U.S. Ammunition industry to survive closure of lead smelter. By NRA-ILA We previously reported on the closure of the nation’s last primary lead smelter due to tightened EPA standards on ambient air quality. As the date for closure of the smelter approaches, there has been a significant amount of speculation concerning the effect of the smelter’s closure on the availability and price of ammunition. According to the United States Geological Survey, lead usage in ammunition makes up only about three percent of lead consumption in the United States. Lead-acid batteries make up the vast majority of U.S. lead consumption, and these batteries are readily recycled.
This recycled lead, which will still be able to be smelted in the United States at secondary smelters even after the Herculaneum smelter closes, is the type most often used by ammunition manufacturers. Keep up to date with your state’s gun laws, visit NRA-ILA. Number Of Refugees In World At 18-Year High Eurasia Review. By UNHCR More people are refugees or internally displaced than at any time since 1994, with the crisis in Syria having emerged as a major new factor in global displacement.
UNHCR’s annual Global Trends report, released on Wednesday, covers displacement that occurred during 2012 based on data from governments, NGO partners, and the UN refugee agency itself. The report shows that as of the end of 2012, more than 45.2 million people were in situations of displacement compared to 42.5 million at the end of 2011. This includes 15.4 million refugees, 937,000 asylum seekers, and 28.8 million people forced to flee within the borders of their own countries.
The report does not include the rise in those forced from their homes in Syria during the current year. War remains the dominant cause. “These truly are alarming numbers. The report highlights worrisome trends, including the rate at which people are being forced into situations of displacement. About the author: UNHCR Visit UNHCR's website. LAPD in Torrance 'accidentally' shoot 2 women in ex-cop manhunt.
Lockheed Martin Unveils ADAM, Another Directed Energy Weapon For the US. Susanne Posel Occupy Corporatism December 6, 2012 The Area Defense Anti-Munitions (ADAM) system is Lockheed Martin’s newest laser weapon that tracks targeted improvised rocket or unmanned aerial craft using a beam control and software to destroy identified enemy fire at a range just short of a mile. ADAM is ground-based, transportable and self-contained. It can use external radar to detect drones and engage enemy missiles within seconds of a locked-in object. Once ADAM declares “a valid aim point, it fires the laser on the target long enough to negate the rocket” or drone. Last month, Lockheed Martin recounted that testing for ADAM was successful. Paul Shattuck, director of directed energy systems for Strategic and Missile Defense Systems at Lockheed Martin explained: “Lockheed Martin has applied its expertise as a laser weapon system integrator to provide a practical and affordable defense against serious threats to military forces and installations.
. • Boeing • Lockheed Martin • Raytheon. How America’s toxic culture breeds mass murder. As a parent, an American and a human being, I’m having trouble functioning in the wake of Friday’s elementary-school shootings in Newtown, Conn. You’ll read this some hours after I write it, so you’ll know more than I do now about the children and adults who have died and the families who are enduring unbearable losses, and about the life and death of Adam Lanza, the young man who apparently inflicted them.
Those things are dreadfully important to the people involved, but they won’t change the bigger picture much. That’s a picture of grief and horror and profound collective mystification about how such a thing could happen, a picture of a disordered culture that produces these spectacular outbreaks of psychotic violence more and more often, even in an era of relatively low crime. Whether these patterns point the way toward preventing these kinds of horrific events I really couldn’t say. Take the Second Amendment and shove it. That’s not a reason not to try, obviously.
That Anti-Muhammad Film: It's Totally Protected by the 1st Amendment - Emily Chertoff. Neither the mysterious director nor Terry Jones appears to have "shouted fire in a crowded theater. " In this interview, Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin explains why. Terry Jones at a hearing about his right to protest in Dearborn, Michigan, in 2011. (Reuters) "Sam Bacile" and Terry Jones may be hateful, but they are not, as far as we know, criminals.
The impulse to argue that repeat offender Jones in particular has somehow overstepped a line and, as commenters across the web have put it, "shouted fire in a crowded theater," is tempting and understandable, both as an emotional response and as an intellectual one. From a distance, the line between protected speech and incitement seems blurry. To clarify the legal status of both men's speech, I called Jack Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale Law School. As people try to puzzle out whether there is any legal action possible against either the filmmaker or Terry Jones, two ideas keep coming up. Yes. California Death Penalty Ban: Residents To Vote On Controversial Ban In November. SAN FRANCISCO — A measure to abolish California's death penalty qualified for the November ballot on Monday. If it passes, the 725 California inmates now on Death Row will have their sentences converted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
It would also make life without parole the harshest penalty prosecutors can seek. Backers of the measure say abolishing the death penalty will save the state millions of dollars through layoffs of prosecutors and defense attorneys who handle death penalty cases, as well as savings from not having to maintain the nation's largest death row at San Quentin prison.
Those savings, supporters argue, can be used to help unsolved crimes. If the measure passes, $100 million in purported savings from abolishing the death penalty would be used over three years to investigate unsolved murders and rapes. The measure is dubbed the "Savings, Accountability, and Full Enforcement for California Act," also known as the SAFE California Act. The cost of suspected gunman James Holmes' massive arsenal was $3,000 - Calguns.net. COMPARATIVE HOLOCAUST. A massive amount of research has been done on the Holocaust, the most extensive, best organized, thorough, and unlimited case of genocide in the modern age. The second most studied genocide has been that of the Armenians in Turkey. But little research has been done on other genocides per se, and virtually no systematic historical or comparative research has been done on genocide in general.
There are collections of studies on different genocides.1 There are exemplary lists of genocides.2 But until the publication of my Death By Government 3 and availability of its auxiliary work, Statistics of Democide,4 the field has been lacking a comprehensive collection of all the genocides and mass murders to have occurred.5 Moreover, there are few attempts to compare the occurrence of genocide to other forms of mass murder or to fit genocide within a larger context of mass killing. Note that the Convention is consistent with Lemkin's definition and elaboration. All this is confusing. Genocide Watch. Anders Behring Breivik Attacks: Norway Remembers Massacre Victims On Anniversary. OSLO, Norway — Norway on Sunday paused to commemorate the 77 victims of a bomb and gun massacre that shocked the peaceful nation one year ago, a tragedy that the prime minister said had brought Norwegians together in defense of democracy and tolerance.
Anders Behring Breivik, a 33-year-old far-right fanatic, has admitted to the July 22, 2011, attacks: a bombing of the government district in Oslo, killing eight, and a shooting rampage that left 69 dead at the left-wing Labor Party's youth camp on Utoya island. In a wreath-laying ceremony at the bomb site, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said Breivik had failed in his declared goal of destroying Norway's commitment to being an inclusive, multicultural society. "The bomb and the gun shots were meant to change Norway," Stoltenberg told a somber crowd of a few hundred people at the ceremony.
"The Norwegian people answered by embracing our values. The perpetrator lost. The people won. " "Today we remember those who were killed. James Holmes' Gun Club Membership Rejected Due To 'Bizarre' Behavior. Associated Press AURORA, Colo. -- Shooting suspect James Holmes applied to join a Colorado gun range last month but never became a member because of his behavior and a "bizarre" message on his voice mail greeting, the range's owner said Sunday. Holmes, 24, emailed an application to join the Lead Valley Range in Byers on June 25 in which he said he was not a user of illegal drugs or a convicted felon, said owner Glenn Rotkovich. But when Rotkovich called to invite him to a mandatory orientation the following week, he said he heard Holmes' voice mail greeting that was "bizarre -- guttural, freakish at best.
" It identified the number as belonging to "James," so Rotkovich said he left a message. He left two other messages but eventually told his staff to watch out for Holmes at the July 1 orientation and not to accept him into the club, Rotkovich said. His comments were first reported by Fox News. "There's something weird here," Rotkovich said he concluded. Related on HuffPost: Loading Slideshow.