Amazing number of steps. Forms for Hawaii. Need proof of vaccination, and a COVID-19 test with 72 hours of departure.
Deposited 3.00 to Clay's account and took his check to the light company to pay his current bill -- pun here is not forced, just purely felicitous.
Simon Whistler is this British guy who does very interesting Youtube videos. This one is just astonishingly good. Watch and share.
I tell my history students to consult multiple sources about a topic.
Not every source you find is necessarily reliable. There are books and articles that make claims that are so tendentious (“expressing or intending to promote a particular cause or point of view, especially a controversial one.”), and sometimes intentionally dishonest, that they should not be regarded as trustworthy sources.
Vaccine salvation remains, for now, still tantalizingly out of reach. Only about 10 percent of Europeans have received a first dose, compared with 23 percent in the United States and 39 percent in Britain.
There is no single culprit. Rather, a cascade of small decisions have led to increasingly long delays. The bloc was comparatively slow to negotiate contracts with drugmakers. Its regulators were cautious and deliberative in approving some vaccines. Europe also bet on vaccines that did not pan out or, significantly, had supply disruptions. And national governments snarled local efforts in red tape.
The United States basically went into business with the drugmakers, spending much more heavily to accelerate vaccine development, testing and production.
“They assumed that simply contracting to acquire doses would be enough,” recalled Dr. Slaoui, whom President Donald J. Trump hired to speed the vaccine development. “In fact what was very important was to be a full, active partner in the development and the manufacturing of the vaccine. And to do so very early.”
The European Union trailed the United States and Britain from the start.
Washington had already spent billions on clinical trials and manufacturing by the time Europe decided to pool its resources and negotiate as a bloc. In mid-June, the European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch, announced a joint vaccine purchase with a $3.2 billion pot.
In Washington, Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s vaccine program, had a $10 billion budget. European officials say it’s unfair to compare the two figures because neither amount is a complete picture of all the money spent on vaccines. But there is no dispute that in Washington, officials had decided that money was no object if vaccines could avert the economic cost of a lockdown. Europe, on the other hand, was on a tight budget, so its negotiators chased cheaper doses.
Some years back the Dept. of State declared instructions for printing 3D guns to be controlled munition exports, making Internet distribution unlawful. The Trump Administration did away with this rule. A few states sued the Dept. of State demanding that information remain unlawful to speak or distribute. The 9th Circuit told the states above to go pound sand. The primary reason seems to be that Congress directed that these decisions were not subject to judicial review.
My father was keen on using the power of waves to generate electricity. I see that others are now working on this.
“We do not know when it will come back in the United States, but we know it will come back,” said Sonja Olsen, an epidemiologist at the C.D.C.
Experts are less certain about what will happen when the flu does return. In the coming months — as millions of people return to public transit, restaurants, schools and offices — influenza outbreaks could be more widespread than normal, they say, or could occur at unusual times of the year. But it’s also possible that the virus that returns is less dangerous, having not had the opportunity to evolve while it was on hiatus.
“We don’t really have a clue,” said Richard Webby, a virologist at the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. “We’re in uncharted territory. We haven’t had an influenza season this low, I think as long as we’ve been measuring it. So what the potential implications are is a bit unclear.”
Scientists do not yet know which public health measures were most effective in eradicating the flu this season, but if behaviors like mask-wearing and frequent hand-washing continue after the coronavirus pandemic is over, they could help to keep influenza at bay in the United States.
I cannot picture voluntary mask-wearing after the pandemic ends, but frequent handwashing, which seems to be more effective, and staying home when sick might be a good permanent change in our culture. All those knowledge workers continuing to telecommute seems likely to stay.
I have long thought the most clever psychological stunts the CIA did during the Cold War was dropping packages of American condoms labeled small on the Soviet Union. This video shows similar but more destructive pranks from World War 2.
Illinois v. Vivian Claudine Brown (Ill.App. 2021) struck down the requirement to have a Firearms Owners ID card to have a firearm in your home as violating the Second Amendment. The FOID is pretty well useless anyway. As I pointed out some months back, a mass murderer with a prior felony conviction obtained one.
You are doubtless aware of William Safire's Rules for Writers which includes gems such as: "This verb no sentence."
I need something similar to convey the idea of sentence fragment. (Yes, I just finished grading an otherwise good paper that was awash in sentence shrapnel.)
Best so far: "Writing this sentence fragment." "He came," was also interesting, but aside from, possibly coming from porn, it has a subject and a verb.
Templates are good things, but why would a paper about potatoes in history be titled: "Put Title Here"?
Starting at 14:30 in this CBC interview with a Barnard College professor about his new book, "Sure, I'll Be Your Black Friend."
Ben Philippe was asked about a segment in his book “Sure, I’ll be your Black Friend” which describes “detonating” white people while nearby air vents spew out noxious gas.
“When this race war hits its crescendo, I’ll gather you all into a beautifully decorated room under the pretense of unity,” Philippe said. “I’ll give a speech to civility and all the good times we share; I’ll smile as we raise glasses to your good, white health, while the detonator blinks under the table, knowing the exits are locked and the air vents filled with gas.”
And yes, I listened to the CBC interview to verify the accuracy of the quote.
This whole notion of race war is as I have said before:
1. evil in its intent;
2. stupid in its results (likely the death of most blacks in America, even the majority who recognize the BLM promoted hatred as wrong and stupid);
3. likely to increase prejudice against blacks.
Elie Wiesel survived the Holocaust and once observed that if someone says that are going to kill you, they probably mean it. Go through all the National Socialist complaints about Jewish domination of German society and replace "Jew" with "White." Has anything changed in human nature? Now you know why disarming the deplorables is so important. The left is terrified that a race war will end badly for their Marxist racists and trustafarians.
Post-Millenial reports CBC has deleted it. Not to worry, they have a copy.
Saturday May 1st: NRA Personal Protection Handgun Course Idaho ENHANCED Concealed Weapon License
If anything at all. 4/19/21 Buffalo News:
Moments after a postal carrier delivered a package to his West Seneca home, John R. Andrews Jr. was face to face with a garage full of police and federal agents.
Inside his piece of mail was a legal accessory for a gun.
At the time, in January 2020, Andrews ran a business selling partially assembled firearms.
After police found guns and some gun parts in a raid of his home, Andrews spent a year fighting six felony charges.
But Andrews now is a free man – and planning a civil rights lawsuit – after a State Supreme Court judge ruled law enforcement officers were reckless in how they got the search warrant they used to enter his home.
Any American who cares about the Constitution "should be very concerned about that," said R. Anthony Rupp III, Andrews' civil attorney.
Partially assembled firearms form the basis of so-called "ghost guns," functional-yet-typically-untraceable firearms because they lack serial numbers that allow them to be tracked by law enforcement agencies. Making and selling partially assembled firearms – usually sold as "80% receivers," meaning 80% complete – is legal because they aren't considered to be firearms under state and federal law.
Earlier this month, President Biden announced a series of executive actions on guns, including a move to crack down on ghost guns.
Proposed state legislation in Albany would make it illegal for anyone besides a licensed gun dealer to possess a ghost gun. It would also require purchasers to be subject to background checks.
The gun accessory Andrews got in the mail was a solvent trap, which can be converted into what is known as a silencer or suppressor.
Traps and silencers 'remarkably similar'
Andrews, 52, said he bought the solvent trap in early November 2019 after seeing an ad online.
"I'm like, 'Oh, cool.' It was 29 bucks for it," he said. "So I said, 'Well, that would be interesting and be something I could use for my gun cleaning.' "
Solvent traps are cylindrical firearms accessories with an opening on one end that are used to collect fluid during the process of cleaning a gun. They are legal to possess.
But with some work, the items can be turned into silencers, used to muffle the sound of a gunshot.
Forgive my skepticism, but I suspect that he was not buying a better gun cleaning tool. This is the problem: almost anything with enough skill can be turned into something illegal. Focus on the bad act, not the tool. Of course, you can buy solvent traps from a US maker, including covers in "Cerakote Coating Covers."
Promoting it when you are 12% of the population and the other 88% is heavily armed is braindead stupid. Most black people will consider the speaker both evil and stupid. But if you think fear of and prejudice against black people is bad now, consider what a few suburban attacks will do.
Instapundit pointed me to these hysterical Toronto Police bragging about guns they have taken off the street. While I think Canadian gun laws are stupid, at least some of these guns in criminal hands would be a public safety concern. Others make me wonder if they realize how silly this makes them look. As much as I hate antisocial media the responses to stupid can be riotously funny:
This sad little recovery also produced a storm of amuse:
Another victory for the Swamp Crime Task Force.
Was Aqua Man packing this one?
@IwriteOK you can rest easy at night knowing this gun will not be in your drinking water supply.
I was forwarded this for verification:
Here are the US deaths by year, and the change from the previous year.
Year 2017: 2,818,503 Americans died
Year 2018: 2,839,205 deaths (20,702 more than the previous year 2017)
Year 2019: 2,855,000 deaths (16,300 more than the previous year 2018)
The year of the pandemic ...
Year 2020: 2,913,144 deaths (57,641 more than the previous year 2019)
BUT WAIT: There were zero deaths from Covid-19 during 2018, and 2019 and the jump from 2019 was only 57,641 ???
I've been told that COVID is responsible now for 400,000 + deaths. Shouldn't the 2020 number be a lot higher?
So, the question becomes: How many people died of COVID and How many died (of other causes) WITH COVID?
From CDC https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7014e1.htm:
" In 2020, approximately 3,358,814 deaths† occurred in the United States."
Where this
wrong number came from
https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/mortality-with-meep-estimated-us:
"If you go to their main table for total and excess deaths for 2020, you will see that they’ve recorded 2,913,144 deaths from all causes as of December 31, 2020. But that starts the week ending February 2, 2020. Also, it actually doesn’t include anywhere near all the deaths of December.
"They don’t show you there the total number of deaths for 2020. They exclude all the weeks ending in January."
Paul Keenan, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Indianapolis field office, said Friday that agents questioned Hole last year after his mother called police to say that her son might commit “suicide by cop.” He said the FBI was called after items were found in Hole’s bedroom but he did not elaborate on what they were. He said agents found no evidence of a crime and that they did not identify Hole as espousing a racially motivated ideology. A police report obtained by The Associated Press shows that officers seized a pump-action shotgun from Hole’s home after responding to the mother's call. Keenan said the gun was never returned.
At least the FBI responded unlike the Parkland shooting where they were warned twice. If only Indiana had a "red flag" law. Whoops, they do,
I try to post every week, but on Monday, I received my second Covid shot. Whew. I felt like I fell off a turnip truck, only to have it back over me. I was down and out for one and a half days. So, alas, my blog had to be put on hold.
I must say that if a measured, second dose (presumably I now had antibodies ready this time) made me feel this way, I cannot even imagine how an unmeasured, first time encounter with Covid would be like. I don't want to sound melodramatic, but I do understand why people die from this--it is utterly overwhelming--and I had a very mild encounter with it. But I am thankful for the vaccine.
While I was in bed, I read about small pox, the flu epidemic of 1918-19, and polio. Morbid? No, perspective: I realized that our fight against such overwhelming enemies has always been fraught with fear, suspicion, accusation and division. Sad how we humans don't really change when it comes to facing our mortality. Death is scary, yes, but not understanding how and why it comes is even scarier. Such uncertainty makes us turn on each other, God and those in medical and governmental authority. Why? Because suddenly the universe feels random.
Civilization is one vast push back against the vicissitudes of existence. Following the grazing herds is all fine and dandy, as long as they migrate in a discernible pattern and you can bring down enough to feed your people. But if you can't, starvation comes a-knocking. So, grow your own: control the food supply. But feast or famine are only a harvest away: Either you bring in abundance to your barns or you weep at the pathetic crop that now spells disaster.
Harness a water supply. Build along rivers, dig cisterns, pray for rain. Without water, life screeches to a halt and all your efforts at living become focused on surviving, if you don't die of thirst on the way.
Then, there are your enemies. You build a wall around your city, to protect your homes, gardens, markets, temples and peace of mind. Now you don't have to wait for the fury of your enemies to come and undo all your security. You need only to shut the gates. You wait. You fight back from a high vantage point and wait for your enemies to bugger off out of frustration. They go looking for easier pastures and you settle down once again, with hearth and home safe and secure. Dire outcomes from random attacks seems somewhat moderated.
Life has lost its hunter-gatherer unpredictability. Springtime, harvest, gathering in and waiting again for spring seem to secure the future. You were here this year, your family was fed, your city withstood attack and your barns are filled. You are secure in this ordered pattern--randomness, like the wild dogs that howl at your city gates, is kept at bay.
But invisible enemies stalk the land. No amount of abundant harvest, potable water, vanquished foes and secure gates seem to keep these enemies out. A cough, a sniffle, a rash, a fever, a loose stool, or utter fatigue means that randomness has just made its appearance. The afflicted will either recover or die. The invisible enemy will slip away.
We write about gun violence in America as our full-time jobs. Between the two of us, we’ve been doing that for over a decade.
We see that America’s endless gun debate does not treat shooting victims and their families equitably. It is not driven by a focus on what actually works to save lives. It rarely includes the voices of the majority of the victims or any of the people who have a track record of successfully preventing shootings. It is not just biased; it is actively harmful and racist. And it will never make us safer.
We are sad, frustrated and angry. Here’s why:
We focus on “mass shootings”, but that obscures the violence that really drives America’s gun violence crisis. Last year, gun violence in the US killed an estimated 4,000 more people than it did in 2019. More than 500 people died in shootings that included multiple casualties or injuries. And yet, for a full year, there was not a single major news cycle about an American mass shooting....
Labels matter. They inform how we see victims, our level of focus, what we consider as solutions. Between less than 1 and 3% of America’s gun homicide victims die in what we generally consider “mass shootings”. But none of the community shootings last year prompted national debates over what we should do to prevent this kind of violence, and rarely do people dig into the reasons behind a community shooting or the motivation of the shooter – if they’re ever arrested .
We only mourn certain tragedies. Anyone who has spent time with people who have lost family members to gun violence knows that there is a deep equality in grief. Shootings are always sudden and brutal, and the trauma of even a single gun murder or suicide ripples through multiple generations. Yet most grief-stricken families, many of them mourning Black and brown victims, grieve outside of the national spotlight. Joe Biden forcefully denounced gun violence and called for an assault weapon ban. But where is the national mourning for victims of daily gun violence?...
The “solutions” offered today would do little to stem the daily death toll. The assault rifle bans and universal background checks reflexively supported by progressives will do little to decrease the bulk of shooting incidents: suicides and community violence. Approaches that have stronger evidence of saving lives, like intensive city-level support programs for the men and boys most at risk of being shot or becoming shooters, hospital-based violence intervention programs, or even more effective policing strategies, rarely get discussed on a national level. Even Democrats seem to prefer fighting a high-profile, losing battle with Republicans over gun control laws, rather than devoting time and focus to less partisan prevention efforts.
The intense focus on the National Rifle Association (NRA) is missing the point. After more than a two years of bitter infighting, lawsuits and financial turmoil, the NRA is not in great shape. And still, Republican lawmakers’ fierce opposition to passing any gun control bills, or the deep ideological belief in gun rights among millions of Americans, has remained unchanged. There’s still plenty to criticize about the NRA’s political advocacy, but media attention and Democrats’ attacks only inflate its importance.
The way the American media cover mass shootings makes us all collaborators. Even as media outlets try to focus more attention on the victims of shootings, and give perpetrators less notoriety, the fundamental equation of mass shootings has not changed: kill enough people and you will get national attention.
That media coverage feeds people’s most irrational fears. Take school shootings. American children are much more likely to be killed in their own homes or neighborhoods than at school. But instead of a national campaign to prevent domestic violence or provide kids with mental health support, America has a multibillion-dollar school security industry. Some of these security efforts have actively hurt vulnerable children: Following the Columbine tragedy, school discipline was ramped up and more police officers were put in schools, fueling a “school-to-prison” pipeline that disproportionately hurt students of color.
In our systematic review, we identified 10 RCTs that reported estimates of the effectiveness of face masks in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections in the community from literature published during 1946–July 27, 2018. In pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks (RR 0.78, 95% CI 0.51–1.20; I2 = 30%, p = 0.25) (Figure 2)...Disposable medical masks (also known as surgical masks) are loose-fitting devices that were designed to be worn by medical personnel to protect accidental contamination of patient wounds, and to protect the wearer against splashes or sprays of bodily fluids (36). There is limited evidence for their effectiveness in preventing influenza virus transmission either when worn by the infected person for source control or when worn by uninfected persons to reduce exposure. Our systematic review found no significant effect of face masks on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza.
Tandon v. Newsom (2021) granted relief from California's ban on in-home religious services until the Court hears the case, overturning the 9th Circuit's unwillingness to strike down the ban in the meantime.
First, government regulations are not neutral and generally applicable, and therefore trigger strict scrutiny under the Free Exercise Clause, whenever they treat any comparable secular activity more favorably than religious exercise. Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, 592 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2020) (per curiam) (slip op., at 3–4). It is no answer that a State treats some comparable secular businesses or other activities as poorly as or even less favorably than the religious exercise at issue. Id., at ___–___ (KAVANAUGH, J., concurring) (slip op., at 2–3).
Second, whether two activities are comparable for purposes of the Free Exercise Clause must be judged against the asserted government interest that justifies the regulation at issue. Id., at ___ (per curiam) (slip op., at 3) (describing secular activities treated more favorably than religious worship that either “have contributed to the spread of COVID–19” or “could” have presented similar risks). Comparability is concerned with the risks various activities pose, not the reasons why people gather. Id., at ___ (GORSUCH, J., concurring) (slip op., at 2).
Third, the government has the burden to establish that the challenged law satisfies strict scrutiny. To do so in this context, it must do more than assert that certain risk factors “are always present in worship, or always absent from the other secular activities” the government may allow.
This is interesting because the insistence of courts of appeals to apply intermediate scrutiny to the Second Amendment is usually couched in public safety terms. Bu this is also a public safety claim. Perhaps the Court will get past its fear of court packing at some point and recognize that strict scrutiny applies here as well.
PHOENIX — On Thursday President Biden is expected to announce a series of executive actions addressing gun violence. No matter what those actions are, there is a very good chance that in Arizona, they’ll be ignored.
The group Moms Demand Action assembled outside the executive tower on Tuesday. They were hoping to convince the governor to veto HB 2111. In his office, nine floors up, Governor Ducey signed the bill.
“We know there is nothing silly about anything that would make us less safe and that’s what this law will ultimately do,” Steffanie Richardson of Moms Demand Action said. “So we were trying to prevent that. We wanted the governor to recognize that and veto it. Unfortunately, he signed into law.”
HB 2111 is a pre-emptive strike by the Arizona Legislature to block any type of federal gun reform that its supporters say endangers the second amendment. During a February committee hearing, the bill’s sponsor State Representative Leo Biasiucci of Lake Havasu City said, “we in the state of Arizona don’t want the federal government to infringe on our second amendment rights regardless whether it’s banning background checks or AR15’s it’s up to the state to decide that.”
If you are a software engineer, or a space enthusiast, or just warped, you will enjoy this video about the Apollo Guidance Computer developed in the early 1960s to land the LM on the Moon.
Biden will direct the administration to begin the process of requiring buyers of so-called ghost guns — homemade or makeshift firearms that lack serial numbers — to undergo background checks, according to three people who have spoken to the White House about the plans. He is expected to be joined at the event by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
If you are not a licensed maker you may not sell a ghost gun already. Perhaps they want to require 80% receiver sellers to do so. But those are not firearms. I have a 0% AR-15 lower that I bought at the local metals store.
Other executive actions remain unclear. But stakeholders have speculated that the president could announce regulations on concealed assault-style firearms; prohibitions on firearm purchases for those convicted of domestic violence against their partners; and federal guidance on home storage safety measures.
The domestic violence provision has been the law since the 1990s. These guys are idiots. The gun banners know this as well. This is to make reporters cheer Biden's courage. Adding concealable rifle caliber handguns as short-barreled rifles by regulation will run into the same problem as the bump stock ban by regulation did. Can anyone remember any other concealable rifle caliber mass murders? Apparently the Dayton mass murder in 2019 as well.
I don't see how by Executive Order Biden can bring concealable AWs
under NFA regulation. NFA applies to machineguns, suppressors, and
short-barrelled rifles.
18 USC 921(a)(7) The term “rifle” means a weapon designed or redesigned, made or remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder and designed or redesigned and made or remade to use the energy of an explosive to fire only a single projectile through a rifled bore for each single pull of the trigger.
The AR-15 pistols are not intended to be fired from the shoulder, nor can they be.
18 USC 921(a)(8) The term “short-barreled rifle” means a rifle having one or more barrels less than sixteen inches in length and any weapon made from a rifle (whether by alteration, modification, or otherwise) if such weapon, as modified, has an overall length of less than twenty-six inches.
Regardless of barrel length they are not rifles under subsection 7 so regardless of barrel length they can not be regulated as short-barreled rifles.
So what is the purpose? Their gun banning friends know this is crap. The target is reporters who know nothing about gun laws ("There are gun laws?"). To quote the 5/8/16 New York Times interview of aspiring novelist turned deputy national security adviser for strategic communications by President Obama: "The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”
UPDATE: From the White House release:
The Justice Department, within 60 days, will issue a proposed rule to make clear when a device marketed as a stabilizing brace effectively turns a pistol into a short-barreled rifle subject to the requirements of the National Firearms Act. The alleged shooter in the Boulder tragedy last month appears to have used a pistol with an arm brace, which can make a firearm more stable and accurate while still being concealable.
This seems marginally within the NFA, but one that I suspect courts will uphold.
By the way, prepare to register your shoelaces:
