Free kibbles

RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS:

People are criticizing the stand your ground provision of Florida law because the police are using it as a reason not to arrest Zimmerman, the neighborhood watchman who shot and killed Trayvon Martin. But the stand your ground law is not the problem. The police are. Jeb Bush is right about this:

"“Stand your ground means stand your ground. It doesn’t mean chase after somebody who’s turned their back,” Bush said while speaking at the University of Texas in Arlington."

I can't come up with a reason why the police haven't arrested Zimmerman yet, but I think they will. They must just want to pass the buck the grand jury, but I don't know why.

"In fact, last Wednesday, a Florida judge threw out the second-degree murder case against a man who chased a burglar more than a block and stabbed him to death. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Beth Bloom cited "stand your ground," the Miami Herald reported."

But this article fails to report on the crucial fact: did the thief have possession of the man's radio? If he did, the man had every right to chase the thief down and get his radio back. No man is required to allow a thief to get away with his property. If the thief refused to return the radio and attacked the pursuer instead, the pursuer has a right to defend himself. This is a different situation than the Zimmerman case. Martin had not stolen any property of Zimmerman's.

"Zimmerman remains free because Sanford police said he invoked the "stand your ground" defense and there were no witnesses to disprove it."

One of the unfortunate truths exposed by these cases is dead men tell no tales.

ECONOMY:

Chinese company gives its village workers gold and silver bars. Wow. You don't see that in the US.

Claims of a manufacturing recovery are exaggerated.

"But a new report argues that recent headlines touting a nascent manufacturing renaissance belie a grimmer reality: The sector suffered a cataclysmic decline over the last decade and is in much worse shape than most economists will admit.

The report -- out today from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a technology policy think tank -- says that measured by job creation, manufacturers registered their worst performance in history over the last decade, shedding 5.7 million jobs. As a share of total jobs, that decline is worse even than the one manufacturing suffered during the Great Depression."

Tell me something I can't see with my own eyes.

REGULATION:

Patents harm real people. The damage is not abstract.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

How inflation perverts economic numbers, making it appear the economy is recovering when it is not.

"Take retail sales, for example. On the surface they are encouraging, since February’s sales gain was the most in five months. And since retail sales are one-half of consumers’ spending, which in turn makes up two-thirds of overall economic activity, one might be tempted to conclude that the worst is over.

One would be wrong. First of all, these are dollar figures, adjusted for the time of year but not for inflation. Second, most of the rise reflected a 6% surge in gasoline prices."

Rising gas prices is making every American poorer, but they make government statistics look good.

"Getting back to retail sales, it is important to be aware that rising gasoline prices will not be confined just to this category. Indeed, because they are used to transport goods, power machinery and as a feedstock in the production of plastics, clothing and many other items, rising prices of gas and oil will ripple throughout the economy — especially since the Federal Reserve has flooded the economy with lots of cheap, easy money.

This surge in prices is already having a deleterious effect on people’s ability to spend. Average weekly earnings, adjusted for inflation, fell 0.3% last month on top of a 0.1% decline in January. Over the past year, this important measure of consumers’ buying power is down 0.4%."

All of this artificially inflates GDP numbers.

People are stealing Tide detergent and using it as black market money. How long until government limits the amount of Tide somebody can buy?

EDUCATION:

Great chart shows that increasing spending on government schools doesn't boost the quality of education.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

This was predictable. Climate frauds blame the unusually warm weather in the central and eastern US on global warming. As for the unusually cold weather in the Pacific northwest, South America and the eastern hemisphere, there's nothing to see here.

The global warming frauds never give up.

"As the USA simmers through its hottest March on record — with more than 6,000 record high temperatures already set this month — a new study released Sunday shows that average global temperatures could climb 2.5 to 5.4 degrees by 2050 if greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated.

The study findings are based on the results of 10,000 computer model simulations of future weather overseen by researchers at Oxford University in the United Kingdom."

There's too much money at stake for them to give up.

FOREIGN POLICY:

North Korea announces missile launch during Obama's nuclear security summit in South Korea.

POLITICS:

Condoleezza Rice not interested in being VP. Not now, anyway.

MEDIA:

The media reported that Obama's 13 years old daughter was going on spring break to Mexico with 25 Secret Service agents, then they removed the story from the internet at the request of the Obama administration for privacy and security reasons. What in the world are these people doing allowing their 13 year old daughter to go to Mexico for spring break? How come Americans have to pay for 25 Secret Service baby sitters? If Obama was really worried about the privacy and security of his 13 year old daughter, he wouldn't let her go to Mexico on spring break. And I don't remember the press scrubbing any stories about Bush's daughters. I remember Jenna Bush being in Austin on spring break while in college and having one Secret Service agent.