The Washington Post finds that since the Columbine shooting in 1999 there have been 208,000 children exposed to gun violence in 212 schools.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

The Washington Post has spent the past year determining how many children have been exposed to gun violence during school hours since the Columbine High massacre in 1999. 

Beyond the dead and wounded, children who witness the violence or cower behind locked doors to hide from it can be profoundly traumatized. 

The federal government does not track school shootings, so The Post pieced together its numbers from news articles, open-source databases, law enforcement reports and calls to schools and police departments.

Since March, The Post has taken a closer look at states with fewer local news sources and searched more deeply for less visible public suicides and accidents that led to injury. 

The count now stands at more than 208,000 children at 212 schools. 

The Post has found that at least 131 children, educators and other people have been killed in assaults, and another 272 have been injured.

In 2018 alone, there have already been 13 shootings — the highest number at this point during any year since 1999.

The Post goes on to make the point that school shootings remain rare, and only a small percentage of school students are affected by them.

But I would counter with the fact that in most developed countries the number of school shootings are close to zero.

Which does not seem to make ours all that rare. At least not in America.

Instead I would argue that they are becoming less rare every year.

A Georgia computer central to a lawsuit seeking to change the way votes are counted in Georgia was mysteriously wiped clean. Probably doesn't mean anything, right?

Courtesy of the AP: 

A computer server crucial to a lawsuit against Georgia election officials was quietly wiped clean by its custodians just after the suit was filed, The Associated Press has learned. 

The server’s data was destroyed July 7 by technicians at the Center for Elections Systems at Kennesaw State University, which runs the state’s election system. The data wipe was revealed in an email sent last week from an assistant state attorney general to plaintiffs in the case that was later obtained by the AP. More emails obtained in a public records request confirmed the wipe. 

The lawsuit, filed July 3 by a diverse group of election reform advocates, aims to force Georgia to retire its antiquated and heavily criticized election technology. The server in question, which served as a statewide staging location for key election-related data, made national headlines in June after a security expert disclosed a gaping security hole that wasn’t fixed six months after he reported it to election authorities. 

It’s not clear who ordered the server’s data irretrievably erased. 

The Kennesaw elections center answers to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brian Kemp, a Republican running for governor in 2018 and the suit’s main defendant. His spokeswoman issued a statement Thursday saying his office had neither involvement nor advanced warning of the decision. It blamed “the undeniable ineptitude” at the Kennesaw State elections center. 

After declining comment for more than 24 hours, Kennesaw State’s media office issued a statement late Thursday attributing the server wiping to “standard operating procedure.” It did not respond to the AP’s question on who ordered the action.

Oh yeah, SOMEBODY was very nervous about the data that was stored on that computer. 

And possibly for good reason.

You undoubtedly saw this coming, White House staff may have deleted information critical to Russia collusion investigations.

Courtesy of Politico:

Unlike the White House, which is subject to federal recordkeeping requirements, campaigns aren’t bound to preserve documents. But staffers may have some emails still backed up on their phones or computers, or documents — including calendars and other records that could wind up being critical for investigators.

Trump’s campaign, said a former senior aide, didn’t do much in the way of establishing a backup plan to preserve those digital records. “You’d be giving us too much credit,” said the former staffer. “The idea of document retention did not come up. The idea of some formal structure did not come up.” 

The White House declined to comment when asked what staff have been told about preserving documents related to the ongoing investigations. In March, The Associated Press reported that White House counsel Don McGahn instructed White House staff in late February to save all materials that could potentially be relevant for investigations into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. The AP report noted that the memo also applied to materials belonging to White House staffers who worked on the campaign.

I think it is safe to predict that investigators will find that much of what they want to see is no longer available.

In fact I have little doubt that this information started to get deleted the minute that news broke with the first mention of a possible investigation.

The Trump White House is already attempting to blame any loss of data on the widespread use of apps like Confide, Signal and WhatsApp. But that seems just a little TOO convenient.

Remember back in February when Sean Spicer gathered up staff cell phones so he could check for security leaks? Do we really think any information helpful to these investigators was left untouched?

I think the only real hope that the investigators will have is that there are clearly members of Trump's staff, both campaign and White House, who are upset and frightened by what they have seen.

Those are the folks most likely to have preserved data on their devices, or uploaded it to their home computers, that would be of the most help to those involved in the Russian probes.

Lacking confidence in the intelligence agencies, Donald Trump demands to see "raw data" himself. Oh I have a bad feeling.

"I'm like very smart."

Courtesy of The Hill:

Officials have urged the intelligence community to supply President Trump with fewer analysis reports compiled by experts and more raw intelligence, the Associated Press reported Saturday. 

Raw intelligence was a larger priority under the former national security adviser Michael Flynn, the report said. He was ousted last month for misleading White House officials about the contents of his discussion with Russia's U.S. ambassador. 

Many intelligence experts in the past have raised concerns about the possibility that Trump would want to sidestep data analysts during his presidency. 

“The risk is that you request raw data to support a conclusion and you avoid seeing anything that contradicts it,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told The Hill in January. 

“We can already see we have a president-elect who has difficulty with facts that are at odds with the narrative that he wants to tell or diminish his achievements.”

Do you know that feeling you get when the music gets louder in the horror movie right before somebody gets axed in the face?

Yeah well I have that feeling right now. 

Donald Trump knows NOTHING about intelligence gathering and he would not be able to make heads or tails out of it.

So who is he going to call in to help to understand what he is looking at?

I can tell you right now that the guy whose hand would go up the fastest to volunteer for that job would be Stephen Bannon.

You know, the conspiracy theorist who used to head Breitbart news and once thought that Sarah Palin was destined for the White House.

Yep, here comes the axe to the face.

Another news outlet has essentially reached the same conclusion that I have about the Wikileaks dump of hacked CIA materials.

As most of you know I posted about this Wikileaks dump on Tuesday.

During that post I stated that it was unlikely that this leak was a coincidence, that the Russians likely did the hacking, and that Trump's supporters would use it to suggest that the CIA had hacked the DNC computers and then blamed it on the Russians.

I know, crazy right?

However this news outlet, which specializes in foreign policy, does not think it so crazy.

Courtesy of the FP Group: 

In the first place, WikiLeaks has often timed its leaks for maximum political impact. It released 20,000 stolen DNC emails just three days before the Democratic National Convention on July 25, 2016. As expected, WikiLeaks generated headlines about DNC staffers disparaging Sen. Bernie Sanders, buttressing a Trump campaign effort to prevent Clinton from consolidating Sanders supporters. DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned as a result, and the Clinton campaign suffered significant public relations damage. 

In the second place, WikiLeaks, which has often leaked American but never Russian secrets, has been identified by the U.S. intelligence community as a front for Russian intelligence. In January, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified estimate that found “with high confidence that Russian military intelligence … relayed material to WikiLeaks.” This was done with a definite purpose: “Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.”

 .........

It is significant, therefore, that one of the major storylines to emerge from the latest WikiLeaks release is that the CIA supposedly has a program to reuse computer codes from foreign hackers, thus disguising CIA fingerprints on a hacking operation. Never mind that there is no evidence that the codes used to break into the DNC were part of this CIA database. Right-wing outlets are nevertheless trumpeting these revelations with headlines such as this one on Breitbart: “WikiLeaks: CIA Uses ‘Stolen’ Malware to ‘Attribute’ Cyberattacks to Nations Like Russia.” Russian-controlled Internet “bots” are also said to be playing up these claims online. 

The implication is clear. Trump was a victim of a “false flag” operation wherein CIA hackers broke into the DNC and blamed the Russians. This may be nutty, but it’s eminently believable to an audience conditioned to believe that 9/11 was an inside job and that the Sandy Hook massacre was staged — favorite tropes of the radio talk-show host Alex Jones, whose work Trump has praised. Other WikiLeaks revelations — for instance, that the CIA can use Samsung smart TVs as listening devices — lend further credence to Trump’s charge that he was secretly wiretapped. 

Quite apart from its specifics, the WikiLeaks release changes the subject after a bad few days for Trump highlighted by Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s decision to recuse himself from any Kremlingate probe after he was revealed to have lied under oath when he denied meeting any Russian representatives. Last week it was Trump on the defensive. Now it’s his nemeses in the U.S. intelligence community who are answering embarrassing questions about how this leak could have occurred and the contents of the leaked information.

Yep, those are the same conclusions that I reached as well.

Trump's supporters and his fellow Republicans are looking for some reason to reject the fact that the Russians hacked various computers to undermine Hillary Clinton's campaign and help Trump win the election, and this is all they need to make that to happen.  

Now Julian Assange is going to deny that the Russians provided him with the CIA data, just like he denied that they were behind the DNC hack and the John Podesta phishing expedition. But of course we now know that he was lying then, and so it is safe to assume that he will be lying this time.

And what is undeniably true is that he is now handing out the CIA's hacking tools to various technology companies, knowing full well they will find their way into the hands of America's enemies.

The idea presented by Assange is that this will help these technology companies patch their software therefore making it harder to hack, but it of course will also mean that the foreign agencies will now know how to block intelligence agencies from spying on them and that will likely make any further investigation into Trump's ties with Russia just that much harder to prove.

All of this will also undermine the credibility of the American intelligence agencies which will make what they DO reveal that much easier to dismiss by the public at large. 

What is that called? "Collateral damage?"

Or perhaps that was really the target all along.

P.S. It appears that Josh Marshall over at TPM has some more interesting crumbs that involve possible Trump representative Nigel Farage meeting with Assange before his big press conference today: 

During Sean Spicer's daily press briefing, an AP reporter asks Spicer about the Farage/Assange meeting and whether he carrying a message from President Trump. Spicer basically ducked the question. But when asked specifically whether Farage was "delivering a message" from Trump, Spicer replied: "I have no idea."

Hmm, curiouser and curiouser.

This is the man behind Donald Trump's assertion that as many as three million undocumented immigrants illegally voted in the 2016 election.

"Do you have the proof?"

"Yes."

"Will you provide it?"

"Yes."

"Can I have it?"

"No."

Pretty much all you need to know about the veracity of this asshole's claim.

Remember Donald Trump tweeted this guy's name as his go to guy on proving that up to 3 million individuals voted illegally in this last election.

Look forward to seeing final results of VoteStand. Gregg Phillips and crew say at least 3,000,000 votes were illegal. We must do better!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2017

And Phillips certainly gave the impression that he had proof in hand to make that assertion.

We have verified more than three million votes cast by non-citizens.

We are joining .@TrueTheVote to initiate legal action. #unrigged

— Gregg Phillips (@JumpVote) November 13, 2016

Completed analysis of database of 180 million voter registrations.

Number of non-citizen votes exceeds 3 million.

Consulting legal team.

— Gregg Phillips (@JumpVote) November 11, 2016

"Completed analysis" certainly sounds to me as if there is readily available documentation for this outrageous claim.

Yet when given the opportunity to provide it, this idiot uses important sounding buzzwords to distract from the fact that he has a big fat nothing.

If this guy seriously had this data then why does he not provide copies of it to other statisticians who are undoubtedly better suited to get through it quickly and reach a conclusion a hell of a lot faster than several months into the future?

To me this sounds very much like Trump's claim that he had "investigators" in Hawaii who could "not believe" what they were finding concerning President Obama's birth certificate.

In Senate hearing FBI's James Comey reiterates that the Republicans WERE hacked, but that their information was not released by the Russians. Update: Trump warned that Russians have compromising information about him

Courtesy of CNN: 

FBI director James Comey told a Senate panel that there was "penetration on the Republican side of the aisle and old Republican National Committee domains" no longer in use. 

He later added that "there was evidence of hacking directed at state-level organizations, state-level campaigns, and the RNC, but old domains of the RNC, meaning old emails they weren't using. None of that was released." 

Comey said there was no sign "that the Trump campaign or the current RNC was successfully hacked." 

Asked by Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, whether the hacker had the ability to selectively leak that old information, Comey indicated that they did. 

Comey also assesssed that "they got far deeper and wider into the (Democratic National Committee) than the RNC," adding that "similar techniques were used in both cases." 

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the Senate committee, examining the cyber breaches, that the intelligence community concluded with "high confidence" that Russia hacked the election to "denigrate" Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and contrast her unfavorably to Republican Donald Trump.

So older Republican e-mail accounts WERE hacked, but not the current RNC or the Trump campaign. Hmm.

Does ANYBODY not think that those older GOP e-mail accounts would have yielded a treasure trove of useful data?

Depending on how old they are they could contain information about the John McCain campaign, the lead up to the Iraq War, evidence of corruption among lawmakers, possible inter office affairs, the possibilities are endless.

And why would the Russians even bother hacking into the current Republican e-mails or the Trump campaign when everything was already going according to plan?

Earlier in the hearing there was also this exchange:

Comey refused to comment on whether the FBI is investigating connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. 

But Sen. Angus King of Maine, an Independent, alluded tartly to Comey's very public statements about investigations into Clinton during the election campaign -- "the irony of you making that statement I cannot avoid." 

Comey said that there was a difference between open and closed investigations. He pushed back on King, saying, "You asked me if you have any pending investigations and we're not going to talk about that."

That's funny because we were told repeatedly that the Clinton investigation was not entirely closed before Comey sent that letter which played such a large part in costing Hillary the presidency.

And to my mind by saying that he cannot comment on any investigations that might be ongoing concerning Trump, that means there are ongoing investigations concerning Trump.

I think THAT should be announced to the American people BEFORE he gets sworn into office.

I am not the only one who thinks that.

I suspect this big news will not get full coverage: intel committee member says Comey should tell public what FBI knows of Trump-Russia ties

— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) January 10, 2017

And there also clearly needs to be an independent non-partisan commission to investigate Russia's influence on this election, and the ties between them and the Trump campaign.

We also need to stop saying that the hacks had no impact on the outcome of the election when Donald Trump cited information leaked by Wikileaks over 100 times.

He did that because he knew it would have an impact, the only question left unanswered is when did he know he was citing information obtained by Russian hackers?

Update: Well as it turns out Trump himself may very well have been hacked by the Russians.

Courtesy of CNN:  

Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump, multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings tell CNN. 

The allegations were presented in a two-page synopsis that was appended to a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The allegations came, in part, from memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative, whose past work US intelligence officials consider credible. The FBI is investigating the credibility and accuracy of these allegations, which are based primarily on information from Russian sources, but has not confirmed many essential details in the memos about Mr. Trump.

The two-page synopsis also included allegations that there was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government, according to two national security officials. 

Sources tell CNN that these same allegations about communications between the Trump campaign and the Russians, mentioned in classified briefings for congressional leaders last year, prompted then-Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid to send a letter to FBI Director Comey in October, in which he wrote, "It has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government -- a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States." 

CNN has confirmed that the synopsis was included in the documents that were presented to Mr. Trump but cannot confirm if it was discussed in his meeting with the intelligence chiefs. 

The Trump transition team declined repeated requests for comment.

Okay help me out here, is this the right time to say "We told you so?"

Well I think we now know why the Russians worked so hard to get Trump elected.

"Not a puppet, not a puppet."

Yes, yes you are.

Update 2: Trump r

FAKE NEWS - A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017

Well since just about everything this guy says is a lie, you make the call.

Atheists are still the most disliked group in America. So we have that going for us.

Courtesy of World Religion News:

Ten years ago University of Minnesota sociologists conducted research showing that, among a long list of racial and religious minority groups, atheists were the most disliked group of people in the United States. Last month they followed up with new research that shows that Americans still have negative opinions of atheists and the non-religious–and now they have a good theory about why that is. 

Survey data collected in 2014 shows that, compared to data collected in 2003, Americans have sharpened their negative views of atheists, despite an increase in people identifying as non-religious and an increase in public discussion of non-belief. 

The findings of this most recent survey support the argument that atheists are persistent cultural outsiders in the United States because they are perceived to have rejected cultural values and practices understood as essential to private morality, civic virtue, and national identity. Moreover, any refusal to embrace a religious identity of any type is troubling for a large portion of Americans. 

Well I would argue that the second and fourth contention are pure bullshit, however depending on your definitions the first and third may not necessarily be incorrect.

Yeah if you are an Evangelical, I really DON'T share your vision of American society.

And if by "elite" you mean a critical thinker who is not easily duped by superstitious nonsense, and believes they are intellectually superior to those who are, then yes guilty as charged.

I guess the same probably holds true concerning "perceived to have rejected cultural values and practices understood as essential to private morality," if by that they mean Judeo Christian values, as well as rejecting a "national identity" if that national identity means describing oneself as a Christian.

So great it appears that I have confirmed all of the reasons that certain religious groups may distrust and even fear those of us who identify as "Atheists."

However I would argue that some of those reasons are also WHY some of us defiantly argue for the integrity of the title Atheist.

I cannot speak for the entire group as we are wildly eclectic, but for myself I have eschewed the safety of the less threatening label "Agnostic" because for one it does not adequately describe my point of view, and two I do not believe it right to judge people solely on their beliefs, or lack thereof.

If you want to dislike me, dislike me because I am an arrogant asshole who thinks he is smarter than everyone else. THAT is a legitimate reason to dislike me.

However if you dislike, or distrust, me based on the fact that I do not attend your church, or worship your god, then I reject the legitimacy of your feelings.

For they are not based on anything to do with who I am, but only based on the misconception of the label with which I identify.

A misconception by the way which is changing ever so slightly every day, until at some point the labels will mean nothing, and all that will remain is the content of our character.

As it should be.

Bernie Sanders, who is vying for the Democratic nomination, is suing the DNC for an incident that happened months ago.

Courtesy of TPM: 

The campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) officially served the Democratic National Committee on Thursday with a lawsuit over the decision to suspend the campaign's access to voter data after a staffer viewed confidential information back in December. 

A source told The Hill the move was "very procedural" as Thursday was the deadline to file paperwork given to the campaign by a federal judge. 

The DNC temporarily revoked the campaign's access in mid-December to all voter information after a staffer inappropriately accessed voter data compiled by Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

Of course the Sanders campaign DID regain access to the data, and one of their staffers was fired, which sort of illustrates that there was wrongdoing on the part of the campaign. Though of course nobody is accusing Sanders himself of doing anything unethical.

However I find myself a little confused as to why an incident since resolved would inspire the Sanders campaign to file a lawsuit simply because time is running out for them to do so.

I mean I confess to not having any legal training which might make this seem reasonable, but from a purely public relations point of view this seems like something that just makes it easier to point out that Sanders is NOT a Democrat and that he does not always respect or support the Democratic party.

DNC blocks Sanders campaign from accessing voter database after campaign staffers take a peek at Hillary Clinton campaign info. Sanders campaign responds, "We don't need dirty tricks."

Courtesy of CNN:

The Democratic National Committee is cutting Bernie Sanders off from a crucial voter database after the party organization said the Vermont senator's presidential campaign took advantage of a software error to access confidential voter information collected by Hillary Clinton's team. 

The revelation is emerging ahead of the third Democratic presidential debate of the campaign season on Saturday night and poses a major setback for Sanders, who is mounting a liberal challenge to Clinton. The database is a goldmine of information about voters and being blocked from it could complicate Sanders' outreach efforts. The timing is also challenging, just weeks before Clinton and Sanders are slated to compete in the Iowa caucuses.

I saw DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz on TV today acknowledging that the Sanders campaign had fired one staffer over this breach, but that more than one accessed the data, and that the data had been downloaded.

However the Sanders campaign is outraged at what they see as an unnecessarily punitive response by the DNC.

Courtesy of Salon:  

Vowing to not allow the Democratic National Committee to “sabatoge” their campaign, senior Bernie Sanders campaign operatives announced Friday afternoon that they planned to sue the Party if it continued to lock out the campaign from its own voter files. 

The DNC is “actively attempting to undermine our campaign,” Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver charged during a press conference in Washington, D.C. this afternoon. “If the DNC continues to hold our data hostage, and continues to try to attack the heart and soul of our campaign, we will be in federal court this afternoon seeking an immediate injunction,” Weaver threatened. 

“We are running a clean campaign. We are going to beat Secretary Clinton,” Weaver assured reporters at Friday’s press conference, explaining that “in the heat of these campaigns sometimes young people make misjudgments.” 

“We don’t need dirty tricks,” he asserted. “To do that we are going to need our data, which has been stolen by the DNC.” Weaver slammed the DNC for what he called an “inappropriate overreaction,” threatening to head to “federal court this afternoon seeking an immediate injunction,” if the DNC does not reinstate the campaign’s access to the database.

I think most of us are willing to give Bernie Sanders and his campaign the benefit of the doubt here.

This does not sound in the least like something Bernie would have engaged in, and I doubt that he would excuse this kind of behavior from his staffers.

After all Bernie's main selling point is his unshakable integrity, so I have to agree with his campaign on this one and think the DNC needs to back off and stop being so transparently in Hillary's corner.

Actually if you agree with me on that there is a petition you can sign. 

Just some more facts for the conservatives to ignore, or argue are inaccurate.

Courtesy of Vox: 

As of this month, the unemployment rate is now lower than it was at any point during Ronald Reagan's administration.

You know that SHOULD be impressive, even to conservatives.

However since the "party of Reagan" would never elect Ronald Reagan in 2015 perhaps they will find this data unimpressive.

After all the important thing about Reagan was that he was white.

Statistics suggest that this year guns may surpass cars as the leading instrument of death for Americans.

Courtesy of The Economist: 

According to data gathered by the Centres for Disease Control (CDC), deaths caused by cars in America are in long-term decline. Improved technology, tougher laws and less driving by young people have all led to safer streets and highways. Deaths by guns, though—the great majority suicides, accidents or domestic violence—have been trending slightly upwards. This year, if the trend continues, they will overtake deaths on the roads. 

The Centre for American Progress first spotted last February that the lines would intersect. Now, on its reading, new data to the end of 2012 support the view that guns will surpass cars this year as the leading killer of under 25s. Bloomberg Government has gone further. Its compilation of the CDC data in December concluded that guns would be deadlier for all age groups.

It is also important to note that the main purpose of cars in transportation, while the main purpose of guns is to end life.

Cars also MUST be registered with the government, and operators MUST pass both a written exam and be tested on their ability to handle the vehicle before being given a license to do so.

Most states ask for none of that in order to buy and use a firearm.

And yet the right to own only one of these is guaranteed by the Constitution. 

Just thought it was important to point all of that out.

All of the inconsistencies in the Michael Brown shooting witnesses in one graphic.

In case it will not enlarge, click here.

Mother Jones did some more expansive reporting on these troubling inconsistencies, as well as reminding us that 16 of the witnesses agreed that when he was shot Michael Brown had his hands up.

And that may be the most important point of all.

So true.

Colorado teenager invents smart gun that only works after identifying owner's fingerprints. Now that's what I'm talking about!

Courtesy of Tech Crunch:  

Colorado has a history with gun violence so it’s only appropriate that 17-year-old Kai Kloepfer, a high school student from Boulder, would want to apply biometric user authentication to firearms. Kloepfer just won the $50,000 Smart Tech for Firearms Challenge for his smart gun prototype. 

Angel investor and gun reform advocate Ron Conway became the main backer of the $1 million Smart Tech prize to spur gun safety solutions earlier this year. “Let’s use innovation to bring about gun safety. Let’s not rely on Washington,” Conway told the SF Examiner in January. According to the Smart Tech Foundation, a total of 15 innovators will receive a part of that million dollar prize. Kloepfer is the first to get the award.

The gun works by recording the fingerprints of the user inside its self contained data base, which means no information is uploaded to any other server.  This makes the weapon's computer very hard to hack, and does not jeopardize the owner's  personal information.

Kloepfer came up with the idea two years ago when he needed something for his high school science project. “The idea came to me right as I was falling asleep. It was kinda in the back of my mind because of the shooting,” said Kloepfer, alluding to the Aurora, Colorado shooting that had been on everyone’s mind at the time. The shooting was just an hour’s drive from his home. “I scribbled it down before I went to bed and fell asleep and then in the morning I began my research,” He explained. 

Kloepfer’s parents helped him in monetary increments to get the parts needed for each improvement. It would eventually cost $3000 for the whole thing to come together. “At first it was just a concept on paper,” he tells me. The gun went from phase to phase with each science fair. “Right now it’s a prototype on a plastic model. Its not entirely there but it works,” he says.

There is NO reason why this kind of technology should not be embraced the NRA and gun owners around the world.

And if they did so it could dramatically reduce the number of accidental shootings, increase the safety of our loved ones, and do a great deal to qualm the fears of those calling for stricter gun laws.

The next time that your conservative relatives start talking about how President Obama destroyed the economy, show them this.

Courtesy of the LA Times:  

Amazingly, there are still some holdouts in the political and economic community who insist that the Obama stimulus failed--that is, failed to arrest a steep fall in economic output and launch a period of growth in gross domestic product, jobs, stock market valuations, and other metrics that continues to this day. 

Menzie Chinn of the University of Wisconsin and Jeffrey Frankel of Harvard (and a former Clinton administration economics advisor) have just ganged up on the stimulus deniers. Their analyses are timely, since the stimulus has just passed its fifth birthday: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was signed into law on Feb. 17, 2009. 

Chinn observes (and shows his work via a series of telling slides) that the launch of ARRA coincides almost exactly with the bottoming out of the stock market, the reversal of a trend of increasing negative GDP growth and an almost unbroken record of positive growth since the end of the first quarter of 2009. 

"The burden of proof," he writes, "lies on those who assert the beginning of the recovery is due to anything, anything (Fed balance sheet expansion, TARP — both implemented six months earlier –, sunspots, or the return of Ancient Aliens) but the policies implemented by the Obama Administration." 

I have heard a number of so-called "economists" on Fox News and CNN claiming that the stimulus did nothing, but all evidence proves their contention incorrect.

History will prove that what President Obama did to save the economy was just this side of miraculous, until then it falls to good liberals to right the good fight of facts against purposeful misinformation.

A hero unraveled. Edward Snowden took security job for the sole purpose of exposing NSA, and allowed China to drain four laptops worth of top secret information.

Courtesy of the South China Morning Post: 

Edward Snowden secured a job with a US government contractor for one reason alone - to obtain evidence of Washington's cyberspying networks, the South China Morning Post can reveal. 

For the first time, Snowden has admitted he sought a position at Booz Allen Hamilton so he could collect proof about the US National Security Agency's secret surveillance programmes ahead of planned leaks to the media. 

"My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked," he told the Post on June 12. "That is why I accepted that position about three months ago." 

During a live global online chat last week, Snowden also stated he took pay cuts "in the course of pursuing specific work". He said: "Booz was not the most I've been paid." 

He spent the time collecting a cache of classified documents as a computer systems administrator at Booz Allen Hamilton. 

In his interview with the Post, Snowden divulged information that he claimed showed hacking by the NSA into computers in Hong Kong and the mainland. 

"I did not release them earlier because I don't want to simply dump huge amounts of documents without regard to their content," he said. 

"I have to screen everything before releasing it to journalists." 

Asked if he specifically went to Booz Allen Hamilton to gather evidence of surveillance, he replied: "Correct on Booz."

Not only did Snowden seek employment with Booz Allen for the purpose of exposing secret American programs, he also seems to have allowed the Chinese government complete access to the stolen information contained on the four laptops in his possession, much of which could have been data mined from Americans through phone calls and e-mails.

Courtesy of the New York Times:

Two Western intelligence experts, who worked for major government spy agencies, said they believed that the Chinese government had managed to drain the contents of the four laptops that Mr. Snowden said he brought to Hong Kong, and that he said were with him during his stay at a Hong Kong hotel.

I have been asked my opinion on Mr. Snowden and here it is.

While I think learning about these programs and recognizing that our government, and yes that includes President Obama, lied to us is an important and necessary thing to learn, I do not think that how Edward Snowden went about this is defensible, nor do I trust his motives.

As for Glenn Greenwald, I am not a fan and believe that if a better journalist had been the one to break this story Snowden would not be gallivanting around the country dropping our personal information, and top Secret data, all over the world like a tipsy businessman into the ear of a $200 streetwalker.

And I don't know about you, but I have a LOT of unanswered questions. Such as who was Snowden working with, and HOW did he know that working for Booz Allen would connect him to the data he was looking for?

My other question is how did Booz Allen Hamilton get so goddam big so goddamn fast?

Even if Snowden did not intend to allow this information to fall into the hands of those who would do us harm, the fact that he took the data out of the country, suddenly making it vulnerable to spies, and then transported it into countries that have difficult if not adversarial relationships with America, makes him either incredibly naive or a traitor to his country.

The promise of Heaven pales in comparison to the reality of what science reveals to be the true promise of our afterlife. Update.

If the picture is too small you can see a larger version here.

One of my major complaints about religion is that it interferes with the search for the TRUE beauty of our existence.  You don't have to imagine a magical explanation for the world around you, because the real explanation IS magic.

When I was in college I had this great biology professor, who always looked like he had just awakened after sleeping his his suit and rushed over to teach the class. His short grayish hair was always sticking up all over his head and his corduroy suit was wrinkled from top to bottom.

But he was a damn fine teacher, and he really enjoyed talking about science.

He also encouraged both questions and debate.  And when we got to the topic of evolution there was plenty of both.

In the middle of a Q&A a young girl stood up and asked the professor "Why scientists refuse to acknowledge the presence of God in their data?

He stopped, looked up at her about three rows away (The class had stadium seating), and simply replied, "Because we have not yet found any such data."

The girl looked irritated and followed up with "Then maybe they are trying NOT to see God in the data."

The professor walked closer to the first row and said the following:

"My dear girl, I don't believe you truly understand scientists."

"Every Astronomer who strains his eyes to study the heavens is searching for God."

"Every Microbiologist who suffers neck cramps after hours of staring at tiny samples through a microscope is looking for God."

"We search for God as we study ancient civilizations, the ocean depths, the fossils beneath our feet. Scientists search for the evidence of God every hour, of every day."

"And if we were to find it? Well that would, without a doubt, be the single greatest discovery in the history of scientific research."

"Scientists from all over the world would immediately drop whatever they were researching in order to study this new data. They would examine the evidence, test the hypothesis, and through this new prism reevaluate what they believed they knew about the universe, the world, and our place within them both."


"Not trying to see God? My dear, nothing could be further from the truth."

Yeah, what he said.

(P.S. "A Short History of Nearly Everything" can be ordered by clicking here.)

Update: I misplaced this video earlier when I was writing this post, but I just thought I would share Neil deGrasse Tyson discussing how progress is eroded by religions. It definitely provides food for thought.

Atheists as distrusted as rapists. WTF?

Courtesy of CTVBC:

Atheists are distrusted to roughly the same degree as rapists, according to a new University of British Columbia study exploring distaste for disbelievers. 

The research, led by UBC psychology doctoral student Will Gervais, found distrust to be the central factor motivating antagonism toward atheists among the religious. 

"Where there are religious majorities – that is, in most of the world – atheists are among the least trusted people," Gervais said in a release. 

"With more than half a billion atheists worldwide, this prejudice has the potential to affect a substantial number of people." 

Researchers believe the negative perception of atheists may stem from some people's understanding of morality; a 2002 Pew poll suggests nearly half of Americans believe morality is impossible without belief in god.

For one part of Gervais' six-part study, researchers compared views of atheists, homosexual men and the general population, noting that the first two groups are "often described as threatening to majority religious values and morality." 

Both are explicitly denied membership to the Boy Scouts of America, the study adds.

A sample of 351 Americans between the ages of 18 and 82 were quizzed on their feelings for each group. Sixty-seven per cent or subjects were Christian while 14 per cent said they did not believe in god. 

The results suggested anti-atheist prejudice was characterized by distrust, while anti-gay prejudice was characterized by disgust. 

For another part of the study, 105 UBC students between the ages of 18 and 25 were presented with a description of an untrustworthy person – an "archetypal freerider" who committed selfish and illegal acts when he thought he could get away with it. 

Subjects were more likely to find the description representative of atheists than Christians, Muslims, gay men, feminists or Jewish people. Only rapists were similarly distrusted. 

"People did not significantly differentiate atheists from rapists," the study said. 

You know it is this kind of stuff that really chaps my ass.

The idea that an identified religious affiliation determines that person's morality is demonstrably untrue, and the kind of ridiculous propaganda that certain groups love to cite to make themselves feel special and to justify their illogical belief system.

For instance I don't believe that Muslims are more prone to terrorist acts, that Catholic priests are more prone to pedophilia, or that Fundamentalists are all as batshit crazy as Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin. (Okay on that last one I have to admit the jury is still out.)

One of my least favorite phrases is, "Oh we can trust him, he is a good Christian man."  That is usually followed, it seems, by the realization that someone has been swindled out of their life savings or the discovery of some dead bodies in the woods.  Trusting ANYBODY based on their proclaimed religious affiliation is a sure sign of severe mental impairment in my opinion.

Now speaking for myself, I can say that I am certainly no saint. However if you were to compare my life choices to those of Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, or John Edwards, all self identified Christians, I would certainly seem like one.

I don't lie, or cheat, or steal.

I am not a drug user, an alcoholic, or a wife beater.

I have worked with children my entire life, and have NEVER even been accused of any impropriety. (Despite the best efforts by the Palin-bots.) And in fact have received numerous commendations for my work.

And NO that has nothing to do with my lack of religious faith. It is just who I happen to be.

However if one were trying to measure the morality of certain segments of the population based on their belief system, one might look at data from the prison system. (Admittedly this is a little old, dating back to 1997, though I doubt it has changed much.)

The Federal Bureau of Prisons does have statistics on religious affiliations of inmates. The following are total number of inmates per religion category:

Catholic 29267 39.164% 
Protestant 26162 35.008% 
Muslim 5435 7.273% 
American Indian 2408 3.222% 
Nation 1734 2.320% 
Rasta 1485 1.987% 
Jewish 1325 1.773% 
Church of Christ 1303 1.744% 
Pentecostal 1093 1.463% 
Moorish 1066 1.426% 
Buddhist 882 1.180% 
Jehovah Witness 665 0.890% 
Adventist 621 0.831% 
Orthodox 375 0.502% 
Mormon 298 0.399% 
Scientology 190 0.254% 
Atheist 156 0.209% 
Hindu 119 0.159% 
Santeria 117 0.157% 
Sikh 14 0.019% 
Bahai 9 0.012% 
Krishna 7 0.009%

(For the sake of comparison the percentage of Atheists in this country stands at roughly 12%.)

Like I said it is not terribly intelligent to judge a person's morality based on their religious affiliation. But if I were, and based on the above data, I know who I WOULD and WOULD NOT trust.


Distrusting somebody based solely on their religious beliefs, or lack thereof, makes no more sense than trusting somebody based on the color of their skin, their gender, or their height. And in fact it is this "trust shortcut" that is a by product of a deep religious conviction that has allowed certain church members to find themselves victimized time and time again.