I remember how, after the Virginia Tech massacre, anti-gun groups used it as a justification to call for additional restrictions on gun purchases. Pro-gun groups replied by saying, in essence, "if just one other student had been armed, the shooter could have been stopped, so clearly we need more guns."

In an abstract sense, I see both sides' points. Generally speaking, the nations with fewer guns and greater restrictions on purchasing them and owning them have much lower rates of gun violence, so restricting them here might have a beneficial effect. And on the other side of the debate, yes, it's true that one gun-carrying student might have been able to stop the massacre soon after it started -- or even intimidate the shooter into not going through with it in the first place.

But in the real world, both sides' arguments break down.

There are so many guns in this country, so easily purchasable, that it's hard to see how tweaking the system at its edges is going to have any effect at all. If you want a gun, you're going to be able to get a gun. It's that simple. I imagine that gun control advocates are pursuing a policy of incrementalism. They might admit in a private moment that a particular restriction won't have any practical effect on gun violence, but that as part of a gradual progression over many decades, it makes sense. But that's not how it's presented, and I'm not sure that it does make sense in the end. I wonder if, when it comes to the US, the genie is permanently out of the bottle, and in the end there's nothing we can do about it.

It's the gun rights advocates' vision of the world that I ultimately find horrifying, though. Whenever a shooting spree occurs, they remind us of how they've been calling for fewer restrictions on carrying guns, and how if just one person there had been armed, this latest incident wouldn't have had to happen. Have they thought this through to its conclusion? A nation in which a substantial percentage of people walk around carrying guns? Seriously, have they thought this through? Guns at the grocery store? At church? At football games? At political rallies? In hospitals? At business meetings? Can this be the world in which they want to live? Can they believe we'd be safer as a result in this world? Can they believe fewer people would die from guns in such a world?

• 20.0 percent since Barack Obama's inauguration (7,949.09 on 20 January)
• 26.3 percent since the signing of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (7,552.60 on 17 February)
• 45.7 percent since the market's low point this year (6547.05 on 9 March)

In case you're curious, by my calculations, the Dow Jones rose 228.2 percent during the eight years of the Clinton administration; rose 45.4 percent during the four years of the first Bush administration; and rose 130.6 percent during the eight years of the Reagan administration.

Am I suggesting that presidents be judged by the performance of the stock market during their terms? No. But I do wonder how it is that Democrats are still seen by many as bad for business. At least one important type of empirical evidence would suggest otherwise.

The fact that we are not really bothered any more by taking helpless detainees in our custody and (a) threatening to blow their brains out, torture them with drills, rape their mothers, and murder their children; (b) choking them until they pass out; (c) pouring water down their throats to drown them; (d) hanging them by their arms until their shoulders are dislocated; (e) blowing smoke in their face until they vomit; (f) putting them in diapers, dousing them with cold water, and leaving them on a concrete floor to induce hypothermia; and (g) beating them with the butt of a rifle -- all things that we have always condemend as "torture" and which our laws explicitly criminalize as felonies ("torture means... the threat of imminent death; or the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering...") -- reveals better than all the words in the world could how degraded, barbaric and depraved a society becomes when it lifts the taboo on torturing captives.

I am a 55 year old agnostic. If, when I die I find out there is a heaven, I can't be certain which of the many people I have shared my life will be part of the people I share heaven, but I am positive I will spend eternity tossing this dog a Frisbee.

I will be glad and rejoice in you;
I will sing praise to your name
O most high.
PSALM 9:2

I will praise God's name in song
and glorify Him with thanksgiving.
PSALM 69:30

I generally agree with Salon's analysis, but a couple of points:

First, it seems to me that Alaska is missing an opportunity to draw from a much larger body of religion than simply the Old Testament of the Bible (if they have used verses from the New Testament, I haven't seen them). Other religious texts have words of wisdom, and anything that helps educate people on the broad spectrum of beliefs in the world, hopefully leading to more tolerance, can only be a good thing. For example, this from the Talmud:

Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.

God helps those who persevere.

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

Perhaps this is the agnostic in me, but I've never understood the obsession in some religious texts with singing the praises of one's chosen divine being. (Doing research for this article, it seemed like most of the quotes I found from the Koran were about the importance of prayer.) Contrast this with the quote from Buddha above, encouraging skepticism, including of himself.

In any case, if you're going to choose to draw from the Bible, how about this from 1 John 4:18:

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.

It is more blessed to give than receive.

Beacon Hill's newest community center isn't much to look at -- a jumbled pile of rocks, really. But for some of Jose Rizal Park's most secretive and slithery residents, it's a place to hang out.

Last month, garter snakes populating the park's tree-tangled west side got a construction project designed just for them. Called a herpetarium, it's a shelter fit for any reptile, with its small, pyramid-shaped form and walls lined with recycled scrap...

The reptile-friendly pyramid has a base 4 feet long on each side, and an apex 2 ½ feet tall...

Such chambers let snakes hibernate during the winter. When the snakes emerge, they warm themselves on sunlit rocks, with easy escape should predators pass by.

Odds are good I will find a couple of ex-boyfriends residing here. Posted on July 5, 2009 at 6:57 AM by cheezybreezy.

More and more as I am here and see what life really is, I understand that it is not when or how you die but how and if you truly were ever alive.

Canadians think about the US all the time. They have to. We're ten times their size. Virtually everything we do has the potential to dramatically affect their world.

Meanwhile, most Americans barely think about Canada at all. Can Americans name any two of the five largest cities? The capital? Any province? The name of the prime minister? Right.

As a Caucasian, I didn't think about race much growing up. I had no reason to.

But if I had grown up Hispanic, in a project, in an era when role models for me of my own ethnicity -- at least in popular culture -- were essentially non-existent?

Or if I had grown up African-American and spent many a dinner wondering if I'd be able to flag a taxi to take my date and me home, or if we'd have to walk?

Or if I had grown up Asian-American knowing that less than 20 years before I was born, my ancestors were being held in domestic prison camps on account of the color of their skin?

How could I not look at the world -- at least in part -- in terms of race? How could I not feel that my ethnicity shaped me and gave me a viewpoint distinct from that of people from different backgrounds?

And would my race-influenced viewpoint make me a racist? No, not in the slightest. It would mean that my world view was informed by race, not necessarily governed by it. It would mean that I took note of race, not necessarily that I discriminated on the basis of it.

To suggest otherwise is to lack empathy. Somehow I think the Rush Limbaughs and Newt Gingriches of the world might see this issue differently if they had ever suffered the effects of discrimination, even indirectly, even if only for a day.

And don't get me started on the "Sotomayor isn't bright" meme. Because stupid people are high school valedictorians, graduate summa cum laude from Princeton, and edit the Yale Law Journal. For pete's sake.

RACHEL MADDOW: Joining us now is Malcolm Nance, former master instructor and chief of training at the Navy's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape school, better known as the SERE school. He's now a U.S. government consultant on terrorism and counterterrorism.

Mr. Nance, thank you so much for joining us.

MALCOLM NANCE, FORMER "SERE" INSTRUCTOR: My pleasure, Rachel.

MADDOW: When you heard Ali Soufan today testify about his interrogation techniques as an FBI experience interrogator versus these force-based techniques that were reverse-engineered from some of the SERE techniques, does that resonate with you in terms of what you understand about the appropriateness of those techniques as interrogation methods?

NANCE: Well, it resonates with me for a very particular reason. One, the SERE program was started in the 1950s exactly because these techniques were being used against American servicemen. The SERE program and all the techniques carried out that we call enhanced interrogation techniques -- these were reverse-engineered from communists, from totalitarian states, and the Nazis.

So, of course, everything that he said about that -- about bringing the prisoner in, interrogating the prisoner and then him becoming recalcitrant and resistant, that's exactly what we want. And, of course, al Qaeda, of course, won by that, because they defeated the purpose of all the interrogations.

MADDOW: In terms of the argument that SERE-based techniques, these techniques, reverse-engineered as you say from what was done by totalitarian regimes, reverse-engineered and figured out in the '50s -- the argument has been made that because we do it to American troops as part of training it can't be torture, because then people like you who were an instructor at SERE could be charged with torture.

NANCE: That's ridiculous on its face. Listen, there's a whole class of people who I call now "torture apologists." And their full-time job is to go out and find spurious arguments in order to justify exactly why they violated, you know, U.S. legal code. And, of course, the standing order from General George Washington to treat prisoners with dignity.

And so, it's ridiculous. What we're doing is we're allowing a service member the opportunity to practice in a controlled environment over a few moments how to behave and how to react in order to act like Abu Zubaydah, in order for them to become resistant and for them to make sure that the techniques that are being applied to them don't work.

MADDOW: On the issue of sleep deprivation, specifically, sleep deprivation is one of those things that I think is at the top of the slippery slope when people start talking about torture. Well, sure, you don't want to get down to things like waterboarding or pulling people's fingernails out, but a little sleep deprivation never really hurt anybody. We've heard testimony that maybe some forms of mild sleep deprivation were used even before there were any new legal justifications ginned up in Washington to explain that.

What do you think about sleep deprivation in terms of its effect on prisoners in custody, whether it should be seen as part of torture?

NANCE: Well, these are softening techniques. All they did was they decide to bring the person up, keep him awake, whether they were going to walk him around, whether they're going to stand him up, whether they're going to give him loud music. And what you're doing is softening that person.

You're making that person, putting him into a state where you think he's going to be susceptible to answer questions. In fact, it's going to be even more difficult to get him to answer questions. And that, of course, you hit them with a harsh interrogation technique right after that, whether it's slapping or walling or some other physical harm or waterboarding, and you think that's going to snap them out of it -- when, in fact, that's the state we want you in. That's where you're going to be least susceptible to answer honestly. You'll answer gibberish.

MADDOW: That's the situation we want you in if you are an American and we want you to...

NANCE: Absolutely. So...

MADDOW: Yes.

Well, in the case, then, so I guess we can sort of get there, we can follow the math problem. In the case of an actual ticking time bomb scenario, which is a faulting premise because things don't work out this way in the real world -- would you do SERE techniques on a prisoner in that scenario?

NANCE: No, of course not.

MADDOW: Any of them?

NANCE: No, of course not. Because one, it defeats the ticking time bomb scenario, in that all the prisoner has to do is not answer the question, or, better yet, the prisoner will lie.

And once the prisoner lies -- especially with al Qaeda members, let me tell you something, their ideology, they have a concept within their ideology called Al-wara wal'bara (ph), and that is absolutely devotion to their god, but absolute disavowal and hatred of anything that's not their god. Therefore, anything that they do to foil you is well within their plan. And they take great pride in that. And I'm sure when he was brought back to his little cage or to his holding cell, he saw every time that he defeated us, every time he didn't get an answer out of us or got some gibberish out of us, he saw that as a victory.

MADDOW: Yes. So, you got to outwit him.

NANCE: Well, what we've done is we've created al Qaeda SERE school for them.

MADDOW: Malcolm Nance, former master instructor and chief of training at Navy SERE schools, talked to you a few times over the years about this, and every time, I'm very grateful to have the chance to ask you these questions. So thank you.

NANCE: My pleasure.

President Obama will have to wait a bit longer to round out his Cabinet. Senate Republicans refused today to allow a confirmation vote on his health secretary nominee Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-Kan.)...

At the start of the session today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) proposed taking a vote after five hours of debate. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) objected, arguing that lawmakers needed more time to consider her "fairly contentious" selection.

A handful of Republicans have complained about Sebelius' support for abortion rights and her failure to report the full extent of campaign contributions she received from a physician who performs abortions.

But then comes the next paragraph of the story, which so neatly, so concisely, so perfectly encapsulates what has gone wrong with the Republican party over the last eight years:

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) opposes Sebelius because of the Obama administration's support for research on the comparative effectiveness of disease treatments. He said he fears the evidence-based approach, coupled with information on price, could lead to rationing of care.

I'm an Independent, not a registered Republican or Democrat. I enthusiastically voted for Barack Obama, and am delighted to have him as our President, but I don't agree with everything he has done to date. I want an effective opposition challenging him and the Democrats. But this is more of the same ideology-over-facts approach that has led to such disaster in recent times.

In 1985, Carol married Doug Hofstadter, who had been an IU professor from 1977 to 1983 but who had recently moved to the University of Michigan. In 1988 Doug was hired back by IU and the young couple returned to Bloomington and started a family -- Danny, born in 1988, and Monica, born in 1991. One of Carol and Doug's fondest dreams was to bring up bilingual children, and so they decided to spend Doug's first sabbatical year (1993-94) in Italy. In August of that year, the family moved to Trento, in the Italian Dolomites, with views of beautiful mountains on every side. In early December, Carol had a series of intense headaches and on December 12, she suddenly fell into a coma. Ten days later, never having regained consciousness, she died of a brain tumor. Though devastated, Doug resolved to finish out the year in Italy in the way Carol would have wanted, and Danny and Monica became truly bilingual, thus realizing Carol's dream.

In the book you mention losing your wife quite suddenly in 1993, and I was struck by how that affected your thinking and your work. It's a consoling idea that your wife's personality or point of view might persist somehow. Do you still feel that way?

Absolutely. I have to emphasize that the sad truth of the matter is, of course, that whatever persists in me is a very feeble copy of her. Whatever persists of her interiority is not her full self. It's reduced, a sort of low-resolution version, coarse-grained. Otherwise it would be a claim that "it's all fine, she didn't die, she lives on in me just as much as she ever did." And of course I don't believe that. I believe that there is a trace of her "I", her interiority, her inner light, however you want to phrase it, that remains inside me and inside some other people, people who really had internalized her viewpoint, people who really had interacted intimately with her over years, and that trace that remains is a valid trace of her self -- her soul, if you wish. But it's diminished; it's very dilute relative to what existed in her own brain. So there are two sides to the coin. It's consoling on the one hand that there's something left, but of course it doesn't remove the sting of death. It doesn't say, "Oh, well, it didn't matter that she died because she lives on just fine in my brain." Would that it were.