Everybody’s talking about the Dark Knight shooting. That’s getting plenty of coverage without me, so I’ll focus on three reactions: the gun control discussion it re-ignites (somewhat to President Obama’s consternation), the bizarre fantasy that an armed crowd could have taken the shooter down with less loss of life, and the religious-right view that blames such disasters on separation of church and state. (Seriously. And BTW, the victims are in Hell if they weren’t Christians.)
Until the shooting, everybody was still talking about Mitt Romney’s taxes, Republicans manufactured a gaffe by selectively quoting something sensible President Obama said, and Ann Romney may or may not have called us peons “you people”.
But the main articles this week will be about longer-term issues. In spite of things I’ve encouraged you to believe in the past, it looks like Peak Oil isn’t really happening, at least not anytime soon. And I take advantage of the Catholic Church’s Natural Family Planning Awareness Week to look back on the papal encyclical that is causing all the problems.
I’m moving slowly this morning, so the first article (on the papal encyclical) probably won’t show up until about 11 eastern time.
The Weekly Sift 
Comments
RE the Aurora massacre (no way must we lighten it with terms like “incident”), how about focusing on the reaction of the Gun Rightists in some of the well-regarded blogs, who flame the idea of ever even thinking about reenacting the Federal assault weapons ban?
> the bizarre fantasy that an armed crowd could have taken the shooter down with less loss of life
I love these comments. Your snub-nose 38 wouldnt have even impacted a guy with the protection he was wearing, if you can hit him in a dark theater. Best case scenario, you slow him down; worse case, you shoot him and he now targets you.
There is an oil well in my corn field. The driveway meanders out to, and encircles the pump. The rest of the surrounding land is available for crops, whenever it rains, that is.
There is an “oil well” in Alberta. Perhaps you have heard of it?
I’m looking forward to seeing how your analysis will socialize the collateral damage out of the tar sands, such that oil from that source can be viewed as being on the young side of the peak.
Actually, the peak oil article got done first. The Catholic birth control article comes next.