#52311: — 12/06  at  12:15 AM
g — 12/05 at 11:13 PM
Blogspot is up again. I hear that the Kansas news station kept of flashing the email of Mirecki's that talked about the "fat face" of the "fundies" when they talked about him getting beat up. Apparently the guy who has gotten Mirecki's postings to a yahoogroups to the press, John Altevogt is skeptical that the event actually happened.

Typical.

Which side of the ID/evolution debate has been caught in multiple bald-faced lies in court?

Pharisees, all of them....

#52313: — 12/06  at  12:34 AM
You guys act like you have never gotten your ass kicked in the south before.

#52315: — 12/06  at  01:21 AM
This incident illustrates the critical importance of having the means to defend oneself close at hand. A gun is like a tourniquet: you hope you never need it, but when you need it, you need it immediately, and you need it very badly.

http://www.pinkpistols.org/index2.html

-jcr

#52316: — 12/06  at  01:30 AM
Jinx,

The per capita murder rate in the USA is also greately affected by the War On Some Drugs. We used to have a lot of people in the liquor racket shooting each other in the streets of NYC and Chicago, and that came to a screeching halt with the end of Prohibition. It started up again in the 1960's, when the government decided to ignore the lessons from the previous round of prohibition.

-jcr

#52320: — 12/06  at  02:16 AM

Saying "big fat face" is bad style, for sure. Not dignified. Perhaps he should write a blog where he can rant like that. That would be an appropriate place for such statments. Error of judgement.

If anything, isn't an email to the members of a freethinker society he personally advises a more dignified/less inflammatory place to say that than any publically-available blog? I probably wouldn't say it in either forum, especially were I a professor rather than a lowly grad, but he clearly wasn't trying to piss off fundamentalists--he didn't expect them to read it at all.

I wonder if this might lead to the class being reinstated?

#52324: — 12/06  at  02:42 AM
Jinx and others,
I guess the table you are looking for is http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_mur_wit_fir_cap . USA comes in as 8th on the list of firearms murders per capita, Switzerland as 19th (closely followed by Canada).
The top three, South Africa, Colombia and Thailand, are way beyond any other nations.

#52326: Jonathan Badger — 12/06  at  03:49 AM
"The US is 24th in the world for per capita murder (no telling how much guns play into that, much murder in the the world and US is knives, poisoning, etc). Many assume the US would be close to the top"

Yes, but note that the top 23 are *all* third-world/ex-Soviet nations. Yay! There are fewer murders in the US than there are in nations where civilization is on the verge of collapse! You have to go to #30, Finland, before you can find another first-world nation. Pretty depressing if you ask me.

#52327: — 12/06  at  04:03 AM
One might have thought that if they were Christians, they'd have forgiven him...

#52330: Ricardo — 12/06  at  04:31 AM
I created a digg for this story on digg.com. Please go along and digg it to promote it to the front page. This story needs more coverage.

#52331: — 12/06  at  04:34 AM
jinx,

To echo Jonathan, the fact that the US is #24 is irrelevant. The relevant comparisons are to other industrialized and affluent countries, and the US is appalling by that criterion. At 4.3 per 100,000 the US is tops (er, bottoms...) for industrialized nations and nearly twice the 2.8 per 100,000 in Finland. And those folks don't even see the sun half the friggin' year...talk about something that will put you off your rocker.

Joking aside, John C. Randolph is correct when he says a major contributor to the high murder rates in the states is the war on some drugs. But there is more complexity - the drugs that are illegal in the states are illegal many other places, but they don't drive the same social ills there.

In that context, a subset of gun owners who are ...ahem... stupid are the problem in the US, not guns. The easy availability and the virtual encouragement to walk around packing heat create a very negative situation. And the recent passage of legislation in my home state that is essentially a statement that you don't have to use common sense when dealing with threats is a prime example. Maybe most people will use common sense anyway, but it might be good if the gummint encouraged common sense! If responsible folks want to use guns in appropriate ways I can get behind that. But the NRA seems to have the attitude that guns should be more available than cars! I think there should be minimal standards before you can control an urban assault vehicle (or even a spiffy hybrid) and I think there should be minimal standards before you can purchase something that will let you squeeze off a few rounds at the neighbor 'cos they had a BBQ that lastest 'til 10:15pm when they said everything would wrap up by 10pm (mostly the standards would be that it is unacceptable to squeeze off a few rounds at your neighbor for that reason!).

#52343: — 12/06  at  07:06 AM

Some fundamentalist Christians are just old ladies baking pies.

Yeah, like the little group of pie-baking little old ladies who murdered my mom by brainwashing her that God would perform a miraculous healing of her breast cancer, so that it would be sinful to seek out medical treatment. No, these were not Jehovah's Witnesses, they were just your ordinary garden-variety Christian fundies.

But it's not "violence."

#52345: — 12/06  at  07:44 AM

You have to go to #30, Finland, before you can find another first-world nation

One of the things different about the US is our ethnic diversity. IMO,A comparison to Canada is more appropriate than to Finland.

#52347: Arun — 12/06  at  07:55 AM
Why does ethnic diversity lead to more murder? You might have a case if most murder was inter-ethnic; but as far as I know, that is not true.

#52355: — 12/06  at  08:29 AM

Yeah, like the little group of pie-baking little old ladies who murdered my mom by brainwashing her that God would perform a miraculous healing of her breast cancer, so that it would be sinful to seek out medical treatment.

God, man, I'm sorry. That sucks.

#52361: — 12/06  at  08:38 AM
I wonder how many Fundies have been beat up for telling non-fundies that they're going to burn in hell?
My bet, probably not that many.

#52366: Keith Douglas — 12/06  at  08:58 AM
Very unfortunate news. Hope everyone will keep us informed of any further developments. Unfortunately there's a tradition of violence against people who say things that others don't want to hear ...

#52369: — 12/06  at  09:09 AM
There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence.

#52372: — 12/06  at  09:17 AM
jinx Guns are used to successfully defend in the US between 2 and 5 million times a year depending on whose stats you believe

Actually, all of your stats are from gun advocate sources, including known liar John Lott (2.1 million). The low figure is somewhere around 110,000, IIRC, from the control advocates. More pertinent is that the surveys of "defensive gun use" also show that the guns are fired in anywhere from 21%-67% of all incidents. Take it that there is no such thing as "brandishing" as a useful tactic.

Prof. Mireki made the mistake of stopping and getting out of the car, and he knows it was a mistake. Now all of you do. Just keep boogy-ing to the nearest well populated/policed area, and keep your old-fashioned tire-iron under the front seat, just in case. For home defense, get a dog. Rottweilers are adorable.

Self-defense is a state of mind, paranoia is an illness. Try to keep the two seperate.

The question is, is this a new "terror" tactic to stifle free-thought? Are the hordes ready to take up pitchforks and torches? If so, can we lob diseased cow carcasses at DI, I've been itching to try out a trebuchet.

#52373: — 12/06  at  09:24 AM
I don't believe Mirecki needed a gun, folks. He just needed to keep driving. Before I go on about this, I must say that I agree with all of you that what happened to him is an outrage, I hope he'll be alright, and those two thugs who attacked him should be put away for a long time.

But if Mirecki showed bad judgement in his e-mails, he showed even worse judgement behind the wheel. When you're being followed by strange men in a strange vehicle, don't stop, and don't get out, especially not in a remote area! Call 911 if you've got a cell phone. Otherwise, drive to the nearest police station, or a public place, preferably one under video surveillance, and get help.

#52376: — 12/06  at  09:31 AM
A minor quibble on usage in the title: "Mirecki hospitalized" - does "treated and released" qualify as "hospitalized"?

#52378: — 12/06  at  09:48 AM
Roadtripper's quite right. Any idiot playing road tag with you has too little regard for his own safety to confront. Besides, police in the US have a rather dim view of people who stand up to bullies, in my experience.

I do hope the Prof. manages to get charges pressed.

On the topic of gun violence: be careful of "handgun death" statistics and the like, which often include suicides and accidents (or fail to disclose is such numbers are included or not). You might argue that the accidents wouldn't have happened without firearms present, but the suicides would likely have gone ahead.

#52382: — 12/06  at  10:11 AM
Sorry to contradict you Gridflay, but guns actually do increase the suicide rate. For the sake of brevity I will say this: Women attempt suicide at a far greater rate than men, but men have a higher actual suicide rate. The main difference between the two sets is not genitalia, but rather method. Men use guns at a far higher rate.

Suicide is characterised as a impulsive behavior. Guns are easily accessible and shooting oneself is generally not reversable. Just putting dangerous medicines in blister packs as opposed to bottles has lowered suicide rates by those meds drastically. The ease, accessibility, and permanance of the means are very large factors in suicide.

#52383: — 12/06  at  10:17 AM
So I'm guessing the two morons that assaulted Prof. Mirecki are products of the Kansas school system?

#52385: arensb — 12/06  at  10:25 AM
In case anyone cares, the consensus at Free Republic is that Mirecki beat himself up.

#52386: Gerard Harbison — 12/06  at  10:31 AM
It's worse that that on Free Republic. Several posters have opined that he wasn't beaten nearly badly enough; a couple of others claim his original statements about fundies were 'fighting words' that justify the violence. One has a photoshopped image of Mirecki, looking like he's just been beaten, with a balloon saying "I've been Cristianized". (sic)

A modicum of skepticism is justified in this case, until all the facts come out. However, there is absolutely no doubt some fundamentalist Christians are cheering it, and that is shocking.