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In breaking news, the U.S Chamber of Commerce, referring to Massachusetts’s U.S. Senate candidate Professor Elizabeth Warren, says the following: “No other candidate in 2012 represents a greater threat to free enterprise than Professor Warren.”
Now we read that Professor Warren wants to renew the federal assault weapons ban. I am not at all certain that the professor even knows what an assault weapon is.
A true assault weapon, like the Colt M-16, is a military rifle that is not sold to citizens. A semi-automatic rifle, like the Colt AR-15, is sold to citizens and is netiher a fully automatic weapon nor an assault weapon. If you want to check out real assault weapons, watch Black Hawk Down. In the movie, Delta operators are seen firing assault weapons, including the Colt 727 and 733. So even labeling the original Firearms Act of 1994 an assault weapons ban was simply silly.
Moreover the features on the weapons that were banned kept few personal defense experts up at night. When you’re talking personal defense, pistol grips, folding stocks, bayonet mounts, flash suppressors, and grenade launchers just don’t figure in. I don’t know about you, but I sure don’t plan on racing around my property at night in fixed bayonet position launching grenades. In truth I wouldn’t mind a flash suppressor, but that’s another day’s story.
OK then, so from the beginning the guns that were on the government’s banned list were, for any citizen involved in home security, in large measure non-starters, as they should have been. All of the research I have read following a lifting of the 1994 ban offered nary a shred of evidence that the ban accomplished a thing. The types of weapons banned are rarely used in gun crimes. The University of Pennsylvania’s Jerry Lee Center of Criminology found no significant evidence that the misnamed assault weapons ban reduced gun murders.
The most detailed scholarship on gun crimes has undoubtedly been conducted by John R. Lott, Jr., an empirical researcher. Mr. Lott’s research found no impact on violent crime rates from the assault weapons ban. In fact, Mr. Lott’s studies indicated a slight increase in murder rates. John believes that if all non-felon American citizens took the NRA gun safety course and carried a concealed weapon, crime rates would plummet. In his highly acclaimed More Guns Less Crime, Mr. Lott writes, “Allowing citizens to carry concealed handguns reduces violent crimes, and the reductions coincide very closely with the number of concealed-handgun permits issued…. Mass shootings in public places are reduced when law-abiding citizens are allowed to carry concealed handguns.”
As a long time researcher, advocate and practitioner of personal security, I can assure voters that assault rifle scare tactics and misinformation from political opportunists like Professor Warren clash not only with reality but also wth the historical record.
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Rhode Island, like most states, is on the hedge fund band wagon. General Treasurer Gina Raimondo invested $900 million of the public pensions with the hedgies. She argues that it will reduce risk and help meet investment returns of 7.5%. Good luck with that.
Raimondo was quoted as saying she’s more focused on the downside than the upside. I called her office to discuss this with her. I have yet to get a return call.
What’s jaw-dropping is that she assigned the work to 19 separate hedge funds. Is that what she means by reducing risk? How thoroughly could these 19 funds have been vetted? How many meetings did she have to attend to get the list down to 19?
Having spent time working on the institutional side of the business, I know that most of these meetings end with “let’s have a follow-up meeting.” And I reviewed the minutes from the meetings. The presentations are like fingernails on a chalkboard. I’d have the patience for maybe one of them. It’s like sending 19 boats alongside the Titanic.
Can you imagine the rat’s nest of trades and positions, dealing with 19 hedge funds? Come on, people. Talk about the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. If these guys can’t even manage a gaming company run by a retired Red Sox pitcher, how well are they going to do watching over 19 hedge funds?
And hedgies don’t work for free. They have their yachts to pay for, with taxpayers forking over the 2 and 20. Hedge funds’ annual take is 2% of the assets they manage and 20% of the profits, if there are any. And if you pay the fees and then they lose the profits, don’t expect to see your fee returned.
Hedge funds make my skin crawl. They don’t invest. They gamble. With pensions, it’s gambling with other people’s money. Treasurer Raimondo is a fiduciary. As such, she should reconsider the risks and fees. I don’t like hedge fund investing for anyone who can’t afford to lose money. There is a reason only accredited investors are allowed to invest in hedge funds on an individual basis: they can afford to lose money. Pensioners cannot. This is not an area for public pensioners who depend on this money for their survival.
State treasurers will explain that they’re reducing risk based on textbooks and price theory models. But sometimes models don’t work. Real-estate prices were not supposed to fall. They were not supposed to be closely correlated to the stock market. But it turns out that in panics, everything is correlated—to the exit signs. That’s something you don’t learn in a textbook. Rhode Islanders should be outraged.
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According to Israel’s Channel 10 (as summarized by The Times of Israel), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is determined to attack Iran before the US elections.” There is ample support among neoconservatives in the United States to back such an attack with U.S. military power, but a reality check is in order.
Pat Buchanan, in response to an article by Weekly Standard contributor and Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior fellow, Reuel Marc Gerecht, calling Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei The Most Dangerous Man in the World, asks, “But what exactly are we to fear? And what is the imperative for war now on Iran, for which this piece beats the drum?”
Buchanan compares the unproven threat from Iran to the long list of much worse adversaries the U.S. has previously faced.
Khamenei has declared that nuclear weapons are immoral and Iran will never acquire them. Is Islamic Iran’s supreme religious leader lying through his teeth? Where is the proof? Where is the hard evidence?
Sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies stated unanimously in 2007 and reaffirmed in 2011 their conviction that Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons program. In the Standard piece, John Sawyer, head of the British Intelligence Service MI-6, “flatly stated in July that we have two years left before the Iranians can build a weapon.”
And if we should fear this most dangerous man in the world, why do not the Iraqis, Turks, Azerbaijanis and Pakistanis, his neighbors, seem to fear him? The Paks, with scores of nukes, seem less nervous about Iran than democratic India, with whom they have fought several wars.
Before now it has been Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who was the incarnation of Hitler. But Ahmadinejad’s eight years in office are up next summer, and he is reportedly going back to teaching.
For all his bellicosity, how many wars did Ahmadinejad fight?
When was the last time Iran started any war?
On Al-Quds Day, Wednesday, an annual event since the 1979 revolution, Khamenei reportedly said he was confidant “the fake Zionist (regime) will disappear from the landscape of geography.”
Yes, and Nikita Khrushchev said, “We will bury you,” and, “Your grandchildren will live under communism.” And we buried him, and his grandchildren saw the end to communism.
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 DARPA autonomous surface vessel to track and follow enemy subs for months.
The growing number of adversaries able to build and operate quiet diesel electric submarines is a national security threat that affects U.S. and friendly naval operations around the world. To address this emerging threat, DARPA recently awarded a contract for Phases 2-4 of its Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) program to Science Applications International Corporation, McLean, Va.
During Phases 2-4 the ACTUV program will attempt to design, construct and demonstrate an unmanned vessel that tracks quiet diesel electric submarines for months at a time spanning thousands of kilometers of ocean with minimal human input.
“Key features and technology for the vessel include advanced software, robust autonomy for safe operations in accordance with maritime laws, and innovative sensors to continuously track the quietest of submarine targets,” said Scott Littlefield, DARPA program manager.
If successful, ACTUV would create a technological strategic advantage against the burgeoning quiet submarine threat and reduce manpower and other costs associated with current ASW trail operations.
“Our goal is to transition an operational game-changer to the Navy,” said Littlefield. “This should create an asymmetry to our advantage, negating a challenging submarine threat at one-tenth their cost of building subs. The program also establishes foundational technologies for future unmanned naval systems.”
During Phase 1 the program refined and validated the system concept, completing risk reduction testing associated with submarine tracking sensors and maritime autonomy. Operational prototype at-sea testing is expected in mid-2015.
Source: DARPA
Recent News: Undetected Russian nuclear sub ‘patrolled Gulf of Mexico’ - August 15th, 2012
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The battle over requiring voter identification is heating up around the country, especially in battle ground states where candidates often win by slim margins.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), five states including Kansas, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Georgia have implemented a “strict photo” voter ID law. Another six states including Florida, Michigan, Louisiana, South Dakota, Hawaii and Idaho have “photo” voter ID laws. NCSL explains the difference between “strict photo” and “photo” laws on its web site. “In the ‘strict’ states, a voter cannot cast a valid ballot without first presenting ID. Voters who are unable to show ID at the polls are given a provisional ballot. Those provisional ballots are kept separate from the regular ballots. If the voter returns to election officials within a short period of time after the election (generally a few days) and presents acceptable ID, the provisional ballot is counted. If the voter does not come back to show ID, that provisional ballot is never counted.” An additional 19 states have some form of ID requirement for voters, including the swing states of Ohio, Virginia, Missouri and Colorado. If you believe voter fraud is a myth, check out the web site of the Republican National Lawyers Association, which catalogues voter fraud attempts. The site lists dozens of organized and individual attempts at voter fraud that have taken place just this year. That’s quite a few given that election day is still months away. For a longer list of voter fraud incidents that the RNLA has catalogued over the last decade, click here.
In Florida, Governor Rick Scott is taking a proactive approach to combat voter fraud. The state is famous for its close presidential vote in 2000 that led to a Supreme Court battle over recounting. With margins so tight, it is imperative that illegal voting be flushed out and eliminated. After initially denying Florida access to the Systematic Verification for Entitlement Program database, the federal government has relented. Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner will now proceed with the state’s attempt to confirm the identities of some questionably registered voters.
Vote fraud, even on a small scale, harms Americans by diluting their most powerful right. It must be prevented.
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Human Events’ John Hayward details an election model that predicts a landslide win for the Romney/Ryan ticket in November.
Professors Ken Bickers and Michael Berry, of the University of Colorado, have a system for predicting the Electoral College outcomes of presidential races. Their model has accurately forecast the winner of every presidential race since 1980. According to an article published by UC-Boulder, they even got the Perot-flavored election of 1992, and the Bush-Gore photo finish in 2000, right.
This year, the Bickers-Berry model shows Mitt Romney winning with 320 electoral votes to Obama’s 218, with a 20-vote margin of error. A popular vote margin of 53-47 percent in Romney’s favor is predicted.
Read the full article by clicking here.
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