Gun violence dropping, but citizens don't feel it is

So, since 1993 gun violence has dropped but only a very low minority believe the stat. Could it possibly be due to over exposure of gun crime by the mainstream media?


"Compared with 1993, the peak of U.S. gun homicides, the firearm homicide rate was 49 percent lower in 2010, and there were fewer deaths, even though the nation's population grew," according to the Pew study. "The victimization rate for other violent crimes with a firearm—assaults, robberies and sex crimes—was 75 percent lower in 2011 than in 1993."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/05/07/181998015/rate-of-u-s-gun-violence-has-fallen-since-1993-study-says

Really? The federal budget has nothing left to cut?

Does she really believe that we cant return the federal budget back to where it was 12 years ago? How can someone keep getting elected if they are that inane?      

      House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says Republican-led efforts to rein in government spending are pointless

      because there is nothing left to cut in the almost $4 trillion-a-year federal budget.

      “The cupboard is bare. There’s no more cuts to make. It’s really important that people understand that," Mrs 

       Pelosi, California Democrat, said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN's "State Of The Union".

     “We cannot have cuts just for the sake of cuts.”

       The federal budget has doubled in size in 12 years, from $1.9 trillion in 2001 to $3.8 trillion this year.

let me point that out again.......

The federal budget has doubled in size in 12 years, from $1.9 trillion in 2001 to $3.8 trillion this year.

muwahhhhahahahahahahahaha

Gun ownership up, especially among women

A right not exercised soon becomes a privilege.
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nbc-news-channel/45897106#45897106

But the anti-gunners tell me gun ownership is down
http://www.saysuncle.com/2012/01/05/but-the-anti-gunners-tell-me-gun-ownership-is-down/

Is the world changing forever?

With China having double digit growth in its GDP and Europe and the US showing anemic rates, barely staying out of recession territory, are we looking at a fundamental shift in the socio-economic mapping of the globe?

And, whats going to happen to me and my family while the economic tsunamis change the landscape?

Want to push for change? Watch out for the fentanyl darts

This story outlines some really cool hi tech ways that the .gov can keep you from protesting using less than lethal devices.
The final paragraph caught my eye:
"Perhaps these less-lethal tactics for crowd control do result in fewer injuries. But they also severely weaken our capacity to enact political change. Authorities have ever more creative ways to manage dissent, at a time when the need for change by popular demand is vital to the future of our society and the planet."

Our debt is more like 211 Trillion Dollars

"If you add up all the promises that have been made for spending obligations, including defense expenditures, and you subtract all the taxes that we expect to collect, the difference is $211 trillion. That's the fiscal gap," he says. "That's our true indebtedness."

See more here

Wow, all I can say is wow. We. Are. So. Screwed.

The Prez sure does like doing things his own way

Reason.com looks at the ways Obama is expanding executive power, something he railed against as he was running for office if you recall....more of the same here

The death of a Democratic Republic

If some of the more progressive states have their way, they will forgo the Electoral College in Presidential elections and award their states electoral votes to whomever wins the popular vote nationwide. This means that California, for example, could give its electoral votes to someone who DID NOT WIN THE POPULAR VOTE IN CALIFORNIA. How about them apples Cali voters?
You don't even need to vote in California apparently, and candidates now have no reason to campaign there either. You'll just auto-award your votes by proxy to the candidate that wins most of the rest of the country. Boy, there's an ideal situation.

Debt reduction via hidden taxes

Joe Huffman, who I like even if he is a Microsoft guy, has some interesting thoughts on how the .gov is going to raise revenue.

Tam has a round up of other topics of note

and
Uncle has some news on the whole Fast and Furious debacle

So, to sum up, the EPA and OSHA are looking to start generating revenue instead of you know, doing their job watching out for us, 4 guns and a box of ammo is considered an arsenal in England, the US is allowing cocaine into the country in exchange for information and my head hurts.

This country is going down fast, Linoge sums it up

Linoge has an interesting essay on the video I posted earlier, its a good read on how we can't expect things to get better b/c everyone wants what they feel is coming to them.
My generation and the generation coming after are all about "show me the money" and damn the consequences. When we hit a wall with the global economy eventually, its going to be sad seeing them all standing in soup lines saying "this isn't right, wheres my check?".
 None of them, including my own kids, comprehend whats going to happen due to the unstoppable deficits and debts being left them by the baby boomers. I stay up at night worrying sometimes, but I don't think I can do more than put away a few more cans of soup in the basement.

Terrapower has a new design, no funding or land though

So the vaporware is getting pretty thick here, but they have put out a really nice press release. Using Uranium 238, though, would be awesome if they can pull it off.

This may not result in cheaper power or faster built power plants like a Thorium reactor, but it would be safer than current designs b/c it doesn't need electricity to power cooling pumps.

OK, so now they are taking over 100 miles from any border

let me measure the distance from my house to central Lake Erie and make sure I'm still under State authority....
Why does no one else not worry when our Dept of Homeland Security is making work for itself?

Courtesy of wirecutter.

Domestic Terror Alert

Napolitano: Domestic Terrorists Central to Threat

Do you think she's referring to the ATF (selling guns to narco-terrorists) and the TSA (sexually assaulting children and grandmothers)?

Sad to think that George Orwell was right, even if his claim of "1984" was off by a decade or two. Anyone else get the shivers when they hear "Dept of Homeland Security"?

Slick Willy actually has some good ideas

Bill Clinton is actually outlining a dozen or so (ok 14 if you must know) easy steps that will help the economy. He isn't saying these steps will solve all our problems, he just points out most of them are easy and would help. Since the first one is decreased government regulation prior to construction starting and #12 is Cut Corporate Taxes, I'm all for it.
Check out the whole list here, its worth a read.
I like them all  except #3 plus #14 isn't really an idea, its an idea to get together and find other ideas.

How do we fix this? Is it even possible?

Really great read, for a really bad reason

You need to read this, its long, but it tells you why and how Goldman Sachs has basically been bamboozling us all since the 1800's. If we arrested all their former alums in high government posts, we wouldn't have much government left.

Makes you shiver realizing some conspiracy theories might actually be true.

I agree with Tam 100% - Our tax dollars at work.

"If you're going to steal money from me at gunpoint, promise me you'll use it to do cool stuff like shake the ground with thunder and punch holes through the sky."

Good luck STS-135, sure has been fun watching all those missions. I can remember watching the first shuttle launch sometime around kindergarten or 1st grade, they wheeled TV's on carts into most classrooms and those without went into a classroom that did. We all watched with great wonder and awe as that spaceship blasted off and flew into the great beyond. I was enamored from that moment on, visiting Cape Kennedy and writing letters to NASA asking for mission patches (I got some cool stickers and a poster, but no patches, had to buy them at the gift shop, LOL).

On a related note, Congress is trying to defund the NOAA weather satellites, one congresscritter went so far as to tell the NOAA director at a hearing to just get the data they need by "turning on the weather channel". Apparently he doesn't know where TWC gets their data, where electricity comes from, or how to pull his head out of his ass.

God speed STS-135; heres hoping I see more space ships blast off in my lifetime.

Buy Monster Hunter Alpha

Larry Correia writes some of the best fiction out there these days, and he needs support to keep his full time job as 'writer'. I already own the previous two Monster Hunter titles and have pre-ordered the 3rd at Amazon. The books are cheap and you can read them again and again and enjoy details you missed the first time.
As Linoge says "Buy the book today"

I will personally send you mental hugs and warm wishes if you buy a copy.

Commercial message ends here.

Why do we care about the wrong things?

We just don't seem to care that the country is falling apart.....

China and India are going nuclear, using Thorium, US did this in 1964

Thorium based molten salt nuclear reactors (MSR) have multiple built in safeties against meltdown or explosion and actually can in theory provide more power per ounce of fuel than uranium based reactors. Why isn't the US doing this anymore? B/c the government regulations for nuclear power plants are all based on the Gen II Westinghouse uranium reactor design and its mods, generating electricity from a new style of reactor would almost be impossible in the US b/c of bureaucracy (the H3TR project in Texas is a proposed research reactor using thorium coated beads, but is not an MSR).

Of course, its not a mature technology, but how is it going to become one if no one in the US is funding it?

No emergency cooling system is needed, which is both expensive and adds thermal inefficiency. In the basic design, an MSR generates heat at higher temperatures, continuously, and without refuelling shutdowns, so it can provide hot air to a more efficient (Brayton Cycle) turbine. An MSR run this way is about 30% better in thermal efficiency than common thermal plants, whether combustive or traditional solid-fuelled nuclear.