The science is settled, and who doubts the objectivity of federally funded scientists?

US has lowest life expectancy of wealthy nations because of too many guns stored unsafely at home

The United States has far more violent deaths than any other wealthy nation in part because there are so many residents who own guns and store them in unlocked places in their homes.

The lax gun rules are a major contributor to the low life expectancy rate that Americans have compared to their global counterparts. 

A new report reveals that of the 17 wealthiest countries, American males have the lowest life expectancy of 75.6 years and their female counterparts are the second lowest in the rankings coming in at 80.7 years.

‘With lives and dollars at stake, the United States cannot afford to ignore this problem,’ said the report from the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine.

The distinguished scientists who released this “study” are all members of the federally funded National Academies, “Where the Nation Turns for Independent, Expert Advice”, so let’s see what they’ve found, shall we? Hmm – In Merry Old England, where guns and even pocket knives are banned, men live to the ripe old age of 78.3 years while American males die off from poorly secured guns at such a dramatic pace that their life expectancy drops allll the way to 77.9! All that death, all due to guns. So sad.

And how is it that guns are to blame for the average American woman’s shortened life span of just 80.7 years? Until these scientists went to work, gun deaths were considered to be a largely male phenomenon, male-on-male violence. Thanks to our federal tax dollars, we now learn that there’s a heretofore unknown epidemic of gun violence perpetrated against women!

Getting back to that low life expectancy for males, do you remember when that “fact” was cited by liberals as proof of our uncaring society and the need for increased health care and even pre-natal care because of all the babies who died prematurely? Turns out our concern was all for naught – it’s been guns doing the harm and not, as social scientists have maintained, poverty. Think of the money we can now save eliminating all the trillion dollar social welfare programs we’ve been funding in a futile attempt to raise the  life expectancy of drug addicts and 15-year-old grandmothers! Wow.

If this garbage had been put out by the Brady/Giffords anti-gun lobby, who’d care? It’s their sponsors’ money being used for propaganda not. But these are federal institutions playing Sandy Hook, pretending to be providing sober, careful research  and using our money to do it. I’m offended.

Interesting graph

From InstaPundit, of course.

“The principal difficulty lies, and the greatest care should be employed in constituting this Representative Assembly. It should be in miniature, an exact portrait of the people at large. It should think, feel, reason, and act like them.” — John Adams

We’ll always have Langhorne to kick around

Do you know what I am?

At least it seems that way. 11 Langhorne, all 26,415 sq. ft. of it, has dropped its price again, down to $19,050,000.  This warehouse was just one of the many brainstorms that brought down the Antares Boyz back in the day. They originally offered it at as an unfinished shell for $28,000,000, reasoning that someone would gladly pay that much just to get a jump on the years it took to (illegally) drain the wetlands, gain building approval and frame this one up. That was back in 2007, height of the market, yet it still didn’t work. When the Boyz crashed and burned in 2008 a disgruntled creditor “bought” this for $13,750,000, though the talk at the time was that he just assigned it the value of an otherwise uncollectable debt.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the new owner tried reselling it for $14 and when that failed, spent the money to finish it and tried again in 2010, pricing it at $27,500,000. The success of that strategy is seen in today’s latest price cut, to $19. Somehow, I expect there will be more.

So what’s in a house this large? There’s a small indoor lap pool, but no pool outside, and not even a modest tennis court. There is what the listing promises is a “fiber optics trading floor” though at this price, you’d think that should be “fibre”. What looks to be a commercial food locker is pictured above; I think it’s a food locker, but it might be that trading floor. And then the usual high end stuff which, frankly, all starts to look the same after awhile. Have you ever seen a truly unique, one-of-a-kind toilet, for instance? Neither have I, and if you’re like me and hope never to see one then come visit here – its soil closets appear to be identical to those used elsewhere by lesser folks, maybe even the gardeners who till these very grounds.

As an aside, only a real estate listing could show a build date of 2011 for a house that was essentially finished six years ago. But that’s a quibble. The place remains empty and is still looking for a buyer. If you’re that special person, do drop in.

Obama will ban guns by executive order – could this make even a liberal queasy?

I shall save this precious child!

Undeterred by the prospect of our country’s legislature not giving him what he wants, Obama is planning to pull a Chavez and legislate by executive fiat.

“The president is going to act,” said Biden, giving some comments to the press before a meeting with victims of gun violence. “There are executives orders, there’s executive action that can be taken. We haven’t decided what that is yet. But we’re compiling it all with the help of the attorney general and the rest of the cabinet members as well as legislative action that we believe is required.”

Biden said that this is a moral issue and that “it’s critically important that we act.”

Biden talked also about taking responsible action. “As the president said, if your actions result in only saving one life, they’re worth taking.

This last bit is the excuse used for all sorts of terrible laws and it simply isn’t true. If that life of one child were really the beginning and end of all inquiry, we’d ban cars or, more prosaically, confiscate all violent video games. Our Second Amendment rights are at least as worthy of the same protection as the First.

If at first you don’t succeed, try again. After that, give up

Man attempting to commit suicide fails twice, walks to work.

CANONSBURG, Pa. -

State police say a man twice tried to kill himself on Interstate 79 in southwestern Pennsylvania before going to work.

The Associated Press is not identifying the 22-year-old Washington, Pa. man because of the nature of the incidents, but police say he first tried to end his life by jumping out of a moving vehicle that was driving him to work in Canonsburg, about 15 miles south of Pittsburgh. That happened about 7:45 a.m. Tuesday.

About a half hour later, police say the man stepped over a guide rail into the path of a tractor-trailer which tried to avoid the man but knocked him out of his shoes.

Troopers from the Washington barracks say the man jumped up, grabbed his shoes, slid down a hillside and walked to work. He was since been flown to a Pittsburgh hospital.

Stick around, fella – sounds like God may have better plans for you.

Different season, same price

 

Tilted house?

7 Nawthorne, in Old Greenwich, failed to find a buyer since July of last year and is back today with a new broker but the same price that buyers found resistable before, $3.6 million. A 1942 house (and who knew they continued building during the war?) and last renovated in 1983, this one’s a bit tough to calculate. Great street, wonderful neighborhood, older house that obviously hasn’t appealed to buyers for the past six months. That may be the fault of the pictures posted online by the original broker, a representative sample of which is shown here, or perhaps it was the price. We will undoubtedly find out.

Promoting the NRA’s agenda

Keep your freakin’ hands off of me

Politicians are scrambling to fire up gun owners by proving the NRA right: the goal of Democrat politicians is to confiscate all firearms in the United States.

Diane Feinstein, Governor Mario Cuomo and New York’s Michael Bloomberg have called for the confiscation of all semi-automatic (trigger must be pulled for each shot) rifles and pistols, which covers just about every modern weapon made today, and they’ve been joined in that demand by at least one state representative, an Iowan named Dan Muhlbauer.

We’ve discussed the Journal News’ publication of licensed gun owners’ names and addresses; yesterday, the Gawker followed suit, disclosing the names of all (registered, not illegal) gun owners in NYC. Notice that both these rags went after all gun owners, not just those who might own one of those dreaded “assault rifles”. They’re after bigger game.

Nor does the campaign stop at guns themselves – they want the ammunition too.

Dick Blumenthal wants to register and conduct background checks on all ammunition purchasers, which in addition to creating a nuisance, would bar internet sales of discount ammo.  His intellectual equal on the state level is New Haven representative Martin Looney, who has already introduced legislation to do the same thing here in Connecticut.

And so forth and on and on – these people are just getting started. And while all this activity and calls for action will fire up the base while doing nothing worthwhile, it is also convincing many fence sitters like myself to finally take notice and acknowledge what the NRA has been saying all along: every attempt to regulate guns is merely a step towards the ultimate goal, the complete elimination of the right of private citizens to bear arms. Worse, having accomplished that, these same people will move on, as England has, to eliminate the right of self-defense of any sort. And if you have no right to defend your own life, then who does that life belong to, you, or the state? We know where these people come down on that one.

So while I, and many others, I suspect, had until recently believed that the NRA was just a bit paranoid about the whole anti-gun movement, and even felt that some regulations might be wise, I’ve changed my stance, and will now work actively to defeat each and every politician who seeks to impose any restriction, no matter how small, on gun ownership. There is, as we’re seeing now, no middle ground.

Price cut in Riverside

76 Meadow Rd

76 Meadow Road, listed at $6.495 million this past September, has cut its price to $5.985. Those of you who still have jobs on Wall Street (and who don’t work for Morgan Stanley) may want to get out your wallets.

Or not. Although I liked this house when I saw it; nicely made, 0.9 acre, which is large for Riverside, good location, with a pool, I wasn’t wild about its September price. Will this cut produce a buyer? Well, lesser homes than this one have sold for around $5 million in the past year in Riverside, so I’m guessing that this will settle somewhere between $5 and its new price of $6. At which end of that spectrum is to be determined.

Cleaning up and on the mortgage mess

Blackstone Group has purchased $2.5 billion in foreclosed homes and short sales and is looking for more. 16,000 private homes already, which are being minimally rehabbed and returned to the market as rentals. This is going on in those areas hardest hit by the crash: Florida, California, Georgia and Arizona, for example, where prices have already rebounded 12%-22% and are expected to ultimately provide a cash appreciation; for now, Blackstone’s running it for the rental income.

The areas it’s buying and where prices have stabilized and are now rising again are all “non-judicial foreclosure”  states, meaning foreclosures are completed in months, not the 3-4 years we’re seeing around here. Their market has cleared; ours has not. There’s a lesson to be learned there but it’s one that, naturally, has been missed by California legislators, who are busy changing their laws to protect deadbeat borrowers and permit them to enjoy the same leisurely process of rent-free living that their cousins in the east have. Funny how that works.

The lonely lives of priests

Say “Hail Mary!”

“I’m going to need help getting out of these” – frantic 911 call from priest stuck in handcuffs and gag. 

It’s not clear exactly how he ended up in handcuffs or why he feared a medical emergency. Father Donovan was alone in the front room of the rectory.

A spokeswoman for the Diocese of Springfield, Kathie Sass, told the Illinois Times that Donovan’s  request for a leave of absence was accepted by Bishop Thomas Paprocki not long after the incident.