Monday, December 17, 2012

GHOULISH: Senator Diane Feinstein waited an entire year for a tragedy she could exploit to advance her gun ban legislation

Never one to let a crisis go to waste, Senator Diane Feinstein breathlessly announced yesterday on Meet The Press that she will try to resurrect the "assault weapons" ban. But what wasn't widely reported is that she admitted she'd been sitting on such a bill for a year or more.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein said she will reintroduce a ban on assault weapons to the Senate on the very first day the new House session on NBC's Meet the Press.

Feinstein also said she wants and expects Barack Obama to lead on gun control from now on. "I can tell you that he is going to have a bill to lead on because as a first-day bill I'm going to introduce in the Senate and the same bill will be introduced in the House - a bill to ban assault weapons," Feinstein said. "It will ban the sale, the transfer, the importation and the possession. Not retroactively but prospectively. And it will ban the same for big clips, drums or strips of more than 10 bullets."

...There was a previous assault weapons ban from 1994 to 2004. There was some conversation about re-introducing the ban around the time of the Aurora shooting, too. "There will be a bill. We've been working on it now for a year," Feinstein said. "We've tried to take my bill from '94 to 2004 and perfect it. We believe we have.

In other words, to advance her tyrannical, progressive agenda, the malevolent Diane Feinstein couldn't even wait a week -- she couldn't wait for the poor victims' bodies to be buried -- to resume her efforts to unravel the Second Amendment.

Feinstein was accompanied by Bloomberg -- the idiot mayor, not the news service -- who already regulates dangerous substances like salt and soda in his city. For our own good, of course. The pint-sized, would-be dictator of New York City saw that this particular tragedy was the opportunity he'd been waiting for.

Glenn Reynolds -- better known as Instapundit -- put the rhetorical beat-down on Bloomberg's hypocrisy.



Will Bloomberg set an example for us and start his gun-ban initiative by disarming his cadre of bodyguards? Of course not.

Why does Michael Bloomberg believe his life is more precious than my family's?

Throughout human history, the elites have always protected themselves with the force of arms.

In America, uniquely, so do the citizens. And this right we will not surrender.


Larwyn's Linx: The Facts About Mass Shootings

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

The Facts About Mass Shootings: Fund
Vicki Soto: A Hero to Remember: Flopping Aces
I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother: Gawker

Sanitizing Adam Lanza: AT
Democrats Quick to Politicize Tragic School Shooting: Shark Tank
Worst school massacre in U.S. history: Not a shooting: Wolf Files

Madness, Deinstitutionalization & Murder: Federalist
If you lock up the lunatics before they commit crimes...: MOTUS
Why Gun Control Laws Don't Work: LoudTalker

The Wages of Gun Control: Howling
Do we need stricter gun control laws?: Marfdrat
Gunman shot himself as men with guns closed in: Pandith News

Economy

Obamacare and My Daughter: PJM
The $10,000 Degree: NRO
If you only learn one thing today, let it be this: RefBrok

Scandal Central

Rep. Louie Gohmert: Eric Holder is one to talk about gun control: RedAlert
Harry Reid should not be allowed to illegally manipulate Senate rules: RedAlert
10 people shot on Friday in Chicago, the city with the strictest gun control laws: Wintery Knight

Media

The media should be ashamed of its Connecticut coverage: TheWeek
Politico, Onn Obama's Delayed 2014 'Budget' Proposal, Fails to Note No Budget Passed For 4 Years: NB
Whether it's ranting or reporting, Bob Costas and his NBC posse are the gang that can't shoot straight: Joe Kidd

Which Gun Control Law Would Have Prevented the Sandy Hook Tragedy?: Hawkins
Tragedy and Exploitation – The Progressive Way: RWN
A second shooting was stopped on the same day as Newtown traged: RWN

Newtown: Just Leave Us to Grieve in Peace: Feldman
Stampeding Gun Control Through Crisis: Loudon
Mental Illness, Not Guns Is the Cause Of Mass Murder: Waznmentobe

Who’s The Biggest Douche In The Universe?: R&R (Language Warning)
Justice Sotomayor and Murderer Advocacy: AT
The Election Wasn’t As Close As We First Thought: OTB

World

Silence of the Feminists: City Journal
Obama Ignores Ex-Marine Wrongly Held In Mexican Jail: IBD
Depardieu Says He’s Paid Enough French Taxes in Letter to PM: BizWk

Hillary Falls Down, Gets “Concussion,” Cancels Benghazi Testimony: Bruce
Jordanian King Warns of “New Extremist Alliance” in Region: WorldThreats
'Palestinian' reaction to Newtown, Connecticut massacre: Matzav

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue.com/Tech)

Dell Has A New Platform As A Service That Actually Makes Sense: TechCrunch
10 skills for developers to focus on in 2013: TechRepublic
National Rifle Association Hides Facebook Page To Avoid Hosting Flame Wars: TechCrunch

Cornucopia

Conservatism and Angry Birds?: Wellfonder
Obama politicizes vigil in Newtown, hints at more gun control: Scoop
The NFL should yank their TV rights from NBC: WyBlog

Image: Gallery of the innocents
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Ninety Miles From Tyranny

QOTD: "I am appalled. Yes, I am appalled that a monster killed children and teachers, but I am more appalled that the first response from the professional control freaks — the political animals across the nation — is to initiate the long-planned campaign to stampede Americans into surrendering their rights, to disarm all the people who didn’t murder anyone, and — most importantly — to eliminate the ability of the citizens to defend themselves from a whole spectrum of evils ranging from common bad guys to government tyranny.

Senator Feinstein has pledged to submit new “assault weapon” legislation, even more draconian than the last completely useless ban, the one that had no effect on crime other than to create new classes of victims. Senator Feinstein, evidently in an effort to avoid accusations that this new bill is a knee jerk response to the shootings, assures us that she has been working on this bill for a year.

Contemplate that for a moment. This “new” bill has been poised to launch for months, waiting only for the (hopefully) inevitable next horrific incident, an appropriate tragedy, to whip this “solution” out while stampeding a frightened, sad and disoriented populace into accepting yet another “DO SOMETHING!” law that constrains honest people while addressing the actual problem not at all. The senseless slaughter of 20 little ones is the perfect political platform for shoving fascist policies down our throats. The media will trot out every profile of every child and teacher who died, to engender guilt, horror and remorse and bully Americans into letting go of their guns. Newsflash, asshats… we aren’t that gullible and stupid. We certainly aren’t that weak." --Terresa Monroe Hamilton

Sunday, December 16, 2012

DUDE: Giant Squid Finally Captured on Video

Try not to pee in your pants. Oh, wait. That was me.

Giant Squid on Video


The giant squid has been captured on video in its natural habitat for the first time ever. This long-sought after footage — considered by many to be the Holy Grail of natural history filmmaking — will be revealed by Discovery Channel and NHK in January 2013...


...This massive predator has always been shrouded in secrecy, and every attempt to capture a live giant squid on camera in its natural habitat has failed. Until now.


Mankind finally confronts the greatest mystery of the deep as the first-ever footage of a live giant squid in its natural habitat is revealed in Discovery Channel’s Monster Squid: The Giant Is Real, which premieres on Sunday, January 27, 2013 at 10/9c as the season finale of Curiosity.

Two words: serious Calamari.


Hat tip: BadBlue Tech.

COMING SOON: Twitter to let you download an archive of every tweet you've ever... eh... tweeted

Some users already have this kewl new feature.

As promised by Twitter CEO Dick Costello, Twitter is now letting you download a collection of every tweet you've ever tweeted, beyond the mere 3,200 tweet limit imposed by the Twitter API. If the option is available to you, it can be found under settings. Once you request your archive, all you have to do is wait, and Twitter will send you an email when it's ready.

When delivered, the archive is presented as a zipped HTML file which displays the tweets in a calender-like format, a better deal than a straight-up list of text. So get ready to dive into your own personal Twitter past. Or don't. There could be some embarassing stuff back there.


Check your settings page and scroll down to see whether an "Archive" section exists yet. If it does, you can request a download of your entire Twitter history, from your first tweet on.


Hat tip: BadBlue Tech News.

POP QUIZ: Which Sign Might Prevent a Tragedy?

Via Common Sense Evaluation (hat tip: Joe Kidd):


Related: That's weird: progressive media forgets to report that man with concealed carry permit helped stop Portland mall shooter.


THE 10 MOST EXPLOSIVE GUN CONTROL FACTS: How to Save Lives

What is the common feature of these shocking, mass attacks? They take place where guns are banned.

Take the Aurora, Colorado movie theater example: there were seven movie theaters showing the movie Batman within a 20-minute drive of where the killer lived.

He didn't go to the movie theater closest to his home. He didn't go to the movie theater with the largest audience. He went to the one movie theater -- the only one -- that posted a sign that banned concealed handguns from the theater.

Look at gun bans more generally: Now if you look at bans generally, you can't point to a place, Chicago and Washington, D.C., where we ban guns with positive results. Instead, murder rates and violent crimes went up afterwards. In the U.K. and Jamaica, Ireland, island nations that have banned guns -- you can't find a place where murder rates have actually gone down. They have gone up usually by large amounts.

Let's look at gun-free zones hypothetically on a personal level: Let's say someone was stalking you. That person was threatening violence against you and your family. Would you feel safer putting a sign in front of your home that read, "This home is a gun-free zone"?

Would that deter someone intent on violence -- or encourage one? In fact, nobody would put a sign like that in front of their home. Yet some businesses and offices think posting such a sign, at movie theaters and malls will help -- when common sense would tell us that it does not.

Rather than repelling criminals, gun bans actually encourage violence. Gun-free zones instruct the malevolent criminal where victims can't defend themselves.

The reason these mass attacks occur is because the killer wants to commit suicide. If you read the notes they leave or their diaries, if you watch their videos, you'll find that -- time after time -- they want to kill themselves in a way that will make people notice them. In their sick minds, they want to go out in a blaze of violence that will have people pay attention to them.

In these mass attacks, 75 percent of the time the killers die at the scene; the other 25 percent they planned on dying, but they couldn't bring themselves to finish the act of suicide.

These people want to get media attention. They know that the more people they kill, the more media attention they'll get. So they target the places where they can kill as many people as possible. And they're planning these things months and months in advance.

Should schools have armed guards? We should learn something from Israel. They've had a terrorist problem since the forties. For years they tried to do just that - have more police, more military, more armed security guards and they discovered they simply didn't have enough money. Terrorists have huge strategic advantages to patiently find weak points.

In the early seventies, Israel finally realized they couldn't flood areas with enough military or police. They instead began permitting citizens to carry concealed weapons. About 15 percent of citizens are so licensed.

At the time of the Virginia Tech shooting, something similar was attempted. Before the shooting, you had about one police officer for every 80 acres of campus. After the attack, it was one officer for every 40 acres. It doesn't scale.

You see this in the methodical way these killers choose locations now. They find places where people cannot defend themselves.

Do gun bans work? The natural reaction is to say, "If I can just get rid of the gun, I can stop bad things from happening." You don't think about all of the unintended consequences of that:

What about all of the successful defensive uses of guns?

More importantly, can you prevent evil individuals from getting guns? You can't find a country around the world that ever imposed a gun ban where murder rates actually fell after the ban.

Even island nations -- you would think these would be the ideal experiment -- with gun bans are unable to prevent criminal gangs from bringing in guns, drugs, and other contraband.

It's the good, law-abiding citizens that are impacted by gun bans, not criminals. To the extent that you disarm law-abiding citizens and not the violent, you find the perverse result that things get worse. This occurred in Washington, DC and Chicago. After their gun bans, violent crime and murder rates spiked.

The question you have to ask yourself about gun laws: who are you most likely to disarm: the law-abiding citizen or the criminal?

The gun-free zone provides a clear field for evil to carry out mass murder. It creates sitting ducks for violence. Those who push gun control may mean well (or not), but they haven't thought through what they want to do.

If gun-control zealots could point to even a few countries where gun bans lowered murder rates, they might have a legitimate argument. But they can't, because they don't exist.

Europe has about the same rate of public shootings per capita as the U.S., yet it has far more draconian gun regulations. Germany, which has two of the worst four school shootings, has a year-long waiting period with two psychological screens. When you have people who take months to plan attacks, and are willing to die to pull the attacks off, will not be deterred.

If you want to stop these attacks, you can take two actions:

(1) The media can stop giving publicity to these killers. The media shouldn't name the killers. This would reduce to a large extent the motivation for the attacks.

(2) We must reduce and eliminate "gun-free zones". Since at least 1950, with but one exception, all public shootings with three or more victims have all taken place in venues where guns were banned. The theater shooting, the Sikh Temple shooting, the school shootings, you go down the list and in each case, the gun-free zone is the place the killers always choose.


Via Professor John Lott, the world's foremost expert on the impact of gun control laws on society. Paraphrased from an interview on The Mark Levin Show (MP3).

No Way Out [Peter Schiff]

Guest Post by Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Capital:

By upping the ante once again in its gamble to revive the lethargic economy through monetary action, the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee is now compelling the rest of us to buy into a game that we may not be able to afford. At his press conference this week, Fed Chairman Bernanke explained how the easiest policy stance in Fed history has just gotten that much easier. First it gave us zero interest rates, then QEs I and II, Operation Twist, and finally "unlimited" QE3.

Now that those moves have failed to deliver economic health, the Fed has doubled the size of its open-ended money printing and has announced a program of data flexibility that virtually insures that they will never bump into limitations, until it's too late. Although their new policies will create numerous long-term challenges for the economy, the biggest near-term challenge for the Fed will be how to keep the momentum going by upping the ante even higher their next meeting.

The big news is that the Fed is now doubling the amount of money it is printing. In addition to its ongoing $40 billion per month of mortgage backed securities (to stimulate housing), it will now buy $45 billion per month of Treasury debt. The latter program replaces Operation Twist, which had used proceeds from the sales of short-term treasuries to finance the purchase of longer yielding paper. The problem is the Fed has already blown through its short-term inventory, so the new buying will be pure balance sheet expansion.

To cloak these shockingly accommodative moves in the garb of moderation, the Fed announced that future policy decisions will be put on automatic pilot by pegging liquidity withdrawal to two sets of economic data. By committing to tightening policy if either unemployment falls below 6.5% or if inflation goes higher than 2.5%, Bernanke is likely looking to silence fears that the Fed will stay too loose for too long. While these statistical benchmarks would be too accommodative even if they were rigidly enforced, the goalposts have been specifically designed to be completely movable, and hence essentially meaningless.

Larwyn's Linx: Guns, Guns, Guns

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

Guns, Guns, Guns: Sultan Knish
Progressive policies are to blame for the Sandy Hook massacre: GWP
Chicago shootings spike 49% despite strictest gun laws: CNS

Repeat After Me: Gun Control Isn't the Answer: CDN
Gun Control Isn’t The Answer. Here’s Why: Loesch
Obama Fails a Test of Leadership: Dossier

Boehner Proposes Tax Hike On High Earners, Obama Refuses: ZH
Not One Dime for Obamacare federal exchange funding.: RS
Waffle House Robber Killed By Concealed Carry Permit Holder: AllAm

Economy

Fed Creates Nightmare Scenario, Closes Eyes, Sings Trololo: Testosterone
Greece is on the brink of Civil War: Insider
DOE: Suspensions of Boys, Blacks May Violate Civil Rights: CNS

Only In America: Israpundit
Printing Our Way Out of Debt: WS
Union Thug to MI Governor: “We’ll be at your daughter’s soccer game”: Hideout

Scandal Central

More Guns, Not Less (In the Right People's Hands): Times of Israel
Far Left Groups Defeated CT Mental Health Protection Laws Months Before Shooting: GWP
Congressmen Confront EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson Over Use of Alias 'Richard Windsor': WS

Climate & Energy

Warmists Really Excited Over New Global Warming Poll: Cove
Sen. Jim Inhofe blasts new EPA soot rules: Tulsa World
Obama Bypasses Congress to Mandate Black Boxes for All Cars -- Beginning in '14: CNS

Media

ABC, NY Times reporters go full-on vulture tweeting friends, family of Connecticut massacre targets: DC
Death Porn Media Victim Unexpectedly Negative About The Encounter: RSM
What gun control can and can't do: Ambinder

Some thoughts about the recent tragedy: JPA
Citizen With Concealed Carry Permit May Have Saved Lives During Oregon Mall Shooting: LoneCon
Rebuttal of POLITICO’s and liberal Republicans’ false claims: CDN

The Names: Ace
Jamie Foxx: Hollywood Deserves Some Blame for Violence (After Joke About Killing ‘All the White People’): Blaze
Researchers Develop an Internet Truth Machine: Slashdot

NY Daily News: Ban All Killer Weapons Because We’re All To Blame: RWN
MSNBC’s Ed Schultz Talks Gun ‘Confiscation’: NB
David Frum: 2nd Amendment Supporters ‘Enable Shootings’: RWN

World

Virtually Absent From U.S. Press Coverage of Egypt’s Constitution: It’s About Sharia Law: BizzyBlog
Chuck Hagel: Walt and Mearsheimer's dream come true: Matzav
Meanwhile, at an elementary school in Israel…: American Digest

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue.com/Tech)

Huge Asteroid's Earth Flyby Caught on Video: Space
ESPN Teams Up With Twitter To Provide College Football Video Highlights In Stream: TechCrunch
Following Adobe user forum breach, hacker claims he has access to some Yahoo servers: NextWeb

Cornucopia

Lottery Winner Jack Whittaker's Losing Ticket: BizWk
Michigan Triplets, 21, Are Now All Behind Bars On Felony Charges: TSG
The First Lessons Of Economics And Politics: Looking Spoon

Image: Fiscal cliff talks: Speaker John Boehner pitches millionaire tax hike
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Flopping Aces

QOTD: "Is it the number of guns? Societal breakdown? Our culture of violence? Hollywood? While there’s probably a kernel of truth in all the usual suspects, a more likely culprit may be the policy implemented by our betters which determined that mental institutions were horror chambers that inhumanely incarcerated people simply because they didn’t conform to the standards society determined to be normal (how judgmental).

As is often the case with good intentions, the “deinstitutional movement,” initiated in 1964 and fully implemented in the 1970’s, the “solution” did not fix the root problem. There are still just as many crazy people in society, only now they live amongst us free to act out their psychotic fantasies: unless and until they confess or get caught.

A culture of political correctness that doesn’t allow you to call dangerous crazy people “insane” let alone lock them up, doesn’t wish you to point out that terrorists may be more dangerous than conservative “haters,” and wants the good guys to give up their guns to set a good example for the bad guys." --MOTUS

Saturday, December 15, 2012

SANDY HOOK KILLER ADAM LANZA: "Deeply Disturbed", "Had a Tortured Mind", "A Ticking Time Bomb"

The real question we should be discussing: why wasn't this sick young man institutionalized?

Adam Lanza is being described as a "deeply disturbed kid" who was "subject to outbursts."

The 20-year-old man who killed 20 children and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School after murdering his own mother, may also have suffered from Asperger's syndrome or another personality disorder.

“This was a deeply disturbed kid,” a family insider [said]... “He certainly had major issues. He was subject to outbursts from what I recall."

Another family friend said Lanza had a condition where he couldn't feel pain.

...Nancy Lanza had previously worked at Sandy Hook but several sources said they believed she was more recently spending her days caring for the troubled Adam.

Not only was Lanza deeply disturbed, he appears to have been a hard-core "gamer" (video-game addict).

He was dark and disturbed, a deeply troubled boy from a wealthy family who unnerved his neighbors and classmates.

Mass murderer Adam Lanza, 20, was a ticking time bomb, people who knew him told the Daily News... Lanza, who friends and officials said suffered from Asperger’s syndrome or a personality disorder, had a tortured mind.

He was socially awkward and at times unstable...

One family friend described Adam Lanza as a gamer who “rarely spoke.”

“He was weird,” said the friend, who asked to remain anonymous. “He was quiet.”

I think it's time for a national discussion on allowing kids -- especially deeply disturbed kids -- to have access to first-person shooting games.


SANDY HOOK ELEMENTARY: The Sickness of the Media

During a special service at St. John's Church in Sandy Hook:

"Bunch of over-zealous photographers were just asked to leave."

Just as disgraceful?

Big-city mayors and would-be tyrants Michael Bloomberg and Mumbles Menino not even waiting for the children's bodies to be identified to begin pushing their insane gun-control rhetoric.

• Not the ongoing eradication of the two-parent family
• Not the mind-numbing violence on television and in theaters
• Not political correctness and de-institutionalization that allow insane people to freely circulate among us
• Not the removal of references to God and morality from our educational system
• Not the proliferation of first-person shooter games
• Not the "gun-free zones" that are, in virtually every case, the sites of mass shootings
• Not the fact that in every case, countries that banned guns saw increased rates of violent crime

No, concentrate instead on the ultimate mission of the totalitarian leftists who control the Democrat Party: to disarm free men and women who remain the last bulwark against tyranny.


MEANWHILE, at an elementary school on the other side of the world...

...in Israel, "Serious people know how to respond to serious threats."


American Digest also points us to this excellent observation by MOTUS:

Is it the number of guns? Societal breakdown? Our culture of violence? Hollywood? While there’s probably a kernel of truth in all the usual suspects, a more likely culprit may be the policy implemented by our betters which determined that mental institutions were horror chambers that inhumanely incarcerated people simply because they didn’t conform to the standards society determined to be normal (how judgmental).

As is often the case with good intentions, the “deinstitutional movement,” initiated in 1964 and fully implemented in the 1970’s, the “solution” did not fix the root problem. There are still  just as many crazy people in society, only now they live amongst us free to act out their psychotic fantasies: unless and until they confess or get caught.

Although  the mainstreaming of psychotics had been afoot since the passing of the Community Mental Health Act the final nail in the coffin that stopped the institutionalization of the crazies was a Ken Kesey movie (One Flew Over he Cuckoo’s Nest) which advanced the theory that the inmates were actually saner than their keepers. Hence, we should either let the inmates dictate the terms of their own incarceration or simply close the asylum and set the patients free...

...Since the novel was written by a man who did his “research” under the influence of LSD and peyote buttons it is unclear why his conclusions would hold any credibility among the sane. Except for the fact that his story’s basic premise – that people in mental institutions are not “crazy” they’re just far more “individualized” and therefore superior to the rest of us mere mortals – fit the liberal’s agenda du jour of mainstreaming all butt the (convicted)criminally insane.

As with many schemes that are based on good intentions, this one has not worked out so well either. We are now dealing with the unintended consequences and as is often the case, they are devastating...

...So a lot of our problems do stem from our culture: a culture of political correctness that doesn’t allow you to call dangerously crazy people “insane” let alone lock them up, doesn’t wish you to point out that terrorists may be more dangerous than conservative “haters,” and wants the good guys to give up their guns to set a good example for the bad guys...

...Because in a sane society citizens are not locked up for trying to protect themselves, the homicidal maniacs are.

As one of my heroes once said, "the more the plans fail, the more the planners plan."


MEANWHILE, in the nation's safest city...

Chicago, Illinois must be the safest city in the U.S. because: (a) it has the most draconian gun restrictions; and (b) it resides in the state with the strictest firearm regulations in the country.

And how's that working out for them?

10 shot, including 4 teens, Friday afternoon and night


Shootings across the city Friday afternoon and night wounded at least ten people, according to Chicago police, including four teens in three separate South and West side attacks.


Someone shot two boys, both 16, about 5:11 p.m. Friday afternoon in the 1700 block of East 71st Place in the South Shore neighborhood on the South Side. Both were taken to Comer Children's Hospital in stable condition with gunshot wounds to their legs.

Two other teens were wounded Friday afternoon -- a 15-year-old near North Avenue and Lorel Avenue in the Austin neighborhood and a 16-year-old near Western Avenue and Taylor Street in the Lawndale neighborhood...

How much of the violence in Chicago that occurs each night is authored by kids without fathers?

That's the question we should be asking. Only that question won't be asked and it won't be answered, because it indicts the Democrat Party's failed policies on a monumental scale.

How many dead, crippled and imprisoned inner-city youths has "Great Society" left in its wake? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Millions?

How many have died thanks to "the War on Drugs", "the War on Guns", and "the War on Poverty"? And how many more must die before we reverse course on the Democrats' failed welfare state policies and their catastrophic impact on the two-parent family?


Hat tip: Winterspirit.

Larwyn's Linx: Vultures

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

Vultures: Torch
AG Holder OK’d Vast Spying on Innocent American Citizens: Tatler
Adelson: Put aside social conservativism to reclaim America: Bookworm

Deepest Condolences: Bookwom
Gun-Free Zones Don't Deter Killers Intent on Using Guns To Kill People: Ace
The Left Wants to Play Games?: iOTW

Michelle Suggests Republicans are Liars: Dossier
D.C.: More Legal Guns, Far Fewer Murders, Despite Fearmongering: Reason
Activists rally for gun control at W.H.: Politico

Economy

Is the American Economy Being Deliberately Destroyed?: Loudon
Obama Voters See Hours Cut as Employers Avoid 'ObamaCare Bankruptcy': AllAm
Is The Fed Cruising Toward A Monetary Cliff?: IBD

No Way Out: Schiff
Obama nixes ending medical device Obamacare taxes: Moe Lane
Obama's Mortgage Modification Program A Colossal Flop: IBD

Scandal Central

Huge Victory for Election Integrity: JW
Dem. lawmaker: To get gun control, Obama must ‘exploit’ shooting: Times
Tweet of the Day: Instapundit

Climate & Energy

Has The Death Knell Just Sounded For The Warmies? The Leak Of The Draft IPCC Report: Howling
IPCC AR5 draft leaked, contains game-changing admissions: Watts
Here's an idea for cutting spending: End the Wind Industry Subsidy: Elephant

Media

On the Suffering of Innocents: First Things
ESPN Analyst Calls RGIII a ‘Cornball Brother’ Because He May Be a Republican: Corner
Ace continues media smack-down, calls out NYT for using progressive blog as source on Crowder assault: Twitchy

Rampage Shootings: It's the Moral Decay of Society, not Guns: Townhall
Boehner and Cantor’s ‘War on Conservatives’ Causes Exodus of Conservatives from the GOP: VA Right
Coming Together: Erickson

Flashback: Tough Gun Control Laws Failed To Prevent German School Slaughter of 2009: Ace
Snake Blights: JPA
12-14-12: Zilla

Steven Crowder Files Criminal Complaint Against Pro-Union Protester: NB
Ed Schultz: ‘Times Change,’ Stop ‘Hiding Behind The Second Amendment’: Mediaite

World

Rejection and terror: Same old Palestinian choices: Commentator
22 children slashed by knife-wielding adult at elementary school in China...: Courant
Four people set on fire during Denver assault...: Denver Channel

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue.com/Tech)

Ads in Internet Explorer Could Be Tracking Your Mouse: Gizmodo
Company's industrial heating system hacked via backdoor: NetSec
No matter how much you like your pretend internet name, it's a good idea to change it once in a while: Gizmodo

Cornucopia

On the Suffering of Innocents: First Things
Indiana Jones Mystery Package: University of Chicago Admissions
26 Moments That Restored Our Faith In Humanity This Year: BuzzFeed

Image: 15 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Star Trek
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Sweetness & Light

QOTD: One failed law is just the predicate for the next one.

...[Germany] had tough gun laws; they had a school shooting. They tightened those tough gun laws; they had another school shooting.

To state the obvious: A man intent on mass murder is not deterred by misdemeanor level possession/purchase laws. He's bound for prison or death by cop; he is not sweating the lesser laws he may break en route to a massive slaughter of children.

...Strict gun laws, loose gun laws: An intensely motivated lunatic is going to find a way to make his fantasy real. --Ace.

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Friday, December 14, 2012

BUT SHE HAD IT COMING: Chinese woman gets tasered for buying too many iPhones

Memo to self: don't buy too many iPhones at one time.

...local TV news stations in New England were having a field day Wednesday with blurry cellphone video of a tiny 44-year-old Chinese woman being held to the ground and tasered outside an Apple Store by a pair of Nashua, N.H., police.

Piecing together the accounts of the police, the woman's 12-year-old daughter and her American boyfriend, this is what led to the confrontation:

The woman, Xiaojie Li, a Chinese national who lives in Newton, Mass., bought two iPhone 5s last Friday at the Apple Store in Nashua's Pheasant Lane Mall and was told when she tried to purchase more that she'd reached Apple's two-per-customer limit. When she made a video of other customers she claimed had bought more than two units, Apple staffers asked her to leave.

She revisited the mall Tuesday to pick up two more iPhone 5s she had ordered online, but the store refused to sell them. The store manager asked her to leave -- a request she says she didn't understand. The manager then asked a police officer assigned to provide mall security to escort her out.

"The officer approached her, told her she wasn't welcome in the store, and she refused to leave," Nashua police captain Bruce Hansen told WCVB TV. He described the use of electroshock weapons as standard procedure when a subject refuses to obey a lawful order or resists arrest.

According to police, Li was carrying about $16,000 in cash when she was arrested. She said she was buying the phones for relatives in China. Even if she was an iPhone 5 reseller, her boyfriend told a WCVB reporter, "does it rise to the level of getting a beating from police?"

Li has been charged with two misdemeanors -- criminal trespass and resisting arrest.

Two questions:

(a) So "refusing to leave" is a Tasering offense?

and:

(b) has her boyfriend told Xiaojie (pronounced Chao-Che, as far as you know) about, eh, eBay??!


BUMMER: Most States Say No to Health Care Exchanges

Leftist tools hardest hit:

Facing Deadline, Most States Say No To Running Their Own Insurance Exchanges


The Obama administration will have to build and operate online health insurance markets for more than 30 states, something few expected when the federal health law was approved in 2010.

With today’s deadline hours away, only 18 states and the District of Columbia had proposed running their own insurance markets, also known as exchanges, a key vehicle under the law to expand health coverage to an estimated 23 million people over next four years.

“Most analysts did not anticipate that the federal government would end up playing such a big role in the operation of exchanges nationwide,” said Carolyn Pearson, a director at the Washington, D.C., consulting firm Avalere Health.

When President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, the option to have the federal government run the state markets was seen as a backstop. Administration officials have repeatedly said they hoped most states would run the markets themselves because they know their insurance markets best.

Most experts thought only states with small populations such as Delaware or Montana would seek federal help. Instead, most will rely on the federal government — including two of the most populous states, Texas and Florida, which together account for nearly 20 percent of nation’s uninsured. By law, the state exchanges must be approved by the federal government by Jan. 1, begin enrollment next October and have coverage take effect Jan. 1, 2014.

...For consumers, the new exchanges will operate similarly to online travel Internet sites Expedia and Orbitz in helping people compare benefits and prices. But the exchanges will also have broad powers to determine which plans are available and the types of benefits offered. They will also determine who is eligible for federal subsidies as well as Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for the poor.

Did you notice the two highlighted quotes?

By law, the state exchanges must ... have coverage take effect Jan. 1, 2014 - the federal government? Operating under a strict deadline? Hahahahhahahhahhhaa. Hold on, I'll get the popcorn.

For consumers, the new exchanges will operate similarly to online travel Internet sites Expedia and Orbitz... - Right. The new exchanges will operate like Internet startups forged in the crucible of brutal, daily competition -- something government, uhm, excels at.

The cluster that is Obamacare will be entertaining in one respect: betting how much of it collapses under its own weight as the central planners all scramble to avoid blame.


AETNA: Health Care Premiums to Double in 2014 Because of 20-oz. Soft Drinks and Obamacare, But Mostly Obamacare

Well, slap me silly and call me Susan.

Health insurance premiums may as much as double for some small businesses and individual buyers in the U.S. when the Affordable Care Act’s major provisions start in 2014, Aetna Inc. (AET)’s chief executive officer said.

While subsidies in the law will shield some people, other consumers who make too much for assistance are in for “premium rate shock,” Mark Bertolini, who runs the third-biggest U.S. health-insurance company, told analysts yesterday at a conference in New York. The prospect has spurred discussion of having Congress delay or phase in parts of the law, he said.

“We’ve shared it all with the people in Washington and I think it’s a big concern,” the CEO said. “We’re going to see some markets go up as much as as 100 percent..." Premiums are likely to increase 25 percent to 50 percent on average in the small-group and individual markets, he said, citing projections by his Hartford, Connecticut-based company.

And industry analyst Robert Laszewski confirms the assessment:

[F]or the vast majority of states there will be rate shock.

I can also tell you that, so far, I have detected no serious effort on the part of Democrats to delay anything. Frankly, I think hard core supporters of the new health law and the administration are in denial about what is coming.

I expect more health insurers to be echoing the Aetna comments in coming weeks.

Surprising, ain't it, considering no one even read the bill.

Obamacare needs to be crushed. Obliterated. By. Any. Means. Necessary.



Hat tip: The invaluable BadBlue News Service.

WORLD'S DUMBEST BLOGGER: My "Facts" About Gun Control Aren't Political, As Far As You Know

Last year, The Washington Post's Ezra Klein yanked the title of World's Dumbest Blogger from Matthew Yglesias.

Klein appears to be positioning himself to retain the title in 2013 by leaping into the gun control debate on the heels of the man-caused disaster at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Remember: we're not allowed to call evil by its rightful name, be it Islamofascism or plain psychopathy.

Klein's latest missive is as impressive a collection of lies, fables, half-truths and misdirection as you'll see in a single WaPo excretion. Consider a couple of clips:

If roads were collapsing all across the United States, killing dozens of drivers, we would surely see that as a moment to talk about what we could do to keep roads from collapsing. If terrorists were detonating bombs in port after port, you can be sure Congress would be working to upgrade the nation’s security measures. If a plague was ripping through communities, public-health officials would be working feverishly to contain it.

Only with gun violence do we respond to repeated tragedies by saying that mourning is acceptable but discussing how to prevent more tragedies is not.

I've got a better analogy: if increasingly easy access to welfare and food stamps offer incentives to rear children out of wedlock... and if those kids born out of wedlock are proven to commit violent crime at far higher rates than kids raised in two-parent familes... and if the correlation of welfare to violent crime had been proven in roughly two dozen studies... and if said correlation affected millions of kids... would Democrats finally abandon their failed "Great Society" policies that have literally turned inner cities into violent, crime-ridden wastelands?


Would Democrats repudiate their own destructive policies that condemn huge numbers of inner-city kids to lives of violence, death or prison?

I didn't think so.

States with stricter gun control laws have fewer deaths from gun-related violence.

Last year, economist Richard Florida dove deep into the correlations between gun deaths and other kinds of social indicators. Some of what he found was, perhaps, unexpected: Higher populations, more stress, more immigrants, and more mental illness were not correlated with more deaths from gun violence. But one thing he found was, perhaps, perfectly predictable: States with tighter gun control laws appear to have fewer gun-related deaths.

You mean like Illinois?

An Aurora Massacre occurs every 10 days in Chicago, the city with the strictest handgun restrictions in the U.S., located in the state with the strictest firearm restrictions in the country.

Like Washington DC, New York City, cities in Mexico, cities in Germany, and even London -- to name but a few -- "gun-free" cities are truly areas where the innocent are targeted by predators who have no intention of abiding by any law.

The masterminds who think they can banish evil from the world by banning guns must reject all of human history, as well as logic and reason, to promote their unconstitutional schemes.

Which is why Ezra Klein will almost certainly retain the title of the World's Dumbest Blogger next year.


Larwyn's Linx: Hiding the witnesses

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

Hiding the witnesses: This Ain't Hell
The Republicans Have Failed the Nation: RS
Republican Election Strategy 1 - Targeted Buy-Up: Howling

“Next Time We’ll Really Stick it to Obama”: RS
Republicans Do Have Leverage; Use It!: DLim
The Tales, Michigan, And Sociodynamics: Bastion

Time To Personally Demonize The Left Along Alinskyite Lines?: HayRide
Federalism could be the solution to GOP branding problem: RWN
Good News! Your permanent record is now available on demand: Hot Air

Economy

Unemployment Benefits for Illegal Aliens in Nearly Bankrupt California: MB
Obama's Tacit Approval of the violence in Michigan: AT
Obama's Tax-the-Scapegoat Strategy Is Doomed to Fail: IBD

Dear Losties: thanks for going broke on our behalf: Sensing
US average marginal effective tax rate about 40%?: Q&O
The Regulatory Cliff Facing Small Businesses: Elephant

Kettle, Meet Pot: MOTUS
The Numbers Don't Lie: IPI
Retailers smuggling cigarettes into Cook County: Marathon

Scandal Central

Remember when Obamacare was gonna save us thousands on our health insurance? Me neither: WyBlog
Marxist EPA Wants to Regulate Water As a Pollutant in Virginia: Sentinel
Washington, DC, Union President Convicted, Faces 183 Years in Prison: Foundry

Climate & Energy

Green Graveyard: 19 Taxpayer-Funded Failures: Foundry
New Report: Man-made Global Warming Is a Farce: NewAm
California Cap-and-Trade to Produce 14% of Projected Revenue: Breitbart

Media

The letter “D” & Liberal Belief the Ultimate Indulgence: DTG
Andrew McCarthy Responds to Mother Jones: GoV
Ace of Spades destroys media over union violence, Crowder attack embargo: Twitchy

Cardinal Dolan Slams Media Silence on Battle Over HHS Mandate: LifeNews
Mark Steyn on Unions: If a 1940s man were dropped in Detroit, he’d think Japan won WWII by nuking it: Scoop
Mobs taking over Washington Metro: Daley Gator

MSM: Go Away Conservative Media – We Have it Covered: Nice Deb
Re: Thunderdome Layoffs: Morrissey
Elizabeth Warren Not Chosen to Serve on the Committee on Indian Affairs?: Powers

World

Bachmann: ‘Game over’ for America if any dissent of Islam criminalized: Creeping
Great job, Hill: North Korea launches rocket of peace: Register
Are the progressives the greatest threat to liberty in America?: SpellCheck

Egypt Facing Economic Collapse?: TAB
MoH recipient Meyer injured in altercation: ArmyTimes
Israeli envoy warns against wearing yarmulkes in Copenhagen: JTA

Rice Withdraws; Secretary of State John Kerry Coming Soon?: Geraghty
What Really Sank Susan Rice?: AmSpec
Ex-Marine 'chained to a bed' in a Mexican prison as Obama, Hillary, and Democramedia remain silent: HySci

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue.com/Tech)

That proposed Internet regulation at the UN didn’t go over too well: Hot Air
Google: We Don’t Plan to Build Apps for WinPho8: Gizmodo
US jury says iPhone infringes on three MobileMedia patents: Verge

Cornucopia

12 of Wikipedia’s Greatest Sentences : MentalFloss
Obama Gangnam Style!: Dossier
Rethinking Hijab: C&S

Image: Marc Faber: "Paul Krugman Should Go And Live In North Korea"
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Blazingcatfur Legal Defense Fund Raising Drive

QOTD: "Sixteen Democratic senators who voted for the Affordable Care Act are asking that one of its fundraising mechanisms, a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices scheduled to take effect January 1, be delayed. Echoing arguments made by Republicans against Obamacare, the Democratic senators say the levy will cost jobs — in a statement Monday, Sen. Al Franken called it a "job-killing tax" — and also impair American competitiveness in the medical device field." --Daley Gator

Thursday, December 13, 2012

WAVOSAUR: A Tiny, Free Audio Editor

When it comes to software, no two words make the heart grow fonder than: (a) "tiny" and (b) "free".

A portable, full-featured audio editor that supports ASIO and VST FX in a mere 225KB download? Wavosaur is tight programming and then some. But despite its tiny footprint, this free audio editor has tons of features so you can change bit rates, convert, create and apply volume envelopes, cut, dice, slice, detect beats, normalize, and much more.

It's also very fast in applying those edits and non-destructive, which means you may undo your actions without reloading the original file.. What Wavosaur doesn't do is reverb, chorus, flange, and compress, etc. Instead, the program relies on VST effects plug-ins (Virtual Studio Technology, a standard from industry heavyweight Steinberg) for FX. That's no doubt part of the reason it's so efficiently-sized. You can find download links and listings of many free VST effects plug-ins on the Wavosaur website if you've none of your own.

Though somewhat Windows 95 in appearance, Wavosaur is extremely easy to use, fast, and efficient. Don't let shape-consciousness deter you... The Wavosaur interface is efficient, though a bit old-school in appearance. You can dock the numerous toolbars at the top or bottom of the editor window or detach them to float. It isn’t particularly pretty, but it gets the job done quite nicely.

Wavosaur is impressive, and for straight audio editing, it's amazingly powerful. Download it, even if it's just to see how small you can go when you write tight code.

If you do any audio work, PC World has the details and a download link.


Hat tip: BadBlue Tech News.