Thursday, April 28, 2016
The Gun Blog Black List: NRA- ILA - Politifact - Hillary statement on guns ...
The Gun Blog Black List: NRA- ILA - Politifact - Hillary statement on guns ...: In Case You Missed It 72% of Voters Disagree with Hillary Clinton It's no secret that Hillary Clinton has made gun con...
Why Virginia Gov Terry McAuliffe can't give felons right to vote without restoring their right to own guns
Governor Terry McAuliffe has given felons in Virginia the right to vote
without allowing them the right to own a gun. His executive order will
let murderers and rapists will be able to serve on juries. Say someone
has committed multiple violent crimes. Is there an argument to be made
that we have learned something about that individual's preferences?
Presumably this is the argument for why McAuliffe doesn't want to
restore their rights to own guns. But why then Virginians would want to
let violent criminals help make public policy and serve on juries?
From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:
Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed an executive order Friday restoring the voting rights of 206,000 ex-felons, a sweeping action the governor said was aimed largely at rectifying Virginia’s “long and sad history” of suppressing African-American voting power. . . .
The action . . .has the potential to expand the state’s voter rolls, currently estimated at about 5.4 million, by as much as 3.8 percent. . . .
In his speech, McAuliffe anticipated a strong response from Republicans, who said the order’s lack of distinction between violent crimes and less serious offenses will give murderers and rapists the right to vote, serve on juries, hold public office and notarize documents. . . .
McAuliffe’s order does not restore firearm rights. The ability to purchase and own a gun still would require court action. . . .
But McAuliffe action faces a significant problem. From Article II, Section 1 of the Virginia Constitution:
No
person who has been convicted of a felony shall be qualified to vote
unless his civil rights have been restored by the Governor or other
appropriate authority. Via John Lott's Website here
Ohio's 2016 Inland Lakes Walleye Fishing Forecast
Inland walleye fishing...
Numbers of Saugeye and Walleye
| Rank | Lake |
|---|---|
| 1 | Pymatuning Lake |
| 2 | Mosquito Lake |
| 3 | Indian Lake |
| 4 | Beaver Creek Reservoir |
| 5 | Buckeye Lake |
| 6 | Belmont Lake |
| 7 | Seneca Lake |
| 8 | Atwood Lake |
| 9 | Clendening Lake |
| 10 | Lake Lecomte |
| 11 | Berlin Lake |
| 12 | Lake Milton |
| 13 | Paulding Reservoir |
| 14 | Pleasant Hill Lake |
| 15 | Lost Creek Reservoir |
| 16 | Salt Fork Lake |
| 17 | Rocky Fork Lake |
| 18 | Tappan Lake |
| 19 | Hoover Reservoir |
| 20 | Leesville Lake |
Saugeye and Walleye Over 20 Inches
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lots more useful info @ ODNR | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
California Considers Ban on All Gun Dealers
On April 19, a bill that could literally ban all Federal Firearm License holders (FFLs) from doing business in the state of California goes before the State Assembly Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection.
The bill–Assembly Bill 2459–is sponsored by Assembly Member Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento). If passed, it would shackle FFLs with four new requirements, the totality of which could simply force gun stores to close their doors.
The NRA-ILA reported the four proposed requirements:
- A prohibition on licensee business premises being on a residential property.
- A clear statement that localities may impose more restrictive requirements on licensees than those imposed by state law.
- A requirement that licensees maintain full color video surveillance that is of sufficient quality to provide for facial recognition and records all firearm transactions on the premises, all locations where firearms and ammunition are stored, the immediate exterior of the licensed premises, and all parking facilities owned by the licensee. The video equipment would be required to run during all business hours and be set to begin recording when motion is detected at all other times. The licensee would have to certify to having compliant video equipment at least yearly and make any needed repairs to the equipment within 15 days of any damage. The footage would need to be stored on the premises for at least five years, but that could be extended if the footage may be part of a law enforcement investigation. Licensees would also be required to post a prominent sign indicating that customers are being recorded.
- All licensees would be required to have a liability policy of a minimum of $1M per incident to cover liability arising from “theft, sale, lease or transfer or offering for sale, lease or transfer of a firearm or ammunition, or any other operations of the business and business premises.
The third of the requirements makes selling a gun tedious not only by requiring video surveillance of the sale by also by outlining what must be videoed and when it must be videoed, and mandating that FFLs get a certificate each year confirming video compliance.
It is unclear how much that certificate will cost?
The fourth of the requirements would also cost FFLs by mandating a minimum of $1 million in liability insurance, while the second of the proposed requirements is an open door for municipalities to add even more gun control to the business-crushing list McCarty has pulled together.
source
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
A Mechanical Engineer’s Quick Tips for Using Gears
Whether to slow down a movement, speed it up, or change its
direction, it’s easy to find technical information about gears. But
using them, especially custom cut pieces, can still be tricky because
they have to work so precisely together. I’ve learned some lessons along
the way — here are a few.
» Really large gear teeth can be hand cut. I once
made all the teeth for a clock with an angle grinder. Large teeth are
easier to make because the distance between the shafts is less critical.
» When getting metal parts laser cut, allow a tiny gap between the teeth of a pair of gears (I use a 0.4mm gap for MOD 2 gears). The output gear will be a bit wobbly (backlash), but this is preferable to the gears being too tight (lots of friction).
» Don’t use gears to reduce the speed of an ungeared motor. A motor with a built-in gearbox will be less noisy and more powerful.
» For changes in speed less than 5 to 1, a belt or chain is often easier.
» Designing gears and gear trains is easy and fun with the websites Gear Generator and Wood Gears.
» An exhaustive treatment of gears and gear design, including how to choose the right gears and determining gearing calculations, can be found in the book Handbook of Practical Gear Design from CRC Press.
» The website 507movements offers an incredible assortment of gear combinations, along with various other forms of mechanical motion, from pulleys to levers to linkages.
source
Fabrication
What’s
a MOD? The module number of a gear is the ratio of teeth to diameter,
when diameter is measured as distance to the mesh point (where the teeth
of one gear meet the teeth of another). A MOD 2 gear with a diameter of
30mm will have 15 teeth. Knowing this number simplifies calculating the
proper distance between gear shafts. Photograph by Hep Svadja
» When getting metal parts laser cut, allow a tiny gap between the teeth of a pair of gears (I use a 0.4mm gap for MOD 2 gears). The output gear will be a bit wobbly (backlash), but this is preferable to the gears being too tight (lots of friction).
Gear alternatives
» I often drop the speed of a DC motor by 4 to 1 simply by putting diodes in series with it — the motor loses surprisingly little power.» Don’t use gears to reduce the speed of an ungeared motor. A motor with a built-in gearbox will be less noisy and more powerful.
» For changes in speed less than 5 to 1, a belt or chain is often easier.
Resources
» Pre-made gears of all types are available through various outlets such as McMaster Carr.» Designing gears and gear trains is easy and fun with the websites Gear Generator and Wood Gears.
» An exhaustive treatment of gears and gear design, including how to choose the right gears and determining gearing calculations, can be found in the book Handbook of Practical Gear Design from CRC Press.
» The website 507movements offers an incredible assortment of gear combinations, along with various other forms of mechanical motion, from pulleys to levers to linkages.
source
StandByMe4Liberty
Via NC Renegade
Please visit our website to sign our petition for a congressional investigation of the assassination of LaVoy Finicum and to follow our blog for updates on the wrongful death case and our fight with the BLM.
www.onecowboystandforfreedom.com
Please visit our website to sign our petition for a congressional investigation of the assassination of LaVoy Finicum and to follow our blog for updates on the wrongful death case and our fight with the BLM.
www.onecowboystandforfreedom.com
Monday, April 11, 2016
Fleecing the American Taxpayer: The Profit Incentives Driving the Police State
By John W. Whitehead
April 11, 2016
If there is an absolute maxim by which the federal government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer always gets ripped off.
Not only are American taxpayers forced to “spend more on state, municipal, and federal taxes than the annual financial burdens of food, clothing, and housing combined,” but we’re also being played as easy marks by hustlers bearing the imprimatur of the government.
With every new tax, fine, fee and law adopted by our so-called representatives, the yoke around the neck of the average American seems to tighten just a little bit more. As with most things, if you want to know the real motives behind any government program, follow the money trail.
When you dig down far enough, as I document in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, you quickly find that those who profit from Americans being surveilled, fined, scanned, searched, probed, tasered, arrested and imprisoned are none other than the police who arrest them, the courts which try them, the prisons which incarcerate them, and the corporations, which manufacture the weapons, equipment and prisons used by the American police state.
Examples of this legalized, profits-over-people, government-sanctioned extortion abound.
In the schools: The public schools have become a microcosm of the total surveillance state which currently dominates America, adopting a host of surveillance technologies, including video cameras, finger and palm scanners, iris scanners, as well as RFID and GPS tracking devices, to keep constant watch over their student bodies. Likewise, the military industrial complex with its military weapons, metal detectors, and weapons of compliance such as tasers has succeeded in transforming the schools—at great taxpayer expense and personal profit—into quasi-prisons. Curiously, none of these efforts seem to have succeeded in making the schools any safer.
On the roads: It has long been understood that police departments have quotas for how many tickets are issued and arrests made per month, a number tied directly to revenue. Likewise, red light camera schemes—sold to communities as a means of minimizing traffic accidents at intersections but which in fact are just a vehicle for levying nuisance fines against drivers often guilty of little more than making a right-hand turn on a red light—have been shown to do little to increase safety while actually contributing to more accidents. Nevertheless, these intrusive, money-making scams, which also function as surveillance cameras, are being inflicted on unsuspecting drivers by revenue-hungry municipalities, despite revelations of corruption, collusion and fraud.
In the prisons: States now have quotas to meet for how many Americans go to jail. Increasing numbers of states have contracted to keep their prisons at 90% to 100% capacity. This profit-driven form of mass punishment has, in turn, given rise to a $70 billion private prison industry that relies on the complicity of state governments to keep the money flowing and their privately run prisons full, “regardless of whether crime was rising or falling.” As Mother Jones reports, “private prison companies have supported and helped write … laws that drive up prison populations. Their livelihoods depend on towns, cities, and states sending more people to prison and keeping them there.” All the while, the prisoners are being forced to provide cheap labor for private corporations. No wonder the United States has the largest prison population in the world at a time when violent crime is at an all-time low.
In the endless wars abroad: Fueled by the profit-driven military industrial complex, the government’s endless wars is wreaking havoc on our communities, our budget and our police forces. Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $57 million an hour, and that’s just the budget for the Dept. of Defense for 2016, with its 1000-plus U.S. military bases spread around the globe. Incredibly, although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world's population, America boasts almost 50% of the world's total military expenditure, spending more on the military than the next 19 biggest spending nations combined. In fact, the Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety.
In the form of militarized police: The Department of Homeland Security routinely hands out six-figure grants to enable local municipalities to purchase military-style vehicles, as well as a veritable war chest of weaponry, ranging from tactical vests, bomb-disarming robots, assault weapons and combat uniforms. This rise in military equipment purchases funded by the DHS has, according to analysts Andrew Becker and G.W. Schulz, “paralleled an apparent increase in local SWAT teams.” The end result? An explosive growth in the use of SWAT teams for otherwise routine police matters, an increased tendency on the part of police to shoot first and ask questions later, and an overall mindset within police forces that they are at war—and the citizenry are the enemy combatants. Over 80,000 SWAT team raids are conducted on American homes and businesses each year.
All of those nefarious deeds that you read about in the paper every day: those are your tax dollars at work.
It’s your money that allows for government agents to spy on your emails, your phone calls, your text messages, and your movements. It’s your money that allows out-of-control police officers to burst into innocent people’s homes, or probe and strip search motorists on the side of the road. And it’s your money that leads to innocent Americans across the country being prosecuted for innocuous activities such as raising chickens at home, growing vegetable gardens, and trying to live off the grid.
Just remember the next time you see a news story that makes your blood boil, whether it’s a police officer arresting someone for filming them in public, or a child being kicked out of school for shooting an imaginary arrow, or a homeowner being threatened with fines for building a pond in his backyard, remember that it is your tax dollars that are paying for these injustices.
So what are you going to do about it?
There was a time in our history when our forebears said “enough is enough” and stopped paying their taxes to what they considered an illegitimate government. They stood their ground and refused to support a system that was slowly choking out any attempts at self-governance, and which refused to be held accountable for its crimes against the people. Their resistance sowed the seeds for the revolution that would follow.
Unfortunately, in the 200-plus years since we established our own government, we’ve let bankers, turncoats and number-crunching bureaucrats muddy the waters and pilfer the accounts to such an extent that we’re back where we started.
Once again, we’ve got a despotic regime with an imperial ruler doing as they please.
Once again, we’ve got a judicial system insisting we have no rights under a government which demands that the people march in lockstep with its dictates.
And once again, we’ve got to decide whether we’ll keep marching or break stride and make a turn toward freedom.
But what if we didn’t just pull out our pocketbooks and pony up to the federal government’s outrageous demands for more money? What if we didn’t just dutifully line up to drop our hard-earned dollars into the collection bucket, no questions asked about how it will be spent? What if, instead of quietly sending in our checks, hoping vainly for some meager return, we did a little calculating of our own and started deducting from our taxes those programs that we refuse to support?
If we don’t have the right to decide what happens to our hard-earned cash, then we don’t have very many rights at all. If they can just take from you what they want, when they want, and then use it however they want, you can’t claim to be anything more than a serf in a land they think of as theirs.
This was the case in the colonial era, and it’s the case once again.
April 11, 2016
If there is an absolute maxim by which the federal government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer always gets ripped off.
Not only are American taxpayers forced to “spend more on state, municipal, and federal taxes than the annual financial burdens of food, clothing, and housing combined,” but we’re also being played as easy marks by hustlers bearing the imprimatur of the government.
With every new tax, fine, fee and law adopted by our so-called representatives, the yoke around the neck of the average American seems to tighten just a little bit more. As with most things, if you want to know the real motives behind any government program, follow the money trail.
When you dig down far enough, as I document in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, you quickly find that those who profit from Americans being surveilled, fined, scanned, searched, probed, tasered, arrested and imprisoned are none other than the police who arrest them, the courts which try them, the prisons which incarcerate them, and the corporations, which manufacture the weapons, equipment and prisons used by the American police state.
Examples of this legalized, profits-over-people, government-sanctioned extortion abound.
In the schools: The public schools have become a microcosm of the total surveillance state which currently dominates America, adopting a host of surveillance technologies, including video cameras, finger and palm scanners, iris scanners, as well as RFID and GPS tracking devices, to keep constant watch over their student bodies. Likewise, the military industrial complex with its military weapons, metal detectors, and weapons of compliance such as tasers has succeeded in transforming the schools—at great taxpayer expense and personal profit—into quasi-prisons. Curiously, none of these efforts seem to have succeeded in making the schools any safer.
On the roads: It has long been understood that police departments have quotas for how many tickets are issued and arrests made per month, a number tied directly to revenue. Likewise, red light camera schemes—sold to communities as a means of minimizing traffic accidents at intersections but which in fact are just a vehicle for levying nuisance fines against drivers often guilty of little more than making a right-hand turn on a red light—have been shown to do little to increase safety while actually contributing to more accidents. Nevertheless, these intrusive, money-making scams, which also function as surveillance cameras, are being inflicted on unsuspecting drivers by revenue-hungry municipalities, despite revelations of corruption, collusion and fraud.
In the prisons: States now have quotas to meet for how many Americans go to jail. Increasing numbers of states have contracted to keep their prisons at 90% to 100% capacity. This profit-driven form of mass punishment has, in turn, given rise to a $70 billion private prison industry that relies on the complicity of state governments to keep the money flowing and their privately run prisons full, “regardless of whether crime was rising or falling.” As Mother Jones reports, “private prison companies have supported and helped write … laws that drive up prison populations. Their livelihoods depend on towns, cities, and states sending more people to prison and keeping them there.” All the while, the prisoners are being forced to provide cheap labor for private corporations. No wonder the United States has the largest prison population in the world at a time when violent crime is at an all-time low.
In the endless wars abroad: Fueled by the profit-driven military industrial complex, the government’s endless wars is wreaking havoc on our communities, our budget and our police forces. Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $57 million an hour, and that’s just the budget for the Dept. of Defense for 2016, with its 1000-plus U.S. military bases spread around the globe. Incredibly, although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world's population, America boasts almost 50% of the world's total military expenditure, spending more on the military than the next 19 biggest spending nations combined. In fact, the Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety.
In the form of militarized police: The Department of Homeland Security routinely hands out six-figure grants to enable local municipalities to purchase military-style vehicles, as well as a veritable war chest of weaponry, ranging from tactical vests, bomb-disarming robots, assault weapons and combat uniforms. This rise in military equipment purchases funded by the DHS has, according to analysts Andrew Becker and G.W. Schulz, “paralleled an apparent increase in local SWAT teams.” The end result? An explosive growth in the use of SWAT teams for otherwise routine police matters, an increased tendency on the part of police to shoot first and ask questions later, and an overall mindset within police forces that they are at war—and the citizenry are the enemy combatants. Over 80,000 SWAT team raids are conducted on American homes and businesses each year.
All of those nefarious deeds that you read about in the paper every day: those are your tax dollars at work.
It’s your money that allows for government agents to spy on your emails, your phone calls, your text messages, and your movements. It’s your money that allows out-of-control police officers to burst into innocent people’s homes, or probe and strip search motorists on the side of the road. And it’s your money that leads to innocent Americans across the country being prosecuted for innocuous activities such as raising chickens at home, growing vegetable gardens, and trying to live off the grid.
Just remember the next time you see a news story that makes your blood boil, whether it’s a police officer arresting someone for filming them in public, or a child being kicked out of school for shooting an imaginary arrow, or a homeowner being threatened with fines for building a pond in his backyard, remember that it is your tax dollars that are paying for these injustices.
So what are you going to do about it?
There was a time in our history when our forebears said “enough is enough” and stopped paying their taxes to what they considered an illegitimate government. They stood their ground and refused to support a system that was slowly choking out any attempts at self-governance, and which refused to be held accountable for its crimes against the people. Their resistance sowed the seeds for the revolution that would follow.
Unfortunately, in the 200-plus years since we established our own government, we’ve let bankers, turncoats and number-crunching bureaucrats muddy the waters and pilfer the accounts to such an extent that we’re back where we started.
Once again, we’ve got a despotic regime with an imperial ruler doing as they please.
Once again, we’ve got a judicial system insisting we have no rights under a government which demands that the people march in lockstep with its dictates.
And once again, we’ve got to decide whether we’ll keep marching or break stride and make a turn toward freedom.
But what if we didn’t just pull out our pocketbooks and pony up to the federal government’s outrageous demands for more money? What if we didn’t just dutifully line up to drop our hard-earned dollars into the collection bucket, no questions asked about how it will be spent? What if, instead of quietly sending in our checks, hoping vainly for some meager return, we did a little calculating of our own and started deducting from our taxes those programs that we refuse to support?
If we don’t have the right to decide what happens to our hard-earned cash, then we don’t have very many rights at all. If they can just take from you what they want, when they want, and then use it however they want, you can’t claim to be anything more than a serf in a land they think of as theirs.
This was the case in the colonial era, and it’s the case once again.
Saturday, April 9, 2016
SpaceX just made history and landed a rocket on a ship
Video of landing
SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket Friday at 4:43 p.m. ET from Cape Canaveral, Florida, sending 7,000 pounds of cargo and an inflatable room toward the International Space Station.
But the huge, history-making moment — causing everyone at SpaceX to lose their minds in a roar of applause during a live webcast — was when the company landed a rocket on a robotic ship at sea.
At mission control headquarters, everyone began chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A!" after the rocket gently touched down on the ship, which is inexplicably called "Of Course I Still Love You."
SpaceX, led by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, has tried many times to do this, and all of the attempts ended in failure.
But this time it worked, and the feat could change everything.
Most rockets cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, yet are rendered as junk the moment they launch. Instead of being recycled, they crash into the ocean and sink to the bottom after lofting a payload into orbit.
SpaceX on Flickr"Just Read the Instructions," a robotic platform designed to land the first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket.
But after delivering Dragon into space on Friday, about half of the 229-foot-tall Falcon 9 rocket fell back to Earth and tried to land itself on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX attempted this feat in earnest on three separate occasions in the past year, but all of those rockets crashed into a drone ship and exploded.
A fourth SpaceX rocket was equipped to land but never got the chance, since it blew up shortly after launch.
Those previous experimental failures didn't inspire much confidence.
In fact, SpaceX said in a press release for one of its launches that "a successful landing is not expected."
Translation: This is really, really hard and we think our rocket will probably explode into bits when it tries to land itself.
That didn't happen, of course, and the incredible consequences can't be ignored.
Each Falcon 9 costs about $60 million. That the company has proven it can now land even part of that hardware — to later clean it up and refuel it for a future launch — is a mind-boggling feat for the space industry.
Friday's successful landing stands to usher in an era of spaceflight that's radically less expensive. Practically speaking, that could mean humanity can ramp up its space exploration ambitions and realistically ponder colonizing the moon, Mars, and other worlds.
Musk has said that a 100-fold cost reduction of access to space is possible, should his rocket-recycling scheme prove as repeatable and reliable as flying an airplane.
The company still has a long way to go satisfy Musk's extraordinary ambition. First, they'll have to demonstrate the rocket stage can be reused without any problems. Then they'll have to land and reuse the rocket — over and over again.
However, Friday's rocket landing is a major step forward for SpaceX in proving that its revolutionary technologies work. And no one can take that away from the company.
source
SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket Friday at 4:43 p.m. ET from Cape Canaveral, Florida, sending 7,000 pounds of cargo and an inflatable room toward the International Space Station.
But the huge, history-making moment — causing everyone at SpaceX to lose their minds in a roar of applause during a live webcast — was when the company landed a rocket on a robotic ship at sea.
At mission control headquarters, everyone began chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A!" after the rocket gently touched down on the ship, which is inexplicably called "Of Course I Still Love You."
SpaceX, led by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, has tried many times to do this, and all of the attempts ended in failure.
But this time it worked, and the feat could change everything.
Why sticking a rocket landing is a huge deal
The Falcon 9 rocket is a very odd bird.Most rockets cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, yet are rendered as junk the moment they launch. Instead of being recycled, they crash into the ocean and sink to the bottom after lofting a payload into orbit.
SpaceX on Flickr"Just Read the Instructions," a robotic platform designed to land the first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket.But after delivering Dragon into space on Friday, about half of the 229-foot-tall Falcon 9 rocket fell back to Earth and tried to land itself on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX attempted this feat in earnest on three separate occasions in the past year, but all of those rockets crashed into a drone ship and exploded.
A fourth SpaceX rocket was equipped to land but never got the chance, since it blew up shortly after launch.
Those previous experimental failures didn't inspire much confidence.
In fact, SpaceX said in a press release for one of its launches that "a successful landing is not expected."
Translation: This is really, really hard and we think our rocket will probably explode into bits when it tries to land itself.
That didn't happen, of course, and the incredible consequences can't be ignored.
Each Falcon 9 costs about $60 million. That the company has proven it can now land even part of that hardware — to later clean it up and refuel it for a future launch — is a mind-boggling feat for the space industry.
Friday's successful landing stands to usher in an era of spaceflight that's radically less expensive. Practically speaking, that could mean humanity can ramp up its space exploration ambitions and realistically ponder colonizing the moon, Mars, and other worlds.
Musk has said that a 100-fold cost reduction of access to space is possible, should his rocket-recycling scheme prove as repeatable and reliable as flying an airplane.
The company still has a long way to go satisfy Musk's extraordinary ambition. First, they'll have to demonstrate the rocket stage can be reused without any problems. Then they'll have to land and reuse the rocket — over and over again.
However, Friday's rocket landing is a major step forward for SpaceX in proving that its revolutionary technologies work. And no one can take that away from the company.
source
Thursday, April 7, 2016
All Our Children Are Now FBI Terrorism Suspects
By Thomas S. Neuberger
April 7, 2016
In July 2015, I reported on and analyzed the FBI’s Communities Against Terrorism Program
and concluded that it made every adult citizen a terrorism suspect. In
January 2016, the FBI announced that it wants to make every high school
teacher, administrator and student in America a spy to report to it or
local State police suspicious words or activity by any teenager
attending our schools. The FBI was not satisfied with its 2012 Communities Against Terrorism Program which
asks our neighbors to read any of 25 widely circulated posters and then
to report us if we act in certain suspicious ways. Now the FBI has
widened its net to over 15 million teenagers in our high schools.
As I explained previously, the dangerous speech which the FBI wanted our neighbors to report included, for example, (1) posting anti-government or environmental slogans, banners, or signs that imply violence; (2) spraying anti-government graffiti; (3) downloading material of an extreme or radical nature with violent themes, or preoccupation with press coverage of terrorist attacks; (4) making unusual anti‑U.S. comments; or (5) making extreme racist or religious statements coupled with sentiments which appear to condone violence. As can be seen from this list of overbroad, vague and legally protected activities or speech which the FBI claims are red flags for terrorism, the FBI has little concern for our Bill of Rights, such as the right to speak freely or to read what we want.
And now, with a little sugar coating and Orwellian new speak, there is a dire warning that without this new program a student out there may detonate a “weapon of mass destruction” on all of us. So in January the FBI went after all our high school students when it issued its Preventing Violent Extremism In Schools Guidelines. Specifically, the FBI wants its spies to report any “statements or actions” which “cause concern.” “Schools should focus on a student’s behaviors and communications,” such as supporting “domestic extremist movements,” international terrorist organizations or hate crimes.
Within its category of “domestic terrorists,” the FBI identifies several violent extremism movements, “including but not limited to animal rights and eco‑terrorists, and anti‑government or radical separatist groups.” There it is again, “anti-government” speech, just like in the widely circulated FBI posters. The FBI puts such domestic groups right up there with ISIS and Al Qa’ida, as those who “decry western policies” or mistrust the government. Indeed, the FBI also identifies as needing watching teenagers with unacceptable “religious or cultural biases” after being raised in families outside the mainstream of society.
Now to keep a classmate from eventually using that ever useful propaganda tool known as a “weapon of mass destruction,” what will your average non-lawyer teachers do when “anti-government” words come out of the mouth of a student who opposes an oil pipeline or wants to “save the whales”? Call the FBI, of course. Will they err on the side of safety or let youthful exuberance slide?
The core problem here is that “the FBI defines violent extremism as encouraging, condoning, justifying, or supporting the commission of a violent act to achieve political, ideological, religious, social or economic goals.” But its premise is wrong that suspicious comments against government or vague or cryptic warnings that suggest or appear to endorse the use of violence in support of a cause are grounds to consider someone a potential terrorist. Remember Patrick Henry’s Revolutionary War cry – “Give me liberty or give me death.” If ever there was a statement endorsing violence, this is it, but he was a patriot. And I emphasize that the Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that government, and this includes the FBI, cannot “forbid or prescribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969). So reporting students for “encouraging, supporting or justifying” violence as a means to social goals is clearly illegal. In a classic case, this must lead to the investigation of students reading about or discussing revolution, Marxism, Communism or whatever failed doctrine is still out there, even the radical theories behind the American Revolution in 1776 or the French Revolution a few years later.
Writing for the Rutherford Institute, constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead has pointed out the conflict here with our own early history: “Try suggesting, as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin did, that Americans should not only take up arms but be prepared to shed blood in order to protect their liberties, and you might find yourself placed on a terrorist watch list and vulnerable to being rounded up by government agents,” he notes. Declared Jefferson, “What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms.” Observed Franklin, “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well‑armed lamb contesting the vote!” So what if a well-read student suggests in class, as Thomas Paine, Marquis de Lafayette, and John Adams did, that Americans should, if necessary, defend themselves against the government if it violates their rights. He or she may be labeled a domestic extremist for such “anti-government” sentiments.
So if our public, private or religious schools anywhere in the United States give in and spy on over 15 million students, do the new Guidelines say anything about protecting the freedoms our fathers in World War II died to preserve? Buried in 28 pages we do find a paragraph containing a long mouthful of legalese which claims to recognize the “difference between protected speech and illegal incitement” and concedes that “espousing anti‑U.S. sentiment or extremist rhetoric is not a crime.” Educators are advised that “the issue is not if the individual voiced his/her support, but rather has advocated imminent violence in support of an extremist organization and that violence is likely to occur as a result.” For example, students consuming “violent propaganda” may result “in a strengthening of beliefs and aid development of radical views or a willingness to use violence in support of an ideology.” Again, what will a non-lawyer administrator do in light of these long equivocating statements and the possible threat of mass destruction? He or she will err on the side of safety which, I expect, is the real purpose behind the FBI’s Guidelines.
And this will take us one step further down the road to a police state with our neighbors, teachers and others monitoring our thoughts, speech and communications for disfavored ideas. And then there will be the knock at the door demanding to question our son or daughter because someone has turned them in to have their thoughts, tweets, Facebook posts, reading material or speech reviewed before federal or local police.
The FBI is making us into a nation of spies and informers at the cost of our heritage and freedoms. It is behaving as the feared Stasi in Communist East Germany, the secret police in Stalin’s Soviet Russia, or Hitler’s dreaded Gestapo, turning every neighbor into a spy on the other. For the FBI most of us incorrectly fit the bill as extremists or terrorists. But again, recall our Colonial ancestor Patrick Henry, who argued about the value of potential violence in 1788, “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.” The FBI wants to question every student voicing similar sentiments.
That is plainly un-American and should not be permitted in any public, private or religious school.
source
April 7, 2016
In July 2015, I reported on and analyzed the FBI’s Communities Against Terrorism Program
and concluded that it made every adult citizen a terrorism suspect. In
January 2016, the FBI announced that it wants to make every high school
teacher, administrator and student in America a spy to report to it or
local State police suspicious words or activity by any teenager
attending our schools. The FBI was not satisfied with its 2012 Communities Against Terrorism Program which
asks our neighbors to read any of 25 widely circulated posters and then
to report us if we act in certain suspicious ways. Now the FBI has
widened its net to over 15 million teenagers in our high schools.As I explained previously, the dangerous speech which the FBI wanted our neighbors to report included, for example, (1) posting anti-government or environmental slogans, banners, or signs that imply violence; (2) spraying anti-government graffiti; (3) downloading material of an extreme or radical nature with violent themes, or preoccupation with press coverage of terrorist attacks; (4) making unusual anti‑U.S. comments; or (5) making extreme racist or religious statements coupled with sentiments which appear to condone violence. As can be seen from this list of overbroad, vague and legally protected activities or speech which the FBI claims are red flags for terrorism, the FBI has little concern for our Bill of Rights, such as the right to speak freely or to read what we want.
And now, with a little sugar coating and Orwellian new speak, there is a dire warning that without this new program a student out there may detonate a “weapon of mass destruction” on all of us. So in January the FBI went after all our high school students when it issued its Preventing Violent Extremism In Schools Guidelines. Specifically, the FBI wants its spies to report any “statements or actions” which “cause concern.” “Schools should focus on a student’s behaviors and communications,” such as supporting “domestic extremist movements,” international terrorist organizations or hate crimes.
Within its category of “domestic terrorists,” the FBI identifies several violent extremism movements, “including but not limited to animal rights and eco‑terrorists, and anti‑government or radical separatist groups.” There it is again, “anti-government” speech, just like in the widely circulated FBI posters. The FBI puts such domestic groups right up there with ISIS and Al Qa’ida, as those who “decry western policies” or mistrust the government. Indeed, the FBI also identifies as needing watching teenagers with unacceptable “religious or cultural biases” after being raised in families outside the mainstream of society.
Now to keep a classmate from eventually using that ever useful propaganda tool known as a “weapon of mass destruction,” what will your average non-lawyer teachers do when “anti-government” words come out of the mouth of a student who opposes an oil pipeline or wants to “save the whales”? Call the FBI, of course. Will they err on the side of safety or let youthful exuberance slide?
The core problem here is that “the FBI defines violent extremism as encouraging, condoning, justifying, or supporting the commission of a violent act to achieve political, ideological, religious, social or economic goals.” But its premise is wrong that suspicious comments against government or vague or cryptic warnings that suggest or appear to endorse the use of violence in support of a cause are grounds to consider someone a potential terrorist. Remember Patrick Henry’s Revolutionary War cry – “Give me liberty or give me death.” If ever there was a statement endorsing violence, this is it, but he was a patriot. And I emphasize that the Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that government, and this includes the FBI, cannot “forbid or prescribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969). So reporting students for “encouraging, supporting or justifying” violence as a means to social goals is clearly illegal. In a classic case, this must lead to the investigation of students reading about or discussing revolution, Marxism, Communism or whatever failed doctrine is still out there, even the radical theories behind the American Revolution in 1776 or the French Revolution a few years later.
Writing for the Rutherford Institute, constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead has pointed out the conflict here with our own early history: “Try suggesting, as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin did, that Americans should not only take up arms but be prepared to shed blood in order to protect their liberties, and you might find yourself placed on a terrorist watch list and vulnerable to being rounded up by government agents,” he notes. Declared Jefferson, “What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms.” Observed Franklin, “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well‑armed lamb contesting the vote!” So what if a well-read student suggests in class, as Thomas Paine, Marquis de Lafayette, and John Adams did, that Americans should, if necessary, defend themselves against the government if it violates their rights. He or she may be labeled a domestic extremist for such “anti-government” sentiments.
So if our public, private or religious schools anywhere in the United States give in and spy on over 15 million students, do the new Guidelines say anything about protecting the freedoms our fathers in World War II died to preserve? Buried in 28 pages we do find a paragraph containing a long mouthful of legalese which claims to recognize the “difference between protected speech and illegal incitement” and concedes that “espousing anti‑U.S. sentiment or extremist rhetoric is not a crime.” Educators are advised that “the issue is not if the individual voiced his/her support, but rather has advocated imminent violence in support of an extremist organization and that violence is likely to occur as a result.” For example, students consuming “violent propaganda” may result “in a strengthening of beliefs and aid development of radical views or a willingness to use violence in support of an ideology.” Again, what will a non-lawyer administrator do in light of these long equivocating statements and the possible threat of mass destruction? He or she will err on the side of safety which, I expect, is the real purpose behind the FBI’s Guidelines.
And this will take us one step further down the road to a police state with our neighbors, teachers and others monitoring our thoughts, speech and communications for disfavored ideas. And then there will be the knock at the door demanding to question our son or daughter because someone has turned them in to have their thoughts, tweets, Facebook posts, reading material or speech reviewed before federal or local police.
The FBI is making us into a nation of spies and informers at the cost of our heritage and freedoms. It is behaving as the feared Stasi in Communist East Germany, the secret police in Stalin’s Soviet Russia, or Hitler’s dreaded Gestapo, turning every neighbor into a spy on the other. For the FBI most of us incorrectly fit the bill as extremists or terrorists. But again, recall our Colonial ancestor Patrick Henry, who argued about the value of potential violence in 1788, “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.” The FBI wants to question every student voicing similar sentiments.
That is plainly un-American and should not be permitted in any public, private or religious school.
source
Americans spend more on taxes than food, clothing, housing combined
A tax advocacy group on Wednesday revealed that Americans spend
more on taxes than their whole budget for food, clothing and housing.
The Tax Foundation, in its annual report on when the nation as a whole has earned enough to pay its taxes, announced the date as April 24.
"Tax Freedom Day gives us a vivid representation of how much federal, state, and local tax revenue is collected each year to pay for government goods and services," said Tax Foundation Analyst Scott Greenberg. "Arguments can be made that the tax bill is too high or too low, but in order to have an honest discussion, it's important for taxpayers to understand the cost of government. Tax Freedom Day helps people relate to that cost."
The report's key findings include:
— Collectively, Americans will spend more on taxes in 2016 than they will on food, clothing, and housing combined.
— Americans will pay $3.3 trillion in federal taxes and $1.6 trillion in state and local taxes, for a total bill of almost $5.0 trillion, or 31 percent of the nation's income.
— Tax Freedom Day is one day earlier than last year, due mainly to the Protecting America from Tax Hikes Act of 2015, which made several business and individual tax cuts permanent.
— If you include annual federal borrowing, which represents future taxes owed, Tax Freedom Day would occur 16 days later on May 10.
— Collectively, Americans will spend more on taxes in 2016 than they will on food, clothing, and housing combined.
— Americans will pay $3.3 trillion in federal taxes and $1.6 trillion in state and local taxes, for a total bill of almost $5.0 trillion, or 31 percent of the nation's income.
— Tax Freedom Day is one day earlier than last year, due mainly to the Protecting America from Tax Hikes Act of 2015, which made several business and individual tax cuts permanent.
— If you include annual federal borrowing, which represents future taxes owed, Tax Freedom Day would occur 16 days later on May 10.
source
The Tax Foundation, in its annual report on when the nation as a whole has earned enough to pay its taxes, announced the date as April 24.
"Tax Freedom Day gives us a vivid representation of how much federal, state, and local tax revenue is collected each year to pay for government goods and services," said Tax Foundation Analyst Scott Greenberg. "Arguments can be made that the tax bill is too high or too low, but in order to have an honest discussion, it's important for taxpayers to understand the cost of government. Tax Freedom Day helps people relate to that cost."
The report's key findings include:
— Collectively, Americans will spend more on taxes in 2016 than they will on food, clothing, and housing combined.
— Americans will pay $3.3 trillion in federal taxes and $1.6 trillion in state and local taxes, for a total bill of almost $5.0 trillion, or 31 percent of the nation's income.
— Tax Freedom Day is one day earlier than last year, due mainly to the Protecting America from Tax Hikes Act of 2015, which made several business and individual tax cuts permanent.
— If you include annual federal borrowing, which represents future taxes owed, Tax Freedom Day would occur 16 days later on May 10.
— Collectively, Americans will spend more on taxes in 2016 than they will on food, clothing, and housing combined.
— Americans will pay $3.3 trillion in federal taxes and $1.6 trillion in state and local taxes, for a total bill of almost $5.0 trillion, or 31 percent of the nation's income.
— Tax Freedom Day is one day earlier than last year, due mainly to the Protecting America from Tax Hikes Act of 2015, which made several business and individual tax cuts permanent.
— If you include annual federal borrowing, which represents future taxes owed, Tax Freedom Day would occur 16 days later on May 10.
source
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