Baby Got Gun

Have I given you guys this yet? It’s a link to a country/folk version of one of the great classical pieces of modern music, Baby Got Back.

According to Andrew Sullivan, Donald Rumsfeld is being handed his coat and Joe Lieberman is being considered to be his replacement as Secretary of Defence. (What’s next, Al Gore as Secretary of State?) Personally, I want Rummy to last his tenure and still be centre-stage when this whole shitpile he created finally implodes.

According to some biologists in New York, high intellects and high fecundity are mutually exclusive attributes in males. To quote the lay article: “Because of the high-energy demands of both brains and sperm, scientists believe males cannot generate large amounts of both.” This certainly explains why it’s always the dumb-asses who have the most kids. Federline, anyone?

Prime Minister Paul Martin has laid out his “wedge issue” for the upcoming election: he plans to ban all handguns in Canada, including those owned by gun clubs, shooting ranges, war museums, etc. Personally, I think this is an inefficient and pointless gesture. I’m no fan of firearms, and could go my entire life without seeing or touching one. But I am driven by data, and thus far I have yet to see any data that suggest that legally owned handguns play a significant role in violent crime in Canada, even with respect to handguns stolen from legal owners. (If anyone has seen such data, please share it with me; I am more than open to changing my tune if presented with compelling evidence.) Rather, the declaration suggests one thing only, that the Liberals intend to win this election in urban Canada, with minimal appeal to the West and to the countryside.

If they were truly interested in governing, the money, time and effort spent on a gun ban would be spent on controlling imports of illegal handguns, on more anti-violence education programmes, and on socio-economic investments which have been shown to curb inner city violence. The gun violence issue is unique to specific neighbourhoods of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Its prevalence is not so great as to suggest an epidemic of violence in Canada. Rather, as the wonks like to say, this is all about “optics.”

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