La Belle Époque

Gun Grabbers Need another Newtown

The emotional appeals did not work, and other than in leftwing Colorado, the gun-grabbing fever has broken. Anti-liberty forces need another bloody massacre:

“Unfortunately, tragically, regrettably, there’ll be other incidents of gun violence that will remind us of how much is at stake,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who has pushed hard for new gun laws after the December shooting that left 20 elementary school students dead.

He left out "hopefully," but he's a smart politician (who got caught lying about being a combat veteran, but that's another story).

This little goose-stepper from the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence sums it up nicely:

“The next Newtown is inevitable if we don’t act.... This is just our reality,” Everitt said. “Those things can help inform debate and galvanize people to act.”

The plan for 2014? More emotional appeals, bankrolled by leftwing authoritarian Mikhail Bloombergovich:

They plan to rely upon the impassioned pleas of the families of the Newtown shooting victims, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s money, and former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ national stature. Before the next election, though, the truth is that another tragedy may be the only way to shake loose the legislation.

Here's an idea that would probably work:

The problem with the last anti-gun farrago was that no one could explain how any of it would have prevented another mentally ill mass murderer from getting a gun.  Instead of parading victims before us, craft good legislation and make a logical case for how such laws would prevent future Loughners (got his guns legally), Holmes'(got his guns legally) and Lanzas (took him mom's improperly secured guns).

Meanwhile, a holocaust of inner-city teens continues in Chicago.  What do we do about that? 

All quotes from National Journal

See also:
Obama's Abuse of Dead Children
Outrage is Not an Argument

Prometheus Shrugged

My post Gene Pool Scum provoked some good discussion, and that was what I wanted, although no one could answer the questions I asked.

We now have at our disposal abortion, the birth control pill, condoms, easy divorce, and a society where a woman can make her way unencumbered by male patriarchy.  So why are women less happy?  Why are there still unwanted pregnancies?  Why are there more sexually transmitted diseases?  Why are women pornified and objectified?

No one could explain the explosion of sexually transmitted diseases, and also left unanswered was why in this day and age of the unchained female, young women debase themselves before hooting manboy-apes, sometimes committing suicide over what some chimp said about them on facebook.  Maybe a better question is why the behavior of men towards women has coarsened, or, if you prefer to believe that the coarse behavior always existed, why is it now out in the open?

Jersey pointed out, correctly, that abortions have gone down in recent years.

Shaw observed, correctly, that where people use birth control devices properly, unwanted pregnancies, and specifically teen pregnancies, go down.  And indeed, nation-wide, teen pregnancies are down.

Ducky mentioned the influence of advertising, and I agree with him, only I like to call it what the latin languages call it:  Propaganda.  And it doesn't just come from those evil business owners.  It comes from everywhere.  As I told Jez, everyone, everyone, Everyone! is trying to sell you something.

Jez had the most absract response, which was what I was looking for, since the evidence before us suggests concrete solutions and remedies have not had the desired effect.

Here is the first part of Jez's response:

Is increased liberty likely to result in increased happiness?

Good question.  No.  No more so than getting in a car is likely to result in you ending up where you would really like to go.

Here's the second part of his response:

If we entertain all the above, what then is your recommendation? A more authoritarian society => a more regulatory superego => we can enjoy our unhappiness without the guilt? Is happiness a better political goal than liberty?

Authoritarianism is not the answer, and we have seen the destruction at the outer limits of hedonism.  Happiness without liberty is an accident.  Here is where I am at:

I am a conservative, still relatively young, who is watching my society throw everything overboard with little reflection and almost no evaluation.  Or, as conservative thinker Russell Kirk would put it, we are tearing down fences before finding out why they were built in the first place.

I am a libertarian who is against state-enforce morality, but I am confronted with the strong correlation between economic well-being and behavior/lifestyle choice/personal morality.  It is so strong that many serious scholars take it as a given point of departure for further study and dialog.

With all of our technology, knowledge and freedoms, why is there so much child poverty, divorce, venerial disease, unwanted pregnancies, single-parent homes, depression and unhappiness?

I ponder such questions in the solitude of my mind, and the horrifying idea that... (apologies, I started this post last week, and I can't remember what I was going to say here)

We are guided by "experts."  Sometimes, mostly in the realm of hard sciences, they are undeniably right:  Personal hygiene leads to better health and less disease and sickness.  The problem comes in when we listen to "experts" who really are not, and to compound matters, they have strayed into the arena of conjecture and personal opinion.
 
We languish under an authoritarian collective--a crowd-sourced self-dictatorship.  I don't know how it started, I don't think anyone oversees it or maintains it.  Knowing what little I know of human nature, I imagine that it is organic and self-regulating.

With freedom comes responsibility.  I have no answers.

Who's Game?

COLUMBIA HILLS, GUSEV CRATER, MARS

Reminds Me of New Mexico

Mars One, a Dutch non-profit has received 78,000 applications in just two weeks from those willing to pick up and move to Mars... Forever.

America leads the way with 17,324 candidates followed by China and the UK, Russia, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Argentina, and India make up the rest of the top ten.

The Gods of Mars

Whatever the final tally, this will be whittled down to 28-40 people split into four groups.  The first four are due to arrive at their destination in 2023 at a cost of 6 Billion.

So, who wants to go?  And why?

 

   

IMAGE

Pete Souza/Whitehouse

It's all about Image

I couldn't help but laugh seeing these two headlines juxtaposed together:

ISRAEL STRIKES SYRIA - OBAMA CONCEDES DEFEAT... 

... on the Golf Green Monday playing Senators Corker, Chambliss, and Udall.  For an administration credited with good media management they certainly seem to be slipping.

"The President enjoyed the chance to spend some time on the golf course with the Senators.  Most of the talk centered on the round of golf and not the latest round of legislative negotiations in Congress."

Well so much for a working, business round of golf.

Appearances

Now I have to admit,  I understand it's a 24/7 job and I don't begrudge the man a round of golf or a hundred and twenty, but really... it does kind of come across as rubbing our faces in it.  Golf on Mondays... vacations in Hawaii, Colorado, Hawaii, and the Bahamas so far this year. 

The question is... amid all of the sequestration cuts,  is this the image you want to be projecting?  

1% Eh?

Why the Left Cannot be Trusted, Part LMXXXI

The statist left is on a jihad against this mythical government "austerity," they keep blathering on about. Their latest gambit is to latch onto an error in an immaterial threshold measurement of a study they hate. Their goal is to convince the world that we can borrow our way to prosperity, and this is their big chance:

Last week, careful research by UMass-Amherst professors found that the seminal paper by Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart contained a data error that biased their conclusion that debt-to-GDP ratios in excess of 90% lead to dramatically slower economic growth. 

The 90% of GDP figure was arbitrary with no theoretical basis.  As a result, it’s not terribly surprising to find that its significance was oversold.  Yet, the basic contention that high levels of public debt weigh on growth was and remains perfectly reasonable.

This is nonsense: numerous studies found that increased levels of public debt were associated with slower growth and they generally identified a lower threshold.  The Bank for International Settlements (2011) found that debt overhang problems become aggravated once debt hits 85% of GDP.   A 2013 paper from a former Fed Governor and famous econometrician found that economies are especially vulnerable to a debt crisis when debt exceeds 80% of GDP. (Hysteric Response to The Reinharg-Rogoff Row)

The error made by Rogoss and Reinhart is real, but immaterial, as Robert Samuelson explains:

Although the newly discovered errors in Reinhart and Rogoff’s 2010 paper (“Growth in a Time of Debt”) are embarrassing, they do not alter one of its main conclusions: High debt and low economic growth often go together. (The Reinhart-Rogoff Brawl)

Unlike the fleck spittle shouters on the left, Samuelson has no dog in the fight. Samuelson also shows just how ridiculous Krugman's outlandish question is:

“Did an Excel coding error destroy the economies of the Western world?” asked economist Paul Krugman in his New York Times column.

Well, no. The Reinhart/Rogoff paper was published in January 2010, more than a year after Lehman Brothers’ failure and the onset of the financial crisis. At that point, all the ingredients of Europe’s debt crisis (housing bubbles in Spain and Ireland, huge budget deficits in Greece, weak banks throughout the continent) were also in place.

He them proceeds to explain that Merkel in Germany and Cameron in England both crafted their austerity policies while the Reinhart-Rogoff paper was just being published and no one was yet even discussing it. So, this is why the left has no credibility with me. Once you dive into the numbers yourself and perform your own investigation, you realize how wrong they are.

Some are wrong through the laziness of simply parroting their "experts," but their "experts" are purposely, schemingly wrong, misguiding people in pursuit of their own narrow agenda of convincing people we can borrow and spend ourselves into prosperity. The modern day fairy tale of spinning straw into gold.

The brawl over Reinhart-Rogoff is thus less a serious economic debate than it is a political exercise to turn more of the private economy over to government hands. (WSJ: Debt and Growth)

What Austerity?

FreeThinke brought us an opportunity to debate Paul Krugman's krud-encrusted pronouncements, and I eagerly  launched my opening salvos. To everyone's disappointment, Marxian one-percenter and faithful Krugman-worshipper Ducky ran quacking from the field of battle. It was a particularly acute letdown given The Marxist Merganser's propensity for manly sports metaphors involving baseball and boxing. I can't call it a knockout or a win, because he fled the arena so quickly, so it was more like a cancellation or a rain out, I guess.

The Bearded Crapweasel Krugman has been on a jihad against European "austerity," but his basic premise is flawed. The Progressive Pontificator neglects to provide any evidence of this supposed "austerity." 

This punctures his balloon:

Interestingly, Krugman neglects to provide any data on British government actions. In particular, although he asserts that British policies have simply been to "slash spending," he neglects that Britain ignored the advice of free-market supporters by increasing tax rates significantly, such as raising the top marginal income-tax rate to 50 percent, the capital-gains-tax rate to 28 percent, and the value-added-tax rate to 20 percent.

More damaging to his view, as can be seen on tables 25 and 27 of this Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) document, British spending has experienced no significant cuts and still represents a sharp increase compared to prerecession levels. (Krugman and British Austerity)

You can go examine the source data here: OECD Data

Professor Philipp Bagus explains The Myth of Austerity:

"First of all, is there really austerity in the eurozone? One would think that a person is austere when she saves, i.e., if she spends less than she earns. Well, there exists not one country in the eurozone that is austere. They all spend more than they receive in revenues.

Imagine that a person you know spends 12 percent more in 2008 than her income, spends 31 percent more than her income the next year, spends 25 percent more than her income in 2010, and 26 percent more than her income in 2011. Would you regard this person as austere? And would you regard this behavior as sustainable? This is what the Spanish government has done."

The "austerity," such as it is, has been borne on the backs of the people, as rapacious governments confiscate even more money from them via higher tax rates. The final insult is when supposedly smart people like Krugman wonder why the economy stinks. Earth to progressives: Government does not create wealth; human activity in the free marketplace does.

Indeed, Veronique de Rugy uses OECD data to show us the connection between higher taxes and poor economic performance.  You can read about it in her scholarly study, Austerity: The Relative Effects of Tax Increases versus Spending Cuts

Nick Gillespie has the best summary:

Observers such as Paul Krugman are mistaken when they point to European austerity measures and say such outcomes prove that cutting spending doesn't work. The fact is that spending generally hasn't been cut.

Monti might have been elected on promises of cutting spending but, write Alesina and de Rugy at Forbes, "the Italian government implemented the wrong kind of austerity."

First, it raised the tax burden on its workers. Tax revenues consumed an additional 2.5 percent of GDP, bringing the total up to 45 percent.

Second, [...] the actual spending cuts have been minuscule.
(Good Austerity and Bad Austerity)

So the next time someone squawks that "austerity has failed in Europe!" Nick Gillespie recommends you ask them two questions:

1) How much was spending cut?
2) How much were taxes raised?

Classical at Large

Imperial March

John Williams as performed by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

 

Concerning Hobbits

Howard Shore 

 
In addition to original composition,  Hollywood has made good use of existing work...

Vienna Waltz

Johann Strauss

  

The Ride of the Valkyries

Richard Wagner 


So what is your favorite use of classical music in film? 
 

Getting Frisky

Dsch67

STOP, QUESTION, FRISK

So far the NYPD has stopped and frisked roughly five million people under their stop, question, frisk policy.

In 2002, New Yorkers were stopped by the police 97,296 times.
80,176 were totally innocent (82 percent). 

In 2003, New Yorkers were stopped by the police 160,851 times.
140,442 were totally innocent (87 percent).

In 2004, New Yorkers were stopped by the police 313,523 times.
278,933 were totally innocent (89 percent).

In 2005, New Yorkers were stopped by the police 398,191 times.
352,348 were totally innocent (89 percent).

In 2006, New Yorkers were stopped by the police 506,491 times.
457,163 were totally innocent (90 percent).

In 2007, New Yorkers were stopped by the police 472,096 times.
410,936 were totally innocent (87 percent).

n 2008, New Yorkers were stopped by the police 540,302 times.
474,387 were totally innocent (88 percent).

In 2009, New Yorkers were stopped by the police 581,168 times.
510,742 were totally innocent (88 percent).

In 2010, New Yorkers were stopped by the police 601,285 times.
518,849 were totally innocent (86 percent).

In 2011, New Yorkers were stopped by the police 685,724 times.
605,328 were totally innocent (88 percent).

In 2012, New Yorkers were stopped by the police 533,042 times
473,300 were totally innocent (89 percent). 

Figures from NYCLU

I'll leave it to the NYCLU to argue whether or not the stops are racist given that 84% of the stops are of 'people of color'.
 
In Terry .v. Ohio the Supreme Court held that " the 4th amendment is not violated if when a police officer stops a suspect on the street and frisks him or her without probable cause to arrest, if the police officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime and has a reasonable belief that the person "may be armed and presently dangerous." 

Given that 90% of the stops involve innocent people, the question then becomes are the officers involved acting on "reasonable suspicion"?

The data provided is collected by the NYPD.  Every time a police officer stops a person in NYC, the officer is supposed to fill out a form to record the details of the stop. Officers fill out the forms by hand, and then the forms are entered manually into a database. The numbers you see here come from those reports.  

The other question I would ask is... how many times do NYPD officers stop, question, and frisk people and don't bother to fill out the paperwork? Especially when nothing turns up in the search.

Another question you should ask is how the number of stops increased 500% when the city population only increased by 2%.  Are people acting more suspiciously?  Or are the cops relaxing their standard of "reasonable suspicion"?  

Does this seem "reasonable" to you? 

In the City of Paul Revere

Link

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IT'S NOT THE BRITISH THAT ARE COMING

Link

What took place in Watertown was a general search,  the police had no 'reasonable suspicion' that the suspect was in any particular house,  nor did they have probable cause that he was in any particular house.  Now that things have calmed down a bit,  it would seem like a good opportunity to discuss this.

Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Article XIV:  Every subject has a right to be secure from all unreasonable searches, and seizures, of his person, his houses, his papers, and all his possessions. All warrants, therefore, are contrary to this right, if the cause or foundation of them be not previously supported by oath or affirmation; and if the order in the warrant to a civil officer, to make search in suspected places, or to arrest one or more suspected persons, or to seize their property, be not accompanied with a special designation of the persons or objects of search, arrest, or seizure: and no warrant ought to be issued but in cases, and with the formalities prescribed by the laws.  

Constitution of the United States, Fourth Amendment:  The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized

“Out started six officers, seized my bridle, put their pistols to my breast, ordered me to dismount, which I did. One of them, who appeared to have the command there, and much of a gentleman, asked me where I came from; I told him. He asked what time I left . I told him, he seemed surprised, said ''Sir, may I crave your name?'' I answered ''My name is Revere.”

Gene Pool Scum

“In 2008, there were an estimated 110 million prevalent STIs (sexually transmitted infections) among women and men in the United States,” said the study. “Of these, more than 20% of infections (22.1 million) were among women and men aged 15 to 24 years. Approximately 19.7 million incident infections occurred in the United States in 2008; nearly 50% (9.8 million) were acquired by young women and men aged 15 to 24 years.” (CNS News)

That's 1/3 of all Americans, and when exclude children and adults who are not sexually active, the rate is even more alarming.

So, since we've turned out backs on the stone-age morality of the stunted, now discredited 1950's, we have:

* Ready access to birth control, but unintended pregnancies and abortions are more prevalent

* More abortions and ready access to birth control, but we have even more children living in broken homes

* In our porn-soaked culture, women are more objectified than ever, with girls committing suicide over body image and a constant stream of news stories involving boy-men raping young women at parties

* Free condoms for all, including cute ad campaigns like "Wrap that Rascal," but we have a blooming cornucopia of sexually transmitted diseases.

We were told that the sexual revolution, equipped with abortion, condoms and birth control, would liberate women, as would easy divorce and a deprecation of the creaky, outmoded institution of marriage.  Instead, single moms are worse off financially and more stressed out compared to the men who impregnated them, and also compared to their married counterparts.

A Happiness Gap

Indeed, there is a happiness gap between men and women, and women's happiness is in a 40-year decline.   Conservative Ross Douthat and HuffPo contributor Marcus Buckingham both discuss this scholarly paper, The paradox of Declining Female Happiness.  I recommend giving them all a read.

From the perch of a happily married man, I'd say horny, immoral men have a substantial cohort of women right where they've always wanted them: Stripped...  Of clothing, dignity, and independence, and shaking their surgically enhanced booties, in the hopes of attracting the attention of a worthless man-boy. 

So progressives, what happened?  Where's the progress?

A ray of hope:  Time to Stop Hooking Up

Political Agnosia

Agnosia

Agnosia is the inability to differentiate between objects, persons, sounds, shapes, or smells in the absence of specific sensory defect or memory loss. As an example, the illustration above is a test used to determine the ability to differentiate length.

Political Agnosia

Political agnosia is a term I've coined in response to KP's post Sunday on FT's blog.  It's the inability to differentiate between political and non-political speech.  

KP's Post

KP's post was a well written piece on dealing with change and reduced performance.  It was in all ways, apolitical.

Public Commentary

The commentary almost immediately went  completely off topic, those posting apparently unable or unwilling to differentiate between political and non-political speech.  

Word of advice:

There is more to life than politics & if you make politics the defining factor of your life, you've kind of, and sadly missed the boat.

Cheers!    

Don't You Feel SAFE?

Now I Can Sleep At Night

We can all breathe a sigh of relief knowing that we no longer have to look over our shoulders every time we see an Elvis impersonator.

After what seemed, at least in the media, as an open and shut case, suddenly fell apart when the prosecutor was forced to drop all charges.  It seems that Elvis, accused of mailing Ricin laced letters to President Obama and Senator Wicker were also mailed to a judge,  the wife of the current suspects previous political opponent.  

Leaving the courthouse Elvis was heard to remark "RICE?  I don't even eat rice".

So relax...

ELVIS HAS LEFT THE COURTHOUSE 

UNARMED?

Now reports are leaking out from the Feds that the hiding Dzhokar was unarmed when police fired over 200 rounds into the boat.  Seems kind of counterproductive to seizing an intelligence asset for questioning.  Now obviously, he was extremely dangerous and police had no way of knowing whether he was armed or not, but it is distinctly possible that this was a case of "contagious" fire. Not that I can blame them, but perhaps its time to start arming our robots with tasers.

All in good fun

Our police and law enforcement officials do a wonderful job...

...most of the time.

~Cheers! 

Land of the Screed, Home of the Slave

If pressure cookers are outlawed, only outlaws will have pressure cookers...

Retailer Williams-Sonoma is removing pressure cookers from its stores near Boston.

“It’s a temporary thing out of respect,” the manager of a store in Natick said. The move is local and the cookware will still be available on the store’s website. He referred all other questions to the company’s corporate headquarters.

Another nearby store, Crate & Barrel, is continuing to sell pressure cookers. However, it did observe a moment of silence yesterday and asked employees to wear Boston-themed clothing to honor the victims. (Investorplace.com)

At first I thought this was a joke, or perhaps a rightwing fever swamp meme gone viral, but it looks like it could be true.

After all, we law-abiding gun owners were supposed to hang our heads in shame and stand silently in the public square to be pilloried and stripped of our rights after Sandy Hook, as progressive hosannah choirs screamed "IT"S FOR THE CHILDREN!"

After Sandy Hook, President Obama and his Ploofian nudgers orchestrated an operatic assault on our emotions, complete with pictures of children and a media blitz of grieving parents, but liberty-lovers stood firm and pointed out the non-sequitur that it all was. 

We all grieve, but further circumscribing the rights of law-abiding citizens won't bring back one murder victim, and, lamentably, it won't prevent further random acts.  Nothing in that grimy fistful of bills the Senate voted down would have prevented a Loughner, Lanza or a Holmes from commiting their grim crimes.  But those of us who point this out are callous bastards.

Have we really arrived at the intellectually-vapid condition where we believe an all-powerful state can overcome random acts of human nature? Have we become so emotion-driven that we cannot intellectually separate a benign instrument from a criminal who uses it to create destruction?

There are over 300,000,000 guns in this country. In 2011, there were 8583 homicides by firearms, 19,392 suicides, and 606 firearm-related accidents.

So, percentages by firearm for murders: 0.002861%; suicides: 0.006464%; accidents: 0.000202%.

I bet the pressure cooker percentages are even less, even including accidental explosions, and let's hope no one runs the numbers on automobile deaths...

An even scarier prospect is a nefarious murderer who crafts weapons of mass destruction from whisky or microbrews, or Gaia forbid, a toilet paper bomber...

Jacob Sullum, a great libertarian American who goes after Republicans and Democrats with equal gusto,  eviscerates President Obama for playing politics with dead children.  He also skewers the left's emotion-laden, logic-free arguments.

 See also:  Atlantic - Gun Violence in America

Rock Opera: From Tommy to the Wall and beyond

TOMMY

While not the first,  The Who's 1969 Tommy is undoubtedly the first rock opera to reach international acclaim.  Originally titled Tommy 1914-1918 the story was set at the end of WWI (although the 1975 movie was set in WWII).  The premise introduced in the overture is that Captain Walker is lost in combat,  the mother gives birth to Tommy in "It's a Boy" and moves in with her lover Frank.  In 1921 Captain Walker returns and kills his wife's lover (in the movie it was portrayed the other way around).  

The first verse is the wife's lover singing to Tommy's mother.  The second verse reintroduces Captain Walker with the murder of his wife's lover, then the third by Tommy's mother asks "what about the boy?"  Captain Walker and his wife then admonish Tommy "You didn't hear it, you didn't see it, you won't say nothing to no-one".  Tommy is left traumatized in a semi-catatonic state,  deaf, dumb, and blind.  The last verse is sung by Captain Walker to his wife.  Here is the song 1921 from the 1975 movie (remember the movie switched the roles of Captain Walker and Frank):

 

PINK

Pink Floyd's 1979 The Wall, is the life story of the opera's protagonist, Pink, believed to be based on Roger Water's own life and that of the bands original leader Syd Barret.  The songs tell the story of each event in his life, the death of his father, his overprotective mother, the oppressive school system, each adding a brick to the metaphorical wall isolating him from his humanity. The story climaxes with Pink, his metaphorical wall now complete, is in a drug induced hallucination believing that he is a Neo-Nazi fascist dictator, the audience his angry mob.

DR RIGHTEOUS

Styx 1983 Kilroy Was Here was the rock opera that gave us Mr. Roboto.  Set in the future under a fascist dictatorship that has outlawed rock and roll,  the song "Heavy Metal Poisoning" is sung by the antagonist Dr. Righteous, leader of the Majority for Musical Morality.

 

JESUS OF SUBURBIA

Green Day's 2004 American Idiot is the story of the anti-hero Jesus of Suburbia.  The song Boulevard of Broken Dreams is sung from the point of view of the protagonist, Jesus of Suburbia who, dissatisfied with his life, has run away from home to the city.  The prelude to this song "Holiday" features cruising the city, partying the night away and ends back in the car, breaking down in an open field where this song begins.

 

Bloomberg is no threat to anyone's freedom, you idiots.

Legitreviews

Digital Trends

 

THE DOMAIN AWARENESS SYSTEM

The Domain Awareness System, nicknamed "the dashboard," was developed by Microsoft for the NYPD -- a three-year project that cost up to $40 million.  It centralizes and synthesizes mountains of data and footage: street maps, feeds from more than 4,000 existing security cameras, 911 alerts,  arrest records, parking tickets and even radiation detectors. Officials showed how hundreds of scanners that read license plates can spot a vehicle that's just been put on a watch list and how smart cameras fueled by artificial intelligence can flag a bag that's been left unattended too long. Cops are looking for a suspect in a red shirt? No problem -- the cameras can highlight anyone in that color in a crowd.  NBCNEWS

Bryan Smith for New York Daily News

NANNY BLOOMBERG SAYS:

 "We’ve made major investments in camera technology – notwithstanding the objections of some special interests,"

  "What you're seeing is what the private sector has used for a long time. If you walk around with a cell phone, the cell phone company knows where you are…We're not your mom and pop's police department anymore."

"You wait, in five years, the technology is getting better, they’ll be cameras everyplace ... Get Used To It!" 

"I do think there are certain times we should infringe on your freedom."

 Big Brother is Here

At this moment the entire group of people broke into a deep, slow, rhythmic chant of 'B-B! .... B-B! .... B-B!'—over and over again, very slowly, with a long pause between the first 'B' and the second—a heavy murmurous sound, somehow curiously savage, in the background of which one seemed to hear the stamps of naked feet and the throbbing of tom-toms. For perhaps as much as thirty seconds they kept it up. It was a refrain that was often heard in moments of overwhelming emotion. Partly it was a sort of hymn to the wisdom and majesty of Bloomberg, but still more it was an act of self-hypnosis, a deliberate drowning of consciousness by means of rhythmic noise.  ~Mostly George Orwell 

GET USED TO IT!

I hope none of you 'Special Interests' have any objections.

The interest from the United States has come from smaller municipalities, from sheriff’s departments, and police chiefs from several major cities,” said Dave Mosher,  Microsoft vice president in charge of program management.
  
...Whether you like it or not! 

THIS IS A TEST

ONE OF THESE MEN POSE A GRAVE DANGER

TO YOUR LIFE, LIBERTY, AND PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

CAN YOU TELL WHICH ONE? 

HERE'S A HINT:

The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry, But we live in a complex world where you’re going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.  Look, we live in a very dangerous world. We know there are people who want to take away our freedoms. New Yorkers probably know that as much if not more than anybody else after the terrible tragedy of 9/11, We have to understand that in the world going forward, we’re going to have more cameras and that kind of stuff. That’s good in some sense, but it’s different from what we are used to, Clearly the  Supreme Court has recognized that you have to have different interpretations of the Second Amendment and what it applies to and reasonable gun laws

Here we’re going to to have to live with reasonable levels of security, It really says something bad about us that we have to do it. But our obligation first and foremost is to keep our kids safe in the schools; first and foremost, to keep you safe if you go to a sporting event; first and foremost is to keep you safe if you walk down the streets or go into our parks,We cannot let the terrorists put us in a situation where we can’t do those things. And the ways to do that is to provide what we think is an appropriate level of protection. What we cant do is let the protection get in the way of us enjoying our freedoms, You still want to let people practice their religion, no matter what that religion is. And I think one of the great dangers here is going and categorizing anybody from one religion as a terrorist. That’s not true … That would let the terrorists win. That’s what they want us to do.

ONE OF THESE MEN WANTS TO KILL YOU

 

That would be Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

THE OTHER WANTS TO CRUSH YOU UNDER HIS JACKBOOTED HEEL OF STATE

 

 That would be Nanny Bloomberg

 

ASK YOURSELF, WHICH MAN IS THE GREATER THREAT

"We know there are people who want to take away our freedoms"

YES, WE DO!

The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing. ~John Adams

If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. ~Sam Adams

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpation.  The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.  ~James Madison

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.   ~Abraham Lincoln

Every step we take towards making the State our Caretaker of our lives, by that much we move toward making the State our Master.  ~Eisenhower

A Terrorist can only kill or maim you, it takes a politician to enslave you.  ~Finntann

On a more humorous note,  I was working on this post for 4/24.  When I finished I scheduled it and was surprised to see Silverfiddle had written a post and scheduled it for the same time.  I was more surprised when I saw the content.  Modesty precludes me from saying "Great Minds Think Alike".  ~Cheers!