This is weak.  NPR recently ran a story entitled “For Some Ohioans, Even Meat Is Out Of Reach.”  It was about some woman who has never had a job who can’t afford to buy meat and (I’m not kidding) ice cream anymore because of the economy.  This picture of the woman and her daughter accompanies the article:

Now NPR has changed the headline on the online article to read “Struggling In Ohio As The Economy Tightens.” But the Nunez women are still fat.

Seriously, is this what it has come to?  We are supposed to feel bad when morbidly obese people can’t buy ice cream?

It’s time for a good, wide ranging rant…

I was shocked, flat out shocked, to hear not one, but two Democrats (Bill Richardson and Barack Obama) admit during the Facebook debate that taxes on businesses are simply passed on to consumers. I hope none of their constituents heard them. Why do they still insist on punishing companies for having the nerve to make money? Are we on the precipice of a new Democrat approach to taxation?

Speaking of Democrats, I’ve had enough of them using economic ignorance as the foundation of their policies. John Edwards is easily the worst offender. For example, he proposes not only universal health care, but also universal college. There are a couple of major problems that are easily identifiable. The first deals with basic supply and demand. If more people demand a service without an increase in the supply of that service then one of two things (or a combination of the two) will happen: prices will rise or there will be shortages. We already see vestiges of the government’s meddling in the demand for college education in the form of increased federal tuition and loan assistance pushing up the demand for college. Not surprisingly one of the popular complaints these days is that college is becoming too expensive. Gee, I wonder why. Of course the Democrats not only refuse to admit culpability for the price increase, but actually propose programs that will exacerbate the problem. Politicians can take more from taxpayers with the stroke of a pen and transfer that money to others, but they can’t instantly build schools or train teachers by snapping their fingers.

The second problem with Edwards’ “College for Everyone” concept actually goes to the core of his platform. He claims to run as a candidate for the middle class (more on that later), but his plan would both devalue college education and continue to undermine manufacturing in the U.S. The point of an education or any other job skill acquisition is to differentiate yourself from the sea of other potential job applicants. High school diplomas have already been made nearly useless by the ubiquity of college grads; Edwards would deliver the death knell to those with just a high school diploma. And what about those manufacturing and other blue collar jobs? Well, you think college grads with four year degrees are going to change spark plugs or bend sheet metal? Hell no. We’ll have a society full of educated, although not necessarily any smarter, people who all feel they are above such labor intensive endeavors.

Did anyone else notice how foolish Bill Richardson’s answer at the Facebook debate to a question about the price of gas sounded? He bragged about how he tried to get OPEC nations to increase production to help decrease prices while he was Energy Secretary. Later he said we “need to reduce fossil fuels” and praised Al Gore for winning the Nobel Prize. Uh, Governor if you really cared about “global warming” then why are you gloating about trying to increase production of that nasty stuff? Speaking of global warming - why isn’t it getting any warmer?

Energy independence is a common refrain among politicians, but let’s think a little bit about energy independence before we start salivating at the prospect. There are currently no energy sources that are as cost efficient as petroleum. That means that unless we decrease our spending on foreign oil by exploiting our own resources then we’ll get a double whammy: higher cost per energy unit for us coupled with a cost per energy unit of petroleum even lower than today’s price for our foreign competitors like China and India. So we would punish ourselves, give our adversaries a great chance to catch us, and still watch money flow into the pockets of the bad guys. And if you believe in global warming our actions would do nothing to prevent all that fossil fuel from being burned. It would take a global refrain from petroleum to actually hurt the nefarious countries sitting on crude deposits. I’m not going to hold my breath.

On the topic of energy, oil crossed $100 a barrel last week and the media dutifully made a big deal. To give you perspective, a 1 liter bottle of Dasani water costs about $1.50 or $238.50 per barrel. According to the EPA, 1,000 gallons of tap water costs just $2, or about $0.08 per barrel. So bottled water is nearly 3,000 times more expensive than tap water. I filled up with $2.94 a gallon gas the other day, which translates to about $123 a barrel - barely more than a barrel of oil currently costs. And people think the oil companies are ripping us off!

I mentioned the middle class and the Democrats earlier… I heard a segment on NPR’s Marketplace this afternoon that was one of the best descriptions of the Democrat Party I’ve ever heard. Basically Democrats claim to be the party of the middle class, but nearly all of the programs they tout benefit people below the middle class, which provides no motivation whatsoever for an actual middle class individual to vote Democratic. They also tend to focus on pessimism (”Isn’t your life terrible? Vote for me and I’ll make it better!”). Think John Edwards telling everyone they’ve been given a raw deal and that evil companies - you know the ones that hire all those fools in his crowds (the ones with jobs at least) - have been screwing us all.

Ok, I feel better now.

Last Christmas a relative gave me a Page-A-Day Gallery Calendar with pictures from across America.  For the first time in my life I actually turned the page on a real, physical calendar nearly every day.  In the last month or so I started to think that I had still not seen a page showing a picture of beautiful Alabama.  Well, yesterday I cheated and looked ahead to see if any of the upcoming pictures was denoted as being taken in Alabama.   Nope.  Not one.

I checked through the entire stack of pictures twice.  I saw other states represented - most multiple times.  Even Mississippi was represented, albeit with a photo of a trailer park.  Talk about your anti Southern bias.  The Virgin Islands also had a page.

My finding is in direct contradiction with their marketing claim that the photos cover “all 50 states.”  Furthermore, I have to take issue with the company’s name, Page-A-Day.  The calendar dedicates a separate page to each workday, but weekends are jumbled together on a single page.  Maybe they should change their name to Six-Pages-A-Week.

I’ve had it up to here (I’m holding my hands over my head) with Democrat party whiners complaining about how the government isn’t providing everything for them.  We live in a society that largely rewards people based on their merits, not their mere existence.  If you choose to not make the most of your free education or if you choose to seek out dead-end employment and do a half ass job there then why should I and other hard working productive members of society pay for your _______ (fill in the blank with anything you aren’t entitled to)?

One of the reasons that America is the greatest country in the world is that our society has its own implicit carrot and stick.  Work hard and follow the rules and you stand a very good chance of succeeding.  Otherwise you stand a very good chance of living under a bridge.  The Democrats seek to erode the built in carrot and stick mechanisms of our society through programs that will not elevate the output of the laggards, but will depress the output of those who excel.  It’s a net loss that plunges us all into shared misery rather than just those who earn such a fate.

Take health care.  Here is something that shouldn’t be discussed in polite company.  You would be hard pressed to find a Democrat (or an intelligent Republican) who doesn’t believe in the Darwinian philosophy of natual selection.  Darwin noticed that the animal and plant kingdoms favor the strong, smart organisms over the weak.  Over time that favoritism results in a better species that is more prepared to cope with the unknown and unexpected trials that nature might throw at them.  Like people, animals have limited resources (caloric energy, for example).  It is more common for animals under pursuit from a predator to leave behind an elderly or sick member of the herd rather than expend some of their precious energy to protect a member that doesn’t provide a great deal of benefit to the collective.  That behavior helps the herd.  Expending effort to protect the weak member might have worked, but it could have sapped the strength of the able bodied members and made them susceptible to attacks from other predators.  I view health care in this light.

How would it benefit our society to provide taxpayer funded, very costly medical care to a homeless person or anyone without any innate or developed talents that contribute to the betterment of our society?  That is the very definition of a waste of money.  Furthermore, providing care to those people diminishes the amount of care available to those who are productive members of society.  Health care is not a commodity available in unlimited quantities; it is demonstrably finite.  The best way to distribute this scarce resource is through a market based approach where individuals who accumulate their own valuable assets (mainly money) through their steadfast efforts are entitled to a comparable share of the resource in question.  After all, these are the members of society that have proven themselves to be the most necessary and it is incumbent upon us as a collective to provide them with the best care and prolong the amount of time they can aid society through their own selfish pursuits.

Democrats want to turn this undeniable, though unpleasant, reality on its head and weaken our country through socializing health care.  It is just an element of the me, me, me philosophy they share where they think everyone should get the same thing and that the hard working “rich” should pay for it.  Take this little nugget from the liberal Democrat lovefest that is the YearlyKos convention:

Yesterday I attended a workshop entitled, “A Union for Bloggers: It’s Time to Organize!” during which a moderator posited, “I think all bloggers, in one way or another, view themselves as professionals” and a woman bemoaned the travesty of her and husband’s inability to quit their jobs and become full-time bloggers because the “social safety net is in tatters.” In other words, why won’t society foot the bill for her hobby?

The woman quoted above is indicative of Democrats.  She thinks that tax payers should indulge her desire to quit whatever productive endeavor she is currently engaged in so that she can focus on things that make her happy.  These are the people demanding socialized medicine and other “social safety net” programs so that the rest of us who continue to work hard and pay taxes can fund their absolution of responsibility.

This country needs to quickly recognize the foolishness of socialism and elect leaders who will oppose any efforts to achieve that undesirable state.

Author’s note: I unintentionally used “evolution” in place of “natural selection” when this post was first written.

Arbitrary impediments to free commerce among the citizens of the world, namely politically drawn national borders, have become increasingly permeable in recent years.  The trend has been called globalization, but should be separated from the very real erosion of national sovereingty in favor of broader regional or international governance.  While still falling far short of actual free trade, the free-er trade that we have come to know has brought about changes that have upset many.  But what should be kept in mind is that the free market is the best way of distributing scarce resources and is inherently moral.

This world is faced with scarcity of all items of value (value is inextricably linked to scarcity after all).  The free market approach to distributing those scarce goods is built upon every person making decisions in their own self interest, i.e. selfishness.  Our country’s markets have largely remained more independent of government intervention than other major countries for many scores of years and the result is that we have captured a very large percentage of the scarce resources this world has to offer.  Because resources are scarce and we control the lion’s share the only way that poor countries can increase their standard of living is at our expense, whether through direct distribution of tax dollars from us to other countries or via individuals in those other countries offering better value in the marketplace and beating out incumbent merchants in the wealthy countries.

The true beauty of free markets is that they are both unquestionably fair and ruthlessly efficient.  Fairness is achieved because resources are distributed through merit, rather than by political dictates.  Those who work the hardest and hone the most desirable talents reap the greatest rewards.  That merit based system promotes upward social and economic mobility by visibly incentivizing hard work and innovation.  Conversely, it can quickly and painfully punish complacency and lethargy.

One of my favorite quotes is from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar where Caesar states that Cassius “has a lean and hungry look.”  That lean and hungry look is emblematic of who wins out in a free market: those who want it the most.  Our country has become rotund and satisfied.  Every American, from the impoverished to the rich, enjoys a lifestyle that is measurably superior to many others throughout the world.  While “poor” welfare recipients in America chat on their cell phones standing in line at the grocery store before they purchase generous amounts of food there are tribal residents in other countries who walk for miles to fetch water or firewood.  While homeless alcoholics drink themselves into a stupor in government provided housing with 24 hour medical care in Seattle children starve to death elsewhere.  As bad as you might think you’re lot in life is, yours is far better than that enjoyed by millions around the world.  Those individuals really do have a lean and hungry look - and they will eat our lunch if given the opportunity.  Caesar had good reason to fear Cassius, who was conspiring with Brutus to kill him, and Americans have good reason to fear open competition with the poor in the developing world.

While our country has become unquestionably the richest in the world we’ve sought to counter the overt moral injustice that exists as a direct result of our prosperity.  Unfortunately those efforts have typically come via avenues like low interest loans to corrupt governments, haphazard private contributions, and direct government assistance with strings attached.  The fruits of this benevolence have been marginal at best.  The most obvious way to effectively help the poor is to include them in free trade.

The results of increased free trade are demonstrable and there are a litany of countries that can be viewed as beneficiaries, such as China.  This should please and excite us since we, as a country, have sought to lift others up.  But, whether the governments of the wealthy countries take money from their citizens against their will and transfer it to the poor countries or the free market effects a comparable transfer of wealth one thing is constant: the poor countries benefit at the expense of the rich.  At least the free market system justifiably rewards those who deserve it.

As with many things, making the just, moral decision to help others by opening markets sounds good to everyone on paper, but lose their luster when the prosperous realize that they must now compete with the lean and hungry.  A recent Financial Times poll suggests that large numbers of Europeans and Americans are opposing free trade.  Clearly, many workers are distraught over job losses in many sectors to developing nations.  Although their despair is understandable, I argue that their involuntary sacrifice is for the best of society as a whole, and in many cases, for the newly unemployed themselves.

First of all, it should be made clear that workers whose jobs are outsourced are not the victims.  They choose, individually and collectively, to demand wages that are no longer competitive.  Employers merely make the rational decision to minimize their cost basis in order to remain competitive.  The alternative is to foolishly retain high wage workers and be gradually driven out of business by competitors who seek to minimize cost.  We can’t honestly condemn the employers because our own similar choices as consumers force their hands as we relentlessly pursue the best value products available.  The decision by our governments, both state and federal, to impose minimum wages only compounds the problem because the compulsory wages do not simultaneously increase the actual value of the labor.  Minimum wage laws just take away the rights of both the employer and the employee to negotiate a mutually agreeable wage.

What is frequently forgotten, or never understood to begin with, is that the upheaval caused by the free market can actually help the affected.  Having a job is comfortable.  You know you’ll be able to pay for your next meal.  There are often many benefits, including accrued vacation time and medical insurance.  There are numerous reasons not to leave.  The most prominent is often uncertainty about what would follow.  This situation creates an underutilization of resources.  People choose to stay in jobs that they may be under- or over-qualified for or that they may simply dislike for fear of leaving and ending up in worse shape.  But free markets create what is commonly called churn.  People lose their jobs to others who offer a better value to the employer.  Even though this creates an immediate hardship, it also enables the unemployed to seek out opportunities that they might otherwise have avoided due to uncertainty.  The Enron meltdown enabled some employees to pursue such opportunities.

One other moral benefit of the free market is tolerance.  Because the free market is the best way to distribute resources, which means there is as little waste as possible, it also results in the greatest prosperity.  As Brink Lindsey notes in his new book “The Age of Abundance: How Prosperity Transformed America’s Politics and Culture,” prosperity has benefits other than the material ones we’ve come to know.

“American capitalism is derided for its superficial banality, yet it has unleashed profound, convulsive social change,” he writes. “Condemned as mindless materialism, it has burst loose a flood tide of spiritual yearning. The civil rights movement and the sexual revolution, environmentalism and feminism, the fitness and health-care boom and the opening of the gay closet, the withering of censorship and the rise of a ‘creative class’ of ‘knowledge workers’ — all are the progeny of widespread prosperity.”

The societal progress we’ve enjoyed in the past half century or so was previously unimaginable because most in society were concerned first and foremost with where their next meal would come from.  Capitalism has afforded us the ability to look beyond immediate individual survival towards greater issues.

Free trade inarguably promotes social justice.  Managed trade can distort the otherwise virtuous results, but even this controlled trade yields far better, more morally just results than any other method of distributing resources.  The pains associated with removing constraints on trade can be painful, but ultimately the pain gives way to increased prosperity for all who earn it.  Instead of offering hostility we should embrace the unpredictable, powerful ability of the free market to spread both affluence and morality.

What a shame.

Someone spray-painted graffiti on the home of President James K. Polk, authorities said.

The words “meat,” “glue” and “SMR” were written around the front door of the home, built in 1816 by the president’s father about 45 miles south of Nashville.

I have no tolerance for vandalism.  It is abhorrent for one person to damage another’s property.  If I were king the punishment for thievery of or damage to someone else’s property would be harsh, while hurting yourself or your own property would go unpunished.

Even in the nice parts of Huntsville we’ll have to exercise caution about which parks we take our kids to as they begin to learn to read because deviants write extensive lewd messages all over the playground equipment.  Their scrawlings are usually laden with misspelled words - a true testament to their lack of taking advantage of the “free” educational opportunities afforded to them by our hard earned tax dollars.

July got off to a bang for me.  I went in to work for a few hours in the morning.  On the way in the weather report on the radio proclaimed a “very slight” chance of rain this afternoon.  Big surprise given the recent weather.

Upon leaving the office I was driving down the interstate when a driver in front of me suddenly swerved to avoid a small piece of metal in the road.  I was not so fortunate.  I heard the object clank against the side of my van*, but I assumed all was well.  I turned off of the interstate onto Memorial Parkway and soon felt a strong vibration, which caused me to quickly pull off to the shoulder.  The rear passenger tire was toast; there was a huge gash in the sidewall.

I typically keep my floor jack in my vehicle (I hate using the little standard jacks), but we took it out to make room for luggage, kids, and dogs for a recent trip and it never made it back in.  So I called the wife and asked her to bring me the jack.  As she was nearing I started to see a few rain drops.  By the time she stopped the sparse drops had become a torrent.  I grabbed the jack and waited in the van for about 20 minutes for the rain to ease.

A window of opportunity came and I quickly changed the tire as cars whizzed past at 50+ mph kicking up a constant wave of mist onto me.  When I dropped the corner of the vehicle down the sagging spare tire did not foster much encouragement.  I had little choice but to gingerly drive the two or three miles to where my wife was working (she tutors a few hours a week).  I would later learn that the spare tire, which is supposed to be pressurized up to 60 psi, was sitting at just under 10 psi.

I took charge of the kids and loaded up in my wife’s van that we purchased new earlier this year and headed up to Costco to get a new tire.  I, of course, left my wallet in my van that stayed with my wife, but I don’t realize this until after I’ve unloaded all the kids and taken the destroyed tire into the service center.  By this time the rain huge friggin downpour had started back up, so we had to wait about half an hour before I dared lug all three kids through the parking lot to the van.

When it became clear that the rain was not going to subside all that much we just went for it.  Fortunately no one melted.  We drove home to pick up some things before meeting my wife at her work (remember she has the non-drivable van and I have her nearly new van).  On the way home we pass by two wrecks on the Parkway.  It doesn’t rain for most of the year and people just forget that you have to slow down on pavement with standing water.

After leaving the house I was approaching the intersection with the Parkway and noticed that the traffic lights were blinking.  No big deal, right?  An officer pulled up to block my lane just as I was almost to the intersection.  He instructed us to turn right even though all were planning to go left.  I dutifully turned to the right and was checking traffic before pulling out when we were rear ended - right in front of the officer.  I got out and attempted to sarcasticly say, “I guess I don’t have to call the police.”  Fortunately there was no damage, but while the officer was filling out the accident report there was a two or three car T-bone accident in the same intersection.  Oh, and the driver who hit me - I believe the officer cited him for not having insurance.  Very fortunate that there was no damage.

Other than that it was a pretty uneventful day.

By the way, the storm lasted for the better part of two hours and was very intense for most of that time.  It was just yesterday that Governor Riley proclaimed the “Days of Prayer for Rain” in Alabama.  Coincidence?  I report, you decide.

* Hey, we’ve got three kids and two labs. 

It’s Father’s Day and as a proud father of three children I thought I’d offer up some thoughts.

This day really brings out my inner socialist.  I disdain conspicuous consumption orgies.  Advertisers are all too eager to convince the foolish that today is a good day to part with their hard earned money in return for a product that is usually not needed, although it may be lustily desired (like any tool that can easily remove a finger).  I’m not personally a big fan of recognition or special treatment.  My ideal Father’s Day would be to not have anyone make a big fuss over it being Father’s Day.  If you’ve ever met a bigger curmudgeon please let me know.

I consider myself to be something of a neo-traditionalist father.  Traditionally fathers eschew “motherly” duties like bathing dirty kids daily or changing diapers, but I consider those tasks to by part of my end of the bargain.  That doesn’t mean I won’t cunningly try to shirk those obligations from time to time!  Many fathers seek out hobbies like golf that serve little purpose other than to get them out of the house.  Honestly, what kind of enjoyable game involves smacking around a little white ball with an oddly shaped stick until it goes into a small hole - and then repeating seventeen times?  Maintaining this blog is my sole hobby that I keep up with regularity because I can do it quietly while the kids are asleep.  I believe that a critical element of being a father is being around.

Despite the modernity of my parental approach, I do retain some distinctly traditional traits.  I think that consistent discipline is critical.  I am not here so that my children can have fun childhoods (although I hope that they do).  I am here to make sure they grow up to be honest, well-adjusted, productive members of society.  Yes, sometimes kids can earn spankings.  Fathers (and mothers, but this post isn’t about them) should lead by example.  If I don’t work hard and sacrifice how can I expect my children to do the same?  It is incumbent upon me to always treat my wife with love and respect - just the way I expect my son to one day do and how I hope my daughters will expect to be treated.

Our modern culture strives to equate fatherhood with motherhood.  The parental skills of men are often measured with parameters well suited to maternal roles.  Religions frequently draw up traditional roles for men and women - often with women getting the short end of the stick.  I have a different view.  I think that millennia of evolution forcibly caused men and women to have different roles in different cultures and those evolved roles are not easily subverted by social movements and shifting social norms spanning a few decades.  At the most basic level men are providers and women are nurturers.  While either gender is fully capable of performing the work of the other, there is no reason to lament couples who voluntarily enter into the traditional arrangement.  I personally believe it is the most natural and beneficial for all involved.

The impetus for this post was this article from Time that can be summarized pretty well with the concluding sentence of the first paragraph.

What’s less clear is whether dads–at least as a group–have done a good enough job to deserve the honor [of having a Father's Day].

The article gives out statistics about how men are more likely to default on their child support payments than on a used car loan and how divorced fathers often lose touch with their kids.  I don’t doubt the statistics at all, but the authors do those statistics an injustice without mentioning how our legal system overwhelmingly defers to the mother by default.  I can’t think of a single child of divorced parents that I’ve ever met who lived with their dad the majority of the time.  Even on the contentious issue of abortion fathers are slighted since they have no say in the matter.  Our culture ingrains the sense that children are the responsibility of women into men’s heads.  Should it surprise us that as these men are marginalized many simply walk away?

What really bothered me about the Time article was how the authors found some obscure monkey whose young are held by the fathers for up to 90% of the day.  The implication is that modern fathers are not doing as well as the monkeys.  I suppose that the obscure titi monkey doesn’t have bills to pay.  What is invidious, though, is that you would NEVER see such an article written on Mother’s Day (or any day or that matter).  It would be heresy for the mainstream media to insinuate that working women are slighting their children by spending time at the office (certainly they wouldn’t be compared to monkeys).  When the topic is broached the media is careful not to pass judgment on working women and there is almost always a person representing the counterpoint even if such balance is uncommon on the particular show in question.

Before you start banging out hateful comments don’t misconstrue my message.  I’m not disparaging women who work; I just take offense to men being called bad fathers (relative to a monkey) because we work without the same charge being leveled at women.  In essence I just want equity!

Dan pointed out a particularly absurd quote regarding our state’s constitution (click the link to read it), but I think I can top it.  From AL.com:

A freight train carrying segments of the solid rocket booster segments for the space shuttle derailed Wednesday after a bridge collapsed, authorities said. Six people were reported injured.

The solid rocket booster and its reusable motor are NASA projects managed by Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

Marshall spokesman Dom Amatore said a team of investigators from NASA and the solid rocket booster contractor ATK Inc. were sent to the train accident site to inspect the booster segments for damage.

Eight booster segments for two different boosters were on the train, Amatore said.

“The pieces are inert. They don’t pose a danger because the igniter fuel is put in place” at Kennedy Space Center, in Florida, Amatore said.

First of all, unless they were shipping empty cases - which they wouldn’t because the solid propellant grain is loaded in Utah - the motors WERE NOT INERT.  Amatore’s assertion is patently false.  Each four segment motor contains roughly 1.1 million pounds of AP/PBAN/AL composite solid propellant.  The propellant can and will ignite when exposed to a sufficient heat source.  For the NASA spokesman at Marshall to make such a technically inaccurate statement is (biting my virtual tongue) unfortunate.

And while I have my rocket scientist hat on, “igniter fuel” is not put in at the Cape.  Yes, motors are typically shipped sans igniters (the components that “light” the motor).  But, the phrase “igniter fuel” is inaccurate.  The igniter material is a typical solid propellant that contains both fuel and an oxidizer.  To say “igniter fuel” betrays a fundamental lack of understanding about the motor and is a phrase I would expect to hear from a non-technical individual, but not a NASA spokesman.

I’m in a blustery mood tonight, so here’s another rant.

I’m sick of people, primarily the media, using hindsight to reach absurd conclusions about how people should have acted.  This issue set me off after the Enterprise tornado when some people suggested that the school should have let kids go home earlier.  It’s easy for a reporter from New York or LA who isn’t familiar with frequent tornado producing storms to make such a statement.  But this is Alabama, a tornado prone state.  If schools throughout the South and Midwest did a knee jerk dismissal and sent kids to their (usually less structurally sound) homes then they might never finish the school year.  When storms are predicted sometimes you have to wait and see how the storm progresses before you release the kids.

Think of it this way, how many times have schools not promptly released kids in the face of a dangerous storm that eventually doesn’t produce a tornado?  Certainly there are no hard figures, but I would hazard a guess that it is a fairly frequent occurrence.  No one ever complains.  But in the extremely rare instance when a tornado does hit a school some fault the administration for a decision that would not have garnered a single critical observation otherwise.

As for the shooting at VaTech and the now infamous two hour gap between the first shooting and the second, much larger scale shooting…

Think about this alternate scenario.  Supposedly the campus police were under the impression that the shooter in the dorm attack was a former boyfriend.  Typically in murders (we see enough reports of them on the news to make an educated guess) the assailant leaves the scene of the crime and tries to maintain a low profile or flees in order to avoid capture.  It is rare to hear about further violence hours later after an apparent crime of passion.  So given that scenario, what if the university had used their severe weather sirens to transmit voice notification that a gunman was on the loose?  Would that have caused mass hysteria?  I can see the headlines now if that happened and a couple of students were stampeded to death in a mass rush of people and then it turned out that the first murder was in fact an isolated crime of passion, posing no threat to the campus at large.  The media would excoriate the administration for their rash warning.

The impetus for issuing a prompt, sweeping warning after the first crime isn’t clear to me.  VaTech is home to over 26,000 students and faculty, which makes it larger in population than my hometown of Enterprise, AL.  Although murders were rare in Enterprise I don’t recall any hysterical warnings to the public immediately after a homicide.  Ironically no one complained about the lack of instant notification after subsequent shootings didn’t occur.

It’s natural to want to know why tragedies happen and it is productive to explore ways to better react.  But, far too many people use the enhanced hindsight we enjoy today through greater information access to assume that these tragedies were preventable.