Current Affairs

Did you happen to see this at one of the Occupy Space rallies recently?

Finally, a serious issue we can argue passionately about: Set our drunken spring-breaker dwarf-tossing people free!

Calming down the askeert Californians:

California Gov. Jerry Brown announced Monday that he signed into law a measure that bans handgun owners from openly carrying their weapons in public.

Previous regulations had allowed the open carrying of unloaded handguns in public, but police chiefs and sheriffs objected to the rule because people felt frightened when they saw handguns in public places.

[. . .]

Elizabeth Warren, challenging Scott Brown for his Senate seat from Masachusett, became the darling of progressives when she succinctly stated the "what's yours is ours" case"

Oh, goody:

Many consumers are irked by the catalogs, credit-card pitches and other "junk mail" they receive. But the U.S. Postal Service loves it—and wants to deliver more.

I referenced this piece about Steve Jobs several weeks ago. With the news of his death, it seems appropriate to link to it again:

Jobs gave people products they didn't know they wanted, and then made those products indispensable to their lives.  

Amanda Knox is back home in Seattle after her four years in an Italian prison, and a scholar from New York University waxes eloquent for CNN: "There is something about pretty white girls, bloody knives and the slightest whiff of sex that gets the international news machine humming like nothing else." Gee, who knew? Apparently, the Knox saga has caused some in the media to go through one of their periodic bouts of pretend intrspection:

Yes, I know, drawing conclusions from a one-time event can be dangerous; it could be a statistical blip. But at the very least, this should earn us a moment of silence or two from the people who always predict a bloodbath when gun laws are relaxed:

Oh, swell, this will instill faith in the criminal justice system, won't it?

The government mental hospital where John Hinckley Jr. has spent most of the last 30 years since he shot and tried to kill President Ronald Reagan is asking a federal court to allow Hinckley's eventual release to live with or near his aging mother in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Leave it to a former NFL player to explain what's wrong with education. Fran Tarkington explores an alternate reality: