08:08 – Moron North Carolina legislators are again falling prey to the SLAGIATT tendency of all legislators. Like most other legislative initiatives, their attempt to pass legislation to allow DNA samples to be taken from anyone arrested for (not charged with, let alone convicted of; simply arrested for) a felony or some misdemeanors will be seen in retrospect as what Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time. Ignoring the Constitutional issues and the fact that DNA reveals much more about a person than simply his identity, the simple fact is that North Carolina cannot afford to do this. The financial cost would be extremely high, and the state crime lab is already running months to literally years behind in processing DNA evidence.
UPS just showed up yesterday with some Rhizobia inoculum, which we include in the biology kits. Rhizobia are nitrogen-fixing soil bacteria that can massively increase yields of certain crops, like peas and Lima beans. But the commercial cultures, which are basically just the bacteria on a peat moss substrate, have very limited shelf lives. The stuff we got in yesterday, for example, has a best-by date of 12/31/15. So commercial Rhizobia innoculant isn’t really suited to long-term storage.
But Rhizobia can be cultured, and it’s well-suited to putting into stasis in a solution of phosphate-buffered saline, where it remains in what amounts to suspended animation for years to decades. It can be reactivated by inoculating some sterile culture medium made by diluting a couple tablespoons of table sugar and and a few ounces of beef or chicken broth in a couple liters of water and allowing the medium to sit at room temperature for a few days. When the medium becomes visibly cloudy, you have a couple liters of inoculant liquid with trillions of Rhizobia bacteria in it. That liquid can be used directly to treat seeds.
So I think I’ll produce the PBS cultures and sell them to people who are doing long-term prepping. I considered lyophilizing (freeze-drying) the cultures, but the PBS liquid cultures will work as well and are simpler to produce.
In a 2013 5-4 decision, Maryland v. King, the US Supreme court said that DNA collection incident to an arrest is “not a problem.”
The New York Times summarized the decision:
When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and they bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority, “taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee’s DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.”
To continue with the NYT analysis:
Justice Antonin Scalia summarized his dissent from the bench, a rare move signaling deep disagreement. He accused the majority of an unsuccessful sleight of hand, one that “taxes the credulity of the credulous.” The point of DNA testing as it is actually practiced, he said, is to solve cold cases, not to identify the suspect in custody.
But the Fourth Amendment forbids searches without reasonable suspicion to gather evidence about an unrelated crime, he said, a point the majority did not dispute. “Make no mistake about it: because of today’s decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason,” Justice Scalia said from the bench.
Scalia had it right, but was one vote short.
Scalia and Thomas are regularly excoriated by the Left for their decisions and dissents but this was another one where we heard crickets.
“The financial cost would be extremely high, and the state crime lab is already running months to literally years behind in processing DNA evidence.”
Well then, all the more reason to implement it! This is the mind-set I was referring to the other day; if there was a fire to put out, these people would attempt to extinguish it with gasoline. They live in some kind of mirror world, some other dimension, where there is no such thing as common-sense and reason itself is twisted and deformed.
This, incidentally, is a bipartisan effort, being led by a local Republican legislator.
When I was young, my mother was a Goldwater conservative and my father was a Kennedy Democrat. I remember my mother commenting to my father that a Republican would never steal as much as a Democrat would give away, which was generally true back then. Nowadays, both of them give away and steal much more than even the most extreme ones back then would have thought possible. About the only difference is that most Republicans now are so-called “social conservatives”, for which I curse the Religious Right. And all of them are out to strip what few remaining rights we have left.
Why hasn’t the House impeached Obama for treason and the Senate convicted him? Surely they must understand that his dictatorial decrees cannot be allowed to stand unless Congress is abdicating its Constitutional powers entirely.
Why hasn’t the House impeached Obama for treason and the Senate convicted him?
There you go being RACIST! again Dr. Bob. No one will touch Obola because he is Black. The best we can hope for is a President who will reverse all Obuttwad’s decrees.
“The best we can hope for is a President who will reverse all Obuttwad’s decrees.”
Good luck with that. Recent experience indicated they not only do NOT reverse previous decrees, they double down on them. Matters not which half of the War Party is in power; case in point: the Stupid Half has been in power a couple of times in recent years and when they had that power they did jack-shit. They go out of their way to snuggle up to the Evil Half and this goes for the Pee Party buffoons and clowns who went to Mordor a few years ago and were instantly co-opted. The tricorner hats disappeared as soon as they got invited to a few parties and conferences.
We’ve had exactly TWO decent, honorable people as political leaders in my lifetime: Sam Ervin and Ron Paul. That’s it.
I need to report to Starbucks stat for racial counseling. I’m such a RACIST! I hope there is an African American barista to talk to. I’d feel uncomfortable talking to WHITEY! unless it’s an overweight female Women’s Studies major.
Marine special ops are ditching the M9 pistol for the Glock 19. http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/Marines-Get-Glocked-3-18-2015.asp
Apparently the M9 is an expensive ($640 in a 100k lot), obsolete piece of crap and are falling apart under long term use. The services want to dump the M9, but DoD says no. Looks like a Glock 19 retails for about $600.
SOCOM also uses the H&K M23 SOCOM model, which is a .45 with options for a suppressor and laser sight, but is expensive. However, the stopping power is important in building clearing ops, and it’s a precision weapon in trained hands.
I’d still go with the 1911-pattern in .45 ACP. When something is perfect, it can’t be improved. And a lot of people, inside and outside the military, agree with me.
We’ve had exactly TWO decent, honorable people as political leaders in my lifetime: Sam Ervin and Ron Paul
You forgot Lloyd Benson, Ronald Reagan and Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
I am surprised that they did not go with the Glock 23 for the .40 S&W.
Why would they choose the .40 Small & Weak over a proven stopper like the .45 ACP. For that matter, why would they choose a DA Glock when they could have a SA 1911-pattern pistol? You’ll note that military personnel who have a choice of carrying any pistol they want almost always choose the 1911 in .45 ACP. They know what works and what doesn’t.
“Iran endorses nuclear EMP attack on United States”
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/iran-endorses-nuclear-emp-attack-on-united-states/article/2561733
And Obola is negotiating with these people? Obola is an arrogant idiot.
Since he just bought a new home in Hawaii, maybe he figures that he will be outside the nightmare.
http://khon2.com/2015/03/17/sale-of-magnum-p-i-home-may-be-tied-to-president-obama/
I wish I could get a mortgage for 20% more than I paid for a home.
Hawaii may be safe from Iran but will be closer to the Norks.
“Net Neutrality, Apple, and the future of TV”
http://www.cringely.com/2015/03/18/net-neutrality-apple-and-the-future-of-tv/
“I’ve been hesitant to comment on the FCC’s proposed Net Neutrality rules until I could read them. You’ll recall the actual rules weren’t released at the time of the vote a couple weeks ago, just characterized this way and that for the press pending the eventual release of the actual order. Well they finally published the rules last week and I’ve since made my way through all 400+ pages (no executive summary commenting for me). And while there are no big surprises — much less smoking guns — in the FCC report, I think that taken along with this week’s Wall Street Journal story about an Apple over-the-top (OTT) video service the trend is clear that the days of traditional cable TV are numbered.”
“You forgot Lloyd Benson, Ronald Reagan and Daniel Patrick Moynihan.”
Forget them? I didn’t even consider them. They were all three time-serving statist hacks, which we need more of like we need a hole in the head.
Speaking of which, if I was still in the military or cops doing spec ops work, I’d also probably go for the 1911 .45, and if in a densely populated area, a 12-gauge rather than the M4. Outside that area, a .308.
But I’m back in The World now and need to consider the abilities of others in the same household.
“And Obola is negotiating with these people? Obola is an arrogant idiot.”
The Soviets/Russians had nukes aimed at all our major cities and bases and we still negotiated with them; hell, they still have hundreds of them aimed at us. And vice-versa. Churchill advised it was always better to jaw-jaw and war-war. I keep hearing the usual schtick from the usual suspects that we have to bomb the fuck out of Iran and back up the Israeli’s 500% but I don’t buy any of that for a nanosecond.
Negotiate until the cows come home; Nixon went to Red China. Kissinger was in Paris with the political commissars of North Vietnam while I was still over there in SEA shooting and getting shot at.
I say if there’s anybody who wants us to go fight the Iranians, Syrians, ISIS, Norks, Taliban, whatever, why, let him or her do the boot camp thang, lace up them combat boots, pick up an M4 and head on up to the front lines. Quit flapping yer gums and walk the walk, all you armchair warriors. You say that we don’t need to put boots on the ground anymore, we can just nuke the fuckers? Fine. You push the buttons and then go deal with the carnage and the fact that the majority of people killed and mangled and ruined are civilians, women and children included. Who had no control over what their regimes were doing, just as we have zero control over ours.
Before that, though, watch or read “All Quiet on the Western Front,” “Paths of Glory,” “Hamburger Hill,” “Stop-Loss,” and “The Hurt Locker.” Visit a ward at a vets hospital. Read the late Paul Fussell’s “The Great War and Modern Memory,” and “Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War.”
And Obummer just does what he’s told; evidently the oil and banking interests at present wish for a relatively peaceful solution to the Iranians and their nuclear power; that could change any minute. Hey, why not let that gonzo senator McCain and the fem witch troika make the decision, amirite? He sings about bombing Iran. Is that cool or what?
The Soviets/Russians had nukes aimed at all our major cities and bases and we still negotiated with them; hell, they still have hundreds of them aimed at us. And vice-versa. Churchill advised it was always better to jaw-jaw and war-war.
It is kind of like playing with a rattlesnake. You are going to find out somewhere in the process if your stick is long enough.
The Soviets were paranoid but logical. I am fairly sure that the Iranians are not logical. Theocracies scare the you know what out of me.
I vote to let Israel do whatever they want to do. And monitor the hound out the Iranians. Israelis too.
“It is kind of like playing with a rattlesnake. You are going to find out somewhere in the process if your stick is long enough.”
Or wising the hell up and not trying for a Darwin Award and just leave that damn rattler alone.
“I am fairly sure that the Iranians are not logical.”
And I’m pretty sure they’re very logical and know exactly what they’re doing, unlike our bozos and Liveshot Kerry. They had a civilization going pretty well long before Kerry’s family bought those islands off Cape Cod and long before Magna Carta. Why cave in to the MSM’s portrayal and our own gummint’s portrayal of them as religious fundie wack jobs? A couple of them, maybe, but it takes managers, economists, engineers, etc. to run that operation over there and my feeling is that the fundies are on a short leash when it comes to international diplomacy. They got a taste of how bad things can get during their eight-year war with Iraq, where we, incidentally, supported Saddam’s Iraq. And so what if they DO get a nuke warhead? Who cares? I’ll support bombing them for that after we’ve bombed Pakistan, India, Red China, North Korea, Russia, and Israel for that offense, I guess on the supposition that only WE are allowed to have nukes, amirite?
“I vote to let Israel do whatever they want to do.”
Sure, me, too! With ZERO participation from us on anything they decide to do. ZERO. And kick all their damn spies out of the country while we’re at it.
If the Spec Ops guys wanted a 1911 .45, they could have them. They went with the H&K .45 instead, in part because the M1911 isn’t reliable with a suppressor and can’t use high pressure ammo.
From Wikipedia:
The rest of the armed forces have to use 9mm since that’s what NATO uses. Stupid, but true.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote an article about Starbucks’ Flawed But Wonderful Plan To Tackle Race for the Time rag. He likes the idea but it won’t work in a coffee shop setting. I agree with him, that if you don’t experience racism or are not racist, race isn’t on your “radar”. He mentions shooting of unarmed African Americans, the Voting Rights Act and, lol, frat boys singing about lynching. I assume all of these were the doings of Caucasian Americans in his mind. No mention of the disproportionate capital crimes by African Americans in general, very high Black on Black murder, Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity, Sharpless and Jackwagon, about every Black congress-critter screeching RACIST!, appropriations ’cause of slavery, and the GOP stopping the new AG because she’s Black and the GOP is RACIST! Perhaps Kareem’s radar is defective.
Camille Paglia rips feminists a new one. Especially HILLARY! She even mentions the old lecher BJ Klinton. The HILLARY! bashing starts at 51:08. “She’s a disaster.”
Here’s the straight scoop: half the country KNOWS that Killary and Larry Klinton were/are disasters already. The other half adores them. Left-wing men are on public record at the time as wishing they could kneel and go down on Larry. Similarly, that same half of the country adores the Obummers.
And that’s where we are today. Half the country lives in some other dimension and our half of the country doesn’t control the media or the narrative so the Other Dimension People currently hold sway.
And within our half are peeps who still think that some Repub savior will come down from the clouds and lead us all to salvation.
Pretty much like Lucy with that football in the Peanuts strip.
“I’d feel uncomfortable talking to WHITEY! unless it’s an overweight female Women’s Studies major.”
A fate worse than death. Been there, done that, though long ago.
I’d rather spend a full year in daily conversation with that black militant that was telling his boyz not to fuck with Whitey ’cause Whitey has all the firepower; that dude has actual common sense and reason going for him, if you can deal with his pretty much continuous stream of profanities, but what the fuck, been there and done that, too, thanks to high skool sports, mil-spec time and the cops.
Pretty much like Lucy with that football in the Peanuts strip.
Nah. More like playing gotcha with a five foot rattlesnake and a three foot 2×4. Somebody’s gonna get bit after a while.
I had totally forgot about watching that happen at my job back in 1982. That snake was really pissed off. I didn’t say a word to that idiot Max in fear that I would distract him but I walked up a flight of stairs to stay out of the way. He nearly got bit 3 or 4 times before he quit.
The Lucy analogy was for the voters still hoping that some Repub savior will save them. The Iranians may be rattlers, but I bet they think the same of us; let them stay in their den and let us stay in ours.
I just figured that the rattlesnake analogy is for both the democrats and republicans. Nobody is happy right now. I like Scott Walker but even he is a fiscal moderate from what I can see. I also like the fact that he is self-made politician and not a Yale or Harvard product. In fact, he does not even have a college degree.
Hey OFD, you might like the comments on this, “How much longer can those in power keep propping up U.S. economy before it collapses?”:
http://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/how-much-longer-can-those-in-power-can-keep-propping-up-u-s-economy-before-it-collapses/
“And it just keeps getting worse – to be honest, I don’t understand how the U.S. economy hasn’t collapsed already. But when you look at the numbers, it’s easy to see that there is no way that it can keep going for much longer without a major change.”
Lots of glass half empty commenters on there.
Well, how much longer CAN our rulers keep this Empire propped up? You yourself have noted the trillions in debt, and the amounts are only what they actually admit to.
And I’ve noted how they’ve set about trying to squeeze every thin dime they can out of as many of us as possible through taxes, fees, confiscations of property and outright theft. While at the same time using our taxes to finance overseas wars, bailing out all those banks “too big to fail” (whose top dawgs then turned around and gave themselves and each other bigger bonuses than ever), and increasing the size of intrusive and overbearing government at all levels.
Whistling past the graveyard as they keep printing fiat currency and telling us everything is coming up roses may be glass-half-empty thinking or it may be realistic awareness of just how bad things really are here. Maybe we’ll just continue to muddle along and do that slow slide into dystopia thing and never end up as bad as other countries, but the Katrina episode may give us some indication of just how fast and how badly the thin civilizational veneer can fall apart.
Unlike OFD, I quite liked Reagan and Moynihan.
I don’t think anyone said they were unlikeable personally. Regarding their policies, OFD is correct. Obama seems personally likeable, for that matter.
Larry Klinton was/is also a great charmer, as was Pharaoh Roosevelt II. The Great Eliminator was a wonderful guy for telling ribald and off-color and racist jokes to his cronies.
Obummer may seem likable but I get the distinct impression it’s totally phony; these people smile while they cut your throat.
Oh, I didn’t say I liked him. He’s worse than Bush, which is saying something.
I still think the last decent president we had was Tom Jefferson.
Silent Cal for the win. Not saying Cal was better than Jefferson, merely that he was more recent.
Moynihan was a piece of shit. Knew, just knew, that he was the smartest man in the room (women need not apply) and made sure you knew it, too. Knew what was good for you better than you did. Was never sober enough to stand after noon his last several years in office, which was good because it cut down on the stupid shit he tried to pull.
I’m not a big fan of Reagan. This gets me in “trouble” with a lot of loud-mouthed self-proclaimed conservatives, but you can probably guess how much that bothers me. The best that can be said about Reagan was that he was not as bad as his predecessor or successor.