Tag: freedom

Video of a successful test firing of Liberator, the first working 3D printed gun.

8:37 am

Video of a successful test firing of Liberator, the first working 3D printed gun.

Not surprisingly, the Democrats in Congress are rushing to outlaw this weapon, as is their typical approach to anything they don’t like: outlaw it, ban it, prohibit it, control it, restrict it.

In other related news, a news paper editor in Colorado has decided that the only fair way to debate the NRA is to send every member of the organization to prison.

No more due process in the clear-cut case of insidious terrorism. When the facts are so clearly before all Americans, for the whole world to see, why bother with this country’s odious and cumbersome system of justice? Send the guilty monsters directly to Guantanamo Bay for all eternity and let them rot in their own mental squalor.

No, no, no. Not the wannabe sick kid who blew up the Boston marathon or the freak that’s mailing ricin-laced letters to the president. I’m talking about the real terrorist threat here in America: the National Rifle Association. [emphasis mine]

Our modern liberal community: Restrict freedom, dump due process, imprison your opponents.

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The Fourth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that carrying a firearm in an open-carry state does not create reasonable suspicion of a crime.

8:29 am

The Fourth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that merely carrying a firearm in an open-carry state does not create reasonable suspicion of a crime.

Nathaniel Black was part of a group of men in Charlotte, North Carolina who local police officers suspected might be engaged in criminal activity. In particular, Officers suspected that after seeing one of the men openly carrying a firearm – which was legal in North Carolina – that there was most likely another firearm present. When police began frisking the men one by one, Mr. Black wished to leave, but was told he was not free to leave. Officers chased Mr. Black and discovered that he possessed a firearm; it was later discovered that he was a previously convicted felon. Mr. Black was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. Before the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, Mr. Black moved to suppress the evidence against him. His suppression motion was denied, he entered a guilty plea preserving a right to appeal the denial of the suppression motion, and he was sentenced to fifteen (15) years imprisonment. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, however, determined that the officers had improperly seized Mr. Black, suppressed the evidence against him, and vacated his sentence.

Read the whole article. Black had visibly been doing nothing wrong, merely standing on the sidewalk talking to friends. And because it is perfectly legal to openly carry a firearm in North Carolina, the court ruled that the police had not been given cause to detain him or search him. In other words, it though it might be illegal for you to be carrying the gun (as it was with Black), the mere presence of the gun does not give the police the right to suspect him of a crime.

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In a web interview today, Richard Branson said that the first supersonic powered flight of SpaceShipTwo is now set for this coming Monday.

2:49 pm

The competition heats up: In a web interview today, Richard Branson said that the first supersonic powered flight of SpaceShipTwo is now set for this coming Monday.

We’re hoping to break the sound barrier. That’s planned Monday. It will be a historic day. This is going to be Virgin Galactic’s year. We’ll break the sound barrier Monday and from there, we build up through the rest of the year, finally going into space near the end of the year. I’ll be on the first official flight, which we look to have in the first quarter of next year. We’re doing a number of test flights into space first.

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A rocket reveals a fundamental truth about America

12:29 pm

Yesterday, Orbital Sciences successfully completed the first test launch of its Antares rocket, developed, designed, and built in less than five years under a commercial contract with NASA to provide cargo to the International Space Station. The launch went like clockwork, perfectly, with no hitches at all, something that is quite remarkable for a new rocket on its first launch. Kudos to the engineers at Orbital Sciences for a job well done!

Besides demonstrating the skill of Orbital Science’s engineers, however, this successful launch illustrated in stark reality a fundamental fact about the culture of the United States that continues to allow it to stand out from the rest of the world, even as a large percentage of the present generation of Americans are doing their darndest to try to destroy that culture. Moreover, that fundamental cultural fact is basic to human nature, not just the United States, and if we recognize it, it will provide us all the right framework for what to do and not to do in trying to maintain human societies, both here on Earth as well as in the future in space.

In order to understand the true significance of Orbital Sciences’s success yesterday with Antares, however, we must first review the capabilities of the world’s launch industry. I am not going to list all the rockets capable of putting payloads into orbit, only those that are successfully competing for business in the open commercial market.
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“This nation of sheep is indeed begetting a government of wolves, and as a result we are all witnessing the death of liberty.”

9:15 am

“This nation of sheep is indeed begetting a government of wolves, and as a result we are all witnessing the death of liberty.”

And then there’s this: “Why does evil make liberals stupid?” Key quote:

This piece in The Atlantic is a good exemplar of the mushy liberal commentary that has proliferated in recent days. Authored by one Megan Garber, it is titled: “The Boston Bombers Were Muslim: So?” Before taking a close look at Ms. Garber’s article, let’s advise The Atlantic not to put away that headline. It could come in handy so often. “The Cole Bombers Were Muslim: So?” “The Embassy Bombers Were Muslim: So?” “The First World Trade Center Bombers Were Muslim: So?” “The September 11 Bombers Were Muslim: So?” “The Madrid Bombers Were Muslim: So?” “The London Bombers Were Muslim: So?” “The Shoebomber Was Muslim: So?” The Underwear Bomber Was Muslim: So?” “The Fort Hood Shooter Was Muslim: So?” “The Beslan Child-Murderers Were Muslim: So?” “The Times Square Bomber Was Muslim: So?”

We could keep this up for a very long time, but let’s move on to Ms. Garber’s soulful meanderings.

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Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Wednesday he fears a “train wreck” as the Obama administration implements Obamacare

11:30 am

Idiot: Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Wednesday he fears a “train wreck” as the Obama administration implements Obamacare.

Baucus was one of the key architects of Obamacare and voted for it, along with every other Democrat in Congress. That he is only now discovering what a bad law it is is just further proof that he should fired.

The real question is whether the voters will fire him. After the last election I have my doubts.

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A union is calling for the repeal of Obamacare.

3:18 pm

The house of cards begins to fall: A union is calling for the repeal of Obamacare.

Our Union and its members have supported President Obama and his Administration for both of his terms in office.

But regrettably, our concerns over certain provisions in the ACA have not been addressed, or in some instances, totally ignored. In the rush to achieve its passage, many of the Act’s provisions were not fully conceived, resulting in unintended consequences that are inconsistent with the promise that those who were satisfied with their employer sponsored coverage could keep it.

These provisions jeopardize our multi-employer health plans, have the potential to cause a loss of work for our members, create an unfair bidding advantage for those contractors who do not provide health coverage to their workers, and in the worst case, may cause our members and their families to lose the benefits they currently enjoy as participants in multi-employer health plans.

But don’t worry, come the next election this same union will continue to support the same Democratic politicians that gave us Obamacare, because party partisanship is far more important than common sense and rational leadership.

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A decorated war veteran on a Boy Scout hike with his 15-year-old son was arrested by police in Texas because he was “rudely displaying” a firearm.

9:39 am

Does this make you feel safer? A decorated war veteran on a Boy Scout hike with his 15-year-old son was arrested by police in Texas because he was “rudely displaying” a firearm.

Army Master Sgt. C.J. Grisham told Fox News he was illegally disarmed by members of the Temple Police Dept. – even though he held the proper permits to carry his weapons. Grisham and his son were on a 10-mile hike in a rural area populated by wild boars and cougars. He was carrying an AR-15 rifle and a .45 caliber pistol. He was charged with resisting arrest – even though video his son filmed of the incident clearly showed that Grisham did not resist arrest. Police later reduced the charges to interfering with a peace officer while performing a duty – a class B misdemeanor.

Update: several commenters have pointed out facts about Grisham, including this very detailed report from Michael Yon, that raise serious questions about the reliability of this story. Worth reading.

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A private company tells the IAU to bug off!

8:53 am

A private company tells the IAU to bug off about who has the power to name things in space!

Uwingu affirms the IAU’s right to create naming systems for astronomers But we know that the IAU has no purview—informal or official—to control popular naming of bodies in the sky or features on them, just as geographers have no purview to control people’s naming of features along hiking trails. People clearly enjoy connecting to the sky and having an input to common-use naming. We will continue to stand up for the public’s rights in this regard, and look forward to raising more grant funds for space researchers and educators this way.

The company also pointed out that even astronomers name things without the IAU’s approval.

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Since 2010 total government spending per household has exceeded what each household earns per year.

12:55 pm

The day of reckoning looms: Since 2010 total government spending per household has exceeded what each household earns per year.

In other words, even if the federal, state, and city governments took 100 percent of your income in taxes, they still wouldn’t get enough money to pay their expenses. And since government spending has continued to rise since 2010 amid a stagnant economy, this situation has worsened, not improved. Worse, in 2012 the public voted in favor of accelerating this situation by voting for more Democrats in the Senate, while keeping a spendthrift Democratic President in power.

We are going bankrupt. It is only a matter of time.

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Doctors driven to bankruptcy

11:28 am

Doctors driven to bankruptcy.

What is amazing about this article about the recent spike in doctors filing for bankruptcy is how it somehow never mentions Obamacare at all. The closest the author comes is a mention of “changing regulations.” How informative!

If the author was a good journalist, which he isn’t, it should have been self evident that the advent and effects of Obamacare has to be included in this story, if only to give it the proper context.

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The coming Obamacare chaos

10:13 am

The coming Obamacare chaos.

The article is a very detailed summary of the many problems caused by Obamacare, from increased unemployment to loss of healthcare insurance to higher premiums to higher debt. Everyone should read it. However, the most important question is laid out in the very first paragraph:

The biggest political problem faced by so-called “liberals” and so-called “progressives” in President Obama’s second term is how to prevent voters from holding them politically responsible as the public comes to realize how badly they were lied to during the first Obama term to win passage of Obamacare.

It is going to be the number one priority of all Democratic politicians and their allies in the mainstream press to somehow find a way to blame Republicans for Obamacare. The question will be whether they will succeed.

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The scientists who attempted to re-invent Michael Mann’s hockey stick global warming graph and were caught fudging their data have admitted their data is worthless

12:17 am

The scientists who attempted to re-invent Michael Mann’s hockey stick global warming graph and were caught fudging their data have essentially admitted that their data is worthless.

This is what they say in a FAQ they have added to their paper:

Q: What do paleotemperature reconstructions show about the temperature of the last 100 years?

A: Our global paleotemperature reconstruction includes a so-called “uptick” in temperatures during the 20th century. However, in the paper we make the point that this particular feature is of shorter duration than the inherent smoothing in our statistical averaging procedure, and that it is based on only a few available paleo-reconstructions of the type we used. Thus, the 20th century portion of our paleotemperature stack is not statistically robust, cannot be considered representative of global temperature changes, and therefore is not the basis of any of our conclusions. [emphasis mine]

They are basically admitting that the data used to create the temperature rise of their hockey stick during the past 100 years is unreliable and therefore useless for scientific purposes. Which raises the question: Why did they publish it in the first place? See especially this analysis of this paper and the press’s reaction to it by climate scientists Roger Pielke.

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