After the perp left she grabbed the pistol from under the counter and shot wildly down the street after him, missing him entirely.

When the cops showed up they showed her how to kneel down and brace her arm on her knee while shooting to increase her accuracy.

1. CHL holders have to pass a background check comparable to police officers'.  Any history of mental illness or serious crime disqualifies you for a license.

2. Gun crimes committed by CHL holders are very rare, and usually bureaucratic rather than violent in nature.  I know I should post a link for numbers backing this up, but I'm supposed to be working, sorry.

If I was an Obama supporter and was at the Invesco stadium, where these nutbags apparently hope to use the Obama salute, I would bow my head in shame and walk out of there in a hurry.

The teacher claims she needs the gun to protect herself against her former husband. He denies he is a threat. The school district insists the classroom is no place for a shootout.

Link

Anyway, we had a review session and one of the students came in late.  He was wearing a ski cap, a ski coat and a camouflage backpack and he walked quickly to the front row of the class.  The kid meant no harm, just didn't want to miss the review.  However, you could tell, his approach scared the crap out of my burly and muscular teacher.

Teachers have learned anxiety about being in front of a whole bunch of kids, one of which might be the next mass school murderer.

I'm not saying that it's right for teachers to carry guns, but I will say, I see their point.

Part of the deal (from the NYTimes):

"American soldiers would staff air defense sites in Poland oriented toward Russia, and that the United States would be obliged to defend Poland in case of an attack with greater speed than required under NATO, of which Poland is a member."

So - Bush and his buddies, with the usual silent collusion of the comatose democrats (including our standard bearer) - are going to staff this "defense site" with American soldiers! And it will be oriented toward Russia!

It is disturbing, depressing, and very much a call to true action. He says the Imperial Presidency is destroying the American way of life and that the Congress seems to see its role as that of staying in office and throwing power at the president.

He said so many things which struck me as so accurate--things which have been said here, as well, by many. Bacevich blames both Repubs and Dems, but voted wholeheatedly for Dems in 2006 bcz he believed Dems when they said they would get us out of Iraq if they had power--and Harry and Nancy have done worse than nothing. Over and over they fed the beast, BushCo's War Machine.

...for another of the major institutional victims of the credit crisis, we may be only at the start of a slow death.

That victim is the Securities and Exchange Commission, Wall Street's regulator for the past 74 years.

For months, the agency has seemed superfluous to the battle to protect global finance. After the Federal Reserve came to the rescue as a lender of last resort to beleaguered Wall Street banks, the SEC could only watch as the US central bank rode roughshod over its traditional territory. Worse, when the SEC finally did pipe up, its actions against short-sellers were widely damned as a hysterical over-reaction.

Now the SEC's chairman, Christopher Cox, a mild-mannered former Republican congressman, stands accused by some of his own staff for failing to stand up for the agency, as the Bush administration manoeuvres to replace it with something more amenable to Wall Street.

...revelations that Mr Cox was not on crucial conference calls between the Fed and the US Treasury during the effort to prop up Bear Stearns are particularly damaging. He was at a birthday party on the Saturday night in question, and went on holiday a week later, with global finance still on life support - and his protestations of having been constantly in touch have done little to improve the perception of irrelevance.

BushCo, of course, blew their chance to actually implement their talked about Great New Marshall Plan for Afghanistan. Perhaps had they ignored the lure of attacking Iraq, the US and allies could have maintained order in Afghanistan which might have lead to real economic development. Instead, BushCo got bored and moved on to their fave target. What idiots.

Not only waging illegal war, stupid preventive war, but also messing it up royally. And thus messing up two wars.

So, whoever is the US prez is going to have a right bloody mess on his hands.