In the wake of the tragic shooting deaths at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., last month, the National Rifle Association proposed that the best way to protect schoolchildren was to place a guard — a “good guy with a gun” — in every school, part of a so-called National School Shield Emergency Response Program.
Indeed, the N.R.A.’s solution to the expansion of gun violence in America has been generally to advocate for the more widespread deployment and carrying of guns.
More Guns = More Killing
Our protest must shortcircuit the fossil fuel interests blocking Barack Obama
Change usually happens very slowly, even once all the serious people have decided there's a problem. That's because, in a country as big as the United States, public opinion moves in slow currents. Since change by definition requires going up against powerful established interests, it can take decades for those currents to erode the foundations of our special-interest fortresses.
Take, for instance, "the problem of our schools". Don't worry about whether there actually was a problem, or whether making every student devote her school years to filling out standardized tests would solve it. Just think about the timeline. In 1983, after some years of pundit throat clearing, the Carnegie Commission published "A Nation at Risk", insisting that a "rising tide of mediocrity" threatened our schools.
Non-believers on rise in Congress
The number of members of Congress who don’t identify with any particular religion is on the rise, according to an analysis by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
In the 96th Congress (1979-80), not a single member of the House or Senate said they didn’t belong to any particular faith, didn’t know or refused to disclose their religion. But in the new 113th Congress, 10 members fall under that category.
That’s twice as many as in the 111th Congress (2009-10).
Obama to pick Chuck Hagel for Pentagon
President Barack Obama has settled on Chuck Hagel, a Republican and former U.S. senator from Nebraska, to succeed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, with an announcement expected Monday, Democratic officials tell POLITICO.
The choice of Hagel, who opposed his party on the Iraq War as a senator, is likely to ignite a raucous confirmation battle because several Democratic interest groups and prominent Republicans have voiced strong opposition since Hagel’s vetting for the job was reported five weeks ago.
Totally blind mice get sight back
Totally blind mice have had their sight restored by injections of light-sensing cells into the eye, UK researchers report.
The team in Oxford said their studies closely resemble the treatments that would be needed in people with degenerative eye disease. Similar results have already been achieved with night-blind mice.
Noam Chomsky: The Gravest Threat to World Peace
Reporting on the final U.S. presidential campaign debate, on foreign policy, The Wall Street Journal observed that "the only country mentioned more (than Israel) was Iran, which is seen by most nations in the Middle East as the gravest security threat to the region."
The two candidates agreed that a nuclear Iran is the gravest threat to the region, if not the world, as Romney explicitly maintained, reiterating a conventional view.
Immune system 'booster' may hit cancer
Vast numbers of cells that can attack cancer and HIV have been grown in the lab, and could potentially be used to fight disease.
The cells naturally occur in small numbers, but it is hoped injecting huge quantities back into a patient could turbo-charge the immune system. The Japanese research is published in the journal Cell Stem Cell.
Experts said the results had exciting potential, but any therapy would need to be shown to be safe.
Abbas: Palestine now a state
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says future official documents will use the term "State of Palestine."
Abbas said his order applies to all government institutions, including missions in other countries, the official Wafa news agency reported Friday. He said missions in countries that voted against granting the authority the status of a non-member observer state at the United Nations should consult the Palestinian Foreign Ministry.
Bob Alexander: A Modest Proposal … Take Two
The key word here is unrelentingly. Conservatives are like the movie monsters from the Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13th movies. You can’t stop them. You can stab them in the neck, set them on fire, or whack them in the head with a machete, but after a few seconds of getting their movie-monster-mojo together … they rise up again and again and again … and their murderous rampage continues until the closing credits.
Unlike their victims, the movie monsters don’t need to stop to sleep, eat, or even catch their breath. But when their hapless quarry takes a breather … Watch Out … that’s when The Monsters Get You.
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