear majorities. A presidential candidate hasn't received a popular vote total of 55 percent since Ronald Reagan in 1984. I wonder what he had to say about gun control?

"I do not believe in taking away the right of the citizen for sporting, for hunting and so forth, or for home defense," said Reagan. "But I do believe that an AK-47, a machine gun, is not a sporting weapon or needed for defense of a home."

I'm sure if Ronnie were still alive today, he would have much more to say on the subject, since he was, you know, shot. Things like that tend to put someone not to the "center" of some abstract debate, but in the column of those who believe in statistically proven measures to reduce gun violence. How could anybody fancy themselves a news "reporter" on the subject gun control and overlook Gabby Giffords?

And that's the bottom line. The voices of gun owners who call for restrictions on who can own a gun, and what guns should be available to the general public, are not "extremists." These are generally sensible people. Perhaps one reason why Ms. Saulny thought it would be hard to find gun owners who support these restrictions is because none other than the New York Times reported that gun ownership is in the throes of a steep, steady decline for the last four decades.

Sounds like a new rule from Bill Maher: In order to report the news, one must read it first.

The Kevin Miner Gun Challenge!

In 1980, San Diego Padres shortstop Ozzie Smith set the all-time assists record for a shortstop at 621, and won the first of 13 consecutive Gold Glove Awards.

He also hit .230, with zero home runs and .313 On Base Percentage. The following baseball season, Smith's appearance at the plate was even more dismal, logging a .222 batting average and zero home runs, with an on base percentage of .294.  To put it in non-baseball terms: pathetic. Due to animosity between Ozzie Smith's agent, Ed Gottlieb, and the San Diego Padres management, Smith found himself a St. Louis Cardinal at the start of the 1982 season.

I guarantee you nobody is taking this guy's gun away!!

At spring training, Cardinal manager Whitey Herzog saw Smith's potential as a hitter and offered the young player a deal.

"Every time you hit a fly ball," said Herzog to Smith, "you owe me a buck. Every time you hit a ground ball, I owe you a buck."

The plan worked beautifully. Smith accepted the deal, stopped trying to hit home runs, and earned $300 over the course of the 1982 season. His batting average improved to respectability, and Smith finished his career with a respectable 2,460 hits. As a Padre, Ozzie Smith's batting average was a lowly .231 As a Cardinal, Smith hit .272.

I offer a similar proposal to any law-abiding gun owner. For every day that a government official doesn't take your gun away, you owe me a buck. For every day that a government official does take your gun away, I will give you $10,000. Per gun. And yes, I am completely serious.

Why do I make this offer? Because quite frankly, less than three months after 20 mothers and fathers had their children taken away from them by a madman, a predictable group of sourpusses have sulked and complained that they are the real victims here.

Spare me. That is just wrong for so many reasons. You, a victim? Why? Because in the future, a 17 year-old with a documented history of mental illness and a criminal record might not be allowed to purchase a Tec-9, a 9 mm High Point Carbine Rifle, and two shotguns at a gun show? It's happened before. The buyer's name was Eric Harris.

So happy I could flip!

We have automotive safety laws in the country. To obtain a car, one must first take lessons from a certified instructor, pass a test, and obtain a licence. After buying a car, one must register the car and pay insurance on it, because even though cars can be useful, these cars can also be quite dangerous if not handled properly. In fact, cars themselves must meet certain safety standards from the manufacturer if they are to be sold to the general public.

Substitute the word "car" with "gun," and guess what? You're not a "victim." No one is going to take your car away and leave you defenseless against a "bad guy with a car." You will survive. You will not be, nor are you now, a victim.

But people who get shot and killed are victims. Sometimes these victims had a gun, sometimes they didn't. But the perpetrator had a gun that, all too often, was legally purchased. So take me up on this challenge. Eventually, you will learn that nobody is out to "take your gun away."

Or better yet, stop complaining.

Mystery Solved? CNBC Reporter drives Tesla up I-95 without incident

Thanks to a friendly neighbor up north, I think we can say the Model S runs great over long distances and in the cold, eh?

CNBC's Philip LeBeau reporter made the trek up I-95, in the cold, and documented the drive on CNBC's website. It's fun to watch, and you can see his report here.

Range anxiety? What range anxiety? Car works great!

The same trip that vexed, flustered and flummoxed New York Times Reporter John Broder was a lovely jaunt for LeBeau.

With 61 miles to go until the next charging station in Milford Connecticut, LeBeau is calm composed. "I know I have at least 110 miles of battery charge to go."

And charge away he does. "One thing stands out" says LeBeau. "This is a car that you can drive over long distances, but you've got to manage."

Yeah. Just like with a gas-powered car. It's an internal combustion engine, not a perpetual motion machine. And we, as a society, are much more like to have a gasoline shortage than an electricity shortage.

But the promise of LeBleu's story is about so much more than a spat about batteries. Tesla Motors offers the promise of fresh air. Fresh, clean air in and around our major cities and transportation hubs.

Think about. No more children wheezing as they clutch their asthma inhalers. A drastic reduction in the number of strokes and heart attacks among the elderly. No more smog.

But what of the doubters? The New York Times is still unapologetic for John Broder's Model S meltdown. Three days after CNBC broadcast LeBeau's trek from D.C. to Boston, the Grey Lady published an article about the firestorm Broder had created. "After a charging system test, a debate rages online," said the article, viewable here. It quoted various twitter feeds and blog postings. The article did not mention the Model S's flawless performance when objectively operated.

What can be said to doubters of this promising new technology? Perhaps I shall leave the last word on this matter to Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

"The good thing about science," he says, "is that it is true whether or not you believe it."

Thanks, Neil. Call me biased, but I'm going with science on this one.

Guess who's invited to dinner?

If you can't beat 'em, dine 'em.

That seems to be the philosophy of our nation's lobbyists, and it seems to be working. Even though poll after poll shows consistant majority support for higher marginal tax rates, a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, and yes, a ban on semi-automatic rifles with at least one military feature, these issues are unlikely to get out of committee.

What if I were to lobby the lobbyists? Maybe take one of them out to dinner. And guess who I've invited? That's right, Wayne LaPierre. This is a personal invite from me to Mr LaPierre.

Sir, Arthur Avenue has some of the finest restaurants in the world. Please take a break from K Street, just for one day, and I will take you to any Arthur Avenue restaurant of your choosing. 

C'mon, Wayne, what have you got to lose?

Seriously, take me up on it.

David Frum calls BS on John Lott

Okay, so this took some research on my part, but not much. I happened to catch sight of a blogpost from GOP strategist-turned CNN pundit David Frum. In his post that you can read here, Frum implores President Obama to use the power of the Presidency to tackle the gun industry with Surgeon General Reports and Senate Panels on gun violence. Weak tea? Perhaps, but Frum points to similar success in tackling the tobacco industry in years passed. Remember, doctors used to to recommend cigarettes as a means to prevent coughing.

Former Bush-advisor turned sensible person, David Frum.

But more importantly, Frum refutes Lott's oft-repeated and bogus statistic that individual gun ownership prevents 2.5 million crimes per year, which translates to one crime deterred every 13 seconds. Frum provides a link to an earlier blogpost, written in the wake of the Aurora move theater massacre, which you can read here.

Basically, Frum cuts right to the core of Lott's sloppy research. Frum lays out five obvious flaws. Some of them are as follows:

1. Lott published his 2.5 million prevented crimes statistic in 1995. In the last 18 years, crime has decreased by one third, yet Lott and his supporters maintain that the number of crimes prevented by "good guys with guns" has remained constant. How can this be?

2. Lott did conduct a singular study from the year preceding 1995 to produce his result. Instead, his statistic is culled from 13 polls of gun users who said they used a gun to prevent a crime. And by "used" they meant owner of said gun heard a rustle in the bushes, walked outside with a gun, only to find nothing. Maybe the shotgun scared away a burglar, or maybe the wind picked up and died down. Hardly definitive methodology.

 3. The FBI counted an average of 213 justifiable homicides in the United States from 2005 through 2010. If Lott's 2.5 million number is anywhere near accurate, that would mean that defensive gun use would only result in a fatality 0.0052 percent of the time.

Which leads to Frum's final point. When one combines the actual statistics on crime with Lott's 2.5 million number, we see merely the illusion of the gun enthusiast crowd. To them, a bad guy has a gun, a good guy pulls out his gun, and problem solved. In reality, most crimes are committed among acquaintances, not strangers. Sometimes one person has a gun, sometimes both parties a gun. In either case, the likelihood of a fatality is higher than if no person had a gun, period.

Nancy Lanza thought her guns would protect her. They didn't.

His final thoughts are telling, and cut to the core of the gun culture. I will reprint, rather than paraphrase:

. . . Most of the time, gun owners are frightening themselves irrationally. They have conjured in their own imaginations a much more terrifying environment than genuinely exists -- and they are living a fantasy about the security their guns will bestow. And to the extent that they are right -- to the extent that the American environment is indeed more dangerous than the Australian or Canadian or German or French environment -- the dangers gun owners face are traceable to the prevalence of the very guns from which they so tragically mistakenly expect to gain safety.

Tragedy indeed. CNN published Frum's wise words on July 30th, 2012, five and half months before yet another "law-abiding citizen," Nancy Lanza, was shot and killed with a gun she purchased for self-protection.

The case of the New York Times and the too-hot-to-trot Tesla.

It's fast. It's beautiful. It's Motor Trend's 2013 Car of the Year.

The Model S: Fast, fun, and I'm willing to bet, reliable.

Stylish. Sexy. Pretty. And Practical. 265 Miles on a single charge. Seats Five, emits zero. If I ever feel so inclined as to buy a car again, it may be a Tesla. Nearly every person privileged to get behind the wheel of one these things is blown away by its power, it's finesse, and its practicality.

Until last week's "review" about the Tesla Model S in the New York Times. In case you missed it, in"Stalled on the E.V. Highway," John Broder writes about freezing temperatures, misleading battery information, and a car that just doesn't wan't to drive very far or very long.

In less time than it takes a Tesla Roadster to go from zero to sixty miles an hour, Tesla CEO Elon Musk cried foul. Unbeknowst to Times reporter Broder, Tesla has a little black box that records the drivers every action. Needless to say, what Broder said didn't match up with the details on the black box.

So who are we left to believe in this fiasco? Is the New York Times, a publication not known for its automotive reporting, making a fair call here? Or is Elon Musk fabricating information to save his image before his public persona bursts into flames like rear-ended Ford Pinto?

As someone who has lived along the "Electric Highway" for the better part of three decades, I feel uniquely suited to offer my own analysis into the situation.

During Broder's odyssey, he writes that he is stranded with virtually zero battery power in Groton, Connecticut. He says he had intended to drive to New York City, with a stop in Milford, Connecticut to recharge.  What was Broder to do?"

Finally! A car faster than Wayne LaPierre's mouth!

"The Tesla people found an E.V. charging facility that Norwich Public Utilities had recently installed," wrote Broder. "Norwich . . . was only 11 miles away, though in the opposite direction from Milford."

Stop right there. I know my cardinal directions, and I know my Connecticut towns. Norwich is north of Groton; Milford, to Groton's west. North and west are not opposites. That should be obvious.

And Norwich isn't exactly an inconvenient detour from Groton. Norwich is a railroad and highway hub for Southeastern Connecticut, which is probably why Tesla chose to put a charging station in that town. Once the car was recharged, I-395 conveniently allows any driver from all points south and east to "backtrack," as I-395 forms the hypotenuse of a high-speed roadway right tringle. Instead of heading south back towards Groton, the driver is headed Southwest towards Milford, linking up with I-95 in East Lyme.

Dude, why do you have so much trouble driving your car?

I can understand being confused about adapting to a car with an all-electric fuel source and drivetrain, but confusing basic directions like east and west? 

But that's just me talking. Perhaps the best question comes from another New York Times reader, who wonders why Broder didn't have any problems with the Model S after re-charging in Milford.

Broder doesn't answer, but it appears that one of three responses could accurately describe the situation:

a) The Model S got better . . . by magic!
b) Broder learned how to better drive the Model S.
c) Broder had made his a point about his preconceived distaste for the Model S, and wanted to get home as quickly as possible. 

I'm guessing C. I'm going with countless reviews from other automotive sources, Elon Musk's previous success in the electronic industry, and my own, Connecticut born-and-raised common sense. It's a great car.

What do you think?

Mr. LaPierre, Please Leave Crazy Wayne's World.

Mr. LaPierre,

I couldn't help but notice your recent plea that all citizens must arm themselves due the the post-apocalyptic wrath incurred in New York City.

New York City. My home. The place where I work and live.

A place where I have never, ever, needed a gun.

Only someone who is jaded by urban legends would actually believe that the streets of New York are unsafe. And only somebody who has never visited Grand Central in the last ten years would be dumb enough to suggest that Mayor Bloomberg has kept National Guard out of the city because of a "gun prohibition." Maybe you should do yourself, and quite frankly, everybody a favor, leave K Street for a little while, and visit my neighborhood. The Park, the Zoo, Arthur Avenue. It's lovely here. I'll show what New York is really like. My treat. I'm usually free on evenings and weekends.

Thanks for your interest.

Sincerely,

~Kevin Miner

Shooting Ranges Believe in Gun Control

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Here at Atwell's Shooting Range in Painesville, Ohio, people don't want just anyone walking around with a loaded gun. Because, you know, that would just be dangerous, even if the person with a gun is a responsible, law-abiding citizen.

What if the treatment is worse than the symptom?

So the House Democrats unveiled their proposal to reform our nation's gun safety laws. As usual, the other side cried foul, save for some vague promise to provide better mental heath services.

We've seen this play out before. After a mass shooting rampage, the NRA and its cohorts express sympathy for the victims, express that guns are not the problem, and we as a nation must work on providing mental health for those who need it.

You'll take away my right to lose insurance from my cold, dead hands!

I have two problems with this single-minded, overly simplistic, vague solution to the scourge of mass shootings and everyday gun violence that plague America today.

First, when Barack Obama called on Congress to pass the Affordable Health Care Act, aka "Obamacare," these same assault-rifle wielding, bed-wetting, "Tea Party" types were carrying guns to health care rallies and calling for armed insurrection if insurance companies were to be forced to provide services that customers paid for. Oh, the humanity!

The second problem cuts right to the core of the gun culture. These "Second Amendment Enthusiasts" don't view treatment from mental health professionals as the solution to gun violence in America. No, they think that guns are the solution! That's right. If you hear voices in your head, don't see a psychiatrist ASAP, go to the shooting range and pop off a few rounds.

Think I'm being naive? I wish I were, but I'm going off of the information that we have concerning Adam Lanza at this time. This was reported by the Associated Press, and it cannot be repeated often enough:

"Friends told NBC's Today show on Monday that Lanza was a devoted mother, especially to her son Adam, and that shooting guns was simply a hobby for her. Russell Hanoman said Adam Lanza was 'clearly a troubled child.'

"Hanoman said Nancy Lanza told him she introduced guns to Adam as a way to teach him responsibility. 'Guns require a lot of respect, and she really tried to instill that responsibility within him, and he took to it. He loved being careful with them. He made it a source of pride.' Hanoman said."

In less time that it takes Wayne LaPierre to say,"But wait! That was an isolated incident!" We can examine the murder of ex-Navy Seal Chris Kyle. Yes, he did take Ray Routh, a person who described his own behavior as "psychotic," to a gun range. Yes, Kyle was trying help Routh with his mental ailments.

And if we do get mental health care, we're gonna shoot up the place!

And no, this isn't a recent development. Before Sandy Hook, and even before Columbine, high school sophomore Kip Kinkel murdered both his parents, drove to Thurston High School in Springfield Oregon, and unloaded 50 rounds of ammunition on his classmates, killing four and wounding another 24.

Kip's father had taken the boy off Prozac and had allowed his son to collect guns as a mature hobby. Seriously. Just a reminder that medication has more stopping power than a Glock.

Super Bowl Myth: Busted!

Didn't you hear? Today, Super Bowl Sunday is allegedly the biggest day for spousal abuse. In fact, more women are victims of spousal abuse on this day than on any other day of the year, with domestic violence centers reporting an increase of 40 percent.

Except problem: It isn't true. Not in the slightest. Snopes.com does an excellent job detailing the history of this whopper from its origins.

Must . . . Attack . . . Women??

It's also important to examine one tremendous flaw with this logic: In football, players are hitting other men. They are not hitting other women. If the object of a football game were to have the male players attack the female cheerleaders of the opposing team, this argument might have some merit. Then again, if a football game really were played with men routinely attacking women, the NFL would have a serious problem attracting fans. Most people would find such activity abhorrent.

If people really were that impressionable, wouldn't Call of Duty video games have sparked a massive increase in U.S. military enlistment? Behavioral psychologists know better.

And yet the fact the a statistic so absurd could gain such widespread currency for so long is a reminder that our brains are programmed to take mental shortcuts. As humans, we have cognitive process that is designed to filter out garbage and decide whether something makes sense based on what we already presume to be true. Psychologists call this confirmation bias.

Are we doomed, then to eternal suffering based on our own mental shortcomings? I think not. I think we can do better. In the last half century, the American public has endured a seismic shift on equal rights based on race, equal rights based on sexual orientation, and automotive safety. Can the tackling of today's gun culture be far behind?

John Lott's Myth Busted

Has a "good guy" with a gun ever lowered the crime rate? John Lott, author of More Guns, Less Crime, answers strongly in the affirmative. Ironically, the biggest critic to Lott's research, is Lott none other than Lott himself.

Before we delve into statistics, it is important to analyze the evidence pool from which Lott and other concealed carry proponents draw from. The story is always the same: a good guy had a gun, you just didn't hear it because the "liberal media" didn't tell you. Somehow, John Lott got his hands on the information.

One such story, told from the prospective of a "law-abiding" gun owner, is actually perfect at illustrating Lott's logical fallacies.

From the Hartford Courant's write-up of Tuesday's legislative hearing on the Newtown massacre:

Gun owner Andrew Starczewski of New Britain testified against the magazine restrictions by relating a harrowing story about thugs surrounding him and his fiance years ago in a Hartford parking garage.

"They were all young men, and all looked thuggish and dressed that way. … They had at least two bats and two guns, all deadly weapons. We would be overwhelmed by the thugs in seconds. Luckily I was armed, a very small handgun with only six rounds of minor caliber ammunition. … I would have given an eye, an arm, my teeth for a 15-round magazine," Starczewski said.

"When I released the safety of the gun … while it was still in my small-of-the-back holster … it made a click … and the lead guy did an about-face and waved off the other guys" and they ran off, Starczewski said later.

There are several problems with Starczweski's story. Let's start with the setting: a parking garage in Hartford, Connecticut. Fair enough. But according to Starczweski's account, there are several young men, dressed "thuggish," and carrying "at least two bats and two guns." 

Stop right there. First of all, how many thugs are there? Are there just two thugs, each armed with a bat and a gun? Or two thugs, one with two guns, the other with two bats? Four people, each with either a bat, or a gun? Perhaps there were so many people, that Starczweski was simply unable to estimate, solely because he was trained to look for danger, and saw only the bats and guns that were presumably pointed in his direction. And there must be a lot of people, because Starczweski says he would forfeit a limp for the use of a 15-round magazine.

In any case, how did a group of people, armed with baseball bats and guns, bypass the gate attendant and the security cameras of the parking garage? A handgun can be concealed, but baseball bats?

Any willing suspension of disbelief goes out the window when Starczewski concludes his story. He had a gun. The "lead" guy called off his attackers. Think like the thief for a minute. You are about to rob someone. You find out he has a gun. Are you going to just walk away and give him a chance to shoot you in the back?

Even we assume that this highly dubious story is true, in spite of it incredulity, there is no evidence that Starczewski actually prevented a crime from being committed. Why? Well, for starters, he never reported this incident to the police. Stalking somebody with a deadly weapon is against the law, and by his own admission, Starczewski let them go unharmed. Now, this group of thugs is free to terrorize the next person they say in the parking garage.

The steering-wheel lock, known universally as the "club," is analogous to the aforementioned situation. The club does not reduce aggregate car theft, because a would be thief could simply walk past the "clubbed" car and steal the next one. Or, if the "clubbed" car was new model Mercedes/Audi/BMW, etc, the thief could just cut the club with a hacksaw in about two minutes, or slice right through with an angle grinder in about ten seconds. If a good citizen were to witness the thief and probe his actions, all he would need to do is smile and say, "I forgot my key."

But that's just me talking. What about Lott? For over a decade, Lott insisted that law-abiding gun owners were responsible for "preventing 2 million crimes per year." He said these were FBI statistics. Unfortunately, no one from the FBI has ever validated this claim. Lott now says that the number is somewhere "between 1.5 million and 3.4 million crimes every year."

That's right. 1.5 million to 3.4 million. By his own admission, Lott has a margin of error of 1.9 million crimes. If we hold that margin up to his original calculation of 2 million, we can conclude that Lott's margin of error is 95 percent. If we accept Lott's lower estimate of 1.5 million, we can conclude "more guns" translates into an increase of 400,000 crimes per year.

But hey, those are his numbers. And whatever model he is operating is completely at odds with basic statistical calculation. More guns and less crime? Using Lott's own research, let's consider this myth busted.

Post script: I decided to investigate Lott's claim that England's handgun ban, instituted in 1997, had caused murder rates to "double" by 2003.  So, I checked. England and Wales recorded slightly under 800 murders in 1998, and slightly over 1,000 in 2003. Hardly a double, but an increase, right?However, 176 of those "2003" murderers were due to the conviction of serial killer Harold Shipman, a sick doctor who killed his patients. After his conviction, 176 previous "accidental deaths" were subsequently recorded as homicides. So, in 2003, the murder rate was about the same. Until the next year, and the year after, in which England and Wales recorded progressively lower murder rates, with 2012 being the lowest on record. It took me all of two minutes to this look this up.

More Guns, More Crime

On November 24th, 2004, at a hunting range in northwest Wisconsin, a hunter named Chai Vang was involved in a dispute with 15 other hunters. The dispute resulted in a firefight, in which Vang fired his 7.62x39 Saiga semi-automatic rifle, which killed six and injured two. The names of the dead were: Robert Crotteau, Joey Crotteau, Alan Laski, Mark Roidt,  Jessica Willers, and Denny Drew. Each of them had one thing in common: they were all carrying a gun.

On Apri 4th, 2009, in the Stanton Heights Neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Richard Poplawski opened fire with a WASR-10 semi-automatic rifle on a group of police officers, killing three and wounding two. The names of the dead police officers were: Eric Kelly, Steven Mayhle, and Paul Sciullio. All of the officers were armed.

On February 24th, 2005, in at a courthouse in Tyler Texas, David Hernandez Arroyo carried a MAK-90 semi-automatic into a courtroom and opened fire. His ex-wife, Mirabel Estrada, was killed. Also killed was a local resident, Mark Alan Wilson. Wilson had a concealed carry permit. And a gun.

The formula is simple: More guns, more crime. The lawless individual who cares not for gun laws also cares not as to whether his victims have guns. Or police protection. Columbine High School had an armed police officer when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 13 people before committing suicide. Virginia Tech, like most colleges and universities, had an entire in-house police force.

Unfettered access to guns is killing us, and in each of these aforementioned massacres, the guns were purchased legally. We have heard the arguments from the gun enthusiast crowd over and over again. The criminal would have gotten the gun anyway. Guns make us safer. Common sense, and statistics, do prove otherwise.

And we intend to prove it.

The Right and Wrong Way of Kicking the Brits Out.

An unwanted, imperial British government exercised its rule over a foreign land. Protesters against the government were fired upon in a bloody massacre. The people took up arms to send a clear message: Kick the British out!

Is this the best way to achieve independence from Britain?

And, um, they were not successful.

Dolours Price, an unrepentant member of the Irish Republican Army got her own write-up in the New York Times this weekend after she passed away this Thursday. Price participated in and later served prison time for a London bombing that injured one and left one person dead from a heart attack. 

What happened to Ms. Price, and the movement of which she was a part of, is perhaps best e summarized in her New York Times obituary:

Ms. Price spoke often of the personal toll of her terrorist activities: years of depression, alcohol and drug abuse, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Among the suspected informers she drove to their executions, she said, was a longtime family friend. In prison, she staged a 203-day hunger strike in which her jailers force-fed her every day through rubber tubing.

Suffering from tuberculosis and other ailments, Ms. Price was released from prison on humanitarian grounds in 1981 after serving seven years of a life sentence.

Ms. Price told interviewers that she might have spared herself and her victims had she known that the struggle would end with a peace that left Northern Ireland’s Catholic majority, in her view, where it had started: under British rule.

“When we starved together on hunger strike,” she wrote in a 2004 essay in Fortnight, an Irish journal, “it was not to ‘move the process forward,’ it was not for seats in a British government.” It was, she said, “to rid this land of any British interference.”

Her life and death serve should serve as a reminder that the American Revolution was not a band of "minuteman" waging guerrilla warfare against the British. On the contrary, most members of the militia were veterans of the French and Indian War. The battles of the American Revolution were fought with contemporary military tactics. And it wasn't until the French were kind enough to supplement General Washington with 6,500 soldiers that the Continental Army was able to deliver a decisive enough defeat to end the war.

Fighting on a battlefield between soldiers is far, far different than the car bombings, kidnappings and forced executions that Belfaster's refer to "the troubles" that plagued Northern Ireland from the 1970s to the 1990s. Although the Good Friday agrement in 1998 failed to address once and for all whether or not Belfast would remain under British rule or finally join the rest of Ireland, the condition of peace was better than the condition of war.

That should be the bottom line. Public disputes are best resolved through the political process. Saying that any person, anywhere, should have whatever gun they choose to keep the government from doing things they dislike essentially advocates domestic terrorism.

Gun advocates really aren't helping their cause.

The truth comes out. Five weeks after Adam Lanza killed 20 first graders in less than three minutes, a merry band of delusional gun-toters declared that the AR-15 was not to blame.

"It's not an assault rifle," said Elizabeth Mais, of Prospect, Connecticut. "It's a modern-day musket."

Right. I say it's horrifying that Adam Lanza was able to kill an entire first-grade class in less than a minute, you say po-tah-to.

Normally, after a mass shooting, the NRA's strategy has been to keep quiet, lest somebody point out the host of logical inconsistencies in their mantra. How many people normally get shot at a gun show? I don't know, because normally, accidental shootings don't make the news. Then again, yesterday was "Gun Appreciation Day." In that case, it tends to grab the headlines.

At Dixie Gun and Knife Show in Raleigh North Carolina, Gary Lynn Wilson accidentally fired a round from his shotgun as he tried to unzip from it's shotgun case, injuring three people. Real smart Gary. You might want to do a better packing job next time.

I guess Stanley McChrystal is no expert guns. Or maybe he is.

In Ohio, a proud owner of a new semi-automatic handgun was displaying he recent purchase to a friend. According to police reports, the owner of said handgun had removed the magazine, and then, upon further examining the gun, accidentally pulled the trigger. The bullet ricocheted off the floor, injuring the friend in the arm and leg. Quite and acrobatic bullet.

Perhaps the best of the three stooges routine belongs to a man named Emory Cozee, who accidentally shot himself in the hand as he was leaving the Indy 1500 Gun and Knife Show, according to state police.  Why was he loading the gun after he left the gun show? Apparently, loaded personal firearms are not allowed at the Indy 1500 Gun and Knife Show! I guess the organizers realize that guns are inherently dangerous, and it would be ill-advised to let just anyone walk around with a loaded gun.

This would be funny if not for the fact that a man was shot and injured a Martin Luther King Day parade in Jackson Mississippi, yesterday. And in New Mexico, a teenager shot and killed two adults and three children. The weapon of choice? An AR-15.

We don't have all the horrific details from the New Mexico shooting, but it wouldn't surprise me if this was a case of domestic violence, and that the parents were killed by a gun they purchased to protect them from the home invasion that never happened. If so, do you think Wayne LaPierre is going to use his influence to warn families about the potential danger of owning an Assault Rifle? I wouldn't bet on it. 

Then again, he might unwittingly say something really stupid and really comical that might provide comic relief in the face of the bloodshed. Apparently, "law-abiding citizens" are quite proud of their less-than professional use of firearms.