Blog
Heading back to the cave?
Are Hieroglyphics The Perfect Social Media?
I know that I'm opinionated when I get thoughts like this: "Facebook" and "Twitter" both fall into the category of games—along with the aberration known as texting; "social media" seems to be designed for people who have A.D.D. and those who cannot write declarative sentences. Barring evidence of the contrary, readers of "social media" are often left wondering if they are dealing with an illiterate.
No twits allowed!
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Safety
It's a Dog's Life (Jacket!)
We practice man overboard recovery (MOR) on a regular basis; it's one of the skills that must be demonstrated before a sailor can become certified at the basic level.
But, what would you do if your dog were to fall overboard? Running the proper pattern to get back to the 'swimmer' can be the easy part compared to getting them back aboard a high-freeboard sailing vessel.
Getting a person back aboard is difficult even when the person is conscious and mobile and can assist in the recovery process.
In the case of a dog overboard, things will be much easier if the dog is wearing a flotation harness with a built-in web sling. Read more about it at the BoatU.S. Foundation.
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Navigation
Doppler Velocity Logs (DVL)
The messy task of cleaning knot meter paddle wheels is all too familiar to cruising sailors. On top of the mess, the paddle wheels become less accurate with time due to mechanical wear and marine growth. In the past, leeway measurement (the downwind vector) has been more of an art than a science. Technology is changing that.
Here's one example:
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Justice
More on the Trayvon Martin case
In police work, the investigation of cases like the shooting of Trayvon Martin begin with a presumption of innocence for all parties involved in the incident, whether they are alive or dead, and the matter must be diligently investigated; something to keep in mind if you are ever caught up in a self-defense shooting. It appears that the Sanford Police Department came to the correct initial conclusion when they made the decision to not charge George Zimmerman with a crime.
When the state brought in the showgirl prosecutor during the heat of rebellion, at the height of a mob call for a speedy conviction absent any request for a speedy trial—or even a hearing, it was obvious that the strategy was that of providing a controlled release of the truth in order to vent the explosive rhetoric that was generated by the press and others. The patent rush to judgement of George Zimmerman however had the distinct odor of Fish.
The facts of the case were sketchy at first, but there was enough data, such as the transcript of Zimmerman's phone call to the police and eyewitness reports, to support 'educated' conjecture, for anyone experienced in these matters, about what really happened. That conjecture is slowly being verified with the release of more facts.
According to NBC News, the multipage autopsy says that Martin was "killed by a penetrating gunshot wound to the chest," with the entrance wound "located on his left chest 17 inches below the head. The single bullet passed directly from the front to the back, through his lungs, creating perforations." The only injuries to Martin are from the gunshot and to one knuckle, "a quarter-inch to one-eighth inch abrasion on the fourth finger in the ring area."
The gunshot wound entrance was from a bullet fired from "intermediate range," or two to four inches, "a soot ring abrasion and a two-inch by two-inch area of stippling" on his body.
Trace evidence supports Zimmerman's and most of the "eyewitness" claims.
It was also reported that THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) was found in Martin's blood. THC is the main active ingredient in the psychotropic drug cannabis, or marijuana. It was reported that Martin had been expelled from school for possessing paraphernalia. Studies support the fact that marijuana use leads to sociopathic behavior. We'll never know for sure if that was what prompted Martin's behavior, but it's certainly a possibility.
It's possible that Florida's "stand your ground" law may yet be invoked in this case. In any case, there has been much debate about the legal concept of "stand your ground" laws in general. I'll say again that I believe "stand your ground" law to be good law because it puts the burden where it belongs—and it protects innocent people from having to defend themselves from unmerited civil litigation. It would be a pity to see good law suffer because of an impetuous reaction to this, or any other, incident.
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Never Mind...
'Born in Kenya': Obama's Literary Agent Misidentified His Birthplace in 1991
According to a promotional booklet produced by the agency, Acton & Dystel, to showcase its roster of writers, Obama was "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii."
"This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me--an agency assistant at the time," Goderich wrote in an emailed statement to Yahoo News. "There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii. I hope you can communicate to your readers that this was a simple mistake and nothing more."
Culture
Knock Knock...
"I needa job"
"What is your skill?"
"Duh"
"Sorry, we have no vacancy in that department"
There is no better evidence of the fact that quantity does not equal quality than this; in the age of non-stop texting and tweeting, the younger generation is loosing their writing skill. As a society, it appears that we are headed back to hieroglyphics.
Passing score lowered for FCAT Writing exam
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -The Board of Education decided in an emergency meeting Tuesday to lower the passing grade on the writing portion of Florida's standardized test after preliminary results showed a drastic drop in student passing scores.
Is lowering the difficulty of testing the correct way to deal with this problem?
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Culture
For the person who has everything...
A special gift for the guy who annoyingly brags that he has never had trouble with the TSA screeners.
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Now we know why the South lost the war
They drink way too much sweet tea down here!
Sugar Can Make You Dumb, US Scientists Warn
Eating too much sugar can eat away at your brainpower, according to US scientists who published a study Tuesday... "Our findings illustrate that what you eat affects how you think," said Gomez-Pinilla. "Eating a high-fructose diet over the long term alters your brain's ability to learn and remember information.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out..
This week in Guns & Patriots...
There are reports out of South Korea in the Korea Times, and other outlets, that the long M-1 Garand hostage crisis will be over before June 25. As it stands right now, the South Korean defense ministry is warehousing tens of thousands of surplus M-1's from the 1950s. There were plans to sell the weapons to buyers in the United States.
Absent a change of heart from the State Department's import license office, there is a bill pending in both chambers of Congress that could solve the problem for all time. Rep. Cynthia Lummins (R.-Wyo.) and a mirror bill sponsored by Sen. Jon Tester (D.-Mont.) would amend the Arms Export Control Act to fix the problem through legislation.
The bill, H.R. 615, would declare weapons older than 50 years-old as "curio and relic" pieces. The effect would be to remove both the State and Defense department from any role in regulating guns already regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The bill is not likely to reach the president's desk, but that is not the point. The threat of the bill reaching the Senate floor for a vote – with more than 20 Democrats up for re-election, is a powerful one.
The pressure on the administration to approve the liberation of these hostage M-1's continue to build, not just from Congress and potential American purchasers. The South Koreans need to upgrade their weapons inventory as their neighbor to the North gets jumpy and bumpy.
Read the whole article at the Guns & Patriots website.
Culture
You didn't think teenager's are deadly?
Crime stats support the fact that feral teenagers can be deadly, but how about the domesticated variety? Thanks to a recent AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety study, we can make an educated guess at the answer to that question.
For generations, teenagers have been the most dangerous drivers on the road, crashing almost four times as often as older drivers. A study released Tuesday quantifies, for the first time in a decade, how their risk of a fatal crash multiplies when they have other teenagers in the car. According to the AAA study:
A 16 or 17-year-old driver’s fatality risk:
Increases 44 percent when carrying one passenger younger than 21 (and no older passengers)
Doubles [increases 100 percent] when carrying two passengers younger than 21 (and no older passengers)
Quadruples [increases 400 percent] when carrying three or more passengers younger than 21 (and no older passengers)
This report makes me think of the July 2009 incident where 5 teens died instantly when they sped around stopped traffic at a crossing gate and were met by an Amtrak locomotive. Guess who wins all of those encounters...
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Satire
Why Wrigley Field Must Be Destroyed
Lampooning the environment.... How hope sometimes evolves.
...with a special message for Steve Bartman and George Zimmerman—and everyone else:
"...sometimes the wind blows in and sometimes it blows out, and the only constant is disappointment."
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Law
Firearms Law and the Second Amendment
The 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on December 15, 1791. Then, for the next 217 years, a hodgepodge of laws and rules were enacted that infringed on the civil right that it guaranteed. Then, in 2008 and 2010, two Supreme Court cases on the Second Amendment, District of Columbia v. Heller, and McDonald v. Chicago nullified much of the infringement and stimulated widespread interest in the "palladium right" that is guaranteed by the Constitution.
In March 2012, Aspen Publishers, along with author's Nicholas J. Johnson, David B. Kopel, Michael P. O'Shea, and George Mocsary introduced the first law school textbook that specifically focuses on the subject of the 2nd Amendment. Copies are available at Amazon.com.
Co-author David Kopel, in a series of chapter-by-chapter audio (Mp3) interviews with Justin Longo of iVoices.org, explains the research and depth of coverage of this new book: Chapter One (An introduction to firearms laws and firearms function) , Chapter Two (Antecedents of the Second Amendment: From Confucius to the British Whigs), Chapter Three (The Colonies and the Revolution), Chapter Four (A closer look at the verbiage and meaning behind the words used in the Second Amendment), Chapter 5. (The Early Republic, and the Antebellum Era.), with more to follow.
There is also a free public website that provides additional resources, including suggested topics for student research papers, a comprehensive list of published law review articles and ALR Annotations on arms-law topics, and links to numerous Internet resources on firearms law and policy.
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Education
Gun Facts Version 6.1 Released
Guy Smith has updated his popular and valuable resource Gun Facts.
Gun Facts is a free e-book that debunks common myths about gun control. It is intended as a reference guide for journalists, activists, politicians, and other people interested in restoring honesty to the debate about guns, crime, and the 2nd Amendment.
Gun Facts has 112 pages of information. Divided into chapters based on gun control topics (assault weapons, ballistic finger printing, firearm availability, etc.), finding information is quick and easy.
Each chapter lists common gun control myths, then lists a number of documented and cited facts (with nearly 500 detailed footnotes). Thus when a neighbor, editor or politician repeats an erroneous sound bite about firearms, you can quickly find the truth of the matter.
Economy
The economy isn't completely in the tank...
FIREARMS SALES SURGE IN WISCONSIN . . . Since the state's concealed carry law went into effect last November, permit applications and firearms sales have been surging in Wisconsin, according to a story in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Steve Lauer, owner of Lauer Custom Weaponry, a manufacturer of firearms, coatings and accessories in Chippewa Falls, said, "It's incredible. We can hardly keep up." Use of the state's background check hotline is at record pace. Anti-gun groups trying to downplay Americans' rising interest in gun ownership use the weak argument that those buying guns in Wisconsin (and nationally) are simply adding to their collections, but Kevin Nugent, owner of the Shooters Shop in West Allis, says otherwise. "We're seeing a lot of new shooters and a lot of women shooters," said Nugent, whose business is up 20 to 30 percent.
RUGER SALES JUMP 49 PERCENT IN FIRST QUARTER . . . Sturm, Ruger & Co. (NYSE:RGR) reported that first-quarter sales were up 49 percent compared to the same period the previous year. Said CEO Michael Fifer, "New product introductions were a significant component of our sales growth as new product sales represented $40.8 million or 37 percent of sales in the first quarter of 2012." Ruger's results again beat Wall Street expectations. The company has beaten the Zacks Consensus Estimate in seven of the last seven quarters.
ATK SALES UP 12 PERCENT IN SECURITY AND SPORTING GROUP . . . ATK (NYSE:ATK) reported that fourth-quarter sales were up 12 percent in its Sporting and Security Group, which includes ammunition for law enforcement, military and sporting applications as well as optics, reloading gear and sport-shooting and tactical accessories. For the full year, Security and Sporting group sales were up 8 percent compared to the previous year.
Law
What makes a regulation reasonable?
A 04 May 2012 article on Newsmax by Martin Gould and Kathleen Walter includes an interview of Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz who stated:
“There is a right under the Constitution, under the Second Amendment, to have guns for self-defense and for family protection and presumably for hunting, but reasonable regulations of such guns are the essence of a free society.”
In a free society, self-regulation is the most reasonable regulation, and it's achieved the old fasioned way—with discipline. Our Justice System should concentrate on dealing with the feral element who expect to enjoy freedom without discipline or responsibility.
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Navigation
Things that go bump in the night...
I suspect that almost every sailor uses GPS these days; even though we can get by without it, it sure makes standing a navigation watch easy compared to the old methods.
I tell my students that GPS is a $12 billion Satellite Navigation System that will show them precisely where they have run aground! The point being that GPS is a navigational aid, not a navigator. Somebody still has to take responsibility to continuously monitor and check the vessel's position and progress. For whatever reason, it looks like the crew of Aegean failed to do that.
I don't know if we will ever know for sure what happened, but I suspect that an autopilot was doing the steering as tracking data shows the vessel following a straight course into a stone cliff.
Machines are fickle things. Just as your favorite gun would as soon put a hole in you as it would a target, your autopilot would just as soon steer you into a cliff as a channel—If you let them.
Not a good way to end a cruise.
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Navigation
Navigation Waste Is Hazardous Waste!
"The data show the Aegean sailed for more than three hours the night of April 27 and into the next morning on a constant course and speed heading straight for North Coronado Island.
“That line points to the island,” Burwell said. “One of the possible scenarios is the boat impacted the northern Coronado Island.”
Two of the sailors killed in the crash died of blunt-force injuries, while a third crewman drowned, coroners reported. A witness who saw the damaged boat reported it looked like it had been put through a blender."