State Department demands Defense Distributed take down files. From Forbes: On Thursday, Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson received a letter from the State Department Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance demanding that he take down the online blueprints for the 3D-printable “Liberator” handgun that his group released Monday, along with nine other 3D-printable firearms components hosted on the group’s website Defcad.org. The government says it wants to review the files for compliance with arms export control laws known as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR. By uploading the weapons files to the Internet and allowing them to be…
26 CommentsMonth: May 2013
Her brother blew himself away with a shotgun on this date. Her anti-gun “friend” wants her to suffer — and hate the gun. She suffers — but knows better than to blame an inanimate object.
5 CommentsOr maybe I don’t. But one of the most vocal Sandy Hook gun controllers has apparently been writing bad checks all over town. It’s awful that Neil Heslin lost his son so tragically. But it’s equally awful that he wants to use that to demolish the rights and safety of millions of good people. He should clean his own house before he tries to make criminals out of the rest of us. —– ADDED: Turns out that writing bad checks is merely one little blip in a long pattern of criminality for Mr. Heslin. Whotta rap sheet this fella has!
4 CommentsSecret to a long life. Heck, even if you “only” live to be 95 instead of 105, you’ll still probably enjoy life more. The health nannies are gonna hate this one.
14 Comments… which all have to do with science, science fiction, medicine, or technology today … “Open up and say ‘neigh’” — how horses can help teach young doctors to have a better bedside manner. (Tip o’ hat to ML.) I thought he’d died decades ago. No, but that was his compatriot Janos Prohaska. Farewell, Ray Harryhausen, FX pioneer. I’ll bet the words “dog” and “cat” were among those our prehistoric ancestors bequeathed us. … Those ancestors now under the sea? So, is the movie of Ender’s Game going to be good? The trailer has possibilities. But I was never a…
7 CommentsEmailing the other day, a friend happened to drop a great phrase: “whoever, or whatever, is masquerading as Uncle Sam” (unstated but implied was “at the moment”). I thought, now there’s a phrase with the power to wake some sleepy folks. We like to go on about the capital-F Founders. Some people talk as if America was their living, breathing gift to us. In a way, it was of course — the idea and the ideal. But the actual, practical thing those Founders bequeathed us was a mere corporate shell. A shell in the shape of a constitution and institutions.…
11 CommentsI think this makes me the 3,456th gunblogger to “announce” Defense Distributed’s proudest new achievement, The Liberator. Although their video pairs it with images of the Liberator bomber, we know which WWII equipment they really named it after. I believe I’m also the 1,274th blogger to immediately think (if not immediately say), “You can’t stop the signal!” And you can’t, you know. Nobody can. I think Cody Wilson is a brave genius — who’s cruising for a terrible fed-bruising and who’ll deserve our ardent support (and contributions to his legal defense fund) when it comes. I think the hysteria about…
20 CommentsWhen we were kids, the adults around us often told us things they implied were both true and very, very important. Sometimes those adults were right. Other times, we eventually learned that certain “truths” were neither true nor important. In retrospect we realized somebody was telling us those things solely to compel obedience (“This will go on your Permanent Record!”) or mold us to social norms (“You have to go along to get along.”) Question of the day: What are some of the “truths” from you childhood that turned out either not to be true or not to be important…
43 CommentsNo fair! How come the CIA doesn’t deliver bags of cash to me? I’m sure I could stay bought at least as well as the typical third-world puppet. (We all know those standards aren’t too high.) It’s a sure thing I could find some cronies to share the loot with. Heck, I’d probably have cronies crawling out of the woodwork as soon as they learned I was the source of buckets of untraceable dollars. I’ll bet I could even find a warlord or two to fund. So why not me? Why not you? But since it’s not us, I’d like…
12 CommentsI was working on this really, you know, weighty and probably even profound blog post about expectations vs reality. Specifically school vs reality and the way things that we’re taught are really, really vitally important … aren’t. But forget that. That thought didn’t gel. Or hasn’t yet. While researching, however, I found this take on expectations vs reality. Different. 🙂 A tasty (well, I wouldn’t actually count on that …) sample from that link:
12 Comments