Movie Review: I Am Legend

Zombies in the movies generally come in three varieties: they can be zombies from outer space (of the alien or alien-human hybrid varieties); they can be undead zombies (either with or without a supernatural master); or they can be the horrible, unintended results of Scientists Tinkering With Secrets Man Was Not Meant To Know. All three varieties must, of necessity, feed upon living human flesh; often when they do that, their victims become zombies themselves (alternatively, they might just become Zombie Chow, and only the wounded victims who survive the attack become zombies).

But the essence of good zombies in movies is not where they come from, it's their mindless relentlessness combined with their utterly overwhelming numbers. The hero can kill a few here, a few there -- but there are always more, and they never, ever stop coming. That's why zombies are scary movie monsters; it's all about quantity.

As we learn in the first sixty seconds of the movie, I Am Legend's zombies have their origin in the third school of Zombie Genesis -- a benign attempt to genetically modify the measles virus, which in the short run seems to cure cancer, goes terribly wrong. Since the audience learns this almost immediately, I'm not counting this as a spoiler. Part zombies, part vampires, these monsters are scary, mostly believable, and sadly, not terribly original-looking. (One very moderate spoiler -- there are zombie dogs, too; unfortunately, they all look more like zombie wolves, and I think it would have been creepier if they had been drawn to resemble more familiar and benign breeds of what were formerly house pets.) On the plus side, it's simply not possible in most scenes to tell when they are CGI and when they are stuntmen in makeup. That sort of thing does cost quite a bit of money.

So, we've got ourselves a big-budget zombie movie here. It isn't trying to be original; you could pretty much call it 2.8 Years Later. It's just trying to give you a good ride. And you can't do a big-budget movie without a big-name movie star to draw in the crowds. (Can you? We'll see in January with Cloverfield.) And the really good news here is that Will Smith is a Top-Flight Movie Star. The camera loves him. Just like it loves Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Tom Hanks, and Angelina Jolie. He's a damn good-looking man, and he always finds a way to be the center of gravity no matter where he is in the shot. It's hard to believe he used to be the Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air.

So it's perfect to cast him as, literally, the last man on earth.

Somehow, he's one of a tiny percentage of people who are somehow immune to the zombie-virus. At night, the zombies rule the streets and he locks himself in his fortress house on Washington Square to watch movies and television news broadcasts from just before the death of humanity. By day, when the zombies can't be out on the prowl, he roams the eerily empty streets of New York, breaks in to houses and apartments to raid them for supplies and their old DVD's, and talks to mannequins and his dog as a way of keeping himself sane. This provides a handy device for exposition, as it turns out. Between his narrating his activities for a video diary he keeps, his conversations with his dog, and a couple of extended flashback sequences, the movie does a good job of providing a back story and the Rules Of Survival In A Ruined City Of Millions Of Flesh-Eating Zombies.

One of those rules, apparently, is to stay in really good shape. Which makes sense, but which also gives Smith an opportunity to show off an astonishingly well-sculpted body, one which earned whistles of admiration from the (shockingly ill-behaved) opening night audience. I mentioned before that he's a damn good-looking man. I'm not gay, but if I were, I'd totally go for Will Smith. (What? I'm just saying...)

Smith is clever and resourceful, but it's been three years since he's seen another living human being, and he's at the end of his rope. His loneliness and his fortitude are at odds with one another, as he continues to try to not only survive but to turn things around and bring humanity back. When he struggles with these competing impulses -- the seeming hopelessness and futility of his struggle, the memories that haunt his nightmares, the horrors that confront his new existence -- Smith shows some decent acting chops. I don't think he's as good an actor as Denzel Washington, but he's more than capable of handling a role like this. And since he is, for the better part of an hour, the only person on camera, he's got to deliver the goods.

New York, denuded of all humanity, is as much a star of the movie as Will Smith. The writers have set many of the outdoor scenes in the movie in readily-recognizable areas of the city, like Grand Central Station and Times Square. The Brooklyn Bridge, shot in half by a missile in an apparently futile attempt to prevent zombies from escaping, is the repeated icon of the movie. The artists did a good job of portraying what New York would look like once all of its human inhabitants have died and been eaten. Grass and weeds grow through the streets, some of which are still gridlocked.

Central Park's deer roam freely through the streets, and they make prey for animals escaped from the zoo -- as well as the zombies. (Will Smith also hunts them with a shotgun, while driving at breakneck speeds down the Avenue of the Americas and 42nd Street.) There is surprisingly little broken glass for a city that surely did not go down without a fight. Between the deer, his Central Park vegetable garden, and the scavenged canned, bottled and preserved food of seven million New Yorkers (you know, that stuff does go bad eventually), Smith can eke out an existence -- grim but not without its luxuries like hot running water and high-end exercise equipment. He even still has electricity -- at least, he's got some gasoline generators and that's apparently enough to keep a bank of computers and televisions and other electronic devices running so he can seem to live like an upper-middle class Manhattanite when he's in his fortress of a residence.

Oh, and guns. Lots and lots of guns. Hey, if six million zombies all wanted to eat you for fourthmeal, you'd get some weapons, too.

Several scenes are obviously done with mattes, but many more look exactly as if the shots had taken place at the real, iconic locations in the real city, as if somehow the producers had been able to wall off traffic in front of Grand Central Station for eight blocks in either direction for an entire day of filming. (As if.)

I mentioned before that the movie isn't trying to be original. It could hardly be original; this is the third time the novel of the same name has been made into a movie. In 1964, the novelist adapted his story to a screenplay that became the Vincent Price movie The Last Man On Earth, originally released in Italy; in 1971, the same basic story, again scripted by the novelist, was turned into the Charlton Heston vehicle The Omega Man.

Bear in mind, this movie is quite violent and there are scenes of violence on children (not shown directly) and dogs, both of which could be particularly disturbing for some people. It is also fairly short at just over an hour and a half; but it's a pretty intense movie so I don't think the audience could handle much more than that anyway. (It may not surprise you that there is a video game to go with the movie.) The script will not be described as subtle, gentle or elegant. It rather clumsily divides the movie into two recognizable acts, with a denouement at the end of appropriate brevity. But it has some good moments, too, and Smith has sufficient acting skill to pull the audience in to the more emotional parts of the story even if they have all been projected well in advance of their punch.

Fact is, there's really only so much you can do with a zombie movie -- you can, however, do it very well. For the most part, that's what this movie does. It may not be High Art, but it is well-made, scary, tension-filled fun.

Presidential Preference

Judging from the great response to the recently-expired poll about who you Readers would least like to see as President, I seem to have hit a nerve. Twenty-nine responses is pretty good for this blog.

The question was written to make a forced choice -- if you had to pick between these alternatives, you would be willing to accept X over Y.

Just over half of the respondents said that the kind of person they would least like to see as President was someone who had not graduated from college. That seems right to me; sure, Presidents like Harry Truman didn't graduate from college but the era of history when college wasn't a necessary step in one's career is long past. We rightly demand that our leaders be well-educated.

But five of you -- 17% -- said you'd rather have a President who didn't finish college than an atheist as President. Seriously? Hopefully, you're not just trying to needle me. If you really dislike atheists that much, what keeps you coming back here, to keep on reading what this atheist has to say about stuff?

What is it about atheists, in your minds, that disqualifies them for the job worse than people who are not well-educated? Is it a Star Jones kind of rationale? If so, I have to ask -- do you think that the only reason a President (or anyone else) does something good and moral as opposed to something bad and immoral is the fear of divine punishment or the promise of divine reward? Because that's not morality -- that's a carrot-and-stick mentality. It might get you the results you want, but that's not the same thing. And as we've seen with our past two Presidents, an overtly religious leader is hardly a guarantee of moral conduct while in office.

Let's say someone were to say this in a public speech: "The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma." The sort of thing I might say. You would not vote for that person for President of the United States. Right?

There were some other responses, too. Three votes for "Muslim," which means that three respondents would rather have an atheist President than a Muslim one. In the current geopolitical environment I suppose I can see and understand, if not necessarily agree with, that position. I think that one brand of religious doctrine is pretty much the same as another; none of it is real. I don't care if my President prefers Star Wars to Star Trek or vice versa; same thing with the Old Testament, the New, the Book of Mormon, the Koran, or any other holy book you could identify. As for a Muslim being disloyal to the interests of America, I think that's nonsense. I trust the voters to be able to at least figure out whether a candidate is going to be loyal to the country or not, regardless of their religion.

Two votes for "Mormon." This is interesting. You'd rather have a Muslim than a Mormon in the Oval Office? Personally, I don't see any reason why a Mormon shouldn't be President although I can think of a lot of reasons why a particular Mormon running for that office this cycle is not a very attractive choice. Maybe you were referring to that particular person rather than Mormons in general.

Two votes for "Homosexual." Back in the days when being homosexual was an embarrassment and a reason to blackmail someone, I could see that. But these days? No big whoop. Jodie Foster sort of came out of the closet today, not that her fifteen-year relationship with a woman has been much of a secret. I doubt it will have any impact at all on her ability to attract an audience to a movie she stars in, directs, or writes. Certainly we're not talking about an entertainer with this matrix, but there just isn't the same kind of stigma associated with being gay now as opposed to what there was fifty years ago. Nor should there be. There has been some theorizing that both Martin Van Buren and James Buchanan were gay. (Okay, perhaps there could have been better role models for gay Presidents. But the point is that it might not be breaking any new ground to have a gay President.) But it doesn't make sense to me that the sort of person who would be repelled by the idea of a gay President (a minority of Americans, by the way) would prefer an atheist to a homosexual.

Two votes for "Philanderer." Umm... haven't we had quite a few philanderers as Presidents? Some of them have been rather effective administrators who presided over peaceful, prosperous eras of our history. Who the President sleeps with doesn't seem to have anything to do with how he (or she) does the job. Well, I suppose it's fair to say that one might not want any more philanderers, and cheating on one's spouse might be seen as a bellwether of other kinds of moral laxity. But again, you'd rather have a gay, monogamous President than a straight President who sleeps around?

No votes for "Woman," "African-American," or most interestingly, "Naturalized American." Since a woman and an African-American are very serious candidates right now, I'm not surprised at that. "Naturalized American," though, is a bit interesting -- several Republican candidates for President were reluctant to suggest that the Constitution should be amended to allow a naturalized American to hold our highest office. Personally, I don't see a problem with the idea -- I think the voters can figure out, and the rigors of a modern election will certainly prove, the loyalty and character of any candidate. It seems you agree with me on that. I don't know that there is an imperative to do this, though; the only political figure who merits any particular consideration is Arnold Schwarzenegger, and I'm not entirely sure that there would be a huge public demand for his candidacy if he could run.

I'll have to give some thought into how to get such a good reaction in the future. The polls are a lot more fun when a lot of people play.

Logo For Lancaster, or, My Tax Dollars At Work

The city of Lancaster, California (the boundaries of which just barely enclose Soffit House) just got itself a new logo, and a new slogan, after a year's worth of marketing research and a $90,000 commission to a local graphic design house. Here it is:

The "plus" sign is supposed to incorporate an "L" for "Lancaster," and it will be a dynamic blue to accent our good air quality, and a green because, well, everyone likes green. Considering the level of readily-apparent corruption on the city council, I think they could have at least got a little more accuracy:

Travel With The iPhone: $2,100

So here’s a guy who no doubt likes having all the latest cool gadgets, and there’s no cooler, newer, gadgetier gadget than the iPhone. It searches for new e-mail every ten minutes, to keep you in touch no matter where you are on the go. Cool. But what if you’re travelling in China and, as seems like it would be really easy to do, you forget to turn that function off for several hours after you arrive? You get an ambiguous warning when your international roaming charges exceed $2,000, and if you don’t fix the problem (and pay up) by $2,100, AT&T cuts off service entirely. This is one of the worst customer service stories I’ve heard in… weeks. And seeing as the guy it happened to is the editor of Wired Magazine, there is every chance that the matter will not be the loss of a mere individual customer’s goodwill, but a big raised eyebrow coming from iPhone’s target market segment.

Say It Ain't So

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard for all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting. -- George Orwell, Collected Essays

It shouldn't have felt like a surprise. But it does. And it was never a really big secret, but it’s still a letdown to see so many baseball titans of recent years named as users of steroids in the long-awaited (long-dreaded, more like it) report by former Senator George Mitchell.

Barry Bonds, we knew about (and while he still denies “knowingly” using the ‘roids, I doubt even he believes that). But Roger Clemens! The Rocket was on the juice! Aww, man! Could he have really still brought it on his own? (He angrily denies it.) Eric Gagne! This guy was unhittable when he won his Cy Young award with the Dodgers and he was the best thing to come along for Blue fans like me since Hideo Nomo. Jason Giambi (he owned up to ‘roiding a while ago). Andy Pettitte, Gary Sheffield, David Justice, Miguel Tejada. Mark McGwire, we knew he was using a now-banned substance (then within the rules) called Andro, the year he broke the single-season home run record. Jose Canseco. Kevin Brown. David Justice. Chuck Knoblauch. Mo Vaughn. It's a significant slice of the pantheon of modern baseball heroes.

The players’ union enabled it – and the owners turned a blind eye to it.

And what's really bothersome to a baseball fan is that it was not necessary. Steroids make you stronger. They make pitchers throw harder, they make batters hit harder. But the art is in hitting the ball -- or in throwing it so that it can't be hit in the first place. And the Anaheim Angels' World Series run proved that "small ball" is every bit as exciting as hitting home runs.

Don't try to strike everybody out. Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls - it's more democratic. -- Ron Shelton, Bull Durham

The fans will watch the game on TV, buy the tickets, eat the hot dogs. But the cheating leaves a bad taste in their mouths -- and it deceives the consuming public. And if too much of this crap goes on, the fans will take their business elsewhere. Baseball finally recovered from the strike of the 1990's, but now there's this to deal with.

Consider three facts. First, Baseball offers a unique form of entertainment, and represents a segment of the industry worth billions of dollars. Second, there have been rumors of players juicing up since the 1980's and there has never been any effective action taken against it. Third, Bud Selig has been running Major League Baseball since 1992.

Now, the point of having a Commissioner is to earn Congress' exemption from the antitrust laws by self-policing to protect the consumer of the product. Presenting a deceptively altered product is a form of consumer fraud, which was the reason that the office of the Commissioner was created in the wake of the Black Sox scandal of 1919 in the first place. But there has been a massive failure of self-regulation, and the blame must ultimately rest squarely with the person who was charged with preventing that kind of consumer fraud from taking place.

Some people have said that Barry Bonds should get an asterisk next to his single-season and career home run records in the books, because he cheated to get it. But now, it seems that there will be too many asterisks on too many records and statistics. There’s just no point in the asterisks anymore. It's either going to be something that baseball puts a stop to, or it's going to become part of the game. Selig has demonstrated not only that he does not care about players juicing up, but that he thinks it's good for business if they do.

If Bud Selig remains in charge, nothing meaningful will change. He's got to go. I nominate George Will to replace him.

The Christmas Resolution

This non-binding resolution of the House of Representatives is scheduled to come to a floor vote on Tuesday.  I suppose that resolution #2 – that the House of Representatives “expresses continued support for Christians in the United States and worldwide” – could be read as an expression of support for the religion, and thus technically constitute an establishment of religion.  But as a non-Christian, I read it instead as an expression of the House’s support for the right of Christians to practice Christianity, and I join that sentiment.  I also kind of like the recognition that non-Christians join their Christian neighbors and relatives in the spirit of community that the holiday brings, even if they do not celebrate the religious dimensions of it.  But all the same, is it really the best use of your Congressional representative’s time to take the floor and express support for Christmas?

Offshore Wind Farms

Britain is going to dramatically increase its use of offshore wind farms over the next two decades. When I first heard the story, I had to even wonder what an offshore wind farm was; turns out, it's exactly what it sounds like -- windmills mounted on land underneath the ocean. The expectation is that the UK will generate enough electricity this way by 2020 to meet the current needs of every household in Britain. Of course, by then, there will be more households and the average household is likely to consume more electricity, and this does not account for industrial or commercial electricity, but still, that would be a significant achievement if they could pull it off.

Here in the U.S., wind farms are considered unsightly by many people, and so we don't have a lot of them. This is both wrong and short-sighted of us. Windmills, especially the thin-bladed modern variety, are actually quite lovely to look at, and they have a calming, hypnotic feel to them. Moreover, they're a very clean and efficient source of electricity, something that we badly need. The environmental impact of windmills is as close to zero as it gets -- a few birds get killed by them, and there is some waste generated in their manufacture.

A friend mentioned the other day that the wind farm in nearby Tehachipi generates more than enough electricity to power Los Angeles. But the contribution from that wind farm to L.A.'s power consumption is quite small. The reason is that the power is generated in Tehachipi, and then transmitted by power lines that go for about sixty miles to be routed from Pasadena to other points along the grid. The resistance of the wires to the electricity generates huge amounts of heat and thus a lot of the energy is lost along the way. I don't independently know if this is true or not, but it made for a pleasant discussion.

We theorized that if a more efficient conductor of electricity could be found than copper wire, substantial upgrades to the nation's power grid might not be needed, because we'd have a surplus of electricity. A warm superconducting substance would be ideal, of course, but simply reducing resistance would be a big step up.

But, this seems unlikely to happen, at least at the levels of economic efficiency that would inspire someone to supplement and eventually replace the millions of miles of existing copper wiring with a newer, more conductive substance, whatever that might be.

Of course, a windmill doesn't generate any electricity when there's no wind. But there are places where there is usually wind, and those are good candidates for wind farms. If the wind farm can be placed offshore, it doesn't render any land unavailable for other uses, either.

And generating more power is still something we'll need to do. Coal plants (oil is now used almost exclusively to power vehicles rather than generating electricity) still provide the bulk of electricity used in the U.S. Nearly everyone I know agrees that we need more nuclear power plants and the time to start building them is now.

Which brings me to my final thought for the evening -- why is it that only Hillary Clinton is talking about our nation's infrastructure? This is kind of important.

The summer blackout of 2003 and the winter blackout of 2005 should amply demonstrate that our electricity-generation and distribution system is fragile. Think for a second about the number of pipes under a typical city -- water, sewer, storm drains, electrical conduit, telephone cables, and so on. Not to mention if the city has underground transit. We've become utterly dependent on the internet and a high-speed communications infrastructure. How many tens of thousands of people make their living maintaining all of the elaborate machinery and equipment necessary to keep these systems working smoothly?

Then there's our transportation network. Our roads and highways are falling apart. A drive in Europe will convince you of that -- they maintain their roads in a way that puts us to shame. Aside from a series of commuter trains that run up and down the Atlantic Seaboard and a few cities with regional transit systems, we have functionally no passenger rail transit in this country. If it only took an hour to commute from Las Vegas to downtown Los Angeles, wouldn't that really ease the burdens on our freeways? Europe and Japan long ago made substantial investments in their rail transport infrastructure and they are reaping the benefits of those investments today; Americans have failed to do the same and now there are lots of people who would like to travel (and provide stimulus to the economy) find themselves electing not to do so because of the fuel costs involved. Yes, I'll be voting for the high-speed rail bond measure next election. It is my hope that one day I'll be able to take an hour-long train ride to visit my friend in San Francisco, or another hour-long ride to play in Las Vegas or marvel at the Grand Canyon, all for less than $100 round trip. An overnight ride should take me to visit my parents in Tennessee, and that should cost about what a plane ticket does.

We live in a complex world with a complex economy, and it takes a complex infrastructure to keep it all working. It's never going to get any easier or cheaper to update that infrastructure. The Brits are doing it. We should, too.

A Paean To The Unadorned Martini

I had a martini tonight with dinner. Then another for dessert. Damn, I do like martinis every once in a while.

I like mine made with vodka, not gin. I know there are some snobs out there who insist that if it's made with vodka it's not a real martini. They're wrong. The point of the martini is to be cold, intoxicating, bitter, refreshing, and clean. Most of all, clean. Vodka has a cleaner taste than gin -- gin has that bitter juniper-berry taste to it; vodka is simply alcohol. Some people like "dirty" martinis, where a shot (or more) of olive juice is poured into the drink. Defeats the purpose if you ask me.

If you drink other kinds of vodka drinks, the quality of the vodka is not a huge issue. I tried high-quality vodka in tonic water, and decided after a while that the quinine and lime and carbonation wiped out whatever advantage high-quality vodka provided. But it's different with a martini. The drink is still, and so the feel of the vodka in your mouth matters. The best vodka is tasteless, so you can't make one without any vermouth. (A little goes a long way, though.) A good martini marries the satiny feel of the vodka with the subtle and pleasing bitterness of the vermouth.

A lemon twist is good sometimes, but more often than not, I like the martini to be served naked, with nothing but the clear liquid. If there must be an olive, I'd much rather it was black than green, and keep that goddamned pimento the hell away from my drink, thank you very much. I don't give a damn if you shake or stir my martini; I do care that you use dry vermouth, and not too much of it.

The martini is sexy. It has style and class. It's for grownups. (I exclude from this analysis choco-tinis, green apple pucker-tinis, glow-in-the-dark razzleberry martinis, and other similar sugary-sweet concoctions served in the same glass, which are for kids or getting sorority girls drunk.) Everyone knows what it is but not a lot of people actually drink them. It comes in its own distinctive kind of glass, which immediately brands the drink and the drinker. As far as I'm concerned, the glass must have a stem, or what's the point? You need that visual cue that instantly says "martini!" for the cachet of martini drinking to attach.

One martini is an indulgence. Two martinis, that's probably too many. Three martinis are not enough.

Leadership

A century ago, American soldiers in the Phillipines started doing something they called the "water cure," which today we would call "waterboarding." President Teddy Roosevelt responded to news of this going on by sending out a telegram to the commander of the forces in the region:

The president desires to know in the fullest and most circumstantial manner all the facts, ... for the very reason that the president intends to back up the Army in the heartiest fashion in every lawful and legitimate method of doing its work; he also intends to see that the most vigorous care is exercised to detect and prevent any cruelty or brutality and that men who are guilty thereof are punished. Great as the provocation has been in dealing with foes who habitually resort to treachery, murder and torture against our men, nothing can justify or will be held to justify the use of torture or inhuman conduct of any kind on the part of the American Army.

The general in charge of operations in the Phillipines was then court-martialled. The verdict was a censure rather than a conviction for tolerating the torture. Roosevelt then conducted a personal review of the facts of the court-martial, and on his own authority dishonorably discharged the general.

Torture is wrong. Always and under all circumstances. It will never be to our advantage to torture people under our power. TR, who was both an aggressive patriot and a fundamentally decent man, knew this and did what needed to be done to make it real. In so doing, he preserved our national honor.

If we had real leadership in place today, history would be repeating itself.

Romney Raises The Stakes

Once again, I have to question Romney's finely-parsed political stance. Does the sexual orientation of the giant flesh-eating rats really matter?

Theology Enters The Election

Now, apparently, it does matter which brand of religious nonsense a candidate subscribes to. Mike Huckabee can protest all he likes that he isn’t attacking Romney on issues of theology, but when he asks questions like this, that’s exactly what he’s doing. And yes, we’re electing a President and not a pastor. But if you’re going to offer your faith as a reason why people should vote for you, Governor, you open up the door to questions like these.

The Tories Have Forgotten Something

National Review is the flagship conservative movement magazine, although it is no longer the vanguard of right-wing media. Today, the editors of NR decided to endorse Mitt Romney for President:

Our guiding principle has always been to select the most conservative viable candidate. In our judgment, that candidate is Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts. … Rudolph Giuliani did extraordinary work as mayor of New York and was inspirational on 9/11. But he and Mike Huckabee would pull apart the coalition from opposite ends: Giuliani alienating the social conservatives, and Huckabee the economic (and foreign-policy) conservatives. A Republican party that abandoned either limited government or moral standards would be much diminished in the service it could give the country.

Excuse me? “A Republican party that abandoned either limited government or moral standards” is exactly what we have governing us right now. The President thinks nothing of straight-faced lies about matters of national security and calls the largest expansion of the welfare state since the 1960’s an example of “compassionate conservatism.” Indeed, from NR’s point of view, wouldn’t it be better to have a conservative of any stripe in the White House than what we have now? NR is not quite his magazine anymore, but William F. Buckley certainly thinks so.

NR has also forgotten two other pillars of the conservative movement – insistence upon fiscal responsibility and the maintenance of overwhelming U.S. military dominance over all other nations. While a case could be made that Romney is at least satisfactory on those issues (and NR’s endorsement is much more lukewarm than enthusiastic) that’s not the reason for the endorsement – the reason is that Romney can best hold the Republican coalition together. But this is all nostalgia for the past when budget hawks, low-tax advocates, and social conservatives found common cause under a common leader.

Trying to hold on to that old coalition is a mistake. Reagan may have been (in my opinion, was) the man for his times – but these are not Reagan’s times. We do not have to fear the evil empire of the USSR and we do not face double-digit inflation at home. Instead, we fear violent religious fanaticism and are challenged by a turgid real estate market which drags down the rest of the economy. Our social debate is no longer about whether it’s acceptable to be religious but rather whether religion should be the dominant social force in the country.

If the people making the decisions at NR are satisfied with the way things are right now, then I say there are no conservatives anymore – they’ve become the American equivalent of the Tories back in the UK. Not the same thing.

A real leader today would forge a new Republican coalition, rather than trying to hold together an old one. We face new political, social, economic, and foreign-policy pressures than we did in the 1970’s and 1980’s, and the best answers to the questions we face today are not necessarily going to be found in an ideological agenda written by Barry Goldwater nearly half a century ago. That doesn’t mean the core ideas articulated by NR – limited government and moral standards – must be discarded; it means that the party’s leaders must possess sufficient suppleness of intellect to make those ideas meaningful in today’s world; sufficient political skill so as to attract a majority of people behind the proposed agenda; and sufficient charisma to be the identifiable faces of that movement.

We’ve been in the wilderness in that respect since 1988; our Democratic counterparts were fortunate enough to have a leader emerge for eight years, and they’re falling into a trap of nostalgia of their own right now. I’ve become convinced that they, too, have a chance to find a new way forward, one that presents risks as well as opportunities for them, too. But that’s a decision they will have to make. On this side of the fence, my big question is – will we Republicans choose theocracy or will we find a new way to govern?

A Good Question: Why Does It Matter?

Some people think that other people choose to be gay. Other people say that people are gay because of their genetics. M. LeBlanc at Bitch Ph.D. asks, why does it matter? After all, the question presupposes that if homosexuality is genetic, it’s not the homosexual’s fault. This may silence some people who want to say that they are discriminating people because of the choices that they make rather than because of something they can’t control. But it begs the question of whether homosexuality is a "fault" to be attributed to anyone or anything. It also suggests that it would be okay discriminate against gay people who lack the "gay gene." Obviously, if it's not okay to discriminate against genetically gay people, then it's not okay to discriminate against gay people at all –- so the question of why someone is gay becomes not a very interesting question.

Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better

"The rule of law, the very foundation for a free society, has been under assault, not only by criminals from the ground up, but also from the top down. An administration that lives by evasion, coverup, stonewalling, and duplicity has given us a totally discredited Department of Justice. The credibility of those who now manage the nation's top law enforcement agency is tragically eroded. We are fortunate to have its dedicated career workforce, especially its criminal prosecutors, who have faced the unprecedented politicization of decisions regarding both personnel and investigations," - the Republican Party platform, 2000.

Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan.

What Brings You Here?

I saw my blog-boddy bobvis do this, so I thought I would, too. What kinds of search engine phrases bring people to the blog?  Even if they only come for a moment (about three-quarters of all visitors stay on the blog for less than one second), this reveals something about why people come here.

So, here are the 103 unique Google searches that led to hits on this website, since December 7, 2007 (there have been 320 unique visitors in that time, meaning that about 1 in 3 readers come here from Google):

 

1. beowulf real meaning
2. southern boy names
3. aqua dulce winery fire
4. hang a dartboard bracket
5. how much does a traffic light cost?
6. adult world, caryville, tn
7. iraq's official languge
8. pterodactyl movie
9. kitchen paint schemes with soffits
10. soffit in kitchen
11. is not the same thing as proof
12. potted chicken julia childs
13. child custody, religion
14. kitchen with soffits color ideas
15. some people believe with great fervor preposterous things that just happen to coincide with their self-interest.
16. bain and company
17. how to proof front-runner
18. realist analysis of pakistan
19. ocular hygiene
20. exercise consequences of not exercising
21. lawyer stay at home
22. how much do traffic lights cost
23. not a potted plant
24. death as a cure for cancer
25. wells fargo cashier check escrow
26. critical analysis of hillary
27. how to figure out if a plant is posions or not
28. fear of immigrants phobia
29. obama con law iii final exam
30. kitchen soffit
31. swiss re golden compass
32. how to calculate nfl strength of victory
33. terrorist detainment britain
34. closing your servant i remain
35. harlen sanders
36. gateway repair facility
37. consequences of doing no exercise
38. shaving cut lip
39. ten commandments for pets
40. g.i. joe plant
41. pterodactyl movie
42. lyrics for does it really matter what its like
43. hillary
44. calculate strength of victory nfl
45. 'medieval letter closings'
46. hanging dart board instructions
47. darpa gay bomb
48. stephen presser clarence thomas
49. instructions on how to mount a dartboard on wall with brackets
50. difficulty of being a lawyer
51. shot arvada
52. traffic light costs
53. darpa gay bomb
54. roman days fast food
55. empiricism agnostic
56. redirecting addictive
57. picture of a present day four way traffic light
58. hyperbole in the real world
59. fedex facility houston
60. golden compass norway
61. pakistani lawyer in california
62. gherkin in golden compass
63. golden compass famous buildings
64. failing con law in law school
65. the battered husband syndrome
66. the eagles dictionary colitas
67. sexual identity golden compass daemon
68. ostrich homosexuality
69. the golden compass gherkin
70. porch potted plant ideas
71. what is the phobia for fear of canadians?
72. unusual so
73. the ivory door
74. hoosegow hotties
75. kidney stone weepy
76. polls of atheists on gay marriage
77. george bush potted plant quote
78. bush potted plant quote
79. nancy spungen funeral
80. george bush potted plant
81. dart board mount
82. southern first names
83. white mule military operation
84. attorneys very truly yours or sincerely demand letter
85. white mule military operation
86. beowulf movie christian reference
87. how much are traffic light posts in California
88. male first names southern
89. plant battery
90. pilgrims pride
91. about me short answer survey
92. how to straighten out moustache
93. stoicism
94. bye bye beater
95. potted plant stores new york city
96. jay cole dumond
97. a letter from a taliban with a sign
98. racquetball facts
99. knoxville kitchen restaining
100. dartboard cement wall
101. sara andrasek
102. plant joke
103. golden compass sneak preview gross

 

I'm sure there are advertising robots out there that can figure out what it is that makes people come here, and which could find things that make sense or would interest readers here. Now, I'm not interested in using the blog for any commercial purpose, so until further notice, there will be no advertisements here. But I am interested in why people come here, and this is as good an insight into that as anything I might hope to find as to what you, the Loyal Readers, find interesting here.

There is a lot of interest in recent movies (Beowulf, The Golden Compass). But there is also interest in my review of the Sci-Fi Creature Feature movie Pterodactyl, starring Coolio. (Who got bald and rocked the house.) So, you like movies. And you don't care if they're "A" or "B" movies. I can dig it.

Lots of the queries deal with attorneys and law.  I feel bad for whoever searched for “failing con law in law school” (relax, you’re probably not failing – unless you are – and it’s very common for people to struggle their first semester).  Some deal with politics, particularly a recent post about a scandal and others led Google clickers to some really old stuff.  Law and politics.  I like those things, too.

The "dartboard" post continues to be a big hit, apparently, and so does my amazement at how much money traffic lights cost.

Here's something interesting -- there are four times as many uses of variants of the word "soffit" as there are of the words "atheist" or "religion," and multiple queries about what southerners name their boys.

Also of note is the high number of international hits finding their way onto the blog.  Only about 4 in 5 readers are from the U.S.; I would have thought the percentage of U.S. readers would be very high because I am a U.S. citizen and I write about things from a U.S. perspective.  Over 1 in 20 are from the UK; there are three times as many Brits stopping by here as there are Canadians.  Not counting the one-second-or-less visits, of the last 500 people who actually stopped to read what is here written, readers also came from Germany, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, India, and Norway.  But none from Italy.

Finally, I'm gratified at the high number of responses to this round of opinion polls.  I guess I just needed to find the right question to ask to start hitting readers' nerves, and this was it. There is a new poll here about once every two weeks.

So, Readers, thanks for speaking up, and thanks for stopping by!

Best Prank Call Ever

A teenager in Iceland apparently figured out the secret number to the Oval Office and called President Bush. Rumor has it he claimed to be the President of Iceland and verified that identity using information available on Wikipedia, and schedule a meeting for himself with Bush. (The linked article suggests that maybe he got the number from watching Jenna Bush call her dad on the Ellen DeGeneres show, but the number is a Cleveland area code and I have a hard time imagining that being the real number.)

The potential for comedy is endless. Once can only imagine what the Secret Service officer standing guard in the Oval Office heard:

"Yes, this is President Bush. Hello, Mr. President, how are things in Iceland?"

{pause}

"Well, yes, it's a little warmer than that here. What can I do for you today?"

{pause}

"Umm... yes, I think the refrigerator is on. Why do you ask, sir?"

{pause}

"Oh, no, I don't have anyone here named Hunt. What's that you say? The terrorists have Prince Albert in a can? Bastards. Does your military need special operations or intelligence support? We--"

{pause}

"Why are you laughing, Mr. President? Who is this?"

{click}

Unclear On The Concept

Candidate Analysis of Hillary Rodham Clinton

These things are getting long; I'm hyperlinking less so I can at least get them done.

Biography

Hillary Rodham Clinton will be 62 years old on the next Inauguration Day.

Raised in a comfortable but not affluent suburban Chicago circumstance, the then Hillary Diane Rodham campaigned for Richard Nixon in 1960 and Barry Goldwater in 1964, and in her freshman year at Wellesley College was the President of the Wellesley Young Republicans. She transformed her poltical outlook in 1965, however, joining the civil rights movement and supported Eugene McCarthy's bid for the Democratic Presidential nomination. She was guided back to Republican politics by some mentors before graduating and attended the 1968 Republican National Convention to support Nelson Rockefeller, but quit the GOP for good after perceiving racism in the more successful efforts of Richard Nixon to gain the party's nomination.

Before graduating from Wellesley, she did two controversial things: she wrote a thesis about a controversial civil rights organizer which has since been suppressed, and she delivered the first-ever student commencement address to her graduating class criticizing the keynote speaker Senator Edward Burke (another Rockefeller Republican and the first African-American elected to the Senate in the modern era), for which she received a seven-minute standing ovation from her peers. After receiving a a degree in political science with honors from Wellesley 1969, she went on to Yale Law School, and focused her studies on the area of children and the law (then an area of law which had been subject to little academic analysis). She interned for a summer with a leftist law firm in Oakland, returned to Connecticut and began dating her future husband, Bill Clinton, in 1971. She stayed an extra year at Yale to continue being with him, and also worked for George McGovern's anti-war presidential campaign. She received her J.D. from Yale in 1973, and the same year published a significant scholarly paper on the way in which the law treats children. She was admitted to the bar of Arkansas but did not pass the District of Columbia bar, which did not stop her from serving on the House Commitee on the Judiciary regarding Watergate and the impeachment of President Nixon (working in proximity to current Republican Presidential candidate Fred Thompson, who was doing similar kinds of work for Senate Republicans at the time).

Her bar results may have been a factor in her decision to foresake an immediate political career for herself at that time, instead moving with Clinton to Fayetteville, Arkansas. She and her husband both became faculty members at the University of Arkansas' law school, and in 1975, after living together for a year in Fayetteville, they were married. At this point in time, she kept her last name and did not adopt her husband's, to develop her own professional identity. When Clinton was elected Attorney General of Arkansas in 1976, the couple moved to Little Rock and she joined the Rose Law Firm, one of the more influential firms in the region, where she practiced mainly intellectual property law, focusing on patent infringements.

Political Experience

In 1978, Bill Clinton was elected Governor of Arkansas, and she became the First Lady of Arkansas. At this time, she began to variously use the name Hillary Clinton or Hillary Rodham Clinton; today, she favors the name Hillary Clinton. The next year, she was made a partner in the Rose Law Firm, the first woman to ever do so, and continued to practice law at the Rose Firm. Clinton appointed her to serve as Chair of the Rural Health Advisory Committee, successfully steering federal money to rural health care providers. Despite having no financial experience of any kind, she began trading cattle futures and made 10,000% profits doing so, and she and her husband began to deal with another couple in a real estate development venture that would eventually collapse and lead to the first of several investigations into the Clintons' financial dealings at this time.

During later terms of her husband as Governor, she chaired a variety of educational reform efforts, most of which earned praise and reviews of success despite the opposition of teacher's unions to teacher testing proposals, for which Ms. Clinton successfully gained political approval. At this time, she also served on the boards of directors of several Arkansas-based corporations, notably Wal-Mart; she and her husband successfully deflected conflict-of-interest charges by a Republican candidate for Governor by demonstrating that the Rose Firm's profits from doing business with the state were allocated before Ms. Clinton's share of the firm's profits were divided.

When her husband went on to be elected President of the United States, she took an office in the West Wing of the White House, and in 1993 headed the President's Task Force on National Health Care Reform. The proposal emerging from this task force was rejected by Congress before ever coming to votes amid substantial criticisms that it was "socialized medicine" and the White House ultimately withdrew the proposal. Ms. Clinton made no secret at the time of her admiration for "single-payer" systems such as those in place in a number of European nations. Although her policymaking role within her husband's administration became less prominent after this debacle, it did not disappear and she continued to draft a variety of policy proposals, many of which were adopted. She was widely considered the most openly empowered First Lady since Eleanor Roosevelt, whom she openly admired.

With her husband's term of office about to expire, she established residency in Chappaqua, New York in 1999. She ran for Senate in New York in 2000. Her likely initial opponent for the seat would have been then-Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, and political pundits across the nation had salivated for months about the upcoming "Battle of the Titans." They were disappointed, however, when Giuliani was struck with prostate cancer and withdrew from the race. Long Island Congressman Rick Lazio* ran in Giuliani's place, and Clinton defeated him by a 12% margin. As Senator, she voted for the USA PATRIOT Act (both initially and in its renewed form in 2006), voted to authorize the use of military force in Afghanistan and Iraq, and voted against the confirmation of John Roberts to the Supreme Court and against tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. She went on to a landslide re-election in 2006, with more than twice as many voters in New York voting for her as for all other candidates combined, and almost immediately after gaining re-election, formed an exploratory committee to put together a campaign for President of the United States.

On The Issues

Abortion: Pro-choice. Rating: 1 of 1 points.

Amending the Constitution: Opposed to Federal Marriage Amendment. Opposed to anti-flag-burning amendment. Rating: 6 of 6 points.

Anti-Terrorism Policy: Would recruit an additional 80,000 soldiers to the military. Demonstrated friendliness to military consistently throughout service as Senator; became acquainted with tactics and procedures of 10th Mountain Division in her own state and consistently voted for larger military appropriations despite reservations about the manner in which the appropriations would be used. Hawkish on use of military to pursue terrorists; murkier on military authority for state sponsors of terrorism in all but clearest of situations, but in favor of economic and diplomatic sanctions. Rating: 6 of 7 points.

Balanced Budget: In favor of one, links deficit to national security issues as China and Chinese concerns own much of the debt. Suggests repealing 2001 and 2003 tax cuts to pay for expanded health care proposal but also counts on $77 billion in "increased efficiencies" (nearly half again what she would raise in repeal of tax cuts) to pay for proposals. Prioritizes balanced budget over social security reform. Rating: 3 of 8 points.

Civil Liberties: Voted for USA PATRIOT Act, and to renew it, but voted no on renewing wiretap authority within that law. In favor of domestic partnerships but not same-sex marriage; would repeal "Don't Ask-Don't Tell" effective her first year as President. Favors gun control. Would recognize habeas corpus rights of detainees in Guantanamo Bay. Supports laws, but not Constitutional amendments, criminalizing the burning of the American flag. Favors federal ban on semi-automatic weapons. Believes that the President deserves the "benefit of the doubt" from Congress when the President invokes executive authority and privilege. Threatened publisher of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas with regulatory legislation after criticizing the game's content; publisher agreed to her "request" but she introduced the legislation several months later anyway. Rating: 2 of 9 points.

Education: Voted in favor of No Child Left Behind Act and continues to support its basic premise of incentivizing school funding based on student performance on objective tests; in 2007 was critical of certain of its effects on student development. Opposes school vouchers for both budgetary reasons and because she fears religious schools would use public funds to teach unpopular policies. Lukewarm on charter schools. Favored by educators' unions. Rating: 3 of 5 points.

Environment: Opposed to drilling in ANWR; believes scientific consensus for global warming is solid and that some unspecified form of governmental action to mitigate its effects is necessary. Would have voted to enact Kyoto protocol. Seeks "balanced" environmental and energy policy that would promote energy independence. Would make maintenance and upgrading of power grid and other energy-distribution infrastructure a priority; critical of EPA for not mitigating mercury infiltration in rivers and Chesapeake Bay. Previously supported conservation tax credits. Rating: 3 of 4 points.

Free Trade: For NAFTA while First Lady; opposed to CAFTA and critical of NAFTA now. Opposed "fast-track" authority for Doha round of GATT negotiations. Would use tax incentives to punish companies that outsource jobs to foreign nations but nevertheless would continue to do business with companies that foreign outsource. Voted for free trade with Singapore and Chile; against it with other South American nations; voted for most-favored-nation status for China and Vietnam but has given rhetoric about "getting tough" with China as well. Rating: 2 of 5 points.

Generalized Foreign Policy: Sees China as neither an ally nor an adversary; fears the economic power of China holding notes on U.S. government debt. Would enlarge NATO to include more Eastern European nations. Claims human rights as a foreign policy priority. Rating: 4 of 6 points.

Health Care Reform: As First Lady, proposed a form of universal health care borrowing heavily but not exclusively from single-payer systems in Europe. More recent proposal would impose mandates on employers to provide basic health care as a benefit with tax penalties for failure to do so; would also not permit health care insurers to deny coverage based on pre-existing health conditions and permit any citizen to participate in the same health insurance system made available to Federal employees. Under recent proposal, all Americans would be required to have some kind of health care insurance, but would have the ability to select a minimal plan, the Federal employee equivalent, or a variety of other plans that would be offered by private insurers or made available through employers. Would require that all insurance plans be permanently portable. Would aim to implement universal health care coverage by end of her second term. Rating: 1 of 3 points.

Immigration Policy: Voted in favor of guest worker program, against English as official language of country. Vacillated and eventually decided against giving illegal aliens driver's licenses; nevertheless, has stated that local law enforcement's job is not to enforce immigration laws. Voted to build ocean-to-ocean fence on Mexican border. Rating: 3 of 5 points.

Iraq: Would start bringing troops home "within 60 days" of taking office, and retask remaining troops for support of Iraqi government in favor of "stabilization." (The difference between the two missions is not clear to me.) Would not effect complete withdrawal for the foreseeable future, but has also made more dramatic statements which would tend to suggest the contrary. Rating: 3 of 6 points.

Korea: Grew frustrated with slow progress of six-party talks; urged Bush Administration to suspend them and engage in direct, bilateral negotiation with PRNK. Unclear whether she would favor increased economic sanctions against North Korea. Rating: 1 of 5 points.

Middle East Peace Process: Supports independent Palestinian state. However, also calls herself "an emphatic, unwavering supporter of Israel's safety and security" and endorsed erection of wall between Israel and Palestinian areas. Rating: 2 of 4 points.

Science and Technology: Proposes significant reinvestment in infrastructure. Urged increased funding of nanotechnology research during 2000 Senate campaign; appears to have done little since then on the issue. Similarly, advocated training teachers on use of technology in classrooms but again seems to have not followed through with serious legislation. Drafted legislation to examine effects of internet portrayals of sex on teenagers. Urged more stringent industry self-regulation of video games containing adult content. And despite some contrary rumors, she did not sponsor a bill to tax e-mail. Rating: 2 of 4 points.

Separation of Church and State: Students should be able to pray individually but not on school time and schools should not set aside class time to accommodate that activity. Opposed to private school vouchers (see education, supra). Not much other information available about her stance on the issue. Rating: 4 of 5 points.

Social Security Reform: Would postpone reform until balanced budget is reached. Opposed to privatization. Opposed proposal to raise taxes on higher-income Americans. Primary proposal is to form another bipartisan committee as was done in 1983. Rating: 1 of 5 points.

Taxes: Would repeal 2001 and 2003 tax cuts to fund health care reform proposal. Has ambitious plans for expansion of health care, military, and other government services, all of which will obviously have to be paid for, particularly if she is as committed as she claims to returning to an era of balanced budgets. Rating: 0 of 5 points.

Tort Reform: Would not need any kind of health care if her health care platform is adopted. Jointly sponsored, with Senator Obama, legislation to mandate non-monetary terms of negotiation and settlement of medical malpractice discussions. Rating: 3 of 3 points.

Torture of U.S. Prisoners: Believes that national security is more important than human rights and believes the President should be able to authorize torture on case-by-case basis. In the same breath, however, says U.S. policy should never be to authorize torture. Rating: 1 of 4 points.

Overall Impression: Senator Clinton suffers from a significant dose of the Romney disease -- she seems to have a penchant for saying things to please the audience before whom she is speaking even if that appears to contradict something she had previously said to a different audience. As with Romney, this appears to go beyond the sorts of changes of mind that one might expect as a person becomes more educated about a particular issue. This shows clearly in her thinking on immigration -- she does not seem to have a coherent strategy on the subject other than her party's regular line, but appears influenced by polls when specific proposals are advanced. Disturbingly, Clinton has a poor grasp of the significance of Constitutional rights (other than abortion) and does not seem to consider them a significant issue. She has a stronger record on defense and is very much a hawk on military matters, however, and seems to have learned a great deal from her time in the White House and the Senate about foreign policy. It seems impossible that she could fulfill her ambitious plans to reform and expand government without a significant hike in taxes. She is intellectually well prepared her for doing the job her husband once did and I'm a little bit surprised at the overall rating I have for her; I was expecting lower.

Total score: 52 of 100.

Next: Up-and-coming Republican, Mike Huckabee.

* I visited New York City for the first time in the fall of 2000, about five weeks before the election. While sitting in Yankee Stadium waiting for the game to begin, I noticed a guy reading the Times and asked him whether New Yorkers would really elect Hillary to the Senate. "Listen," he said to me in a thick Brooklyn burr, "I'm a Republican, okay? That Rick Lazio is a punk!" He poked his index finger in my chest and arched his eyebrows at me for emphasis. (He and his buddy were actually a pretty cool guys. We went on to discuss the merits of Mike Piazza, who at that time played for the Mets, and they suggested what turned out to be a damn good steakhouse in Midtown for me to get dinner at later that night.) To me, that guy's remark is the distilled essence of New York City, and not just for politics.

Reunion

So The Wife and I go to the store today, to buy some stuff. There, we see this week's Rolling Stone magazine. Holy crap.

Led Zeppelin is having a reunion concert?

It's true. Jason Bonham will fill in for his dad on drums. They take the stage in less than eighteen hours from the time I'm writing this post.

These guys look old. And not in a good way. I just don't see them doing the hard rockin' tour thing in 2007. I have a hard time imagining how human beings could have done it in 1967. (The last link is for adults only.)

The picture is from a few years ago. Jimmy Page has stopped using the Grecian formula since then and Bob Plant had grown a salt-and-honey colored goatee. They both look like they've been rode hard and put away wet, if you know what I'm saying. (John Paul Jones seems to have taken pretty good care of himself, though.)

Something In The Water?

This morning, an unidentified gunman entered a missionary training center in Arvada, Colorado, and shot four people. Two died. The gunman fled and was not immediately identified.

Later today, an unidentified gunman entered a megachurch in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with a powerful weapon and opened fire during services. He was shot dead. Casualty figures from the New Life Church (the same church founded by the disgraced Rev. Ted Haggard) are not yet available.

Prayer is not my way, but that doesn't stop my heart from going out to the families of the victims of these acts of senseless violence. I don't share the religious convictions of the people who were gathered, but they were gathered in a sense of peace and community and out of a sincere desire to do good. These are innocents in the truest sense of the word. The horror of someone opening fire in a megachurch like that -- the main auditorium hall of that church seats something like 5,000 people at a time -- is difficult to imagine.

It's not clear whether the gunman from both incidents is the same person. The missionary facility and the church are not obviously related, although they are only about seventy miles apart, so the gunman from Arvada could easily have left the scene of that crime and drove to Springs to commit the second act. But that's only a possibility; there is no direct evidence that the two crimes are related.

The temptation is that to think that it's too easy for crazed individuals to get their hands on powerful weapons, so they should be banned or severely restricted. But that wouldn't do any good -- crazed individuals are the ones most motivated to get these kinds of weapons and so they'll be the last ones to lose access to them. And, someone in the New Life Church was packing, and so was able to return fire -- probably saving tens if not hundreds of lives.

Deterrence also seems like an ineffective way to prevent crimes like this. At least the gunman who went to the megachurch in Colorado Springs probably did not intend on surviving his attack; the idea of criminal punishment would have been no more a factor to him than the weather in Ho Chi Minh City next week. What could possibly have stopped the Omaha mall shooter?

One wonders what warning signs there were. Someone undoubtedly knew this guy (or these guys) and could have seen this coming. One wonders whether they had reported their concerns to any authorities.

One also wonders why so many crimes, not dissimilar from one another, took place in such a short amount of time, in such close geographical proximity.

If prayer is your way, send your prayers to the families of the victims of these crimes; if you are not a believer, a compassionate thought or two should still be in order.