Saturday, March 19, 2005

Warning: This is NOT Authorized Commentary

Jed at FreedomSight discusses the issue of bloggers protecting confidential sources.

Lauren Gelman is asking for instances where bloggers have broken stories. One that immediately comes to mind is JPFO's exposing how BATFU almost destroyed a man's life through incompetence--in other words, performing a watchdog role in the protection of individuals from abuse by government. If that isn't the role of the press, I don't know what is. Now tell me you would have seen that in the NY Times.

I'm glad to see others raising the flag on this. See "Bloggers: Have You Applied for Your Reporting License?" and "Judge Creates Special Class of Journalist--Just Because He Says So".

I suppose if judges can tell us who a journalist is, it's not a far stretch to imagine they can dictate what qualifies as news.

But I believe our friend Mr. Garrison might have something to say to them about that.

"IIIIII WAAAAAAA!!!"

"An attorney for Terri Schiavo said the severely brain-injured woman cried and yelled out that she wants to live after being told today her life-sustaining feeding tube was about to be removed by court order."

Anyone want to bet Michael orders an immediate cremation?

After all, a body would allow for a later medical examination.

But I’m sure those reports about unexplained bone fractures are just desperate hype from a bunch of religious extremists, right?

I mean, otherwise, the pro-death Establishment media that generates 26,800 Google hits on the term "Terri Schiavo" coma (even though she's not in one) would certainly be investigating Michael as thoroughly as they have OJ, Scott Peterson and Robert Blake. Wouldn’t they?

After all—he’s turned down money to walk away. What possible motive could he have, other than a deep and loving commitment to the woman he abandoned?

The parents have given the "law" every opportunity and it has failed them. There comes a time when sovereign individuals must defy edicts.

If this was my kid being tortured to death, I'd go in and get her.

Smart Guns Don't Always Make the Grade

There’s an understatement. “Smart guns” never make the grade.

The original National Institute of Justice grant to Sandia Labs to develop them was specifically justified by “takeaway” incidents where cops were killed with their own gun. But the cops don’t want to have anything to do with them—no surprise there.

"If a weapon is taken from an officer, I personally believe it is primarily a training issue. Most folks seem to try and solve most tactical problems through some sort of hardware improvement without looking at the core system. The human operator should be the primary system to be improved upon. Many departments are dangerously low in their delivery of ongoing advanced officer training. If an officer cannot be trusted to deploy and keep his or her weapon, please don't give them one in the first place!”

That was told to me by former Navy SEAL Ken Good, at the time, director of the SureFire Institute. He is an expert’s expert, providing weapons and tactics training to elite military fighting personnel, civilian law enforcement tactical specialists, and security professionals.

Training certainly seems to be the core issue in this “news report”—one cop killed with his own gun, the other closes his eyes and prays. And if the gun did “backfire,” the training deficiencies quite possibly extend to proper maintenance of issued firearms.

The creepiest line in this story: “Grants also have gone to private gun makers looking into…a gun that reads a rice grain-sized computer chip injected into the owner's hand.”

Who but a pathological government-worshipping Nazi dreams up stuff like this? And who are the industry whores turning tricks for them?

Two other questions to consider:

Has anyone not had the experience of pointing a remote control unit at a TV or garage door and having nothing happen?

And does anyone really think that once “smart guns” are mandated, an edict giving “authoritah” a shutoff switch will be far behind?