Up and running again. Can’t tell how much has been chopped out… I suppose if you do a search on “results of first experimental flight of FTL propulsion system” by Lockheed circa 1972 and you don’t find anything, you’ll know they’ve been busy redacting…
In their zeal to violate the second Amendment, some New York lawmakers are rushing headlong into violating the first Amendment.
DD is planning on releasing plans for a 3D printable all-plastic (except for a firing pin made from a nail) within a week. Senator Schumer is having a conniption that people might be able to make their very own terribly crappy .22 caliber pistols, and thus wants new laws to tell people what ideas they can have and what data they can posses.
Yeah, that’s $59/gallon for politically correct “green” fuel. Oddly, the order is for only 3,650 gallons; the order might be increased by 12,500 gallons. As far as the Army goes, that’s a drop in the bucket. Still, the article ends with the note that JP-8 av gas is $3.73 gallon.
I suppose there’s a place for funding alternate fuels, but fuels that cost more than 15 times normal fuel? Back to the drawing board.
Remember the Chinese NASA spy? The one whose arrest caused the NASA Tech Report Server to go belly up? The one with all the classified data he was trying to sneak out? Yeah… not so much.
Remember, kids, this is the same Federal Government that wants to not only register all firearms transfers, it also wants to control healthcare. And they can’t tell the difference between classified spy satellite design drawings and nekkid chix.
http://nasawatch.com/archives/2013/04/nasas-silence-o.html#comments
Nearly the entire operational staff of the Center for Aerospace Information (CASI) has been sacked. CASI are the folks that create and maintain the NTRS (NASA Technical Reports Server) and the NA&SD (NASA Aeronautics and Space Database). What were they thinking! Mark my words, this does not bode well for those of us who rely on the accessibility of NASA technical information.
It’s a comment, not a press release, so… who knows.
The Chicago-political-machine-dominate House in Illinois failed to pass a bill allowing concealed carry permits. This actually moves concealed carry in Illinois closer to reality. Illinois, the only state to not recognize this basic right, is under orders from a federal appeals court to get on the ball and start issuing permits. If Illinois misses a June 9 deadline, then “Constitutional carry” will automatically become the law of the land in Illinois. In other words, if the organized crime family that is “the Illinois State House” fails to pass a law regulating concealed carry permits, then *every* Illinois resident (barring felons) would be default be legally allowed to carry whatever they want.
Awesome!
Some people are trying to make some amendments to the gun control/background check/gun show loophole/pre-confiscation legislation:
In short, there are efforts underway to insert national reciprocity into the gun control bill. This would allow a holder of a valid state concealed carry license to carry their weapon concealed anywhere they go within the United States. You know, kinda like how if you have a drivers license in, say, Nevada and you go to California for a few days, you don’t need to get a California drivers license. or how if you are married in Massachusetts, you are still married if you go to Alabama.
But rely on New York Senator Chuck Schumer to go bugnuts over the idea:
“Somebody could come from Wyoming to the big cities of New York or New Haven or Bridgeport and carry a concealed weapon, which is so against our way of life and the needs here in New York.”
Read that one more time. Let it sink in.
Not only is it the very pinnacle of hypocrisy coming from someone so determined to make the laws of his uncivilized urban dystopias the laws of the land as a whole (bans on “assault weapons” and standard capacity magazines is against the way of life of a whole lot of places that aren’t the big cities of New York), there is an implicit insult against the honor of people from Wyoming.
| State | Violent crime (total) |
Murder | Forcible rape |
Robbery | Aggravated Assault |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N.Y. | 398.1 | 4.0 | 14.1 | 145.9 | 234.1 |
| Wyo. | 219.3 | 3.2 | 25.7 | 12.5 | 177.9 |
| State | City | Population | Violent Crime | Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter | Forcible rape | Robbery | Aggravated assault | Property crime | Burglary | Larceny-theft | Motor vehicle theft |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York | New York, New York | 8,211,875 | 623.6 | 6.3 | 13.3 | 240.8 | 363.2 | 1,710.4 | 221.1 | 1,374.4 | 114.9 |
| Wyoming | Casper, Wyoming | 55,761 | 184.7 | 1.8 | 17.9 | 39.5 | 125.5 | 3,689.0 | 514.7 | 3,036.2 | 138.1 |
| Wyoming | Cheyenne, Wyoming | 59,944 | 245.2 | 3.3 | 43.4 | 41.7 | 156.8 | 3,418.2 | 425.4 | 2,892.7 | 100.1 |
| Connecticut | New Haven, Connecticut | 130,019 | 1,344.4 | 26.2 | 42.3 | 589.1 | 686.8 | 4,983.1 | 1,086.8 | 3,171.8 | 724.5 |
| Connecticut | Bridgeport, Connecticut | 144,496 | 1,001.4 | 13.8 | 80.3 | 422.2 | 485.1 | 3,880.4 | 1,065.8 | 2,093.5 | 721.1 |
If Schumer was honest (HA!), he’d be *begging* for concealed carriers from Wyoming to replace the relatively violent thugs who must make up his constituency.
“Ignorance of the law is no excuse” has been standard legal dogma for thousands of years. But I believe it is time to revisit that. Can it really be reasonable to expect every citizen to know *all* of the law? Or even a modest fraction of the law? Not so very long ago, the US Supreme Court ruled that, yes, you are allowed to sell something you legally bought. This ruling surprised many… because many were unaware that it was actually illegal to sell many things you bought legally.
Beyond that, witness the growth in the US Tax Code:
In a hundred years, it went from 400 pages to nearly 74,000 pages… a factor of 185. Could the average citizen really be expected to know the tax code even if it was “only”400 pages?
And beyond that: the new immigration/amnesty bill is reported to be about one thousand five hundred pages in length, and lawmakers will have *one* *day* to review it before hearings begin… and then voting. Should we allow lawmakers to vote for bills that they could not possibly have read, never mind understood and puzzled out the important implications of?
Ayn Rand nailed it in Atlas Shrugged:
“Did you really think we want those laws observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them to be broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against… We’re after power and we mean it… There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Reardon, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.”
So what to do here? Seems to me some changes in the law would be called for. Perhaps a complete overhaul… toss out *everything,* then do a complete re-write. All US Federal laws must fit within the confines of a standard 1,000 page paperback, 12-point font, double-spaced. Anything not in that is… not the law.
The assignment:
“You must argue that Jews are evil, and use solid rationale from government propaganda to convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich!”
Now, in part the assignment makes sense. The idea is to make the youngun’s think critically and formulate arguments they – presumably – normally wouldn’t. But… damn. C’mon.
I can think of a whole bunch of alternates that would be just as challenging, and not nearly as *specific* in offensiveness. Argue that:
Slavery is just and proper
Nations should have a single religion
Killing babies is ok
Democracy should be done away with in favor of totalitarian monarchy
The world is flat
Only those with concealed carry permits are to be allowed to vote
Voting restrictions based on IQ
Voting restrictions based on credit rating
Voting restrictions based on percentage paid in income tax
Access to technology should be limited to some populations based on their demonstrated ability to handle it appropriately
Scientific research should be limited to those branches of science that will do the most good.
Any other suggestions?
Political science Professor Darry Sragow of the University of Southern California:
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