Law Preventing 3D Gun Technology Online Will Expire Soon

Here’s the Good, Bad, and Ugly on 3-D printed guns:

They’re a real advance in firearms, criminals will be able to purchase them online for about a grand if there’s no law against them, and the law currently prohibiting their technology is going to expire soon.

“As the technology to print 3-D firearms advances, a federal law that banned the undetectable guns is about to expire.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer says he's seeking an extension of the law before it expires Dec. 9.

The technology of so-called 3-D printing has advanced to the point anyone with $1,000 and an Internet connection can access the plastic parts that can be fitted into a gun. Those firearms can't be detected by metal detectors or X-ray machines.

Schumer says that means anyone can download a gun cheaply, then take the weapons anywhere, including high-security areas.

The technology has recently advanced to create handguns capable of shooting several shots, rather than just one, before it ceases to function. Schumer also says the guns can now be made with all plastic parts, and no metal.

A blueprint for one such firearm was recently downloaded more than 100,000 times, Schumer said.”

Drone try to kid me – those pilotless planes have accidents all the time

 Good Day World!

 The use of drones has become commonplace in the military. So have accidents involving drones.

For example; A small fire erupted and two sailors were injured after an aerial target drone malfunctioned and struck a guided missile cruiser during training off Southern California on Saturday.

The drone struck the USS Chancellorsville on the side, leaving a 2- to 3-foot hole, said Lt. Lenaya Rotklein of the U.S. Third Fleet.

This was the second military drone crash in one week. On Tuesday, a drone from Fort Drum in upstate New York crashed into Lake Ontario during a training flight. The Air Force is still investigating that incident.

July 2013:

A remote stretch of the Florida Panhandle highway was closed after an Air Force drone crashed near the area. Tyndall Air Force Base reported the QF-4 drone crashed on takeoff.

The Air Force closed Highway 98 west of Panama City and east of Mexico Beach because of fires from the crash. Officials say the drone had a limited, 24-hour battery life.

In the news last week:

The U.S. military was forced to relocate a large fleet of drones from a key counterterrorism base on the Horn of Africa after a string of crashes fanned local fears that the unmanned aircraft were at risk of colliding with passenger planes, according to documents and interviews.

Air Force drones ceased flying this month from Camp Lemonnier, a U.S. installation in Djibouti, after local officials expressed alarm about several drone accidents and mishaps in recent years. The base serves as the combat hub for counterterrorism operations in Yemen and Somalia, playing a critical role in U.S. operations against al-Shabab, the Somali Islamist militia that has asserted responsibility for the Nairobi shopping mall attack, which killed more than 60 people.

The Pentagon has temporarily moved the unmanned aircraft from the U.S. base in Djibouti’s capital to a makeshift airstrip in a more remote part of the country.

It’s pretty clear to me there’s a pattern of drone accidents. What’s scary is such a high tech weapon can suddenly do something really unexpected…like hit one of our own cruisers. The Pakistan government has been howling for years about errant drones killing their citizens. For good reason, they do…intended or not.

When I hear people talk about national security depending on drones, I get a queasy feeling in my gut because if that’s the case, we’re in BIG TROUBLE!

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Patriot-News: Sorry Mr. Lincoln – Our editor was probably drunk at the time!

Good Day World!

It’s bad enough when we make a mistake, but to have a record of that mistake for all to see can be humiliating. Even if it was made back in 1863.

A Pennsylvania newspaper recently retracted an 1863 editorial that dismissed President Abraham Lincoln's now revered Gettysburg Address delivered during the U.S. Civil War as "silly remarks" deserving a "veil of oblivion."

The editorial published on November 24, 1863, missed the "momentous importance, timeless eloquence, and lasting significance" of Lincoln's speech delivered days earlier, The Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, said on its website.

"Our predecessors, perhaps under the influence of partisanship, or of strong drink, as was common in the profession at the time, called President Lincoln's words 'silly remarks,' deserving 'a veil of oblivion'," the newspaper said.

"The Patriot-News regrets the error." source

Time for me o walk on down the road….

Princeton students at risk of getting meningitis B – CDC takes unusual steps to stop it

  Good Day World!

 What happens when a sudden outbreak of a fast-moving infection shows up at an Ivy league University and there’s nothing to stop it in America?

That’s been the case at Princeton, and now the 8,000 students there are going to get a vaccine for the deadly infection…as soon as it arrives from overseas.

American students, for reasons I couldn’t tell you, aren’t vaccinated again meningitis B, which presents a serious problem:

According to the CDC, between 10 percent and 12 percent of those who get meningitis B die, and about 20 percent of those who recover can wind up with severe side effects including deafness, mental retardation and limb amputations.

There’s so many scary bugs out there these days. Every time I hear about some kind of health outbreak due to some nasty new (and/or old) bug I shudder. Here’s what’s happening:

Emergency doses of a meningitis vaccine not approved for use in the U.S. may soon be on the way to Princeton University to halt an outbreak of the potentially deadly infection that has sickened seven students since March.

Government health officials said Friday they have agreed to import Bexsero, a vaccine licensed only in Europe and Australia that protects against meningitis B, a strain not covered by the shots recommended for college students in the U.S.

"This is a bad disease and we know how devastating it is," Dr. Thomas Clark, acting head of the Centers for Disease Control's meningitis and vaccine preventable diseases branch, told NBC News. "A lot of us had a gut feeling that there would be more cases and we should get the ball rolling."

The unprecedented move could aim to inoculate the nearly 8,000 undergraduate and graduate students at the Ivy League school in hopes of stopping the spread of an illness that kills 10 percent or more of teens and young adults who get it.

"If you're a student at Princeton University right now, your risk is quite high," Clark said. Full story here

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow, Folks in Florida Have that Sinking Feeling Again!

Good Day World!

 I’m funny about some things.

 If I even suspected my house was in sinkhole heaven, I’d move! Residents of Florida live with the knowledge their house, boats, swimming pools, and even themselves are subject to suddenly disappearing into the earth!

You go to bed on nice level ground, and wake up in a giant hole in the earth…if you’re lucky. One poor individual – about a year ago – didn’t wake up when he and his bed dropped into a cavernous hole never to be seen again despite the efforts of would-be rescuers.

Why would anyone live in an area like that? I suppose the same can be said about people who live in tornedo alley – that collection of states that gets clobbered annually - or along the Gulf Coast. Some people may think California is dangerous. earthquakes are no joke.

As a transplanted Oregonian, I thought I was living in the safest possible place in the country. Turns out, scientists say Southern Oregon is going to disappear some day when an expected massive quake strikes!

Despite that possibility, I’ll take my chances here. I suspect the odds of dropping down a gaping hole in the earth are higher in Florida. Here’s the latest example of disappearing real estate in the Sunshine State: 

Another large sinkhole has formed in Florida, causing parts of two homes to collapse and swallowing a boat and a backyard pool.

The sinkhole in Dunedin, Fla., erupted early Thursday morning between the two houses, and by noon, had grown to a size of about 70 feet wide by 53 feet deep.

"There was apparently some work being done to try to fill in what they thought was a sinkhole beneath the house the last couple of days," Dunedin Fire Chief Jeff Parks said. "The owner woke up this morning at 5:40 when he heard noises on his back porch and went out and found the sinkhole at that point."

Six houses in Dunedin — a city on central Florida's west coast — were evacuated, and power and utility lines were cut after officials arrived. The engineering company that was working on the house earlier in the week was also on the scene, waiting for the ground around the sinkhole to be stable enough for them to work to fill it.

"They thought it would slow down to the point where it would stop, but in the last half hour, it's still continued to grow," Parks said. "They're just assessing right now to see what they can do."

Sinkholes are relatively common in Florida, but do not always cause major disruption or injuries. In February, a Seffner, Fla., man was killed when a massive sinkhole opened up underneath his family's home.

Engineers had been pouring grout into the house's foundation for the past two days, Michael Dupre told BayNews9.com in Florida.  read full story here

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Heigh Ho! It’s the Nasal Ranger! Who Was that Funny Man With a Nose Telescope?

Denver, Colorado—one of the cities in the country to legalize marijuana use—has passed a new “odor ordinance” with a potential $2,000 fine for anyone found guilty of polluting the atmosphere with high concentrations of cannabis.

And the police department's plan for enforcement is a strange-looking device called an olfactometer, or more colloquially, the "nose telescope."

The so-called environmental ordinance is a result of confusion over the legality of somebody smoking in their own house should the smell seep out into the street. According to the odor ordinance, the smell is viewed as problematic if it is detectable once the smoke is mixed with seven times the volume of clean air. Denver police plan to use the "nose telescope" to enforce the ordinance. (Story here)