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Toddlers with triggers
Conservative commentator David Frum countered the NRA/gun nut argument on Twitter (@davidfrum) after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn.:
"Shooting at CT elementary school. Obviously, we need to lower the age limit for concealed carry so toddlers can defend themselves."
On the Texas frontier
At TheContributor.com: "In the wake of the deadly school shootings in Newtown, Conn., many Republican lawmakers have kept quiet about their opposition to new gun control laws. Not Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The former presidential candidate told members of the Northeast Tarrant County Tea Party that he supports allowing teachers and administrators to carry concealed handguns, and went so far as to say if someone has obtained a concealed-handgun license, 'You should be able to carry your handgun anywhere in this state.' "
Regrets in Michigan
The Atlantic Wire on a Molly Redden piece in The New Republic about Michigan Republicans: "Are Michigan citizens about to experience an acute case of voters' remorse? After electing a wave of conservatives to their state legislature, Michigan Republicans have passed controversial 'right-to-work' laws, limited reproductive rights, given corporations a tax break, and -- just hours before the Sandy Hook shootings -- a bill that lets gun owners bring concealed weapons into churches, sporting arenas and schools."
Ms. Redden concluded: "While the GOP received a teeth-kicking in this year's elections and the Tea Party suffered major setbacks, their legislative achievements around the country will have ruinous consequences for years to come."
The best corrections
The Atlantic Wire offers a list of the year's best typos and corrections. Among them is this one published in The New York Times this past summer:
"An obituary on Gore Vidal on Wednesday included several errors. Mr. Vidal called William F. Buckley Jr. a crypto-Nazi, not a crypto-fascist, in a television appearance during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. While Mr. Vidal frequently joked that Vice President Al Gore was his cousin, genealogists have been unable to confirm that they were related. And, according to Mr. Vidal's memoir 'Palimpsest,' he and his longtime live-in companion, Howard Austen, had sex the night they met, but did not sleep together after they began living together. It is not the case that they never had sex."
Speaking of sex, also mentioned is an email sent by Rick Santorum's presidential campaign announcing the candidate's "pubic schedule." The article notes that dropping the "l" from public is one of the most commonly noticed typos.
Britain lags the U.S.
The Atlantic Wire appreciates John Cassidy's piece in The New Yorker on the failure of austerity policies: "With our fiscal cliff blinders on, many Americans have probably been guilty of tuning out news of the economic crises unfurling in other parts of the world. John Cassidy writes, 'You might well have missed the most important [recent] political and economic news ... an official confirmation from the United Kingdom that austerity policies don't work.'
"The goals the U.K. set for itself back in June 2010 when it slashed budgets have not been met, according to a new report from the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne. 'Having adopted the policies of Keynes in response to a calamitous recession, the United States has grown more than twice as fast during the past three years as Britain, which adopted the economics of Hoover (and Paul Ryan),' writes Cassidy. 'Meanwhile, the gaping hole in the two countries' budgets has declined at roughly the same rate, and next year the U.S. will be in better fiscal shape than its old ally.' "
Room for agreement?
Jacob Sullum in Reason: "Since Republicans are pushing entitlement reform and Democrats like taking money from rich people, you might think they could agree on means-testing Medicare and Social Security as part of a deficit reduction deal. Yet many Democrats are surprisingly hostile to the idea of tailoring these programs to help people who actually need them. ...
"If the aim is to prevent the elderly from sinking into poverty or to ensure that they can obtain the medical care they need, it hardly makes sense to use payroll taxes extracted from middle- and working-class employees to cut monthly checks to Michael Bloomberg or subsidize prescription drugs for Ross Perot."
First Published December 23, 2012 12:00 am
