Blog
Violence
The 'Knockout Game'
On CNN, former boxer Mike Tyson said the violence made no sense.
“I just don’t know, maybe they’re just evil. There’s just some evil people,” he said.
Hugh T. Farley, a state senator in New York, is leading a drive to crack down. His “Knockout Game Deterrent Act,” sponsored with Assemblyman Ted Tedisco, could give anyone convicted of the crime more than 20 years in prison.
I have an idea. Offer the perp the option of going 3 rounds with Mike Tyson in exchange for earning 3 years probation; or, they can choose to do their 20 years hard time.
In areas that are not "gun-free zones", the problem will probably be resolved another way.
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2nd Amendment
Another one getting out of the kitchen
Facing a burgeoning recall effort from citizens in her district, Colorado State Senator Evie Hudak (D-Westminster) plans to resign before being recalled...
Hudak mocked recall efforts when they were first launched...
Hudak is the focus of recall efforts because of her unapologetic support for the same gun control legislation that launched the successful recalls of senators John Morse (D-Colo. Springs) and Angela Giron (D-Pueblo) in September.
A lesson learned the hard way. I suspect that her replacement will be pretty tight-lipped when it comes to civil rights of the 2nd Amendment kind.
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Violence
The Black Bored Jungle
If you are as old as I am, you probably remember the old B&W movie Blackboard Jungle—a movie that focused on juvenile delinquency in an urban environment. I don't see that term "juvenile delinquency" used much any more; is it not politically correct? Or doesn't mainstream society care any more? Is it really easier to let juvenile delinquency metastasize into major felony, and then treat the surviving juvenile as an adult, and then promote the miscreants into a penal system that is running out of room, a penal system that has become a felony "graduate school?" We can see what happens next.
On November 22, former congressman Allen West said that black leaders will remain quiet on 'knockout game' assaults because they don't help their 'race profiting' bottom line.
We are seeing an obvious attempt to deny the problem by some media and some politicians. I think that the liberal's are trying to hide from their failure, a failure of their social agenda, a failure that has left a segment of our population without hope of ever realizing the "American dream."
Who wouldn't become bored when they are caged and fed by godless socialism—kept isolated from a loving God at a stage in their life that has more questions than answers. Teenagers, left with no one to help them through that "nothing to do" stage of life, they are instead shoved into a welfare state with nothing to do. Doomed to a life of boredom—a life where anger and hostility abound.
We cannot successfully deal with "juvenile" problems without dealing with "adult" problems also. And it does no good to deal with these two problem's one at a time; they must be dealt with together. The word "together" is important!
In my opinion, we might successfully work our way through the Black Bored Jungle if people start paying more attention to the works of Booker T. Washington—and reject the works of W.E. B. Du Bois.
Socialism is a dead end street for everybody.
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Violence
Reports: Alleged trend of 'knockout game' a myth
"It may possibly be. It could be, but we don't know for sure at this time; I haven't seen any supporting data."
News outlets say there is no data to support notion that 'knockout game' is growing trend.
"We're trying to determine whether or not this is a real phenomenon," the news organization quotes New York police commissioner Raymond Kelly as saying. "I mean, yes, something like this can happen. But we would like to have people come forward and give us any information they have."
Incredible!
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History
Who is winning?
That fateful day in Dallas fifty years ago has been on everyone's mind lately.
In 1963, an adult could purchase a firearm almost anywhere in the United States—including mail order. Almost every hardware store sold guns and ammunition over the counter. No 'background check' was needed, or considered necessary, at that time. The only paperwork generated was a standard bill of sale. Even with the Chicago mob and their ilk, there was no nationwide worry about "gun violence."
Then along came Lee Harvey Oswald.
I was poking around in some old magazines and found an ad that appeared in the February 1963 Edition of one of the popular gun magazines that year. The ad had Mannlicher Carcano's, just like the one being held in the Dallas photo here, complete with 4x scope, listed for $19.95 and available for purchase through the mail. I miss the good old days.
Every time some nutcase or terrorist strikes, we loose a little more personal freedom. If it weren't for some cool heads, we would have lost all of our gun rights by now; as it stands, we're still in the heat of battle with those who want their Camelot sans personal responsibility.
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Presidential Yacht
'Honey Fitz'
In 1962, when I was stationed at USCG Base Cape May, NJ, JFK's yacht Honey Fitz spent some time at one of our piers. I was able to get a few pictures of how it looked then.
Mike Schuler at gCaptain has posted some pictures of what the yacht, now in private hands, looks like these days.
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Navigation
The Magenta Line
The director of NOAA's Office of Coast Survey invites interested parties to submit comments regarding whether to maintain a new or updated magenta line depicting an Intracoastal Waterway Route on Intracoastal Waterway nautical charts.
NOAA's Office of Coast Survey is asking for boaters' opinions as to whether NOAA charts should include the recommended route----referred to as the "magenta line"----for the Intracoastal Waterway.
In 1912, a series of eight nautical charts depicted a suggested route, called the "Inside Route," for navigating the waterway between New York and Texas. In 1936, these waters were resurveyed and recharted, but for the last 77 years little has been done to update the route. Therein lies the problem. The route now passes over shoals, obstructions, and shorelines, and passes on the wrong side of navigational aids, making the route potentially unsafe.
As a result, the Coast Survey is taking measures to address the problem, including removing the magenta line from new chart editions, repositioning the line where needed on current charts and publishing a Local Notice to Mariners (LNM) warning boaters to follow the aids to navigation.
The Coast Survey welcomes written comments on how mariners access and use the magenta line, and ideas on how NOAA should develop and update the route going forward. Comments will be taken until December 26, 2013.
The magenta line can be useful when 1.) the trackline information is accurate, and 2.) when there is a chart available for ready reference by the helmsman/navigator. If these two conditions are not met, the line might as well not be on the chart.
Navigation waste is hazardous waste, and a good example is the S/V Morning Dew case. From all indications, the crew of the Morning Dew intended to follow the magenta line, but missed a critical turn.
During the early morning hours of December 29, 1997, the 34-foot recreational sailing vessel Morning Dew struck the rock jetty on the north side of the shipping channel into the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. The owner/operator of the vessel and his three passengers, all members of the same family, died as a result of the accident. -NTSB
See the National Transportation Safety Board (PDF) report for a full description of the case.
For more information on the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) route, click here.
To participate in the Request for Comments, click here. Comments are due by midnight, December 26, 2013.
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Violence
Who is doing what to whom?
On October 25, 2013, Jeff Nesbit in an article about gun violence asked the question "is gun violence a public health epidemic?" I hope that Mr. Nesbit has read, or reads, Allie Bidwell's November 14, 2013 article in the same publication where she reports on a recent homicide study.
Andrew Papachristos, an associate professor of sociology at Yale, analyzed police and gun homicide records from 2006 to 2011 for people living in a high-crime neighborhood in Chicago. He found that 41 percent of all gun homicides occurred within a network of less than 4 percent of the neighborhood's population, and that the closer one is connected to a homicide victim, the greater that person's chances were for becoming a victim. Each social tie removed from a homicide victim decreased a person's odds of becoming a victim by 57 percent.
If gun violence is an epidemic, it's only because that one more word in our language has been redefined. The data in the Yale study agrees with some older and ongoing data published by the Baltimore Sun—as pointed out by Alan Korwin in his web article Gunshot Demographics.
Of course there will always be people who think that the gang-banger gun-homicide problem in Chicago and Baltimore can be solved by disarming the citizens of Colorado. However, after the recent recall election in Colorado, those people are not quite as outspoken.... At least that's an improvement.
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Violence
Feral Teenagers
The following video was captured from surveillance camera's in New Jersey. It has been reported that the number of incidents of this "knockout game" is growing. This is a good reason to be wary of groups of teenagers on the street.
2nd Amendment
The "Navigators"
The 2nd Amendment "Navigators" are, as of the end of last month, still outpacing the Obamacare "Navigators"—according to government "sales" statistics.
Maybe the Obamacare "Navigators" should have consulted the folks who set up the NICS system?
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Caution
Earth is a Hard Hat Area
New York Times - A European satellite that mapped Earth's gravitational field in exquisite detail will be pulled down by gravity to its fiery destruction sometime in the next few days. Where and when it will crash no one knows. It could be almost anywhere on the globe. About 25 to 45 fragments of the one-ton spacecraft are expected to survive all the way to the surface, with the largest perhaps weighing 200 pounds.
Track Europe's falling, 2,000-pound satellite in real-time
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Remembering the price of freedom
WWII Doolittle Raiders making final toast
I was 1 year old when 80 brave American's, led by James Harold Doolittle, volunteered for a mission to strike back at Imperial Japan following their attack on Pearl Harbor.
It's sad to think that that number 80 has dwindled to 4.
One of our local roads, here in the Florida panhandle, passes near the "makeshift carrier deck", where they practiced for the mission; when I pass that old airfield, I can't help but glance over at that runway and imagine those B-25 Mitchell's straining to get airborne. I'm sure that I'm not alone.
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Question
What do the following 23 people have in common?
Daniel Juarez – Hawthorne, CA
Patrick J. Morris – San Bernardino, CA
Richard A. Moccia – Norwalk, CT
Gow Fields – Lakeland, FL
Earnestine D. Pittman – East Point, GA
Nancy Chaney – Moscow, ID
Joshua J. Cohen – Annapolis, MD
Thatcher W. Kezer, III – Amesbury, MA
Linda M. Balzotti – Brockton, MA
James H. Suttle – Omaha, NE
Eric A. Spear – Portsmouth, NH
Lorenzo T. Langford – Atlantic City, NJ
Robert L. Bowser – East Orange, NJ
Mary Foster – Peekskill, NY
Thomas S. Richards – Rochester, NY
Robbie Perkins – Greensboro, NC
Jackie Holcombe – Morrisville, NC
Ted Andrzejewski – Eastlake, OH
Margaret D. Stock – Butler, PA
Pete Lagiovane – Chambersburg, PA
Bonnie Heath – Pottstown, PA
Ralph Harrington – West Elizabeth, PA
Mike McGinn – Seattle, WA
ANSWER: They were each one a city mayor and a member of Michael Bloomberg's Mayor's Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), prior to being defeated in the November 5th election.
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Veterans Day
Celebrating Unconditional Love
I came across this video on the internet recently, and it reminded me of the important role that some things play in our lives. It also reminded me of the time that I had to say goodbye to a good buddy that shared the biggest part of my first 14 years of life. It was a long time ago, and there have been several buddies since then; each one leaves a piece of their life with me, and each one takes a piece of mine with them.
As 'Veteran's Day' draws near, it is a time to remember that we have many veteran's who are in need of, and rely on, a "Service Dog" to provide for things in their life that we take for granted. It takes a tremendous amount of love, time, and money to prepare a young dog to become a service companion for an ailing veteran. Some of these needy veterans have recently lost their buddy, and are in need of a replacement companion.
Organizations such as Veterans Moving Forward (VMF) can use our help.
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Crime and Violence
One Man Street Patrol
Some very good advice in the following video. It augments the Broken Window Theory.
Violence, like fire, can break out anywhere that a critical quantity of the necessary elements coincide. We don't always have control over our environment; that's why we keep our extinguishers handy. But, the best way to deal with the problem is to keep the necessary elements from coming together in the first place—when we can.
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