I recently came across an interesting website devoted to women and guns called Women of Caliber. The site has some great articles, some of which are aimed at women, some of which apply to everyone.

Here are a few excerpts that I particularly enjoyed.

Why We Fear Guns

The myth is that guns kill lots of people every year. The fact is they do, but typically in the hands of criminals. The biggest killer of our American citizens is medical errors, followed by heart disease, and then cancer. Seriously, statistically, doctors who cause death by dereliction are 9,000 times more dangerous than guns held by legal gun owners! And yet no one has ever run a news story that paints doctors and hospital staff in the same barbaric light as gun owners.
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Lastly, there’s the myth is that a gun in the house will result in a fatal accident among children or others. The fact is if you don’t know how to use and be safe with a firearm, your chances of an accident happening are sky-high – not just in your home, but in the home of your neighbors whom your children visit. If you don’t know about firearms and their workings, how do you know you’ll act appropriately if you walk in on a child who has one in their hands? Education is the key. Curiosity and ignorance is a deadly combination and is what causes accidents. Not guns. Attempting to say as much is like saying that pencils cause spelling errors.

I’m completely accepting of the fact that someone chooses not to have a firearm so long as that person makes the decision with full knowledge of the facts rather than the myths. So please, get informed and then make your decision.

My Thoughts:
Yes accidents do happen, but if you prepare and educate yourself these accidents can be minimized to nearly zero. Like the article said, curiosity and ignorance lead to accidents, not guns. You wouldn’t let your curious toddler play with gasoline and matches, but you have them on your property don’t you? Education and preparation is the key.
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In Obama’s recent Prime-Time speech  he said that he plans to attack this financial crisis on all fronts. Geithner is planning to detail to congress his list of new regulations he would like to impose on the financial sector to keep something like this from happening again. The one thing that would have made sure it was far less likely for this to happen everyone said couldn’t be done - we simply couldn’t let these businesses fail.

Letting more of these businesses fail would revitalize the economy and their respective industries. If suddenly the big 3 disappeared there would be entrepreneurs eagerly buying their old factories with dreams of starting the next big car company. The ‘lost jobs’ would only remain lost for a short while. We would have a new generation of people in top positions within these industries with new ideas. America used to be a land of opportunity… A land where creativity and hard work could put you on top. 

Now it seems, however, that America is the land of stagnation, the land where creativity goes to die, the land where entrepreneurs are trampled by the government, a place where it is more important to maintain the status quo and keep the rich on top than it is to reward good ideas and good business. Make no mistake these bailouts aren’t about the tax payer, they aren’t about the lost jobs, they aren’t really about the economic ramifications of AIG going bankrupt. these bailouts are about keeping the rich where they are so they can continue to line the pockets of politicians on both sides of the line.

You can’t reward a dog for shitting on your floor and say you’ll fix his behavior by watching him more closely.

1. Banning guns works, which is why New York, DC, and Chicago cops need guns.

2. Washington DC’s low murder rate of 80.6 per 100,000 is due to strict gun control, and Arlington, VA’s high murder rate of 1.6 per 100,000 is due to the lack of gun control.

3. Statistics showing high murder rates justify gun control but statistics showing increasing murder rates after gun control are “just statistics.”

4. The Brady Bill and the Assault Weapons Ban, both of which went into effect in 1994, are responsible for the decrease in violent crime rates, which have been declining since 1991.

5. We must get rid of guns because a deranged lunatic may go on a shooting spree at any time and anyone who would own a gun out of fear of such a lunatic is paranoid.
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This video was put together by Jeremy Dunlap from BlueJean Politics. You can check out his blog at http://bluejeanpolitics.blogspot.com.

The Conservative Book Club is a membership based club that gives deals on conservative books. There are some definite pros and cons to the service, and while I was not 100% impressed, I think it is still a pretty good deal.

The initial deal is that you get 3 books for 3 dollars. 1 dollar for each book and then you pay shipping. The shipping on these three books is $6.95. So for $9.95 you get 3 brand new conservative books. This is the great part of the deal.

Next, after you become a member to get this deal, you have to buy 4 books sometime in the next 2 years. That is really quite a bit of time to accomplish this, but this is obviously how they make their money. To qualify, the books have to be over $14.95. This is fine, as most of the books retail for 20-30. The problem is that this is not very prominent information on the site. I did not see it until after I joined and it was on the member page. I assumed it would be somewhere in that range, but it didn’t seem to be stated anywhere before I joined.

Also, the website left a little to be desired. After I had selected three books, I started filling out the name and address fields to checkout. After I did that, and was getting ready to checkout, I changed my mind on one of the books. I take it out, and go add the replacement. Instead of going back to where I left off, nothing was saved and I had to re-enter all my information. Small annoyance, but it is something to look out for. Decide on which three books you want before you enter your information.

After joining, you can also get some everyday great deals. They have a nice selection of conservative books in the 5-10 dollar range. Many in the area of 70% to 90%. Just remember, these don’t count towards your required purchases.

Finally, there is a bonus points program. Each book you purchase over 14.95 gets you a point. After 4 points, you get a book for $6. The required purchases don’t count towards these points, but you do start with 2 points. I guess the first 4 are worth a half point. It’s not an amazing deal, but it is another nice new cheap book.

Overall, I think the Conservative Book Club is a pretty good deal. If you like to read a lot, or if you know someone that does, this could work out nicely for you. You have 2 years to take care of the required purchases, that gives you 2 birthdays, 2 anniversary’s, and 2 Christmas’s to get 4 books. I wish the website worked a bit better and was a bit more transparent about it, but after everything is said and done it’s not a bad deal.

Check out our conservative books list for ideas and then head over and join with the link below.

The House passed a bill today that will tax at 90% bonuses given by firms receiving bailout money. As I said in a recent article this is just a political game trying to keep the attention on AIG and off of how badly this whole situation has been managed by Washington.

This is from an article on CNN:

A similar proposal in the Senate would attempt to recoup bonuses by taxing both individuals and companies, but Rangel said House leaders decided against penalizing companies because they could simply ask for more taxpayer money.

Hey Rangel, how about you say no. Stop giving them them the taxpayer money. That was easy.
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Just a quick note to our readers to let you know that we are now accepting guest posts. The guidelines are pretty simple:

1. Write about something that is somehow related to politics. You might have a great idea about monster trucks, but that doesn’t really fit here. Unless of course the monster truck industry is getting a bailout, then you might be on to something.

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3. If you are interested, email your post to me at dclark[at]geekpolitics[dot]com for review.

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Several members of Congress are planning on taxing away the bonuses that AIG has awarded several of its top executives.

Really this is mostly ridiculous. They have contracts in place that say they owe these employees money. They have to give it to them. Yes these contracts would have been ripped to shreds if AIG had gone bankrupt, but luckily the geniuses that run our government thought it was a good idea to give them over 170 billion dollars and counting so that they could survive. Since they survived, the contracts are valid and should be paid.

The shame is that this is just a political game to distract people from how badly the government handled the whole situation. Who really cares about 160 million when you gave them 170 BILLION. It is a whopping .09% of the bailout money. Sure, it sucks that we are paying these bonuses, but it should not be the issue we are focusing on.

Really, the only problem here is that these big financial companies suck at writing contracts. Why do they have “bonuses” that are guaranteed? I can tell you with certainty that I won’t get a bonus this year if our company loses billions of dollars. Now, I don’t work at a company that has any chance of losing billions of dollars, we would all be out out on the street way before that point. The point is that the bonus only happens when the company is doing well and making money.

That is what is so confusing to me. These banks and big businesses that are losing money are still paying dividends and giving out bonuses. How does that make any sense. Dividends are a sharing of the profits among the shareholders of a company. It seems logical to me that these would only occur when there are, you know, profits.

The same goes for bonuses. A bonus is something you give an employee for a job well done. When the company is losing billions of dollars each quarter, these executives are not doing a good job. Running the entire financial system of the world into the ground does not constitute job well done. So why in the world would the write contracts that give guaranteed bonuses? If that is the case, just put the money into their salaries. There is no reason to call it a bonus.

While I think the bonuses are stupid on the part of these companies, it is really only a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the mess that is these bailouts.

What do you think about the bonuses? What do you think about the political circus around them? Should we be focusing on getting this money back in taxes, or is this just a political game to distract people from how poorly Washington has handled the bailouts? Let me know what you think in the comments below.