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Are Americans Responsible for their own safety?

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Following last February’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, some students claimed local government officials were at fault for failing to provide protection to students. The students filed suit, naming six defendants, including the Broward school district and the Broward Sheriff’s Office, as well as school deputy Scot Peterson and campus monitor Andrew Medina.

U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom dismissed a suit filed by 15 students who claimed they were traumatized by the Parkland High School shooting. Students argued that authorities’ failure to prevent the shooting violated their 14th Amendment rights to due process. The students had sued Broward County, the sheriff, the school superintendent and a school resource officer last summer in connection with the February shooting in Parkland, alleging they failed to protect them.

The suit named six defendants, including the Broward school district and the Broward Sheriff’s Office, as well as school deputy Scot Peterson and campus monitor Andrew Medina. Bloom ruled that the two agencies had no constitutional duty to protect students who were not in custody.

This decision adds to a growing body of case law establishing that government agencies — including police agencies — have no duty to provide protection to citizens in general:

“Neither the Constitution, nor state law, impose a general duty upon police officers or other governmental officials to protect individual persons from harm — even when they know the harm will occur,” said Darren L. Hutchinson, a professor and associate dean at the University of Florida School of Law. “Police can watch someone attack you, refuse to intervene and not violate the Constitution.”

The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the government has only a duty to protect persons who are “in custody,” he pointed out.

Moreover, even though the state of Florida has compulsory schooling laws, the students themselves are not “in custody”:

“Courts have rejected the argument that students are in custody of school officials while they are on campus,” Mr. Hutchinson said. “Custody is narrowly confined to situations where a person loses his or her freedom to move freely and seek assistance on their own — such as prisons, jails, or mental institutions.”

So, if the police are not required to protect the public, then who is?

It would seem personal safety is, according to this ruling, a personal thing, however, this seems to run counter the current climate of anti-second amendment rights…

“The Federal Bureaucracy, the deep state, could increasingly focus on gun owners in the coming years. The number of Americans who are violating firearm laws and regulations is increasing by tens or hundreds of thousands almost every year. This is not the result of a violent crime wave, but because politicians are continually criminalizing the possession of items that were previously legally owned.” — James Bovard

Is the illegality of gun ownership and right to self defense a possibility?

An example, the Connecticut legislature decreed that all owners of so-called “assault weapons” (which included any semi-automatic rifle with a pistol grip) must register their firearms. Perhaps as few as 15 percent of gun owners bothered to comply with the new law—meaning that Connecticut had up to 100,000 “criminals” living within its border. A 2016 Albany Times Union editorial also noted that 96 percent of roughly 1 million New Yorkers who owned so-called “assault weapons” failed to comply with registration requirements. California gun bans have been met with similar non-compliance. Typically, local governments have begun jumping on the bandwagon. Deerfield, Ill., recently decreed a $1,000-a-day penalty on anyone who fails to surrender or disable their semi-automatic firearms.

As government agencies —  not Congress— are able to directly access databases that relate to gun ownership, the agencies themselves are often in a position to abuse this information. These databases are under the control of  bureaucracies like the FBI that face little to no accountability from voters.

The National Instant Background Check System (NICS) is the background check system for firearms purchases and was a part of the 1994 Brady Act. Any gun owner that wants to buy a gun from a federally licensed firearms dealer (FFL), must go through a background check. Under this system, the FBI looks at certain factors such as criminal history and mental health to determine if an individual presents too much of a risk to own a firearm.

Although NICS is marketed as a speedy background check system, it comes with its own set of problems. NICS has gained notoriety for producing false positives, where law-abiding citizens are mixed and matched with criminals who have the same name.

Some estimates from the Crime Prevention Research Center indicate that in 2009 alone, 93 percent of initial NICS denials were false positives.

NICS has remained intact even when evidence has shown that it is ineffective in combatting crime. Note: crime rates had already gone into steep decline by the mid-1990s, well before NICS went into effect in 1998.

Bovard thus raises an interesting concern: “While such laws were made by elected officials, it is unelected bureaucrats who are largely left in charge of enforcement, and that can cause big problems for gun owners”.

Exercising control over this sort of legal abuse can be exceptionally difficult when dealing with unelected bureaucrats.

Citizens can vote out anti-gun politicians, but it is much more difficult to curb bureaucratic overreach. In some cases it may require abolishing or defunding of a government bureaucracy…so it goes.

New York State Court of Appeals Hears Arguments Against Chicken Kaporos

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On October 17th, the Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos v. New York City Police Department presented oral arguments to the New York State’s highest court, the Court of Appeals.

The case concerns an ultraorthodox Jewish custom known as Kaporos, meaning “substitution” or “atonements,” in which thousands of chickens are forced to suffer and die for the sins of practitioners who pay to have the birds swung over their heads and then slaughtered illegally on city streets aided by the New York City Police Department, which even provides filthy traffic cones to be used as bleedout cones by the practitioners to enact their violation of 15 city and state health and animal cruelty laws.

After commencing this litigation in the state’s lower court in 2015, and then progressing to the Appellate Division, our case now lies in the Court of Appeals, following the oral argument presented to the Court by our attorney, Nora Constance Marino, on October 17th. Our attorney advises us that we can expect a decision in 40 to 90 days. Several outcomes are possible – the case could get affirmed, meaning the lower court’s decision to dismiss the case will stand. The case could get remanded – in which case, the lower court’s decision to dismiss the case will be reversed and we will head back to the lower court for further proceedings. Or, best case scenario, the Court of Appeals can grant the relief. Our attorney will keep us posted, and we will keep you posted.

Image courtesy of Their Turn

 

Build a home out Tires and Beer Cans

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In the late 70’s the architect Michael Reynolds moved from Cleveland to the Taos mesa to race motocross. As a freaked-out hippie type, he was prone to rebellion and eschewing the standards of his formal education. While on his brief journey towards racing fame he began to integrate the then-novel concept of recycling into a building technique, using omnipresent mountains of empty pull-tab beer cans to construct bricks, and then shelter. A series of impressive innovations brought him a good spurt of publicity in the early days: magazines from National Geographic to Architectural Record came to the Mesa to see what was going on in the emerging field of living amongst garbage.

Reynolds describes a moment when he was living off the land in a primitive can hut on the mesa, eating grasshoppers and generating his own electricity outside of society. The orthopteran buffet and bucket commode suited his needs perfectly, but he knew his concepts required a more palatable iteration to truly evolve his notions of resource management and comfortable self-reliance. The simple hut gave way to a lifetime of experimental architecture that revolved around the motto of sustainable autonomy for everyone.

But, top of the line models are not cheap. Expensive, luxurious (by Earthship standards), and more-traditional home that meets most building codes called the Global Model. With a construction cost around $225 per square foot, or $300,000 for a one-bedroom, one-bath home, it’s certainly not for people who don’t believe wholeheartedly in the concept. But for those with the money to spend, it is the most holistic home available today: a home that heats, cools, feeds, and treats the sewage of its inhabitants, completely independent of any infrastructure. No heat, no HVAC needed.

The Global Earthship design performs in almost any climate around the world. The main features of this design include a double layer of glass (“double greenhouse”) between the inner living spaces and the outside and the use of underground cooling tubes and convection skylights which work together to provide ventilation and natural air conditioning for the building.

The Simple Survival Earthship is designed to provide comfortable shelter, clean water, contained sewage and basic solar power for lights and charging small electronics at a very low price. This building uses simple systems developed for the earthquake-relief demonstration project in Haiti. The Simple Survival Earthship may be built with one or more rooms and has evolved to include Vaulted Concrete and Wood Roof options. The concept has been applied to numerous disaster-relief and humanitarian builds around the world. For those inspired to build their own, Earthship Biotecture offers a Simple Survival app with Earthship construction drawings, materials lists, photos and more.

Activists Hold Mass Vigil and Provide Water for Birds Brutalized in Illegal Open-air Slaughterhouse in Brooklyn, Exposing Extreme Political Corruption

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The Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos is a project of Machipongo’s United Poultry Concerns. Formed in New York City in June 2010, the Alliance is an association of groups and individuals who seek to replace the use of chickens in Kaporos ceremonies with money or other non-animal symbols of atonement. The Alliance does not oppose Kaporos per se, only the cruel and unnecessary use of chickens in the ceremony.

NEW YORK, September 14, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – On September 17, 2018, hundreds of activists from the Northeast and Canada will stage a Mass Vigil where brutal slaughter is performed in residential streets as part of an “atonement” ritual known as Kaporos. Under Section 356 of the Agriculture and Markets law, individuals may intervene if an animal is deprived of food and water for 12 hours or more while confined. During this Vigil, activists will exercise their right to provide water and food to thousands of suffering 6-weeks-old chickens. 60,000 chickens are crammed for days in plastic crates prior to the Kaporos ritual, which includes merciless swinging by their delicate wings. Such handling causes broken bones and torn ligaments as they scream in pain.

The ritual culminates in throat cutting at illegally rigged-up slaughter stations, where children stuff the wounded birds into filthy traffic cones to bleed to death slowly in pain and terror. 15+ laws are broken, more than half of which are health codes, posing a significant public health risk (see the toxicology report), yet the NYPD aids this ritual thanks to Mayor de Blasio’s craven desire to curry favor with this powerful voting bloc of the Orthodox Jewish Community. His administration has come under fire lately for failing to enforce laws mandating a secular education for the children of these very same communities that are breaking the law with impunity.

WHO: The Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos, Jewish Veg, and The Save Movement – including Anita Krajnc, whose infamous arrest for providing water to a thirsty pig en route to slaughter was covered by news outlets internationally during the so-called “Pig Trial.”

WHEN: September 17th, Monday, 6:30pm

WHERE:  Kingston and Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn

WHY: Activists are holding this Mass Vigil and providing care to these mistreated birds as an act of civic duty and compassion for the birds who have been crated for days in the streets without food or water, and to expose Mayor de Blasio’s deference to politics over the public interest.

 

How to curb the environmental impact of Beef

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Beef is the largest food based culprit when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions.

To counteract the effects of cattle farming, California startups are increasingly targeting carnivores with plant burgers so beef-like they bleed–and new research is breaking down food’s impact on climate change, and potential solutions are emerging to cut down on a potent greenhouse gas that cows emit.

The Impossible Burger

Beef, responsible for roughly 6% of greenhouse gas emissions, is the single biggest food factor when it comes to climate change, according to a 2013 United Nations report.Cows emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas, when they burp and pass gas. This accounts for nearly half of beef’s greenhouse gas emissions. This includes cattle manure that emits a greenhouse gas called nitrous oxide, how cattle graze on pastures and deforestation, particularly in Brazil.

Global beef demand is projected to nearly double by 2050, fueled by booming populations in China and India, according to the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank.

Given that anticipated growth, two avenues are emerging to limit associated rise in greenhouse gas emissions: Make real beef more environmentally friendly, or convince people to eat something else.

On the “something else” side, the hottest trend today is beef-like burgers from plant material. One kind, called the Impossible Burger, is targeting carnivore eaters. It looks, tastes and feels like a real burger. It even bleeds and sizzles like one. It has its share of controversies, though, including how its main plant-derived ingredient is genetically modified and that its nutritional content is comparable to real beef, canceling out any health benefits.

On the real beef side, Elm Innovations, a nonprofit founded in 2016, is working with researchers at University of California, Davis, to feed cattle a supplement of particular kind of seaweed.

“The seaweed very dramatically reduces cow-burped methane to the tune of 50% or greater, which is extremely large,” said the group’s founder, Joan King Salwen, whose family had a cattle and sheep ranch.

The beef industry itself and companies that sell it, like McDonald’s, are increasingly realizing the importance of addressing the issue.

Earlier this year McDonald’s announced its first-ever target cutting its greenhouse gas emissions, with beef as its largest challenge. “The biggest focus for us is how do we feed those animals using less land,” said Robert Gibbs, an executive vice president with the fast food chain.

McDonald’s works with companies that own live herds through the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, whose members include the National Cattleman’s Beef Association.

“We recognize that we of course have a significant carbon footprint so we want to work to improve that,” said Ashley McDonald, the industry group’s senior director of sustainability.
What could be next: The World Resources Institute is working toward reducing the projected global growth in beef demand over the next 30 years. The U.S. cattle industry has among the most sustainable practices in the world, so the group suggests exporting more American beef and reducing production elsewhere.

“If we were to cut back on U.S. beef consumption by half, that doesn’t mean put half of U.S. beef producers out of business,” said Rich Waite, an associate at the World Resources Institute’s food program. “It could just mean expanding exports to countries where beef consumption is going to be doubling.”

Status of U.S. Fisheries

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NOAA Fisheries has released the 2017 Report to Congress on the Status of U.S. Fisheries managed under the science-based framework established by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA).

At the end of 2017, the overfishing list included 30 stocks and the overfished list included 35 stocks. Overfishing remains near all-time lows and we reached a new milestone with the number of overfished stocks at the lowest level ever—just 15 percent of assessed stocks. The number of stocks rebuilt since 2000 increased to 44. NOAA Fisheries tracks 474 stocks or stock complexes in 46 fishery management plans. Each year, assessments of various fish stocks and stock complexes are conducted to determine their status. These assessments include stocks of both known status and previously unknown status. Based on assessments conducted by the end of 2017, six stocks were removed from the overfishing list and six were added. The additions are the result of stock assessments or data showing catch was too high, including international harvest on certain stocks that the United States has limited ability to control. Six stocks were removed from the overfished list and three were added based on stock assessments that indicated population sizes were too low. As required by the MSA management framework, the councils are developing management measures to end overfishing and rebuild all stocks added to the overfishing and overfished lists.
Specific changes to the status of stocks in 2017 include:

Benefits of Sustainable Fisheries Management
Sustainable fisheries management is an adaptive process that relies on sound science, innovative management approaches, effective enforcement, meaningful partnerships, and robust public participation. Sustainable fisheries play an important role in the nation’s economy by providing opportunities for commercial, recreational, and subsistence fishing, marine aquaculture, and sustainable seafood for the nation. Combined, U.S. commercial and recreational saltwater fishing generated more than $208 billion in sales and supported 1.6 million jobs in 2015. By ending overfishing and rebuilding stocks, we are strengthening the value of U.S. fisheries to the economy, our communities, and marine ecosystems.

International Respect For Chickens Day Celebrates Compassion for Chickens

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United Poultry Concerns Urges Positive Action for Chickens in May

Machipongo, VA, USA – On May 4, animal advocates celebrated International Respect for Chickens Day. Launched by United Poultry Concerns in 2005, International Respect for Chickens Day celebrates chickens throughout the world and protests their suffering and abuse in cockfighting, agribusiness, experimental research, and other cruelties.

“We urge everyone to do a compassionate ACTION for chickens, on or around May 4th,” says Karen Davis, president of United Poultry Concerns which promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of chickens and other domestic fowl.

“A library display, a vegan open house, an informative blog post, or simply talking to family and friends about the plight – and delight – of chickens are great ways to stick up for chickens,” Davis says.

To honor International Respect for Chickens Day, activists are organizing creative actions across the U.S. and the world including an International Respect for Chickens Day at Good Earth Natural Foods in Fairfax, CA andInternational Respect for Chickens Day at the White House in Washington DC on Saturday, May 5th. In May, we are advertising for chickens on Philadelphia’s commuter rail line into New Jersey featuring a mother hen protecting a rescued chick under her wing proclaiming “What Wings Are For.”

Chicago activists will celebrate International Respect for Chickens Day with a Rally to End Slaughter at a Chicago live poultry market in a “hipster” neighborhood, and in Minneapolis a special event will Celebrate International Respect for Chickens Day at Chicken Run Rescue with award-winning independent documentary filmmaker Sam Sprynczynatyk and Producer Medora Frei, who will show clips and give a brief presentation about their upcoming film, Kindred Creatures, featuring several Minnesota/Wisconsin sanctuaries including Chicken Run Rescue.

“Happy chickens are cheerful birds,” says Karen Davis, who maintains a sanctuary for chickens in Virginia. “Chickens love the earth and sun, yet millions are sitting in filthy dark buildings on crippled legs breathing polluted air, as documented in my book Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs. My article ‘The Social Life of Chickens’shows who chickens truly are – vibrant, personable, earth-loving, friendly birds.”

United Poultry Concerns urges people to celebrate chickens on the planet instead of the plate. For information, visit United Poultry Concerns at http://www.upc-online.org.

North Carolina adds Three to its Wolfpack

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Last the weekend, three eagerly awaited red wolf pups were born at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham. Tentatively named “A,” “B,” and “C,” the pups will live at the museum’s Explore the Wild exhibit, a six-acre woodland habitat, with their mom and dad at least through the summer, where visitors can watch them play and grow.

A trio of new red wolf pups. (Photo courtesy of the Museum of Life and Science)

Native to the Southeast, the red wolf is one of the rarest wolves in the world, with fewer than fifty remaining in the wild. The wolves at the Durham museum are part of the Red Wolf Species Survival Plan, a conservation effort among a collection of zoos and nature centers around the United States. Stay well, and welcome to the world, pups A, B, and C.

Stormwater permits approved for three Accomack County poultry houses

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Virginia Department of Environmental Quality regulators have approved stormwater permits for three Accomack County poultry houses.

The State Water Control Board voted 5-0 on Thursday.

The poultry farms are located in Atlantic, Withams, and New Church.

View the permits on the Eastern Shorekeeper web site here.

According to Virginia Department of Environmental Quality spokeswoman Ann Regn, “The applicants have been responsive to making changes resulting from inspections, and we expect them to comply with these additional requirements for environmental management.”

While the permits put more onus on farmers to monitor stormwater discharges, environmental groups such as  The Chesapeake Bay Foundation voiced oppositon, and noted that the current regulations continue to leave the health of the Chesapeake Bay at risk.

The CBF said in comments filed with DEQ, regular monitoring of surface and ground water will be essential to protecting the Bay’s water quality. Monitoring would show if pollution is leaving these facilities, which could be addressed by requiring pollution reductions through conservation practices.

Virginia poultry operations produced about 28.3 million more birds in 2016 than in 2010—a 12 percent increase—according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Over the same time the weight of birds produced increased 27 percent, meaning the average bird is now larger and produces more manure. Much of this growth is taking place on the Eastern Shore.

Ridiculousness: Comedian John Oliver Targets Pence Daughter’s Children’s Book about a Bunny

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On Monday, a charming children’s book written by Vice President Mike Pence’s daughter, Charlotte Pence, and illustrated by Pence’s wife, Karen Pence, launched at Amazon.com. The book is a tour of the White House and Vice Presidential living quarters narrated by the family bunny, Marlon Bundo. It’s titled Marlon Bundo’s Day In The Life of the Vice President.

Cue prescribed outrage…the Left targeted the book.

First, HBO’s mediocre comedian John Oliver launched into a “prescibed” rant about how Pence supposedly hates gay people, then said he would be releasing the competing book. This book is about homosexual rabbits: Marlon is gay and falls in love with Wesley while living at the Naval Observatory. The bad guy: Stink Bug, who looks like Mike Pence.

 But it wasn’t sufficient to launch a book specifically designed to target an innocent children’s book with propaganda about how Republicans hate gay people/rabbits. Oliver’s followers then went to the Amazon page for Charlotte Pence’s book and spammed it with one-star reviews.

Marlon Bundo’s A Day in the Life of the Vice President teaches children about the vice presidency. Proceeds go to a hospital art therapy program called Tracy’s Kids and an abolitionist and anti-human trafficking organization, A21.

Watching his segment,  Oliver flounders trying to explain why the book was worth attacking in the first place. Eventually, he found a reason, noting that the final stop on the Pences’ book tour was at “Focus on the F—king Family” (which you can tell is funny because he said “f—k”).

“Congratulations, Pence, you even managed to ruin Marlon Bundo,” Oliver says to a graphic of Mike Pence, who again, had nothing to do with the book. “Now none of us can enjoy a book about your rabbit,” Oliver continued, forgetting the literal people this book is helping.

Oliver assured his viewers that buying his book would be a way of saying “f—k you” to Pence (again, this is supposed to be funny because he said “f—k”).

On the up side, proceeds for Oliver’s book go to charities for AIDS research and LGBT teen suicide prevention. “Those are two great reasons to buy this book,” Oliver noted. “Another is that selling more books than Pence will probably really piss him off, so that’s three great reasons right there.”

This is the nature of the hard-Left: they hate conservatives so much that they’re willing to smear completely apolitical children’s literature in order to target those conservatives. Charlotte Pence appears to be a nice young woman with no discernable political background other than her association with her dad; the book is utterly apolitical–about a bunny. So naturally, it must be made a target of prescribed LGBT mockery and rage.

There was the bizarre debacle of openly gay, and marginal U.S. Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon supposedly refusing a  meeting with Vice President Pence during the Olympic games after criticizing him for his stance on gay rights.

 On the business side of things, Amazon appears to have limited reviews of Charlotte’s book to verified purchasers.

Oddly, if the Left is so committed to tolerance and equality that they attempt to try to destroy the book sales of a 24-year old woman who doesn’t work in politics and is donating the proceeds to fight sex trafficking, solely because you disagree with her father’s politics, it may be time to step back and reflect on what you feel you are really all about.

Mike Pence hasn’t responded to this idiocy; he’s been busy welcoming home fallen soldiers. For her part, Charlotte Pence responded,  “I think imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. Also, in all seriousness, his book is contributing to charities that I think we can all get behind.”

A little bit of class goes a long way.