Guns, Murders, and Suicides

This rather surprised me, I always expected homicides were much more common than suicides:

"Suicides accounted for 55 percent of the nation's nearly 31,000 firearm deaths in 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There was nothing unique about that year - gun-related suicides have outnumbered firearm homicides and accidents for 20 of the last 25 years. In 2005, homicides accounted for 40 percent of gun deaths. Accidents accounted for 3 percent. The remaining 2 percent included legal killings, such as when police do the shooting, and cases that involve undetermined intent."

Source

TED talk on Genetics

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dean_ornish_says_your_genes_are_not_your_fate.html

TED talk on carseats.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/steven_levitt_on_child_carseats.html

Babies

The New York Times has a really good article today on birthrates, and how Europe is shrinking. This will be one of the most interesting stories to follow over the next few decades. A 1.3 birthrate, which parts of Europe have, is low enough for the population to cut in half over 45 years! Over my lifetime there is reason to expect Europe, and parts of Asia to have significantly lower populations than they have now.

I have mixed opinions on all of this. On the one side I certainly do agree with the idea that if we could reduce the worlds population to about a billion and hold it somewhere around there most people would be better off. A less crowded world makes environmental issues much less concerning and I suspect we would all have fun with the extra six times as much space per person. I am concerned though the richer countries having less children, than the poorer ones(and the same within countries) could lead to a shift in values away from science, and even more toward superstition. I would feel much more comfortable in a demographic shift where the children of the best educated and richest slowly replace those that are not. Since children typically resemble their parents that would preserve the mindset that built the modern world.
However science and capitalism are very strong forces. We see them taking over most of the world. They will most likely continue whatever the demographic picture is.

HIV, still a disease of gay men

A while back people were often saying that HIV would spread from a few small groups like prostitutes and gay men, and move into mainstream America. It was also supposed to become more common in females. Twenty five years after the disease started that is still very much not the case, and there is little reason to think it ever will be.

"Sex between men accounted for more than 97,000 new diagnoses over the six years, almost half of the total number, according to the C.D.C. report." Source

Among males only 11% of new HIV cases are from heterosexual sex! Not only that, but only 15% of heterosexually transmitted cases of HIV were White Males. Only 1.4% of HIV cases have been a white male who got it from heterosexual sex. Want to take bets on how many got it from unprotected anal sex with a prostitute? Unless you do something profoundly dumb, or get amazingly unlucky, as a straight white male HIV is really not a threat. At the same time 59% of new cases are from homosexual sex. Since 77% of cases are males that is a pretty damn huge chunk. As a homosexual guy you better be paranoid. The risk of this happening to you are huge.

As for women facing more risk. The statistics are pretty scary for Black women. 66% of women who get HIV are black. They have been steadily increasing in how common they are. This is probably because of black men getting arrested, having sex with men in prison, then bringing back HIV to their wife when they get out. As a whole though, the number of cases of HIV in women have been flat, or falling. From 9900 in 2001 down to 9300 in 2006.

As a white straight woman getting HIV isn't quite as unlikely as for a straight guy, but still only about 2.6% of HIV cases are a white woman who got it from a man. While it is even more politically incorrect to point out than most cases being gay guys, it is probably true that the significantly higher numbers of white women in marriages with black men than black women with white men has a strong effect on those numbers. In raw numbers there are about twice as many white women who got HIV from heterosexual sex as there are white males. So, there is more to be worried about, but nothing at all compared to what gay men, or black men or women face.

Second amendment

Wow, the supreme court is having quite a run, Striking down the DC ban on handguns today. To me this sounds pretty open and shut, what does the second amendment say if not that you can own guns?

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Many people try to point to the word militia to say that this right belongs to the state, not the people. To me this is absolutely absurd. After all, these militias they are referring to had just overthrown the government! In a very real sense the second amendment is ensuring that the people are always physically capable of overthrowing the government should it become so obviously corrupt than an overwhelming majority believe the violent overthrow and rebuilding of the government is the best option.

An earlier version of the second amendment makes this a little more clear:

"That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."source

The militia they refer to is clearly not the national guard, or some similar state run army, but "the body of the people" The militia was actually defined in many, if not all states, as all the adult white males. So it seems reasonable this is what the founders intended. Now, they did want some state control over this militia, which is where the term "well-regulated" comes in, but it was often seen as a force to protect the states from the national government. There was some history in England of the government forcibly disarming some groups of the population. This was also something they wished to avoid as it made the oppression of that group easier.

Now, I can understand why people would wish the second amendment didn't exist. The proper thing to do therefore is repeal it. Pretending it doesn't protect an individuals right to own some very dangerous weapons is silly. I would much rather the abolition of the second amendment in a fair way, than just ignoring it. That sets a bad precedent.

"Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation"

PUBLIUS (Madison) - Federalist 46

Bill Gates

I think I now understand why Bill Gates is so rich. I however still don't understand why he was never able to do anything about it. It sounds like he got mired in a corporate culture, and was powerless to change anything, but I shutter to think of what it would be like without these rants.

The best part of that memo is his comment that "There's not a day that I don't send a piece of e-mail ... like that piece of e-mail. That's my job."