Gov. Mark Parkinson wasted no time making a mark on an area of public policy of special interest to him, hammering out a deal with Sunflower Electric Power Corp. to allow a single 895-megawatt coal-fired plant near Holcomb if lawmakers pass a comprehensive package of renewable energy measures. Kansas will get the jobs and part of the power, and many fewer tons of carbon dioxide than under the two-plan proposal. Best of all, what had become an absurd political and lobbying fight appears to be over.
A fourth-grader at a Washington, D.C., school asked former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over the weekend about the Bush administration’s torture policy. Rice responded that “the president was only willing to authorize policies that were legal in order to protect the country.”
But when pressed last week by two students at Stanford University, Rice claimed that waterboarding wasn’t torture because President Bush authorized it (see YouTube video). “By definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture,” she said.
That sounds a lot like President Nixon’s claim in defense of Watergate that “when the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”
University of Maryland researcher John Lott has shown a distinct correlation between the introduction of concealed-carry statutes and a decrease in violent crime in the affected communities, and has pointed out that those public locations that suffered mass shootings were all areas in which concealed-carry weapons were banned. What path of logic leads one to believe that possession of a gun will automatically make one a criminal? If you are a criminal, what would lead you to legally buy a gun at higher cost, and then put yourself on the grid further by obtaining permission to carry it into the places where you plan to commit crimes? As a student of the University of Missouri, I am proud of the concealed-carry provisions passed by the Missouri House of Representatives. I am glad that they, if not some of my peers at MU, trust me to know right from wrong, know danger from anger and make the right decisions should a potential tragedy show its ugly face. — Nick Haynes, the Maneater (Mizzou student newspaper)
The claim that rankles me the most is that if more people carry guns with them on college campuses, then disasters such as the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech will be avoided. Legislating based on extremely rare, hypothetical events is misleading and illogical, not to mention incredibly speculative. It’s like saying that because one human is killed by a shark out of the millions of people swimming in the ocean every year, beachgoers should be allowed to secretly carry hand grenades. Arguments that imply concealed-weapons carriers are only capable of making campuses safer also (irritatingly) suggest that every single permit holder is the flawless version of Wyatt Earp, the type of shooter who will brandish a firearm only to uphold the law and protect helpless saloon girls from the whims of psychotic banditos. If the only reason for carrying guns is protection, why aren’t we discussing less lethal means of defending oneself? Why does a woman scared for her safety need to have a gun instead of a can of pepper spray? — Katy Steinmetz, the Columbia Missourian
“Graduate education is the Detroit of higher learning,” Mark C. Taylor, the chairman of the religion department at Columbia University, wrote in a commentary in the New York Times. “Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans).” Taylor recommends reforms such as restructuring the curriculum to make it more integrated, abolishing permanent departments and creating problem-focused programs, and imposing mandatory retirement and abolishing tenure.
The following satirical headlines come from the Web sites theOnion.com and borowitzreport.com:
OBAMA QUITS WHILE AHEAD; Prez Resigns After Hundred Days: ‘All Downhill From Here’
OBAMA ORDERS EMERGENCY QUARANTINE OF BIDEN; Veep to be Kept in Sealed Box
GOP REAFFIRMS PRO-SWINE POSITION
OBAMA MAINTAINS COOL DEMEANOR WHILE READING END OF ‘OLD YELLER’ TO SCHOOLKIDS
G-175 NATIONS CONVENE TO DISCUSS HOW THINGS CAN’T POSSIBLY BE ANY WORSE
