12 Thursday Jul 2018
Posted in Other Columns
≈ Comments Off on Fly The Friendly Rails?
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The concept of a “flying train” is floated in France.
I like this (yes, Perrin likes some tech) because it’s an interesting multi-use and it could possibly prevent crash fatalities. The tube will likely be made from light composite. In the event of a certain crash, the tube fuselage could detach from the wing rig and parachute down safely. That’s my idea; don’t necessarily look for it.
Interesting.
11 Wednesday Jul 2018
Posted in Legal/Political Columns
Or, maybe it really is homegrown. If everyone everywhere is an American, then the proposition of America must extend to the four corners. Hmm. Regardless, we’re getting more activity:
Jihadist threats from homegrown terrorists in America continue to increase each month, with at least nine foreign born individuals living in the United States arrested or convicted in June of attempting to launch attacks on behalf of ISIS and other global terrorist organizations, according to newly released information by Congress.
“Cases of homegrown Islamist extremism in the U.S. continue to be an issue of concern,” according to the House Homeland Security Committee’s monthly report of terrorism in America, which has been tracking an increase in homegrown jihadists for some time. “Since 2013, there have been 154 homegrown jihadist cases in the United States” from at least 30 different states.
The information highlights the ongoing threat posed by rogue jihadists influenced by international terror groups, but not necessarily directly tied to them, which makes these would-be attackers more difficult to track for federal authorities.
Homegrown foreign-born individuals. See the confusion?
Not to worry; we’re assured all of this is offset by a solid boost to the GDP.
Da Gubmint.
Sadly, there will be no TPC article this week. This may have to stand in.
10 Tuesday Jul 2018
Posted in Legal/Political Columns
I love Boston. I really do. The Union Oyster House. Sam Adams. Looking a Red Sox fan in the face and saying, “It’s just a game.” Hitting I-93 North as hard and fast as possible. There’s all that history.
Yet, sometimes I pause to wonder about the future. Now is one of those times. Boston City Council President Andrea Campbell proposes giving non-citizens the right to vote in City elections:
Non-U.S. citizens living in the country legally may one day be allowed to vote in Boston elections.
The City Council is holding a hearing Tuesday on the idea at the request of Council President Andrea Campbell. The council is considering ways to make city elections more inclusive, including allowing immigrants with legal status in the country the right to vote in municipal races.
I’m a little upset about this “legal status” requirement, honestly. And why do they have to live in the country? Are not all 7 Billion people on the planet Americans? Bostonians? It’s not very inclusive to deny them their voices. I’m sure there’s a real new American, in Haiti or Uruguay or somewhere, just itching to write in Vladamir Putin or Theresa May as a replacement for Andrea Campbell. Is this not just?
Keep an eye on this. And look for it to spread regardless of how they handle it in Bean Town.
2033.
09 Monday Jul 2018
Posted in Other Columns
≈ Comments Off on Baking Cookies
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I’ve lately noticed the following annoying popup on MY site:
It appears even when I’m in WP-edit mode. So, I assume it’s there for all of you as well.
This is strictly a WordPress affair and not mine. Their Policies.
Some of that is technical and some of it is now technically/legally required – especially concerning the new EU regs. I don’t use deliberately cookies (I understand some are in the background for operations) and I wouldn’t know how even if I wanted to. My policy on the EU is clear: it is evil; abolish it immediately.
There. Now, enjoy real cookies:*
*Cookies may not be real.
08 Sunday Jul 2018
Posted in Other Columns
≈ Comments Off on The Robot Wars: Know When to Fold ‘Em
A California casino rolls out the ED209s to make guests feel a little more secure.
A growing number of hotels have begun employing robots to deliver towels, toothpaste and other items to guests — an addition viewed primarily as a novelty to appeal to tech-loving travelers.
But less than a year after the mass shooting near a Las Vegas hotel, a Southern California casino resort has added camera-wielding robots to enhance security.
Considering what Stephen Paddock Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was able to do alone, imagine what these mechanical monsters could accomplish in concert.
The bad news: this exact model has previously maimed a small child.
The good news: “feeling” guilt over its crime the maiming unit “committed suicide.”
Also, these things must have a higher center of gravity. It seems that a hard kick is enough to tip them over and leave them helpless as a toppled turtle. I imagine the guts and the battery are center mass. Aim there and fire until the thing stops moving entirely or starts smoking.
Time may be running out…
“Beep, beep. Kill humans.” The low roller. Pechanga.
08 Sunday Jul 2018
Posted in Legal/Political Columns
Tags
This could be the most amazing story of the week. The federal empire regulates almost everything. Everything. Including measurements and sizes. They regulate bank deposits. And bullet calibers. And rural telephone lines. And who flys what over other countries. And the volume of toilet tanks. And “short” lobsters (whom, I think, prefer to be called “little” lobsters…).
With all this regulatin’, it’s a wonder that they are bowing out of the opportunity to regulate airline seat sizes. Not their problem, they say…
Cramped cabins, knocked knees, aggrieved elbows: all real problems for today’s flyers. But the Federal Aviation Administration has said they aren’t its problems — announcing Tuesday that it will not regulate airline seat size and legroom.
The decision came in the form of a letter responding to a lawsuit brought by the group Flyers Rights.
Flyers Rights said that shrinking seats, which it calls sardine seats, present an issue during emergency evacuations, especially as larger passengers could struggle to get out of the seats in a hurry.
After Passenger Dragging Last Year, Airlines Improved Performance
But the FAA said that current seat size is not a safety issue.
This is an outrage. You, Mr. John Q. Flyboy, should write to whatever snake-oil, con artist “represents” you in Congress!
Or, just laugh with Carlin:
Carlin/YT.
06 Friday Jul 2018
Posted in Legal/Political Columns
≈ Comments Off on Civil Sanctuary in an Uncivil Society
Tags
2033, California, decline, invasion, law, murder, Roe v. Wade, society, Trump
As I predicted a few months ago, efforts by the Trump administration to arrest the invasion by means of civil lawsuits, continue to go nowhere. A federal judge rejected (most of) the government’s case against California and its “sanctuary” laws:
A federal judge on Thursday rejected the bulk of a Trump administration demand to block three California sanctuary laws, allowing the state to keep in place its most significant legislative measures aimed at countering President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
Sacramento-based U.S. District Court Judge John Mendez rejected, for now, the Justice Department’s drive to halt a California law that limits the kinds of immigration-related information state and local law enforcement can share with federal officials. The judge also declined DOJ’s request to block another law guaranteeing California officials certain information about local and privately run jails that hold immigration detainees in the Golden State.
While the ruling is a setback for the Trump administration’s attempt to enforce immigration laws in states where leaders favor more liberal policies, Mendez did block parts of one of the disputed California laws, including provisions that banned private employers from voluntarily cooperating with immigration officials and from re-verifying the legal work status of employees.
Mendez, an appointee of President George W. Bush, took a narrow view of state and local governments’ obligations to allow their employees to assist federal immigration officials. He said California had broad authority to limit use of its resources for immigration enforcement.
“Refusing to help is not the same as impeding,” wrote Mendez.
Mendez is probably right about the refusals. And it’s good he rebuked the State’s criminal efforts to interfere with private enterprise. This really isn’t even a setback, being, in fact – as noted above, predictable. Speaking of criminal,
I’m confident there are incidents here and there where the refusals do turn to obstruction. In those cases, there is a ready remedy: 18. U. S. C. 1324. I almost tire of noting this law. Does no one in the DOJ have a copy of the USC or USCA? Maybe a direct letter to Trump is in order.
And, along with the lines of legal cracks, I couldn’t help but notice some are forming in the defense of the baby murder industry. NBC tries to reassure the hellish about their continued practices while roundaboutly admitting the failings of the cause.
Abortion will likely not be illegal in 20 states within 18 months. A new justice will certainly create a new balance on the court. Retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy was the fulcrum, now Chief Justice John Roberts is the median vote. But Roe will not be overturned just because there may be a new conservative majority on the court after President Donald Trump, who is set to announce his nominee on Monday, replaces Kennedy.
There are arguments for overturning Roe v. Wade. It was decided in 1973 on a shaky justification: The privacy right to an abortion does not explicitly appear in the Constitution, but it essentially radiates from the glow (the “penumbra”) of its text. Controversial when it was decided, the reasoning in Roe remains as controversial today.
In law schools, they actually teach that to properly read the Constitutional justification for things like Roe, one needs to wear x-ray goggles. Really. Maybe one should shoot up some drain cleaner too.
It’s not shaky, it’s just wrong. If the authority isn’t specifically granted the US, via the Old Parchment, then it is necessarily reserved to the States or to the People. “Liberty interests” were understood and defined in 1787 and they did not include any right to commit murder.
It’s a little funny and a little telling that they don’t even bother addressing the other justification – the allegedly inconclusive medical science part. That was specious at best 45 years ago. Today it’s a dead letter. Dead enough to kill the stare decisis surrounding this modern day Dred Scott.
Not that most care. Most wouldn’t even know what I’m talking about here if they could be diverted for a second from the potato chips and televisions. Some are too concerned about not separating a few thousand children, already separated by their criminal parents, to care about the killing of millions of other children. “Eff them.” Right? Yet others are too busy protesting other aspects of civil society while feigning self-serving outrage about this, that, and the other useless thing. Others … you get the point.
Tick, tick, tick.
2033
05 Thursday Jul 2018
Posted in Legal/Political Columns, News and Notes
≈ Comments Off on Harvard’s Secret ‘Special Sauce’
The Crimson have a lot riding on their defense in a particular lawsuit (filed by Asian students alleging racial discrimination in admissions). The revealing or keeping of this important trade secret (it’s probably politically correct racism, BTW) will affect other groups of potential students.
“Colleges are looking for a student who, yes, is bright” and has a resume full of traditional accomplishments, like leading the student government or an athletic team, said Mimi Doe, the co-founder of College Admissions Consultants, an independent college counseling service. “But they’re also looking for a student who can add that special sauce to a campus.”
I didn’t make up the sauce part.
Of course, there is some publicly available information about what’s required to get into a top college, such as average standardized test scores and grade-point averages. But meeting that criteria will only get students in the door, Doe said. Harvard could admit several classes worth of students with essentially perfect academic credentials. Of the roughly 26,000 domestic applications Harvard received for the class of 2019, 3,500 had perfect SAT math scores, 2,700 had perfect SAT verbal scores, more than 8,000 had a perfect GPA and nearly 1,000 received a perfect composite score on the SAT or ACT, according to court documents. The incoming class had about 1,600 spots.
The nation’s “top” college has 1,600 spots. And they say the first trait they look for is brightness. So … they have, any given year, several times as many bright applicants as the number of available slots. Surely all of the newbies will be drawn from those highest echelons of SAT and GPA performance, right? There has to be some sauce somewhere amid 1,600 young people.
The secret – like it’s really a secret – is that they draw from outside, from below, the top applicants in search of that very special and very secret sauce. (“Special sauce” is about as lame of cover for discrimination as “tasty ethnic food” is for the wholesale destruction of Western civilization). Given the money at stake, this secret could have huge ramifications. Also, given that anyone even of plain sauce variety can grasp what’s going on, there’s the loss of credibility.
There’s a good reason why Trump is pushing to abolish race-based college admissions.
And, since Harvard have moved onto the incredible and they want sauce, then they should launch a special recruitment drive to get this guy to attend. Just think of what fun and excitement he’d add. I’m sure his SAT is close enough…
Gooseberry Patch.
05 Thursday Jul 2018
Posted in News and Notes
≈ Comments Off on You Get What You Pay For
Paul Brandus does a pretty good job of summing up America’s standing one-fifth of the way through the 21st Century. He touches on several important subjects. However, in the touching, he seems to miss much of the “why,” shunning some analysis for popular sentiment.
This part, for instance, caught my attention:
We seem to have been overcome by pettiness and cynicism, incapable of doing anything big anymore. How did we descend from the country that cured polio, built the interstate highway system and put a man on the moon—to one in which millions see nothing wrong with the government ripping babies from their mother’s bosom?
This being one of several leftist talking points soft sells. How? Well, when millions see nothing wrong with ripping babies from the womb, how much consternation can there be about the bosom?
And, again, since when have liberals ever cared about separating children (the ones who survive “choice”) and families? Stephen Baskerville has some excellent thoughts on that:
Liberal policies have been “separating children from their parents” for years.
The beasts! What kind of monsters deliberately separate innocent children from their parents? This descends to a level of barbarism that is unspeakable!
There are big money and a lot of votes in these anti-child rackets. Cash and curry aside, “Barbarism” is the right word.
04 Wednesday Jul 2018
Posted in Legal/Political Columns, Other Columns
≈ Comments Off on From TPC: Independence From What?
Aaaaand, it hit exactly on the Fourth!
Happy Independence Day, America! Or Independence Week, the week of July Fourth – I’m not sure about the week’s publishing schedule. I truly appreciate the comments, here an on the socials, on last week’s installment about the Vampires of Austin. One mentioned that the subject was “very disturbing and incredibly sad.” Yes, yes it was and was so intended. So, too, might be the tone of this column; consider it a call to festivity and a warning.
This Fourth is the 242nd birthday of that unique nation we know as The United States of America. For Americans, it is good and right to celebrate, so long as the celebration is for the right reasons. Folks, while hot dogs, beer, and fireworks are worthy accompaniment for Independence Day, they are not the heart or focus of the holiday. Freedom is. Freedom and tradition.
On July 4, 1776, a small group of men, with vested interests, signed off on a Declaration against the King of England. They essentially gave him the finger. They were serious enough about freedom to risk a war with the world’s most powerful Empire.
Today, are we that serious? Are we serious at all? What, exactly, do modern Americans celebrate independence from? From rule by the British, sure. I do note that many, many Americans are held in rapt attention by Royal weddings and Downton Abbey. But that’s cultural. We are free from the long list of injuries and usurpations set forth in the Declaration – as committed, then, by George III. Go down that list and see how we’re really doing all these years later – with the usurpations of Washington.
…
PERRIN LOVETT 
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