- Per Adam in comments: “Inside the Federal Bureau of Way Too Many Guns.” How the ATF traces guns used in crimes since the mean old NRA has denied it a full computerized record. (Actually an interesting article, though it would have been better with some recognition of why that computerized database is verboten.)
- Ah, but The Atlantic has something much easier to track, even though it could fill just as many large cardboard boxes: the scandals of Hillary from Whitewater to Bengazi. (Then there’s this, too, via Wendy & Brad’s place.)
- With science fiction’s Hugo awards having become so politicized that a coterie of social justice pecksniffs will deny v*tes to great writers, artists, and editors merely because they’re supported by a rival (and more freedomista) coterie, The Dragon Awards arise. No cliques. Just fan voting. And of course that makes it “sexist,” “racist,” and … well, you know the drill.*
- Unverified, so take with however much salt you need, but Will Lehr, writing for Survival Blog, claims that the first steps of IRA confiscation (via forcing retirement plans into government bonds) have already been taken.
- Yep, this 16-year-old kid’s pretty impressive. Homeschooled, of course. Anybody want to bet he’s a Mormon? But does he — or his interviewer — have the slightest clue about what would really happen at an Article Five convention? (H/T. OdS)
- How private spy firms help governments see whatever they want on smartphones. (Spit!)
- Amazon is testing a new 30-hour, full-benefits workweek.
- Back in 1975, it was kind of amusing to think of a cat co-authoring a physics paper. These days, with so much scientific work in sad disrepute, one might almost think many studies have been truly conducted by felines. (Fond of the little mousies and ratties, they are, but somewhat biased.)
- Finally, here’s your tearjerker story of the day. Get out them hankies.
* Want some of these Dragon Award books for your home library? You where to get them. 🙂
A wedding in a hospital? Why in the world didn’t they take the old man home with hospice care, then hold the wedding? I’ve arranged transfers like this in far less than 12 hours.
Home would have been a much better place for almost anyone. sigh
I can’t get excited about the Dragon Awards, SF drove me away long ago for reasons having little to do with SJWs taking over the Hugos – but looking at these titles does make me understand how far from “fandom” I ever was, even when as a kid I’d have called myself a rabid SF fan.
Do you know (don’t spread this around) I’ve never been to a con in my life? Never even owned a set of Spock ears. Pathetic.
But no – I started to drift away in the ‘seventies, with all the preachy “New Wave” which would apparently fit right in at a present-day Hugo awards banquet. Then I swore off completely when they added the second F and decreed that all SFF covers shall feature dragons.
Which…somehow…brings us back to the Dragon Awards? Maybe not. Maybe coincidence.
Claire, a series that may be of interest to your readers.
“A parallel legal universe, open only to corporations and largely invisible to everyone else, helps executives convicted of crimes escape punishment. Part one of a BuzzFeed News investigation — read the whole series here.”
https://www.buzzfeed.com/globalsupercourt
The first report in the series is Inside The Global “Club” That Helps Executives Escape Their Crimes.
I have always thought that our constitution had a divine hand involved in it even though it was written by mortal men. One thing these mortal men had a handle on IMHO is the weakness of men (&women) in general; the ole power corrupts thing.
That is why they wanted a weak divided federal government that recognized that most power laid with the people (9th amendment i.e. natural law) and then what is left (and not enumerated in the constitution as being an interest of the federal government) it gave back to the states (10th amendment/federalism).
Being that the forefathers knew they didn’t know everything thus their creation was imperfect they then gave us Article V which gave a way to constitutionally change & improve the rule of law via the states (something advocated by my favorite forefather George Mason).
However for all of this to work there was a key ingredient needed, something dearly missing today; virtue (virtue is a trait or quality deemed to be morally good and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being). When the majority of the people of this land decide that the best people to lead us into the future would be the likes of Hillary or Trump then virtue is something that is in very short supply.
“The deterioration of a government begins almost always by the decay of its principles.” Charles de Montesquieu
The problem today does not lie with our constitution but moreso with what it says in its beginning; “We the people…
I found the article “Inside the Federal Bureau of Way Too Many Guns” very comforting. Obviously the FedGov could create a massive gun registry database (it would require scanning all those documents, or converting the microfilms, into machine-readable pdfs and then extracting the relevant data), but that would take a very long time and the result would be chock-full of errors. Glad to know that it hasn’t been done, and couldn’t be without Congressional approval.
I’m no fan of the NRA, but if they truly are responsible for tying the government’s hands on this matter kudos to them.
Did anyone else look at those photos of “unusual” guns at the end? Anyone know where to get an umbrella gun? Pretty cool. 🙂
I’ve never been to a Con either, nor have I ever owned Spock ears. There’s still plenty of good SciFi out there to enjoy. Michael Z. Williamson comes to mind. Despite his lefty leanings, I can still enjoy reading Scalzi. The Old Mans’ War series is great stuff. I guess I haven’t run into much of the PC variety of SF / Fantasy, but then I’m not a voracious reader, and I haven’t read any Fantasy for years.
Private Spy Firms? I assume that’s referring to the usual stuff about large data brokers and the telcos. No surprise.
Creepy, Adam. Everybody with a brain knew something like that was going to happen even back in the GATT/WTO days of the 1990s and now even the less observant are noticing.
Guess we can be glad for at least temporary setbacks:
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2016/09/05/One-Week-Obama-s-Ambitious-Trade-Pacts-Are-Coming-Apart
That Amazon article is interesting, in light of the fact that they have a reputation for working people past the point of burnout, then throwing them away.
Maybe somebody realized that killing/driving off your best people was a bad idea?
Then again, maybe they’ll still require unpaid overtime, they just only pay for the first 30-hours worth?
[Sixty-five percent of the time, workers at the tracing center are able to successfully trace a gun used in a crime back to the original purchaser. A routine trace takes about a week, but they can turn an “urgent” around in 24 hours.]
Bearing in mind in most of the cases cited police already knew who the shooters were, and in many of them they were dead, that sounds like a reasonable turnaround. Bearing in mind, of course, that it traces back to the original purchaser, not the person in possession at the scene of the crime.
He also fails to mention that most of the guns traced were sold years ago. I own several that were purchased long before 4473s were invented. And some before serial numbers were required. A faster computer record search won’t fix that.
As I commented on Adam’s original comment on the gun article: I simply cannot believe that there are more gun shops than grocery stores or McDonalds. My community doesn’t have that many gun shops. Are they counting all the Walmarts? Most of the Walmarts no longer sell firearms, only ammunition.