That was the week that was ...

Extra points if you recognize the post’s title reference.

Quite a lot happened this week, nationally and not counting the Bridgeville shootings. The Kenyan birth certificate of Barack Obama surfaced at the beginning of the week, by week’s end a judge has tossed it out as evidence in Alan Keyes' lawsuit claiming Obama is foreign born, due apparently to lawyer Orly Tait’s ham handedness in submitting it into evidence (the kind of thing I sort of thought would be the case). Too bad, if it had stayed in evidence someone might have done an official investigation into it, and it would have been officially dismissed as a fraud.

The unemployment rate came down, just like it had been noted in the last couple of weeks that the GNP had dropped much less that the previous quarter. The thing is, those numbers could be revised back up or down or whatever, so we might just as well not count chickens yet. But they are somewhat encouraging.

Cash for clunkers is going great guns, and should have a reasonable effect on our consumption of gas, and the amount of pollution we generate. Of course, so too would everyone driving at 55 on the highway.

I tried to suggest. on other people's blogs, that assault rifles and high capacity magazine pistols should be banned. Yes, we could do more in mental health, try to reduce the stigma, etc. I personally would be comfortable with mental health getting more attention. But, I think for other people it really would seem like a police state if you had to see a shrink every six months to make sure the “state” did not consider you a public hazard. I suggested that the founding fathers would be horrified at the killing power of modern guns (which I still believe) and I was told by others what the founding fathers thought. I realized that I may not know exactly what the founding fathers might think about modern issues, but they are dead and never lived in an era like today. I mean, they were smart guys and all, but they lived in an era when the number of people you could shoot depended on how many guns you and your friends could carry. Because it would take 30 seconds or so to reload one bullet into a gun. I frankly am getting less concerned about what the founding fathers thought and more interested in what is likely to work now. I know, heresy in the eyes of the religion of conservatism. And while I accept that everyone being armed might have a deterrent effect, it still might not stop people in the heat of some passionate argument from pulling out a gun and trying to shoot each other. And there would be a lot more of them with guns. Plus there is no guarantee that average Joe or Josepine is not more likely to shoot me or some other innocent bystander than a bad guy. Meanwhile, if no one has a gun, it certainly would reduce the number of people you can shoot (or who can shoot you).

I apparently don’t understand logic.