Saturday, December 29, 2012

Gun Lobbies Suppress Public Research into Gun Violence for Close to Twenty Years




The nation might be in a better position to act if medical and public health researchers had continued to study these issues as diligently as some of us did between 1985 and 1997. But in 1996, pro-gun members of Congress mounted an all-out effort to eliminate the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Although they failed to defund the center, the House of Representatives removed $2.6 million from the CDC's budget—precisely the amount the agency had spent on firearm injury research the previous year. Funding was restored in joint conference committee, but the money was earmarked for traumatic brain injury. The effect was sharply reduced support for firearm injury research.To ensure that the CDC and its grantees got the message, the following language was added to the final appropriation: “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”
In 2011, Florida's legislature passed and Governor Scott signed HB 155, which subjects the state's health care practitioners to possible sanctions, including loss of license, if they discuss or record information about firearm safety that a medical board later determines was not “relevant” or was “unnecessarily harassing.” A US district judge has since issued a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of this law, but the matter is still in litigation. Similar bills have been proposed in 7 other states.
The US military is grappling with an increase in suicides within its ranks. Earlier this month, an article by 2 retired generals—a former chief and a vice chief of staff of the US Army— asked Congress to lift a little-noticed provision in the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act that prevents military commanders and noncommissioned officers from being able to talk to service members about their private weapons, even in cases in which a leader believes that a service member may be suicidal.Health researchers are ethically bound to conduct, analyze, and report studies as objectively as possible and communicate the findings in a transparent manner. Policy makers, health care practitioners, and the public have the final decision regarding whether they will accept, much less act on, those data. Criticizing research is fair game; suppressing research by targeting its sources of funding is not.

For your assault killing weapon of choice:



For ease of shooting your sport prey out of a moving vehicle (for the little woman):



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Hitler Visits the Warsaw Ghetto to Pray?



Given half a chance, Pope Benedict XVI would no doubt like to rehabilitate fellow German Adolph Hitler before fast tracking him to sainthood in similar fashion that the Nazi Pope Pius XII or the Lunatic Pope Pius IX have both been rehabilitated from their earthly crimes and fast tracked to sainthood.

As I have stated here before, Hitler never officially renounced and or “de-baptized” himself out of the Roman Catholic Church.  Like the nuns in grade school taught me, all he had to do was say an act of contrition before he died in order to gain heaven.  

Though I have also thought that maybe saying an act of contrition while you are committing suicide might be a moot point in the eyes of God and or Saint Peter who runs heaven not unlike his so-called successors run Vatican City. Forgiveness would of course be measured against all material donations made to holy mudder church.

And of course if Hitler had won, I have no doubts in my mind that Pius XII was ready to dust off the extinct title of “Holy Roman Emperor” for the sake of a German boy making good in the world. His own good that is.


There is a rather bizarre tourist twist in Warsaw whereby artist Maurizio Cattelan, who is just trying to push the envelope in decency and or shock to sell his product which on occasion could be themed as anti-religion or anti-RCC, has tastely placed a statue of Hitler kneeling inside the old Warsaw Ghetto.


Kitsch art, blasphemy, marketing, whatever, here are some words and pictures for your own judgement.
A statue of Adolf Hitler praying on his knees has sparked controversy after going on display in the former Warsaw ghetto. 
The artwork by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, titled Him, has been installed in the Polish capital where thousands of Jews were killed or sent to their deaths by the Nazi regime. 
The statue has attracted large numbers of visitors since its installation last month, but some organisations have criticised the decision to erect it in such a sensitive area. 
Poland's chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, said he was consulted on the installation's placement but did not oppose it because it conveyed a strong moral question by provoking the audience. … 
The Hitler statue is visible from a hole in a wooden gate and viewers can only see the back of the small figure praying in a courtyard. 
Cattelan has not made it clear what Hitler is praying for, although organisers of the exhibition in which it features claim the statue is meant to make people reflect on the nature of evil. … 
He said he was reassured by the organisers who told him the statue did not aim to rehabilitate Hitler but instead show that evil can present itself in the guise of a "sweet praying child"."I felt there could be educational value to it," Schudrich added.




Tea Party Caucus - The Rotten Core of a GOP Dysfunctional Congress - Vultures Flying Above the Fiscal Cliff




The dysfunctional GOP House of Representatives in Congress is held hostage by a bunch of right wing Bolshevik like lunatics whose radical conservative agenda is no less than the Dictatorship over all the Freedoms of the American People.  The Enemy Within our Republic. 

Know the enemies of your middle-class freedoms!






Sandy Adams Florida 24th,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Adam
            


Rodney Alexander, Louisiana 5th,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Alexander



           

           


            


Gus Bilirakis, Florida 9th
            


            


            


            


            


            

            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            


            



Mike Pence, Indiana 6th,

            


Ted Poe, Texas 2nd,  

            


Tom Price, Georgia 6th,

            


Denny Rehberg, Montana (only one district),




Phil Roe, Tennessee 1st

            


Dennis Ross, Florida 12th,

            


Ed Royce, California 40th,

            


Steve Scalise, Louisiana 1st,

            


Tim Scott, South Carolina 1st,

            


Pete Sessions, Texas 32nd,

            


Adrian Smith, Nebraska 3rd,

            


Lamar Smith, Texas 21st,

            


Cliff Stearns, Florida 6th,

            


Tim Walberg, Michigan 7th

            


Joe Walsh, Illinois 8th,

            


Lynn Westmoreland, Georgia 3rd

            


Joe Wilson, South Carolina 2nd

            

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