Archive for October, 2015

Fourth Amendment Should Cover Your Digital Life

From Fox News:

In an era of constant political gamesmanship and gridlock, getting things done in Congress is never easy. That was never clearer than the last Congress’ failure to pass long overdue reforms to an antiquated that today threatens the very thing it was intended to protect – the privacy of Americans’ digital communications and records.

A bipartisan group of more than 270 members of the House of Representatives co-sponsored legislation with the same underlying objective — to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). And yet, these bills were left to die without a vote.

 

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Navy Fearing Hacks, Is Returning To Celestial Navigation

From The Telegraph:

…now the US navy is reinstating classes on celestial navigation for all new recruits, teaching the use of sextants – instruments made of mirrors used to calculate angles and plot directions – because of rising concerns that computers used to chart courses could be hacked or malfunction.

“We went away from celestial navigation because computers are great,” said Lt. Cmdr. Ryan Rogers, the deputy chairman of the naval academy’s Department of Seamanship and Navigation. “The problem is there’s no backup.”

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Bill Whittle: America Was Designed To Be Free

Bill Whittle:

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Guns: U.S. vs Australia

From National Review:

“Australia” is Obama’s preferred euphemism for that most cherished of gun-control ideals: mass confiscation of the citizenry’s weapons.

You will notice that the president doesn’t exactly spell out what following Australia’s model would entail. He speaks instead of “commonsense gun-control legislation,” “closing the gun-show loophole,” and “universal background checks.”

But the Australian 1996 National Agreement on Firearms was not a benign set of commonsense gun-control rules: It was a gun-confiscation program rushed through the Australian parliament just twelve days after a 28-year-old man killed 35 people with a semi-automatic rifle in the Tasmanian city of Port Arthur. The Council of Foreign relations summarizes the Aussie measure nicely:

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Condi Rice and Bob Gates on U.S., Russia Relations

From The Washington Post:

One can hear the disbelief in capitals from Washington to London to Berlin to Ankara and beyond. How can Vladimir Putin, with a sinking economy and a second-rate military, continually dictate the course of geopolitical events? Whether it’s in Ukraine or Syria, the Russian president seems always to have the upper hand.

The fact is that Putin is playing a weak hand extraordinarily well because he knows exactly what he wants to do. He is not stabilizing the situation according to our definition of stability. He is defending Russia’s interests by keeping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power. This is not about the Islamic State. Any insurgent group that opposes Russian interests is a terrorist organization to Moscow. We saw this behavior in Ukraine, and now we’re seeing it even more aggressively — with bombing runs and cruise missile strikes — in Syria.

 

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Laws on Alcohol vs Guns

From Volokh Conspiracy:

Every day, about 30 people are killed in the U.S. in gun homicides or gun accidents (not counting gun suicides or self-inflicted accidental shootings). And every day, likely about 30 people are killed in homicides where the killer was under the influence of alcohol, plus alcohol-related drunk driving accidents and alcohol-related accidents where the driver wasn’t drunk but the alcohol was likely a factor (again not including those who died in accidents caused by their own alcohol consumption). If you added in gun suicides on one side and those people whose alcohol consumption killed themselves on the other, the deaths would tilt much more on the side of alcohol use, but I generally like to segregate deaths of the user from deaths of others.

So what are we going to do about it? When are we going to ban alcohol? When are we going to institute more common-sense alcohol-control measures?

 

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Mass Killings That Were Prevented

From Volokh Conspiracy:

Backers of laws that let pretty much all law-abiding people carry concealed guns in public places often argue that these laws will sometimes enable people to stop mass shootings. Opponents occasionally ask: If that’s so, what examples can one give of civilians armed with guns stopping such shootings? Sometimes, I hear people asking if even one such example can be found, or saying that they haven’t heard of even one such example.

1. In Chicago earlier this year, an Uber driver with a concealed-carry permit “shot and wounded a gunman [Everardo Custodio] who opened fire on a crowd of people.”

2. In a Philadelphia barber shop earlier this year, Warren Edwards “opened fire on customers and barbers” after an argument. Another man with a concealed-carry permit then shot the shooter; of course it’s impossible to tell whether the shooter would have kept killing if he hadn’t been stopped, but a police captain was quoted as saying that, “I guess he [the man who shot the shooter] saved a lot of people in there.”

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Hero From European Train Attack Stabbed In California

From CBS Sacramento:

Sacramento police have confirmed that France train hero Spencer Stone was stabbed early Thursday morning.

According to the Pentagon, who has confirmed Stone was injured, Spencer is in “stable condition.”

“A1C Spencer Stone has been transported to a local hospital, and is currently being treated for injury. The incident is currently under investigation by local law enforcement. He is currently in stable condition,” a statement from the U.S. Air Force reads.

Initial reports listed Stone’s condition as “critical.”

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One Gun Bigot Admits The Goal Is To Rid Society (Civilians) Of All Guns

From The Washington Post:

Maybe it’s time to start using the words that the NRA has turned into unmentionables.

Prohibition.

Mass buyback.

A gun-free society.

Let’s say that one again: A gun-free society.

Doesn’t it sound logical? Doesn’t it sound safe? Wouldn’t it make sense to learn from other developed nations, which believe that only the military and law enforcers, when necessary, should be armed — and which as a result lose far, far fewer innocent people than die every year in the United States?

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Anit-gun Group Encouraging “SWATTING” Of Lawful Carriers

From National Review:

Having failed for decades to achieve any of its broader aims, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) has decided to experiment with a new tactic: annoying peaceful gun owners into submission. “If you see someone carrying a firearm in public — openly or concealed — and have ANY doubts about their intent,” a recent missive from the group proposed, “call 911 immediately and ask police to come to the scene.” Thus did one of the nation’s leading “anti-violence” outfits casually mark 12 million people as targets.

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Canceling The F-22 Was A Mistake

From Foxtrot Alpha:

As if they suddenly came to an epiphany, the United States Air Force brass is now admitting what many of us have been screaming about for so long: We didn’t build nearly enough F-22s, and the F-35 cannot simply pick up the slack. So why aren’t those who pushed so hard to cancel the F-22 program being held accountable?

At the same time that the Raptor was coming online and proving itself, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, of both the Bush and Obama Administrations, was calling for the F-22’s demise. This was said to be due to the aircraft cost and use as “only” an air-to-air, destruction of enemy air defense, and deep strike platform.

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ISIS Flags To Be Burned At Mizzou

From The Washington Times:

Students at the University of Missouri-Columbia are holding an Islamic State flag-burning demonstration on Thursday in response to the terror group’s gross human-rights violations.

“ISIS has violated the liberties and freedoms of millions of people through genocide, deadly religious persecutions, modern-day enslavement, sexual violence, use of a chemical weapon, beheadings and mass executions,” the student group Young Americans for Liberty stated in announcing the event, the College Fix reported.

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On Board With The Thunderbirds

Thunderbirds

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Americans and Other Foreigners Fighting ISIS

From New York Times Magazine:

I found a 26-year-old American civilian named Clay Lawton standing alone, just outside the village. Square-jawed, with large eyes and bright teeth, he was a volunteer freedom fighter with the local militia. ‘‘I’m from Rhode Island,’’ he said. ‘‘You know it? Most people confuse it with Staten Island or Long Island.’’

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Special Treatment May Have Been Given To Female Rangers

From People.com:

“A woman will graduate Ranger School,” a general told shocked subordinates this year while preparing for the first females to attend a “gender integrated assessment” of the grueling combat leadership course starting April 20, sources tell PEOPLE. “At least one will get through.”

Multiple sources told PEOPLE:

• Women were first sent to a special two-week training in January to get them ready for the school, which didn’t start until April 20. Once there they were allowed to repeat the program until they passed – while men were held to a strict pass/fail standard.

• Afterward they spent months in a special platoon at Fort Benning getting, among other things, nutritional counseling and full-time training with a Ranger.

• While in the special platoon they were taken out to the land navigation course – a very tough part of the course that is timed – on a regular basis. The men had to see it for the first time when they went to the school.

• Once in the school they were allowed to repeat key parts – like patrols – while special consideration was not given to the men.

• A two-star general made personal appearances to cheer them along during one of the most challenging parts of the school, multiple sources tell PEOPLE.

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