This should significantly reduce crime throughout the country. No doubt Black Lives Matter will freak out over this proposed law, since private citizens defending themselves and others will almost certainly kill more black criminals than the police:
The National Rifle Association has called the concealed carry bill, which would make it easier for gun owners to keep their firearms hidden when crossing state lines, its “highest legislative priority in Congress.” Despite concerns raised by Democrats about states’ rights and domestic violence, the Republican-controlled Congress has pushed the proposal one step closer to becoming law.
The House Judiciary Committee late Wednesday voted 19-11 for the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017, which would amend the federal criminal code to allow the concealed transport of handguns across state lines, so long as both states allow it. States will not be able to impose their individual requirements for a concealed carry license on armed travelers from other states.
Republicans rejected Democratic amendments that would ban violent offenders from qualifying under the law, as well as a change that would have prevented forum shopping, which means a New York resident barred from obtaining a concealed carry permit could instead send away for one from somewhere else. The bill, which has more than 200 co-sponsors, almost all Republicans, now heads for the floor of the 435-member House. A similar bill, with 38 Republican co-sponsors, is pending before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Is there anything less convincing than Democrats fake-crying over states rights? That ship sailed long ago and they cheered its sailing.
And once more, we’re seeing that the God-Emperor is an observably better conservative president than Reagan, let alone the Bush family.
Remember when I kept telling all the brilliant business geniuses who were waxing entrepreneurial about the pressing need for someone to compete with YouTube that they were clueless idiots who didn’t understand the first thing about that particular business? This farewell message from Vidme I received in my email this morning was exactly the result I expected from any would-be YouTube disruptor:
We’re writing to let you know that after careful consideration, we’ve arrived at the difficult decision to suspend the Vidme site and apps effective December 15th.
What this means for you:
New sign-ups and uploads will be disabled effective today.
Existing videos will be playable and exportable from your video manager until December 14th, at which point they will be permanently deleted from the Vidme servers. If you want to backup any of your videos, be sure to sign in and visit your video manager and click the export button (displayed below). After a few minutes, you’ll receive an email with a link to download your exported video.
All paid channel subscripitions will be suspended immediately, and subscriber-only videos will be exclusively accessible to their video owners.
Any outstanding earnings will be paid out upon verification within 60 days.
All Vidme paid subscriptions will cease as of today, and subscribers will no longer be billed.
Thank you for giving Vidme a chance, and we’re very sorry that we won’t be able to continue to support you on the next stage of your creative journey. It has truly been a joy to watch people from all over the world connect, collaborate, and make new friends in this community, and we’re happy to know that many of those relationships will long outlast Vidme itself.
Wishing you the best of luck.
There is a reason I chose Infogalactic as the Alt-Tech priority. Notice that, thanks to the support from a relatively small Burn Unit, the site not only remains fully viable and operational, but the Techstars actually continue to make progress towards the Stage Two engine. Infogalactic is far more efficient and less expensive than Wikipedia and does not rely upon increasingly scarce online ad revenue, and Wikipedia is not a subsidized venture allowed to operate at an annual loss that is measured in the billions.
You can’t just leap into these things and try to do what others are doing, only less SJW. You have to analyze the situation, figure out the strengths and weaknesses of what the prospective competitors a) are doing, and, b) have the ability to do, and then figure out if there is actually any productive territory that can be legitimately taken and held.
The first Roman invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar in 55BC is a historical fact, with vivid accounts passed down by Tacitus, Cicero and Caesar himself. Yet, despite a huge landing force of legionaries from 800 ships, no archaeological evidence for the attack or any physical remains of encampments have ever been found.
But now a chance excavation carried out ahead of a road building project in Kent has uncovered what is thought to be the first solid proof for the invasion. Archaeologists from the University of Leicester and Kent County Council have found a defensive ditch and javelin spear at Ebbsfleet, a hamlet on the Isle of Thanet. The shape of the ditch at Ebbsfleet, is similar to Roman defences at Alésia in France, where a decisive battle in the Gallic War took place in 52 BC.
Experts also discovered that nearby Pegwell Bay is one of the only bays in the vicinity which could have provided harbour for such a huge fleet of ships. And its topography echoes Caesar’s own observations of the landing site.
Dr Andrew Fitzpatrick, Research Associate from the University of Leicester’s School of Archaeology and Ancient History said: “Caesar describes how the ships were left at anchor at an even and open shore and how they were damaged by a great storm. This description is consistent with Pegwell Bay, which today is the largest bay on the east Kent coast and is open and flat.
“The bay is big enough for the whole Roman army to have landed in the single day that Caesar describes. The 800 ships, even if they landed in waves, would still have needed a landing front 1-2 km wide. Caesar also describes how the Britons had assembled to oppose the landing but, taken aback by the size of the fleet, they concealed themselves on the higher ground. This is consistent with the higher ground of the Isle of Thanet around Ramsgate.”
Thanet has never been considered as a possible landing site before because it was separated from the mainland until the Middle Ages by the Wanstum Channel. Most historians had speculated that the landing happened at Deal, which lies to the south of Pegwell Bay.
This is, of course, absolutely fascinating in its own right. It would be intriguing to compare the layout of the land with the historical descriptions. But it is also an important lesson in the difference between history and archeology, and how there is very little physical evidence of many events that are widely accepted as having taken place.
Science is simply not a viable metric for the past, due to the intrinsic limits of scientody.
An excerpt from the definitive Appendix N by Jeffro Johnson. Now in hardcover too.
Now… the thief class takes a lot of flak in spite of the enduring appeal of characters like Robin Hood and Bilbo Baggins. Yet not only was it a latecomer that wasn’t even in the original three “little brown books” that made up the original “White Box” rule set, but its system of skills and abilities was seen as taking away from actions that everyone tended to try during the earliest game sessions.2 For instance, fighting-men might take a stab at being stealthy by removing their armor and then scouting ahead for the party. When the thief class came along with an explicit chance to “move silently,” a lot of people leaped to the conclusion the other classes couldn’t attempt such a thing anymore. This made for some hard feelings, and fixing the design issues implied by this class’s existence is such a hassle that maybe it’s best to just drop it altogether!
In the same vein, the cleric class comes in for a good deal of grief in spite of the fact that it was one of the original three classes in the game. In more recent editions, people don’t mind having one in the party, but they can’t always find someone willing to play one. (Few people want to be relegated to the role of a glorified medic; they want to get out front and do stuff, not just play a support role!) But really, the original class is downright odd. They can’t use edged weapons for some reason, and they have a bizarre adaption of the Vancian magic system with the effects drawn largely from biblical accounts. They’re just weird, and the archetype doesn’t turn up in fantasy literature in anywhere near the same frequency as the other classes. For a lot of people, the cleric is the obvious choice for the odd man out.
Reading Poul Anderson’s The High Crusade, however, it quickly becomes apparent that, if you’re going to be faithful to the game’s medieval roots, then the two core classes would have to be the fighting-man and the cleric—a stark difference from Steve Jackson’s The Fantasy Trip. This just isn’t in line with how most people view the game though. This is ironic given that the earliest iterations of what would become Dungeons & Dragons were actually a fantasy supplement to the medieval miniatures rule set Chainmail. It was an explicit goal of those rules to inspire people to gain a greater familiarity with the actual history of the Middle Ages.3 This aspect of the hobby gradually faded into obscurity when fantasy gaming took on a life of its own. Of course, the fewer medieval elements you incorporate into your game setting, the less sense the cleric is going to make.
Fans of the oft-maligned class will be gratified to discover that The High Crusade is actually narrated by a cleric. Purists, on the other hand, will be disappointed to see that he wields a battleaxe during the first chapter. At first glance, it’s hard not to jump to the conclusion that this title made Gary Gygax’s “Appendix N” book list because of its likely part in inspiring the game’s tendency to fuse science-fiction and fantasy elements together. Indeed, the cover looks like something straight out of “Expedition to Barrier Peaks.” But Poul Anderson has done much more than provide an unusual theme for a dungeon adventure. He’s turned the standard alien invasion on its head by having the humans thwart the would-be oppressors on first contact. An alien scout vessel is quickly overrun… by medieval Englishmen! When they get their hands on high-tech weaponry and figure out what they can do with it, their first thought is to gather up the entire village, board the spacecraft, and take an extended vacation that would include invading France and taking back the Holy Land!
When the narrator is tasked with teaching the sole surviving alien Latin so that they can force him to explain how to properly “sail” the ship, hilarity ensues: “You brought this on yourself,” I told him. “You should have known better than to make an unprovoked attack on Christians.” “What are Christians?” he asked. Dumbfounded, I thought he must be feigning ignorance. As a test, I led him through the Paternoster. He did not go up in smoke, which puzzled me. “I think I understand,” he said. “You refer to some primitive tribal pantheon.” “It is no such heathen thing!” I said indignantly. I started to explain the Trinity to him, but had scarcely gotten to transubstantiation when he waved an impatient blue hand. It was much like a human hand otherwise, save for the thick, sharp nails. “No matter,” he said, “Are all Christians as ferocious as your people?” “You would have had better luck with the French,” I admitted. “Your misfortune was landing among Englishmen.”
This is some seriously funny stuff, very nearly in the same vein as the best material of Douglas Adams. The fact that it is a straightforward science-fiction story with realistic medieval characters only makes it funnier. While one might expect this sort of tongue-in-cheek delivery to get tiresome after a while, the plot moves along quickly enough that it gradually fades into the background. The Englishmen are soon (and inadvertently) deep in the process of taking over the alien empire that would have otherwise subjugated humanity. And while the reader naturally identifies with the humans as he reads, it gradually becomes clear that there is an additional angle to Poul Anderson’s handiwork:
Actually, the Wersgor domain was like nothing at home. Most wealthy, important persons dwelt on their vast estates with a retinue of blueface hirelings. They communicated on the far-speaker and visited in swift aircraft of spaceships. Then there were other classes I have mentioned elsewhere, such as warriors, merchants, and politicians. But no one was born to his place in life. Under the law, all were equal, all free to strive as best they might for money or position. Indeed, they had even abandoned the idea of families. Each Wersgor lacked a surname, being identified by a number instead in a central registry. Male and female seldom lived together more than a few years. Children were sent at an early age to schools, where they dwelt until mature, for their parents oftener thought them an encumbrance than a blessing. Yet this realm, in theory a republic of freemen, was in practice a worse tyranny than mankind has known, even in Nero’s infamous day. The Wersgorix had no special affection for their birthplace; they acknowledged no immediate ties of kinship or duty. As a result, each individual had no one to stand between him and the all-powerful central government. In England, when King John grew overweening, he clashed both with ancient law and with vested local interests; so the barons curbed him and thereby wrote another word or two of liberty for all Englishmen. The Wersgor were a lickspittle race, unable to protest any arbitrary decree of a superior. “Promotion according to merit” meant only “promotion according to one’s usefulness to the imperial ministers.”
Yes, after being the butt of so many jokes and tongue-in-cheek remarks, our “primitive” narrator has a few observations to make about the culture of the alien people he is so cheerfully invading. The shortcomings of the alien society are in fact almost painfully familiar to the typical reader of the twentieth century. Poul Anderson has deftly turned the tables on us: we are the punch line. It is thought provoking, to say the least, but it’s a mere prelude to the coming knockout blow: “Well?” demanded Sir Roger. “What ails you now?” “If they have not yet gone to war,” I said weakly, “why should the advent of a few backward savages like us make them do so?” “Hearken, Brother Parvus,” said Sir Roger. “I’m weary of this whining about our own ignorance and feebleness. We’re not ignorant of the true Faith, are we? Somewhat more to the point, maybe, while the engines of war may change through the centuries, rivalry and intrigue look no subtler out here than at home. Just because we use a different sort of weapons, we aren’t savages.”
Granted, the tale depends on a great many implausibilities, but the fact that there’s an element of truth here is the key to what makes it so funny. You see, it’s not just that medieval people can be interesting if they are portrayed a little more faithfully to their real-life character and attitudes. It’s that they may even have been better than us in ways we rarely contemplate. And maybe the things that seem the strangest about them now were actually perfectly reasonable cultural adaptions that addressed the essential problems of their time! Whether you agree or not, it’s certainly an audacious premise—exactly the sort of mind-blowing concept I look for in a good science-fiction novel.
Jurors Thursday afternoon acquitted the illegal immigrant accused of killing Kate Steinle as she walked with her father on a crowded San Francisco pier of all charges except for felony possession of a firearm.
A spokesperson for the Superior Court of California made the announcement that the jury had reached a verdict shortly after 3 p.m. Shortly after 4:30 p.m., the shocking verdict was announced that Jose Ines Garcia Zarate was found not guilty of all charges except for the gun possession charge.
The jury of six women and six men considered charges against Garcia Zarate that include murder, assault with a deadly weapon and being a felon in possession of a firearm in the death of Steinle, a 32-year-old Pleasanton native and San Francisco resident.
The problem is that the killing quite clearly wasn’t Murder One. Unless the prosecutor wanted to argue that the killer was some sort of Deadshot-style supervillain utilizing a bank shot, there is no reasonable way to claim that a ricochet was an intentional murder. Nor would it appear likely that any assault was intended; what I can’t understand is why there was no conviction for manslaughter.
That being said, the fact that the man was in the country at all after being deported is inexcusable. Given that illegal immigrants – and legal immigrants, for that matter – have no rights under the U.S. Constitution despite what the Supreme Interpreters claim – there is no reason why a felony or even a misdemeanor conviction by an illegal immigrant should not be a capital offense.
But regardless, one thing is clear. BUILD THE WALL!
This week, The New York Times editorial board took over the paper’s opinion Twitter account, which has around 650,000 followers, “to urge the Senate to reject a tax bill that hurts the middle class & the nation’s fiscal health.” By urging the Senate, it meant sending out the phone number of moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins and imploring followers to call her. In others words, the board was indistinguishable from any of the well-funded partisan groups it whines about in editorials all the time.
NYT Opinion✔@nytopinion Contact @SenatorCollins, (202) 224-2523, particularly if you live in Maine, and ask her to oppose the Senate tax bill because it would repeal Obamacare’s individual mandate, driving up the cost of health insurance. #thetaxbillhurts 4:19 PM – Nov 29, 2017
Then again, the editors at The New York Times have more pressing denials to make these days. Such as the perception that they are little more than a depraved collection of sex criminals, sexual harassers, and unattractive whores using sex for advancement.
In the culture war engulfing America, there are many fronts. Some are apparent to everyone, such as the purging of right-wing figures from Facebook and Twitter. But a less well-known battle is being waged in science fiction publishing, where a steady convergence in the industry has all but eliminated straight white male authors from the catalogs of the major sci-fi publishers.
California is known as a bellwether state. Political, cultural, and demographic trends tend to appear in California first before metastasizing throughout the United States. It is not an accident that both no-fault divorce and Valley Girl uptalk both happened to have their roots in California.
In the same way, the comics industry can be considered something of a bellwether industry, at least when it comes to the culture war. Even before the university campuses descended into social justice lunacy, the two industry giants, Marvel and DC Comics, hired executives who promptly turned their companies into left-wing propaganda factories.
The extent of the convergence cannot be exaggerated; it is literally worse than you can likely imagine. From a transsexual Thor to a gay Hispanic Spider-man, from tedious lecturing and hectoring to homosexual marrying and villains celebrating girl power with heroes in lieu of fighting them, the culture warriors in comics have insulted their fans, rejected their roots, besmirched their heroes, and befouled and befattened the formerly beautiful.
Read the rest of my new monthly column on the culture war at Dangerous.
Don’t get noticed in the major mainstream press as a conservative if you want to keep your social media accounts. The first time Rush Limbaugh read one of my articles, my YouTube channel was demonetized. The second time, which was last week, my Twitter account was suspended. On November 26, I published an article called Teachers Attend “LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP” Sensitivity Training (WTF?). The next day Matt Drudge linked it and it went viral. Then Rush Limbaugh read it on the air.
A few hours later, my Twitter account was suspended for responding to someone commenting about the article who accused me of “harming people” by writing it.
I am dubious that much can be done about this for now. But it can’t hurt to show your support for those who are still on Twitter and Facebook and are being targeted.
What a surprise that someone named (((Israel Horowitz))) should turn out to be a sex criminal. I am, of course, absolutely shocked that yet another illustrious member of the (((immigrant community))) that created America practically from nothing and has lots and lots of Nobel Prizes and is selflessly devoted to healing the world should turn out to be yet another pervy freakshow:
Inspired by the revelations about Harvey Weinstein, Louis C.K. and others, a total of nine women have come forward publicly for the first time to describe a pattern of sexual abuse and violations of trust by a man they considered a mentor and friend. Mr. Horovitz is an award-winning author of more than 70 plays, including “The Indian Wants the Bronx” (starring Al Pacino in 1968); “Park Your Car in Harvard Yard” (on Broadway in 1991); and “Out of the Mouths of Babes,” which ran Off Broadway last year.
Over his five-decade career, Mr. Horovitz has been an influential player in the theater world. As the founding artistic director of Gloucester Stage, a respected regional theater that called itself a “safe harbor for playwrights,” and as an Obie-winning writer whose work was produced frequently in New York and Paris, he has had the power to offer roles, jobs or a helping hand to generations of actors.
In response to questions this week, Mr. Horovitz, 78, told The New York Times that while he has “a different memory of some of these events, I apologize with all my heart to any woman who has ever felt compromised by my actions, and to my family and friends who have put their trust in me. To hear that I have caused pain is profoundly upsetting, as is the idea that I might have crossed a line with anyone who considered me a mentor.”
His son, Adam Horovitz, said in his own statement: “I believe the allegations against my father are true, and I stand behind the women that made them.”
Jana Mestecky said that Mr. Horovitz would summon her to his house to drop off scripts — then answer the door naked. He kissed her, fondled her and groped her from behind as she worked, she said, often telling her she “wouldn’t get anywhere with such ‘twisted Southern morals.’” (Ms. Mestecky grew up in Alabama.)
All these accusations of sex crimes are clearly bad for the Jews. We really should criminalize such accusations, just as we’ve criminalized advocating the boycotting of Israel. After all, free speech is hate speech and hate speech is anti-semitic.
Wouldn’t America be so much better and advance much faster if everyone simply accepted Hollywood values in place of those twisted Southern morals? And on that note: Disney Debuts ‘First Boy Princess’ in ‘Star vs. the Forces of Evil’
Research at Keele University, published in the Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology, provides the strongest indication yet that aluminium is a cause of ASD.
The aluminium content of brain tissues from five donors who died with a diagnosis of ASD was found to be extraordinarily high; some of the highest values yet measured in human brain tissue. Why for example, would one of the four major brain lobes of a 15-year-old boy with autism be 8.74 (11.59) micrograms/g dry weight – a value which is at least 10 times higher than might be considered as acceptable for an adult never mind a child?
Yet, while the aluminium content of each of the five brains was shockingly high it was the location of the aluminium in the brain tissue which served as the standout observation. The majority of aluminium was identified in non-neuronal cells, which are involved in maintaining a constant internal environment. Aluminium was also found in inflammatory cells in the brain, alongside clear evidence of inflammatory cells heavily loaded with aluminium entering the brain via the surrounding membranes and those that separate the brain from circulating blood.
The fact that the majority of aluminium found in brain tissues in ASD was within cells and associated with tissues that maintain the body’s internal environment is, at least for now, unique to ASD and may begin to explain why young adolescents had so much aluminium in their brains.
So, the obvious question this raises is: how did so much aluminum get into the brain tissue in the first place? And the obvious answer is: from being injected with vaccines containing aluminum.
I always enjoy the idiocy of the mindless pro-vaccine crowd. From the comments on the article.
“Very irresponsible to put a headline like this here. The study was debunked and discredited years ago.”
Study? What study? Years ago? The research is new. For me, the most convincing thing about the obvious fact that vaccines are not as safe as they are advertised is the fact that every single time I discuss the matter with a vaccine advocate, they lie about something easily shown to be false.
Well, that and the fact that I have personally witnessed a severe adverse vaccine reaction. There is no amount of sophistry and appeal to metastudies and pseudoscience and herd immunity that will ever move me in the slightest.
