Wednesday, August 28, 2013
OFF THE WIRE
By Travis Melvin on August 23, 2013
By Travis Melvin on August 23, 2013
It is not surprising that the first police raids to take legally-purchased firearms from citizens are in California. Until recently, the state had the strictest gun control laws and the liberal run state government has always looked unfavorably on the Second Amendment.
Earlier this year, the state legislature expanded the list of what they call “prohibited persons” – people who have legally registered a firearm but, for various reasons, are no longer allowed their Second Amendment rights. These reasons were expanded to include people who are behind on state taxes, did not pay toll fees in a “timely” manner and a wide range of other minor misdemeanors or reported mental health concerns.
In preparation for the crackdown, the state authorized $24 million to hire additional officers to track down 20,000 people on the list. One person on this list was Joe Mendez.
A police officer came to the door and lured Mendez out of his house with a story of a hit and run report. Once outside, he had M16s pointed within inches of his face, was taken into custody and had all weapons removed from his house.
It is important to remember that these were legally- purchased and registered firearms. That gets to the other issue about this initiative.
This case demonstrates what registration lists really are. They are tools to allow police to confiscate weapons. And, all they have to do in California is come up with a reason you should be on the prohibited persons list; a list that is continuously expanding in its scope and definition.
California gun owners beware: your firearms and rights are being confiscated by your liberal politicians.
OFF THE WIRE
The initial defense of the NSA spying program echoed by everyone from Congress to the agency heads to the White House was that the program was “legal.” But newly declassified material shows that even the secret court stacked with Chief Justice Roberts’ judges recognized the NSA was conducting a domestic spying program when the NSA gathered thousands of Americans’ emails.
The reality has come shining through – you cannot have this much unchecked power and have a free society. The power will be abused, it will be misused, and the more secret the power is the less accountable those are who wield it. The NSA, if nothing else, has proven this point repeatedly. They have tasked themselves the right to spy on whomever they want whenever they want despite Constitutional guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Is Edward Snowden a whistleblower yet?
| By: DSWright Thursday August 22, 2013 6:00 am |
The initial defense of the NSA spying program echoed by everyone from Congress to the agency heads to the White House was that the program was “legal.” But newly declassified material shows that even the secret court stacked with Chief Justice Roberts’ judges recognized the NSA was conducting a domestic spying program when the NSA gathered thousands of Americans’ emails.
The FISA court opinion demonstrates at least that we did have a domestic spying program. And no, once again, that is not Constitutional.For several years, the National Security Agency unlawfully gathered tens of thousands of e-mails and other electronic communications between Americans as part of a now-revised collection method, according to a 2011 secret court opinion.
The redacted 85-page opinion, which was declassified by U.S. intelligence officials on Wednesday, states that, based on NSA estimates, the spy agency may have been collecting as many as 56,000 “wholly domestic”communications each year.
So they even lie to their own secret court? I guess Congress should feel better about Clapper’s perjury.In a strongly worded opinion, the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court expressed consternation at what he saw as a pattern of misleading statements by the government and hinted that the NSA possibly violated a criminal law against spying on Americans.
“For the first time, the government has now advised the court that the volume and nature of the information it has been collecting is fundamentally different from what the court had been led to believe,” John D. Bates, then the surveillance court’s chief judge, wrote in his Oct. 3, 2011, opinion.
The reality has come shining through – you cannot have this much unchecked power and have a free society. The power will be abused, it will be misused, and the more secret the power is the less accountable those are who wield it. The NSA, if nothing else, has proven this point repeatedly. They have tasked themselves the right to spy on whomever they want whenever they want despite Constitutional guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Is Edward Snowden a whistleblower yet?
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
OFF THE WIRE
By
Dressed in black leather and a graphite-colored helmet, you look and feel like a badass predator. Piercing urban congestion, zapping past Priuses and dodging buses is all in a morning’s work for the Boulevard Bullet. Surprisingly, despite you and your bike’s combined skill sets, you’re actually not the predator—you’re the prey. That’s because in any altercation with a car, you’re dead meat—and the driver walks away, sorry that he “just didn’t see you.” You were dressed in stealth black, after all.
In nature, vulnerable critters blend into their surroundings to avoid detection by predators, thus aiding survival. While this works fine for skinks and shrews, such invisibility actually makes riders more vulnerable to the drivers who might unwittingly take us out. They are an odd genome: hapless predators.
So in a flip-flop from nature’s order, rather than hide, smart riders find ways to grab drivers’ attention, which means appealing to one of their five senses. Since drivers can’t touch or taste or smell you (unless you’re aboard an RD400 sipping Blendzall), that leaves attracting their gaze or hearing. Herewith are some well-proven strategies.
Hyper horns: Especially on older bikes, stock horns sometimes offer little more than an ovine bleat. But wiring up a set of ear-splitting Fiamm or Stebel air horns can roust even drowsy drivers fast.
Loud pipes: The classic bumper sticker, “Loud Pipes Save Lives,” is probably true to some extent. They are, however, illegal and don’t make many friends for motorcycling, either. And unlike a loud horn, they won’t do much good in alerting a car that’s about to swing across your bow.
Neon gear: Some emergency vehicles are painted high-visibility neon, which, in conjunction with their warbling sirens, halts traffic like nothing short of a good miniskirt. A growing number of companies make high-vis apparel, and Vemar offers a fluorescent lid that soaks up light energy and then glows all night.
HID lighting: Your BFF may always have your back, but the brightest headlight you can afford will have your front on the street. High-intensity discharge (HID) xenon and light-emitting diode (LED) lighting are super-noticeable in daytime and also brighter than halogen OE units at night. The BMW K1600GTL has an adaptive HID headlight, and you can also buy HID and LED bulbs and lighting kits to fit various models.
Headlight modulator: You already ride with your headlight on, right? Legal in all 50 states, a pulsing headlight modulator from Kisan Electronics draws additional attention to your position in the space-time continuum. Brake-light modulators are also available.
Face Paint: Way back in 1976, Moto Guzzi had it right by finishing the 850 Le Mans bikini fairing in fluorescent orange, a distinctive styling touch that also increased conspicuity. Fairings offer a valuable few square feet of surface area that can be harnessed in reflective or eye-catching colors. I’m not suggesting you should paint your Gixxer or bagger’s fairing in Hello Kitty lip-gloss, but anything’s better than black, Jack.
By
Dressed in black leather and a graphite-colored helmet, you look and feel like a badass predator. Piercing urban congestion, zapping past Priuses and dodging buses is all in a morning’s work for the Boulevard Bullet. Surprisingly, despite you and your bike’s combined skill sets, you’re actually not the predator—you’re the prey. That’s because in any altercation with a car, you’re dead meat—and the driver walks away, sorry that he “just didn’t see you.” You were dressed in stealth black, after all.
In nature, vulnerable critters blend into their surroundings to avoid detection by predators, thus aiding survival. While this works fine for skinks and shrews, such invisibility actually makes riders more vulnerable to the drivers who might unwittingly take us out. They are an odd genome: hapless predators.
So in a flip-flop from nature’s order, rather than hide, smart riders find ways to grab drivers’ attention, which means appealing to one of their five senses. Since drivers can’t touch or taste or smell you (unless you’re aboard an RD400 sipping Blendzall), that leaves attracting their gaze or hearing. Herewith are some well-proven strategies.
Hyper horns: Especially on older bikes, stock horns sometimes offer little more than an ovine bleat. But wiring up a set of ear-splitting Fiamm or Stebel air horns can roust even drowsy drivers fast.
Loud pipes: The classic bumper sticker, “Loud Pipes Save Lives,” is probably true to some extent. They are, however, illegal and don’t make many friends for motorcycling, either. And unlike a loud horn, they won’t do much good in alerting a car that’s about to swing across your bow.
Neon gear: Some emergency vehicles are painted high-visibility neon, which, in conjunction with their warbling sirens, halts traffic like nothing short of a good miniskirt. A growing number of companies make high-vis apparel, and Vemar offers a fluorescent lid that soaks up light energy and then glows all night.
HID lighting: Your BFF may always have your back, but the brightest headlight you can afford will have your front on the street. High-intensity discharge (HID) xenon and light-emitting diode (LED) lighting are super-noticeable in daytime and also brighter than halogen OE units at night. The BMW K1600GTL has an adaptive HID headlight, and you can also buy HID and LED bulbs and lighting kits to fit various models.
Headlight modulator: You already ride with your headlight on, right? Legal in all 50 states, a pulsing headlight modulator from Kisan Electronics draws additional attention to your position in the space-time continuum. Brake-light modulators are also available.
Face Paint: Way back in 1976, Moto Guzzi had it right by finishing the 850 Le Mans bikini fairing in fluorescent orange, a distinctive styling touch that also increased conspicuity. Fairings offer a valuable few square feet of surface area that can be harnessed in reflective or eye-catching colors. I’m not suggesting you should paint your Gixxer or bagger’s fairing in Hello Kitty lip-gloss, but anything’s better than black, Jack.
Trompe L’Oeil
The science of sight can teach motorcyclists how to become more visible. Robert Poulin, MD, an eye physician and surgeon who club races a BMW M3, shares some surprising facts. “As people age, the eye begins to block light, particularly in the blue end of the color spectrum,” he says. “So a blue bike or apparel won’t look as vibrant to older drivers as greens, reds and yellows.” Another surprise is that riders may be more visible at night than by day. “The dark-adapted eye is very sensitive and has a wider dynamic range for detecting light than the light-adapted eye,” Poulin notes. And finally, get a headlight modulator. “As a driver, I really notice bikes’ flashing headlights,” he says.OFF THE WIRE
The season six premiere of Sons of Anarchy is going to change the direction of the show.
Kurt Sutter didn’t give too many details about the start of the 6th season but he did say that it would be shocking, controversial, and will include a storyline ripped straight from the newspapers.
Sutter said that he’s been tossing around the idea for the last three years and is now ready to put it on television.
Sutter said: “I’ve wanted to do that story for about three years… I knew that it would be somewhat controversial, but I feel like, as much as I wouldn’t do something because it was controversial, I’m also not going to not do something because it’s controversial.”
The creator of the FX show said that season premiere will set the stage for the remainder of the show’s sixth season. Which, as SOA fans already know, will be filled with blood and and guts.
Sutter said: “I will also say that there’s a lot of blood and guts in my show… It’s a signature of the show, but I feel like I’m not lying to myself when I say this: Nothing is done gratuitously. The events that happen in the premiere are really the catalyst for the third act of this morality play we’re doing.”
Here’s a promo for the sixth season of the Sons Of Anarchy.
Sutter didn’t say how the show would end but he does have an idea about SOA’s final shot.
Sutter said: “I have an idea of what the final shot is, and for some reason it’s Otto getting out of jail… I hold on to that [final shot] loosely. If that’s what it ends up being, that’s what it’ll end up being.”
Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/887141/sons-of-anarchy-season-six-teaser-trailer-released-video/#z3HsWgLaA1CIrcQ0.99
The season six premiere of Sons of Anarchy is going to change the direction of the show.Kurt Sutter didn’t give too many details about the start of the 6th season but he did say that it would be shocking, controversial, and will include a storyline ripped straight from the newspapers.
Sutter said that he’s been tossing around the idea for the last three years and is now ready to put it on television.
Sutter said: “I’ve wanted to do that story for about three years… I knew that it would be somewhat controversial, but I feel like, as much as I wouldn’t do something because it was controversial, I’m also not going to not do something because it’s controversial.”
The creator of the FX show said that season premiere will set the stage for the remainder of the show’s sixth season. Which, as SOA fans already know, will be filled with blood and and guts.
Sutter said: “I will also say that there’s a lot of blood and guts in my show… It’s a signature of the show, but I feel like I’m not lying to myself when I say this: Nothing is done gratuitously. The events that happen in the premiere are really the catalyst for the third act of this morality play we’re doing.”
Here’s a promo for the sixth season of the Sons Of Anarchy.
Sutter didn’t say how the show would end but he does have an idea about SOA’s final shot.
Sutter said: “I have an idea of what the final shot is, and for some reason it’s Otto getting out of jail… I hold on to that [final shot] loosely. If that’s what it ends up being, that’s what it’ll end up being.”
Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/887141/sons-of-anarchy-season-six-teaser-trailer-released-video/#z3HsWgLaA1CIrcQ0.99
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