Short Attention Span Musing

...After watching the now-famous YouTube video of Miss Teen USA - South Carolina, Lauren Caitlin Upton, as she mangled an answer, I was struck by a frightening thought -

George W. Bush and Katherine Harris had a love child, long before the 2000 election fiasco.

:))


...Now the national Democratic Party is taking away Florida's delegates at next year's convention, because the Republican governor and the Republican-controlled legislature moved the date of their primary into January. That conflicts with a national Democratic rule that no primaries can take place before February 5th.

Isn't it time for a national Presidential primary schedule? Move primary season into the spring, make it 10 weeks (or so) long, with the big states spread out evenly across the schedule to keep things interesting until the end. Even let New Hampshire and Iowa go first every cycle, but rotate the rest so no one state or region gains disproportionate influence.

Oh, and what's the big deal about Iowa and NH? Their caucuses/primaries may have the effect of weeding out some of the weaker candidates, but they rarely pick the eventual winner of the Presidential race.


...I'm a big fan of AZ Capitol Television, especially when the lege is actually in session, and even though it is under the direct control of the lege's Republican leadership, that fact is generally *not* apparent (though I have a few questions about the root cause of the poor sound quality when Democratic members speak in committee or in caucus. :)) )

Tonight, though, it was obvious who was in charge -

They ran an infomercial for a shopping center in Glendale called Westgate.

Wonder how big the payoffs....errr..."campaign contributions" were to pull that one off?

Well, at least it showcased a lot of the music of Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers. :)


...Thanks to GovExec.com for the heads-up on an interesting website - The ATF's Firearms Trace Data page.

The page details the 'source state' for firearms recovered/confiscated in each state. For each of the states that I checked, including AZ, that state, except for the District of Columbia, was the leading source state for guns recovered in that state. Nothing too earth-shattering there.

Note: D.C. has the tightest gun control law in the country; most of the weapons recovered there came from Maryland and Virginia.

It got a little interesting when looking down the list for numbers of weapons that were traced to other states.

For example, California and Texas are the two leading non-AZ source states for recovered weapons here.

States that should be ticked off at AZ because we are a major source for weapons in their state:

Colorado, California, Nevada, New Mexico

Not surprising that, given that we share a border with each of those states, though the numbers in Nevada were startlingly high.

However, less understandable is that we rank as one of the top 15 source states for 24 U.S. states and territories.

Somehow, I don't think that's the kind of growing national influence that we should be proud of.


Later!