New York police officers could carry mini-cameras on their guns under a proposal to bolster public confidence following a spate of controversial shootings.

The device, whose introduction is gaining support among state politicians, would create a visual and audio recording of police shootings for use in court.

Officers would not be able to tamper with the five-ounce camera which works by shooting out a bright red laser light at whatever is in the gun barrel’s path within two seconds of the weapon being drawn. The camera would continue to operate for up to an hour.

The laser light could only be switched off if might expose the officer to danger in a dark area. The camera footage could also be used to identify suspects.

I am a big supporter of police, and think they do a wonderful job 99% of the time, but I also realize that some jurisdictions have social/political considerations that put police in as much danger as criminals do. These cameras could exonerate police who are harassed by trouble-makers for justified uses of force.

Furthermore, I think the trend towards paramilitary police units is dangerous, and these sorts of cameras could encourage more careful police work.

Each time the space shuttle rises from its launchpad at Cape Canaveral, Fla., an Air Force officer waits anxiously for the first 2 minutes to pass safely. If the spaceship were to veer off course and endanger a populated area, this range safety officer would bear the terrible responsibility of flipping a pair of switches under a stenciled panel reading “Flight Termination.” The first switch arms explosives on the shuttle’s two solid rocket boosters. Flipping the second switch would detonate them, destroying the shuttle and crew.

“If something happens when it’s just off the pad, there’s only a couple of seconds [to react],” says Bryan O’Connor, a former shuttle commander and NASA’s chief of safety and mission assurance.

Well, pack your bags for Houston because NASA wants to pay you $17,000 to stay in bed for 90 straight days.

The bed-rest experiment, to take place in the Human Test Subject Facility of Johnson Space Center, is designed to allow scientists to study some of the effects of microgravity on the human body. We read on the Bed Rest Study website:

Participants will spend 90 days lying in bed, (except for limited times for specific tests) with their body slightly tilted downward (head down, feet up). Every day, they will be awake for 16 hours and lights out (asleep) for 8 hours.

I certainly wouldn't do it... the health consequences could be severe.

(HT: GeekPress, who asks how this technology could possibly go wrong. I, for one, welcome our new unstoppable robot overlords.)

With stocks of unwanted new SUVs and pickups piling up at dealerships across the country, automakers are offering unprecedented promotions. Incentives for large SUVs, including cash rebates, topped $4,000 in March, or more than double those offered in March 2002, according to Edmunds.com, which monitors the motor industry.

At the same time, consumers like Chrystall are flooding the market with used SUVs, trying to trade in hulking Hummers for compact Corollas, and getting thousands of dollars less than they would have just a few months ago. In April, the average used SUV took more than 66 days to sell, at a 20 percent discount from vehicle valuation books, such as Kelley Blue Book, compared to 48 days and a 7.8 percent discount a year earlier, reported CNW Marketing Research, an automotive marketing research company.

Some desperate car dealers and consumers, are willing to lose thousands of dollars just to get rid of their SUVs. Last July, 20-year-old Sannan Nizami, of Lowell, bought a 2007 Toyota 4Runner SUV for $32,000 when it cost about $65 to fill the tank. Six months later, as a gallon of gas soared to $3.50 and more, and tank refills climbed over $80, Nizami put the vehicle up for sale. He posted it online for $27,000 but received no responses for months.

If you need or want a truck, now's the time.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, announced Monday it would expand its discounted prescription drug program to offer 90-day supplies for $10 and add several women's medications at a discount. It also said it would lower the price of more than 1,000 over-the-counter drugs.

The move marks the third phase of a company program that began in 2006 to provide a 30-day supply of generic prescription drugs for $4. The Bentonville-based company said the program has saved customers more than $1 billion.

With the expansion, the company began filling prescriptions Monday for up to 350 generic medications at $10 for a 90-day supply at Wal-Mart, Neighborhood Market and Sam's Club pharmacies in the U.S. Almost all the prescription generics in the company's $4 program were included in the expanded $10 offer, said Wal-Mart senior vice president John Agwunobi.

Competition works in everyone's favor. Any changes the government makes to healthcare regulation should be designed to increase competition in the marketplace, give consumers more options, and loosen restrictions on healthcare providers that drive up cost. Let healthcare providers compete like Wal-Mart does, and we'll all reap the benefits.

Since the potential for additional Republican gains among married white Christians appears to be limited, Republican leaders will need to find ways to reduce the Democratic advantage among voters who are not married white Christians in order to maintain the party's competitive position. However, given the generally liberal views of this group, this will not be easy. In 2006, according to data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, 57 percent of these voters supported a woman's right to choose an abortion under any circumstances, 66 percent opposed a constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage, and 71 percent favored a single-payer health care system. Any attempt by Republican leaders to significantly increase their party's support among voters who are not married white Christians would therefore require changes in some of the party's longstanding policy commitments -- changes that would clearly upset a large segment of the current Republican base.

There are several problems I can see with Dr. Abramowitz' analysis.

1. The political preferences he attributes to skin color are more likely to be due to dynamic cultural factors, such as recency of immigration, urban living conditions, and so forth. It's unlikely that skin color alone causes a person to favor gay marriage or broadly legal abortion. Whatever cultural factors underlie the leftist dominance of non-whites could change or be changed as easily as white preferences have changed over the decades.

2. Even though people are getting married later than they have in the past, most people still do marry. As longevity increases, it's not clear that people will spend fewer voting years married than they have in the past. Additionally, there's no reason to believe that marriage is experiencing a permanent decline. Perhaps conservatives need to lead by teaching/convincing others about the merits and benefits of marriage. Strong leadership could, perhaps, work to rebuild the institution of marriage within our society and fight against the forces that are working hard to erode it. Instead of trailing these demographic shifts, political leaders should be working to shape the culture.

3. Christianity seems to be rather cyclical in its popularity. There's no doubt that the church needs to be more active in evangelism, not merely for political or demographic purposes, but because God commands it. The political consequences of this calling are secondary to the spiritual, but will follow nonetheless.

Rather than seeing these shifts as a reason to abandon conservatism as Dr. Abramowitz suggests, I see them as a challenge: if we conservatives really do have a better way of running the world than the leftists do, we need to make our case for it and convince the voters. Demographics are destiny, but they are not beyond our ability to influence.

The fact is that what has been happening to the world's climate in recent years, since global temperatures ceased to rise after 1998, was not predicted by any of those officially-sponsored models. The discrepancy between their predictions and observable data becomes more glaring with every month that passes.

It won't do for believers in warmist orthodoxy to claim that, although temperatures may be falling, this is only because they are "masking an underlying warming trend that is still continuing" - nor to fob us off with assurances that the "German model shows that higher temperatures than 1998, the warmest year on record, are likely to return after 2015".

In view of what is now at stake, such quasi-religious incantations masquerading as science are something we can no longer afford. We should get back to proper science before it is too late.

See also: Watts Up With That and Climate Audit.

Update:

But at least Sting is making a fortune off it. (HT: Jessica.)

Another motion to lower farm subsidies, by Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, was pending Thursday afternoon when the House adjourned for its usual long weekend of fundraising, politicking and recreation. Unchanged in Nancy Pelosi's House is bipartisan devotion to the three-day week.

I work hard and I work a lot to support my family, to provide for our future retirement, to give my employer and my country an honest return for my wages, and to honor God with my labor.

Eh, maybe I should be grateful they work so little. Everything our Congress does seems designed to screw me over, so maybe the less they work the better off the rest of us are.