[Breitbart] On May 29 a retired Marine eating lunch at a Houston, TX, strip mall reacted to a robbery in progress by retrieving his concealed carry (CCW) handgun, killing one of the suspected robbers, and sending the second one fleeing. Well done !
#1
I was really worried this was close to us but it turned out to be further up into Houston. Still, good job. Houston CCW owners seem to be fairly proficient and/or lucky when it comes to incidents.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/02/2014 9:26 Comments ||
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#4
The former Marine went to his pick-up truck, "retrieved a semi-automatic pistol, and told a bystander to call 911."
FIFY. Sounds like it could have been a Clint Eastwood line. Maybe he should have called the undertaker as well. My money would have been on the Marine from the gitgo.
It's a patent troll, not a copyright troll, but still - Heart. Cockles. Warm. :-D
When Santa Barbara startup FindTheBest (FTB) was sued by a patent troll called Lumen View last year, it vowed to fight back rather than pay up the $50,000 licensing fee Lumen was asking for. Company CEO Kevin O'Connor made it personal, pledging $1 million of his own money to fight the legal battle.
Once FindTheBest pursued the case, the company dismantled the troll in short order. In November, the judge invalidated Lumen's patent, finding it was nothing more than a description of computer-oriented "matchmaking."
At that point, FindTheBest had spent about $200,000 on its legal fight--not to mention the productivity lost in hundreds of work hours spent by top executives on the lawsuit, and three all-company meetings.
Now the judge overseeing the case has ruled (PDF) that it's Lumen View, not FindTheBest, that should have to pay those expenses. In a first-of-its-kind implementation of new fee-shifting rules mandated by the Supreme Court, US District Judge Denise Cote found that the Lumen View lawsuit was a "prototypical exceptional case."
Posted by: Barbara ||
06/02/2014 14:04 ||
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#1
Mods, can you fix the weird stuff around "extraordinary case"?
It didn't show up in the preview. Sorry.
Posted by: Barbara ||
06/02/2014 14:08 Comments ||
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Moscow: Russia has started to block the military functions of US Global Positioning System (GPS) base stations on its territory, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Sunday 1 June 2014.
The move comes as Moscow is seeking to advance talks over the placement of Glonass stations in the US, Xinhua reported.
"We have worked out and implemented measures that exclude the use of these stations for military purposes. Now they are under our full control," Rogozin tweeted.
Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency, confirmed the measures would be implemented from Sunday.
Rogozin also said that Moscow has initiated talks with the US on the deployment of Glonass stations on the US territory. The talks are expected to last until August 31, and "new decisions will be made" afterwards.
Rogozin warned earlier this week that Russia would stop the operations of the US GPS stations June 1 and might start dismantling them from Sep 1 as a response to Washington's anti-Russia sanctions and its refusal to allow Glonass ground base stations on the US territory.
Glonass is the Russian counterpart to GPS, designed for military and civilian use.
#1
The "stations" that jerk is yapping about had US folk scratching their heads for awhile.
It turns out he's jamming the continental drift sensors installed by scientists all over the world to map the movement of the continents.
#2
During the follow on to the Iraq invasion, one of our search teams (looking for nuke, missle, etc) found a warehouse in Baghdad with GPS jammers. Russian made, a little bigger than a hockey puck; put a battery in them and they would broadcast digital 'fuzz' on all the GPS frequencies, effectively killing reception in a 300 meter radius, for about 2 weeks. They were intended to be scattered by helicopter in the path of an invasion. Evidently intended to degrade 'smart' targeting in the terminal phase, I guess the Russians gave them to Saddam to see if it did any good. In any event, they sat unused.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/02/2014 7:17 Comments ||
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#3
I am with 3dc. Putin can't do squat to block the "military functions" of GPS from "stations on his territory". The story must be for domestic propaganda.
#4
Flying into Khabarovsk or Yuzno-Sakalinsk the GPS nav system on aircraft commonly goes out. Heck - I bought a GPS jammer good for a 10 meter diameter for only 20 bucks! Jamming GPS is one of the first things you'd want to do when escalating. Announcing it is another thing. It'd be more embarassing for them simply not to work and have to have the US announce it.
[IRISHTIMES] Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... has reportedly called European Parliament efforts to force through Jean-Claude Juncker as next European Commission president a "declaration of war" against EU governments.
A week after elections which EU leaders said would boost European democracy and transparency, the bloc is wracked by disunity and a high-stakes campaign lead by Britannia's David Cameron ... has stated that he is certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite, which means he's not. Since he is not deeply ideological he lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger, but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ... to block the ambitions of Mr Juncker, the lead candidate for the conservative European People's Party (EPP) that won the election.
The Lisbon Treaty says that EU leaders should "take note" of European parliamentary elections in filling top EU jobs. The parliament believes it is on an equal footing with the European Council, where leaders meet. Last Tuesday, Mr Cameron urged fellow council members not to "wave through" the parliament's proposal, reportedly warning that Mr Juncker's appointment would destabilise his government and Britannia's future in the EU.
'1980s' figure
"A face of the 1980s cannot solve the problems of the next five years," said Mr Cameron to confidantes, according to Der Spiegel.
The German magazine reported how, after 1am last Monday morning, Mr Juncker offered his Socialist challenger, Martin Schulz, the job of deputy European Commission president. The two reportedly agreed their respective camps should work in a "grand coalition" in the next European Parliament.
At a Brussels meeting on Tuesday evening, however, many European leaders expressed alarm at a potential parliamentary political power-grab being led by Mr Juncker and Mr Schulz, the outgoing parliamentary president.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/02/2014 00:00 ||
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Near as I can tell, Juncker is a center-right politician who was instrumental in forming the EU. He represents same old, same old. Are there any EU leaders who have a new vision? If so, who are they and what is it?
[An Nahar] Popular video-sharing site YouTube remained blocked in Turkey on Sunday despite the country's top court ruling that the blanket ban contravened the right to free speech.
Turkey's constitutional court ruled Thursday that the ban on YouTube violated individual rights and freedoms, clearing the way for access to the service to be revived following a two-month ban.
Transportation Minister Lutfi Elvan, who is also in charge of communications, said the court decision had not yet reached the relevant government agencies.
"What is needed will be done after the decision reaches" the country's telecommunications authority, he was quoted as telling local media on Sunday.
A government official said this week that access to YouTube would be restored once government agencies were informed of the court verdict.
YouTube has been banned in Turkey since March 27 after the site was used to leak a top-secret security meeting, which featured top government, military and intelligence officials discussing war scenarios inside neighboring Syria.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/02/2014 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Turkish police on Sunday fired tear gas and water cannon at hundreds of protesters in Ankara a day after violent festivities on the one-year anniversary of the country's largest anti-government demonstrations in decades.
Police stepped in to disperse around 500 people from Ankara's downtown Kizilay Square who wanted to stage a demonstration at the site where a 26-year-old protester was shot and killed by police the same day last year, an Agence La Belle France Presse photographer said.
Ethem Sarisuluk was one of at least eight people killed in festivities when police violently cracked down on anti-government protests that swept the country.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
06/02/2014 00:00 ||
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[Ynet] The cabinet approved the recommendation of Home Front Defense Minister Gilad Erdan to dissolve the ministry he leads and to transfer its portfolio to the Defense Ministry.
At the beginning of the discussion Erdan said that this was the right decision given the circumstances, but that there was a need for a civilian office with certain authority for a long term solution.
It sits atop the roof of an old palazzo in the centre of Rome, surrounded by a broad terrace that affords breathtaking views across the Eternal City to the mountains beyond.
The penthouse apartment at the centre of Paolo Sorrentino's Oscar-winning movie La Grande Bellezza? Or perhaps the chosen retreat of a Forbes-list billionaire?
No. The flat in question is being created in the Vatican for the man who until recently was its most bigwig.
While Pope Francis has been exhorting his clergy almost weekly to live lives as simple and frugal as his own, work has been going ahead on a luxurious retirement home for Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who stepped down as the Vatican's secretary of state last October.
Reports of an extensive renovation project began to circulate in April. But it was not until last week that an Italian gossip magazine, Chi, published the first photograph of the work being carried out on top of the Palazzo San Carlo, just inside the walls of the city state.
In a message to the newsletters of his former dioceses, Bertone acknowledged that his intended new residence was spacious. But he said that a previous estimate of 700 sq metres (7,500 sq ft) was double the true figure.
The 79-year-old prelate wrote that it was normal for flats in the Vatican's old buildings to be large. He added that the one on the roof of the Palazzo San Carlo "duly converted (at my own expense) was made available for my temporary use and, after me, someone else will use it". Even at 350 sq metres, however, the cardinal's new residence would be five times bigger than that of the pope, who lives in a one-bedroomed suite in the nearby Casa Santa Marta. Bertone's successor as secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, has similarly modest accommodation in the same building, which serves as a hotel for visitors to the Vatican.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/02/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Following in the shoes of the fisherman, or not.
#4
Aren't there stories out of California about civil 'servants' drawing six digit figure retirements, well beyond the income of the average tax payer? Bertone already understands the old camel, eye of the needle thingy. Gaming the system isn't just a problem in the secular community.
U.S. Navy says it can thwart Chinese ASBM threat. The Chinese missile is based on the DF-21 (CSS-5) medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) and gives China the capability to attack large ships--including aircraft carriers--in the western Pacific Ocean, with a range exceeding 1,500 km, or 810 nm.
"The DF-21D is a theater-range ballistic missile equipped with a maneuverable reentry vehicle (Marv) designed to hit moving ships at sea," the Congressional Research Service (CRS) notes in a recent report. The article talks about the Dual Band (S and X-band) Radar (DBR) initially developed for the DDG-1000 Zumwalt destroyer. It is interesting that the current ground based ABM system uses a floating X-Band radar.
Rear Adm. Michael Manazir, the director of air warfare] acknowledges the Navy is reviewing whether it will continue using DBR for carriers after the Ford or use technological advances to develop a radar more appropriate for the ships.
The Ford's electric power distribution grid kicks up about 13,800 volts, compared to about 4,160 for Nimitz-class carriers. Of course the ship needs more juice to power its DBR, Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (Emals) and other systems, but the design allows for even greater capacity.
"If you go to a more electric-centric ship, you have to have big electrical potential," Manazir says. "The Ford was designed with a 60 percent increase in capacity."
For Nimitz-class ships, he says, any new technological improvements that require more electricity would mean power-supply redesigns to accommodate the upgrades.
"With Ford," he says, "it's already designed into the ship." Rail guns and lasers need electricity. Hmmm.
#2
OK, essentially they put Aegis phased array microwave on the Ford class. Makes sense; even the Severe Storms Lab in Oklahoma has one these days. (It's used in tornado chasing, and is a truly strange thing to see pass you on the highway.) If you crank up the wattage at the focal point, they've been known to 'kill' aircraft by frying the avionics (fly by wire is not necessarily your friend). Whether it would stop a MARV is another question, and how big a 'miss' would be required, being as they're supposed to be nukes.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/02/2014 7:28 Comments ||
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#5
13,800 volts will travel through the ship's infrastructure more efficiently than the 4,160-volt systems used previously. In a large structure (Carrier in this case), you can experience voltage loss over long distances, which degrades the actual power delivery potential. The 'Voltage' increase mitigates that (see Ohm's Law and Voltage Drop).
What this article doesn't state is whether or not the new power plant produces more actual 'Power' (volts x amperes) that would be needed for the added systems.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
06/02/2014 9:43 Comments ||
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Mullah Richard,
The article didn't state a lot, perhaps for fear of saying too much. With Aviation Week & Space Technology there is a lot of reading between the lines. The Ford (CVN-78) has 150% more power generation capability than the Enterprise (CVN-65) that it will replace. The SI unit for electrical power is the watt.
As you point out, electricity transmission to your house travels the distance in high voltage lines. A local transformer steps the voltage down for your household use.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[IRISHTIMES] Chancellor 
David Cameron
U.S. Navy says it can thwart Chinese ASBM threat. The Chinese missile is based on the DF-21 (CSS-5) medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) and gives China the capability to attack large ships--including aircraft carriers--in the western Pacific Ocean, with a range exceeding 1,500 km, or 810 nm.
