Common Sense In Louisiana

Legislation is being passed to allow concealed carry on campus. I don’t understand this, though:

The bill would allow the governing boards of the colleges to designate where the weapons would be stored while the carrier is on campus.

If they can carry, why would they have to store them?

Also, note the usual idiocy and illogic in comments opposed to this:

So, a faculty or staff member who wants to intimidate a student or colleague can use their concealed weapon. Sure makes rape easier, huh?

Yes, because people who have passed the background check for concealed carry are such notorious rapists, and no one commits rape without a gun, and in the absence of this law, no rapist would even think about carrying a gun on campus, because, you know, it’s against the law.

This is exactly what we need, wannabe macho 18-year-olds who have watched too much TV – where shots never miss intended targets – trying to be a heroes. Be prepared to hear the words “innocent bystanders shot” much more often.

Ignoring the fact that you have to be twenty-one to get a permit.

Having a permit to carry a concealed weapon does NOT indicate 24/7 mental stability.

It’s actually a pretty good surrogate for it.

It’s funny how none of the dire predictions of the hoplophobes ever come to pass. I haven’t noticed the blood running in the streets in Michigan for the past few years when they went to “shall issue,” despite all of the predictions of Wolverine exsanguination, and there has been no noticeable increase in innocent deaths in Florida since they passed the castle law down here. This is hysteria, and completely irrational.

Chickens Already Coming Home To Roost

Megan McArdle says that we may already be having a problem with sovereign debt risk:

Obama’s spending plans are extraordinarily ambitious. His projected deficits for the rest of his possibly presidency are higher than the “runaway” deficits that plagued most of the Bush administration–and after the first few years, that’s not stimulus, that’s ordinary spending outstripping revenue. For a while now, I’ve been asking people at conferences, on and off the record, what America’s sovereign debt risk is? That is, how long until people stop treating treasuries as the “risk free” securities, and start demanding a premium for the risk that we might default.

The answer from the right has been a nervous (perhaps hopeful) 2-3 years. The answer from the left, and professional Democratic wonks, is some unspecified time in the future. Probably, there will be a Republican in charge. Markets hate Republicans.

But last Thursday, the Treasury auction was . . . well, descriptions vary from “weak” to “horrible”. This raises the unpleasant possibility that markets are, as my business school professors insisted, “forward looking”. Voters may believe that getting a bunch of special interests to agree in principal that costs should be cut is the same thing as actually cutting costs. Bond markets don’t…

…Obama can assure voters that he inherited these deficits. But bond markets pay closer attention to the fact that Obama has already increased the projected deficit he inherited by 50%.

Let’s hope that the voters figure it out soon, and before Treasury has to start paying high interest on T-bills.

Rebuilding Joints

I suspect that this, not crude surgery, is the wave of the future:

The scaffold has two layers, one that mimics bone and one that mimics cartilage. When implanted into a joint, the scaffold can stimulate mesenchymal stem cells in the bone marrow to produce new bone and cartilage. The technology is currently limited to small defects, using scaffolds roughly 8 mm in diameter.

Bring it on. It’s only going to get better.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!