Tag: freedom

Crime rate plunges in Chicago as concealed carry applications surge

7:02 pm

Surprise, surprise! Since Illinois began issuing concealed carry permits last year, the crime numbers in Chicago have plunged steeply.

Since Illinois started granting concealed carry permits this year, the number of robberies that have led to arrests in Chicago has declined 20 percent from last year, according to police department statistics. Reports of burglary and motor vehicle theft are down 20 percent and 26 percent, respectively. In the first quarter, the city’s homicide rate was at a 56-year low. …

As of July 29 the state had 83,183 applications for concealed carry and had issued 68,549 licenses. By the end of the year, Mr. Pearson estimates, 100,000 Illinois citizens will be packing. When Illinois began processing requests in January, gun training and shooting classes — which are required for the application — were filling up before the rifle association was able to schedule them.

Actually, this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. In every single case, when the number of gun-toting law-abiding citizens was allowed to increase because of an easing in gun restrictions, the number of crimes has dropped.

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Surprise! TSA lied!

9:27 am

Does this make you feel safer? The TSA has now admitted that it had allowed illegal immigrants to fly without valid identification, something it had strongly denied when news sources revealed it last month.

[A newly discovered TSA] letter confirms that illegal aliens are being allowed to board planes using a Notice to Appear form (also known as I-862), as [union border patrol official] Darby revealed in July. Hector Garza, a spokesman for the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) told Darby that Notice to Appear forms can “easily be reproduced or manipulated on any home computer. The Notice to Appear form has no photo, anyone can make one and manipulate one. They do not have any security features, no watermark, nothing. They are simply printed on standard copy paper based on the information the illegal alien says is the truth.”

So, while the TSA routinely sexually abuses American citizens while demanding they provide photo id, the agency has had policies that would allow an illegal immigrant, with unknown background and who has come from outside the country, to board planes using a simple form that anyone can photocopy.

Does anyone but me see something significantly wrong with this picture? Didn’t Congress originally create the TSA to prevent foreign nationals from boarding planes to hijack them?

Actually, my questions above are merely snark. The TSA is a joke imposed on us by our elected officials and approved of by too many Americans because it allows them to make believe we are doing something about terrorism. Other elected officials and TSA managers and employees than use the agency as a weapon to obtain power and crush the freedom of Americans. In that context, these actions by the TSA, including lying about their policies, make complete sense.

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Judge orders release of documents withheld by DOJ in Fast-and-Furious

5:04 pm

A federal judge has ordered the Obama administration and the Justice Department to hand over some of the documents demanded by Congress in its investigation of the government’s gun-smuggling operation dubbed Fast and Furious.

The judge also ordered the Justice Department to provide Congress a list of withheld documents so that they will have a better idea of what documents should be made available.

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High school student arrested for writing he killed his neighbor’s dinosaur with a gun

4:31 pm

Madness: A South Carolina high school student was arrested for writing — in a “What-I-did-during-summer-vacation” school assignment — that he killed his neighbor’s dinosaur with a gun.

Investigators say the teacher contacted school officials after seeing the message containing the words “gun” and “take care of business,” and police were then notified on Tuesday. Summerville police officials say Stone’s book bag and locker were searched on Tuesday, and a gun was not found. According to police, when Stone was asked by school officials about the comment written on the assignment, he became “very irate” and said it was a joke. A Summerville Police Department report states that Stone continued to be disruptive and was placed in handcuffs, and was told that he was being detained for disturbing schools.

The police are claiming that he was arrested because of his behavior when questioned. I don’t blame him. I think the teacher who reported him and the school officials who called the police should be fired immediately for downright stupidity. Such people are not competent to teach the young.

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A new map of the Middle East

10:38 am

Link here. The wide extent of Islamic State control is scary. It is also interesting that all of the U.S. airstrikes are outside those areas. At first glance it appears that we have terrible aim and are missing our targets. It is more likely that these are areas of dispute and we are supporting Iraqi and Kurdish efforts to regain the initiative.

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Two additional Russian rocket engines arrive in the U.S.

9:38 am

Despite tensions over the Ukraine, a Russian cargo plane on Wednesday delivered two more Russian rocket engines to Alabama for their refurbishment and use in ULA’s Atlas 5 rocket.

This delivery gives ULA some additional breathing room. It the additional deliveries scheduled for later this year and early in 2015 happen, they will have even more breathing room for more Atlas 5 launches. Even so, their dependence on Russian engines is something that limits the company’s competitiveness in the emerging aggressive launch market.

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What private manned spaceship will NASA pick?

8:47 am

Speculation grows on the upcoming down-select decision by NASA of its manned commercial space program.

Next up is the announcement of the transition to the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts, to be announced later this month, or early in September, depending on political direction. Although the source selection process is obviously an internal debate, with its results embargoed until the time of the NASA announcement, it is hoped that two of the commercial crew providers will move forward with additional funding.

At the ASAP meeting, Ms. Lueders expressed “NASA’s desire to continue the partnerships even after the announcement, including with companies not selected.” That continued association may be in the form of unfunded Space Act Agreements (SAA), not unlike that which Blue Origin is currently working under, as it develops a crew capsule outside of the trio working with CCiCAP funding. “People are recognizing the value of competition and have an appreciation for shared knowledge,” added Ms. Lueders. “NASA has learned from the companies and the companies have learned from NASA. It would be a big plus to continue the relationships.”

As to which companies are likely to win through to the CCtCap phase, that is a tightly kept secret. However, over recent months, sources have noted NASA’s strong affection toward the multi-capable Dream Chaser, while SpaceX has a growing track record with its Falcon 9 and cargo-Dragon combinations via its Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) missions. [emphasis mine]

My sense in the last few months has also leaned heavily in favor of Dragon and Dream Chaser, both of whom appear to be moving forward with construction at a fast pace. Boeing meanwhile has instead made it seem that it wishes to invest as little capital in its project as possible, unless it wins the competition. While the first two companies have unveiled real hardware, Boeing continues to show us mostly mock-ups.

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“A real Nobel Laureate takes pity on a fake Nobel Laureate.”

4:34 pm

Mark Steyn takes a look a one of Michael Mann’s many false claims and tears it to shreds, while also making Paul Krugman look somewhat foolish at the same time.

Michael Mann, a bad scientist who created the discredited hockey stick graph that supposedly proved global warming, is suing Steyn and others for daring to criticize him. In the process Steyn and others are finding ample material for making a great deal of fun of Mann while also finding more examples of his dishonesty and fraudulent behavior.

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Maliki steps down in Iraq

4:28 pm

Good news: Iraqi prime minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has agreed to step down as per the legal demands of the country’s government.

Maliki was a poor and weak ruler who even tried to engineer a coup when the government decided to legally remove him. He has found that the army wants to support the rule of law (something we might have taught them) and would not back him in his coup attempt. He is now gone, and maybe the new leadership in Iraq, chosen legally, can unify the country in its battle against the Islamic fascists that are attacking them from Syria.

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New footage of the Falcon 9 soft spashdown

3:31 pm

SpaceX has released new additional footage showing the controlled descent and soft spash down of the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket during its July launch. I’ve posted it below.

As they note on their webpage, “Towards the end of the video, the camera operator attempted to zoom in and unfortunately lost sight of the stage and was unable to capture the tip over into the water.” Nonetheless, the controlled nature of the stage’s descent says that they succeeded, and need only try to do this over land to prove they can recover their first stage.

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“It was the grossest incompetence.”

12:23 pm

The IRS takes more than two years to issue a refund check because of its own stupidity.

This paragraph best sums up the entire idiocy:

Dinesen [representing the citizen] immediately contacted the collection division. He was told they had no record of the return. The identity theft unit was handling it, and the collection division’s computers weren’t capable of interfacing with the identity theft unit’s computers. “I asked if he could just call the identity theft unit to confirm the return had been filed. He said he couldn’t. His explanation for why not boiled down to, ‘We don’t do that,’” Dinesen said.

The agent agreed to suspend collection actions against Boka Gonzalez while Dinesen tried to resolve the case. “He also asked me to give him a call if I got any information from the identity theft unit. It seemed ridiculous to me that one part of the IRS would ask an outside person to keep him informed of what another part of the IRS was doing, but that was the level of dysfunction we were dealing with,” Dinesen said.

Read the whole story. It is horrifying. And remember, this is a case where the IRS was simply incompetent. Imagine the harm they could do if they wanted to do harm, or were ordered to do so by our political leaders. Thank God such things never happen!

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Another look at why ULA’s CEO stepped down

9:52 am

Why did ULA’s CEO step down, and did SpaceX or the Atlas 5’s dependence on Russian engines play a part?

Very worthwhile reading, as it suggests that not only is the competition from SpaceX a major factor, so was ULA’s effort to monopolize the military launch industry as well as monopolize its access to the Russian engines, denying their use by Orbital Sciences.

And to this I say, thank god for competition. It always shakes things up in a good way.

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The flight of gifted engineers from NASA

5:43 pm

Rather than work in NASA, the best young engineers today are increasingly heading to get jobs at private companies like SpaceX and XCOR.

It is a long article, worth reading in its entirety, but this quote will give the essence:

As a NASA engineering co-op student at Johnson Space Center, Hoffman trained in various divisions of the federal space agency to sign on eventually as a civil servant. She graduated from college this year after receiving a generous offer from NASA, doubly prestigious considering the substantial reductions in force hitting Johnson Space Center in recent months. She did have every intention of joining that force — had actually accepted the offer, in fact — when she received an invitation to visit a friend at his new job with rising commercial launch company SpaceX.

Hoffman took him up on the offer, flying out to Los Angeles in the spring for a private tour. Driving up to the SpaceX headquarters, she was struck by how unassuming it was, how small compared to NASA, how plain on the outside and rather like a warehouse.

As she walked through the complex, she was also surprised to find open work areas where NASA would have had endless hallways, offices and desks. Hoffman described SpaceX as resembling a giant workshop, a hive of activity in which employees stood working on nitty-gritty mechanical and electrical engineering. Everything in the shop was bound for space or was related to space. No one sat around talking to friends in the morning, “another level from what you see at NASA,” she said. “They’re very purpose-driven. It looked like every project was getting the attention it deserved.”

Seeing SpaceX in production forced Hoffman to acknowledge NASA might not be the best fit for her. The tour reminded her of the many mentors who had gone into the commercial sector of the space industry in search of better pay and more say in the direction their employers take. She thought back to the attrition she saw firsthand at Johnson Space Center and how understaffed divisions struggled to maintain operations.

At NASA young engineers find that they spend a lot of time with bureaucracy, the pace is slow, their projects often get canceled or delayed, and the creative job satisfaction is poor. At private companies like SpaceX, things are getting built now. With that choice, no wonder the decision to go private is increasingly easy.

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Iraqi Muslims celebrate persecution of Christians

9:31 am

The bigoted religion of peace: An Christian Iraqi refugee describes how the Muslims in Mosel celebrated the arrival of ISIS and the expulsion of Christians.

An Iraqi Christian who fled for his life from Mosul says that his Muslim neighbors welcomed the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS) and told him “this land belongs to Islam.”

“We left Mosul because ISIS came to the city. The (Sunni) people of Mosul embraced ISIS, and drove the Christians out of the city,” the unnamed Christian refugee, who reportedly fled from Mosul to Lebanon, told Lebanese LBC/LDC TV in a July 30 interview translated by Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

And then there’s this: A mob of Muslims on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem force the closure of that site to Jews.

Watch the video below the fold and tell me who you think is bigoted and expressing hatred. As one of the Jews notes with humor near the beginnin of the video, “Look, three Jews, how many Arabs; they are calling to G-d, they are praying to G-d because of us, it’s wonderful. You see what we did?”

Things get more and more heated, beginning around 9:00, as they begin to approach the Temple Mount itself. Note that all these guys are doing is trying to take a tour of the site.
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The count now more than 20

11:43 pm

Corruption: More than twenty Obama officials have lost or destroyed emails after learning that Congress wanted to see them.

[I]n each case, the loss wasn’t disclosed to the National Archives or Congress for months or years, in violation of federal law,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa (R-California) said of [the] lost e-mails. “It defies logic that so many senior Administration officials were found to have ignored federal record-keeping requirements only after Congress asked to see their e-mails.”

Actually, it doesn’t defy logic. It is perfectly logical. This administration is corrupt, has broken the law numerous times, and is now aggressively destroying evidence to cover-up its corruption.

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Christians flee Islamic jihadists in northern Iraq

10:46 am

The religion of peace strikes again! Hundreds of thousands of Christians flee northern Iraq as Islamic State take over the region and jihadists tear down churches and destroy Christian manuscripts.

This analysis of the situation now in northern Iraq asks some pointed questions of President Barack Obama, who withdraw American troops from that country far sooner than any military or local expert advised.

This analysis explains why President Barack Obama seems so unconcerned about the fate of these Christian refugees. To use his words, this kind of violence and terrorism and genocide is just an example of these groups acting with “extraordinarily irresponsibly”.

I ask: When are the American people going to finally get tired of electing children to office and have the courage to elect an adult?

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China to build a new canal in Central America

10:49 pm

The competition heats up: With approval from Nicaragua, China has inched closer to beginning construction of a new canal that would connect the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

A month ago, a Nicaraguan committee approved Chinese billionaire Wang Jing’s project to create The Nicaraguan Canal. With a planned capacity to accommodate ships with loaded displacement of 400,000 tons (notably bigger than The Panama Canal), the proposed 278-kilometer-long canal that will run across the Nicaragua isthmus would probably change the landscape of the world’s maritime trade.

“The project is the largest infrastructure project ever in the history of man in terms of engineering difficulty, investment scale, workload and its global impact,” Wang told reporters, adding that with regard the project’s financing, which is around $50 billion, Wang seems quite confident, “If you can deliver, you will find all the world’s money at your disposal.”

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Video of the Falcon 9 first stage doing a soft splashdown

9:08 am

Video taken from a chase plane during the July 14 Falcon 9 launch shows the first stage appearing from out of the low clouds, engines firing, vertical and ready for landing. The video, below the fold, also shows the stage slowing just before it hits the water, much like the test vehicles Grasshopper and Falcon 9R do.

Though SpaceX has already claimed their first stage had done this during the July 14 launch, this video proves it. All they need to do now to recover their first stage is to direct it to a land-based landing site.

Hat tip to Doug Messier and Parabolic Arc for this story.
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