Right to Opine

Formula 1 racing is changing its championship system next season. Rather than relying on a strict points system, where the driver with the most consistent finishes takes the prize, the championship will be awarded to the driver with the most wins. How does this change the sport? In the words of “Formula One supremo” Bernie Ecclestone himself:

If you’re in the lead and I’m second, I’m not going to take the risk of falling off the circuit or doing something stupid to get two points. If I need a gold medal to win the championship, I will overtake.

In other words, under the points system drivers will drive safely. The new system will encourage them to do “something stupid” in order to get a win. Brilliant.

A disturbing number of teachers in the Washington, D.C., school district have been assaulted by students, including one who was held down on a desk and choked. Even a single such incident should be unacceptable, but administrators appear to be siding with the students, charging that the teachers are

distorting the situation to deflect attention from their own professional shortcomings.

…

Teachers who complain or eject too many students say they are tagged as weak in “classroom management” by administrators determined to keep a lid on behavior issues. Slade wrote in his guide to teachers that any instructor who refers students to his office every day “will risk placement on some type of improvement plan,” a probationary status such as the 90-day plan.

No mention is made of the consequences for students who are habitually disruptive. Teachers shouldn’t have to be child psychologists or trained juvenile behavior experts. So-called “classroom management” techniques are helpful in quashing chatter and minor misbehavior; they won’t help a teacher who’s having books thrown at them or being choked. Those acts are, legally, assault and should be prosecuted as such rather than swept under the rug.

Teachers wake up. The liberals you vote for are responsible for the conditions in which you work.

Of course that’s not what the headline reads, but it’s the underlying truth. Authorities in KS are warning college women of a possible serial rapist suspected of 13 rapes during school breaks over the past 8 years. All the usual precautions are urged, but of course we won’t allow these vulnerable young ladies to do the one thing that would significantly reduce their likelihood of becoming victims: arm themselves. That would be too logical (and effective).

You may recall a couple weeks ago the UK barred Dutch legislator Geert Wilders from entry because he is ostensibly a security threat, purveyor of hate, yada yada yada. Now they’re going to allow a spokesman for Hezbollah into the country to deliver a lecture. Go figure. Ban the critic of Islam, support the Islamic terrorist.

England, you’re getting the decrepit, decaying society you deserve. Sadly, I see too much of this happening here as well.

As in, gun control means hitting your target. There was another terrorist attack by a nutjob plowing a bulldozer through a couple police cars and into a bus full of schoolgirls. What slowed the goblin down long enough for the police to finish him off? A civilian taxi driver carrying a concealed handgun.

Self-defense works, folks, because even when the police are present, they sometimes can’t respond as quickly as an alert, armed civilian.

A student at a Connecticut college was called in to the police station for questioning after giving a classroom speech advocating concealed carry for students and staff. The cops were called by the class professor, who seems to believe the speech was somehow threatening. No surprise that neither the prof nor the university would comment on the situation, as moral cowardice runs rampant in our institutions of supposedly higher learning.

At too many of our universities free speech is only encouraged when it agrees with the schools’ liberal agendas.

Great Britain provides further evidence that it has lost its collective mind, announcing that it will bestow honorary knighthood on Senator Ted Kennedy. Silly me. I thought knighthood actually meant something. Wonder if one of his ancestors drowned a peasant girl by riding a horse off a bridge?

This is just too funny for further comment. God bless ’em.

A gun store owner in Phoenix has been brought up on a number of charges related to fraudulently selling guns and helping the buyers smuggle them into Mexico. Looks like the BATFE has the goods on him, including the direct involvement of undercover officers in purchases the owner believed to be fronts for smugglers. If true, this is exactly the kind of operation we honest gun owners want shut down.

The thing that bothers me about this article is its dishonest and misleading use of terminology. For example,

the owner, George Iknadosian, will go on trial on charges he sold hundreds of weapons, mostly AK-47 rifles, to smugglers

This simply is not true. An AK-47 is a fully automatic military weapon and cannot legally be sold in the US to anyone outside the military, law enforcement, or the very few people holding a special license to purchase fully automatic weapons. The rifles in question are semi-automatic rifles, the function and capability of which is no different than many standard hunting rifles. One pull of the trigger gets you a single shot…not the kind of repeated rapid fire of an automatic.

Later in the article we see

the Mexican authorities have seized seven of the Kalashnikov-style rifles from gunmen

This is, again, misleading. A Kalashnikov is a fully automatic rifle. These weren’t, but were designed to look like them. The appearance of a weapon has no relationship to its function. (Just ask anyone who’s ever driven a Pontiac Fiero…looks great, but it’s a pooch.) Elsewhere in the article the meaningless term “assault rifle” is bandied about as if it, too, has a specific meaning. Gun grabbers like to use the term to refer to any rifle that looks like a military grade fully automatic weapon, regardless of its capability. The truth is that no military on earth would use the rifles in question, as they cannot be fired in automatic mode and don’t have the firepower needed for military use. They’re no more “assault rifles” than your uncle’s Winchester 30-30.

At Dobson High School in Mesa (just a few miles from my home) Obama told the crowd about his plan to help borrowers in mortgage crises:

The housing market collapse helped trigger the broader economic decline, the president argued, and so acting “boldly and swiftly” to arrest a wave of foreclosures would have positive effects across the economy and benefit every American.

At this point, over 90% of homeowners are demonstrating personal responsibility, making their payments regardless of whether their mortgages are upside-down. Many, like myself, chose not to upgrade to a newer, bigger home when the market was booming. How, exactly, does it help us to take our money and send it to people who made irresponsible decisions? The only thing it does, in fact, is encourage more bad decisions as people begin to expect the government to bail them out when they screw up. Oh, and punish those of us who are fiscally responsible.