Month: March 2013

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On Same-Sex Marriage by the Cato Institute | James Pat Guerréro


I didn’t realize that the Cato Institute supported same-sex marriage, and so I posted a comment as follows:

“Didn’t know that Cato supported gay marriage. Not good.”

Then, I received a comment post from Mr. Bryce Henderson on the same Cato website as follows:

“Oh, it’s very good. It’s nice to see people who will stand up for the equal rights of all. …Personally, I think homosexuality and gay marriage is disgusting. I think it’s terrible that two men would adopt a child. HOWEVER, I support the liberty of people to do as they choose. I will teach my children that homosexuality is wrong, but homosexuals have the right to be together if they want and receive the same benefits as other citizens.”

Here is my comment response:

“Dear Mr. Henderson,

Why do you teach your children that homosexuality is wrong, and then teach that homosexuals have the “right” to be together?  (My quotes included.)  Quick arguments to dispute since you teach your children that homosexuality is “morally wrong,” which is good for your family.  I assume when you say “wrong,” you mean “morally wrong.”  Then, for argument sake, let’s say one of your children become homosexual – which you already know hurts him – what do you say to him now?

Let’s go back to your original premise – when you teach your children that homosexuality is morally wrong, you presumed they had the liberty to sin or not.   “Liberty” is your word that you used in “liberty of people to do as they choose.”  But as your child becomes older and practices homosexuality, now you say he has the “liberty of people to do as they choose.”  Have you not come full circle in what you believed, i.e., you believed in your premise, but ironically you didn’t believe in your premise?

Whether you have believed in your premise or not, either way you have switched from the first premise to the second premise to suit an end goal.  But by way of consistently believing one premise, that had no real significance.  Think this out, my friend, because the liberty is already very much presumed in almost everything we do or not do, as we become mortally immoral or morally immortal.”

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UPDATED: Three Marines dead after shooting at Quantico – INSIDENOVA.COM: Crime & Police


quantico crossroadsThree Marines are dead after a shooting late Thursday night at Marine Corps Base Quantico.

Calling the incident “truly a tragic loss,” during a briefing early Friday morning, base commander Col. David Maxwell said officials received the first 911 call around 10:30 p.m.

Military police responded to Taylor Hall, part of the Officer Candidate School, and did not hear any more gunshots. They, along with Prince William County police officers, surrounded the building as they assessed the situation, according to Maxwell.

“There was not a standoff or barricades,” Maxwell said.

Residents were told to stay inside their homes and the base was under Force Protection Delta, meaning all base operations halt except for security.

READ MORE: Full transcript of Friday morning’s press briefing

Delta is the highest level under four terrorist threat levels used by military bases. Officials found the Marine dead at the scene “of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound,” Solivan said. Two other Marines, a male and a female, were also pronounced dead at the scene. Their names have not been released, and won’t be for 24 hours pending notification of their families.

Maxwell said all three were personnel assigned to the Officer Candidate School.

Quantico employed its “Giant Voice System,” a public address system, to notify people on base about the emergency and warn them to stay inside their homes. But at 11 p.m., confusion reigned, as many couldn’t understand what was being said.

“No one can understand the public address system on base! There is an active shooter, and all the PA keeps spitting out is mumbled words! Someone needs to fix that, and fix that NOW!” one poster wrote on the base Facebook page.

“We could not hear that announcement? What’s going on??” wrote another.

At 2:30 a.m., a Code Green, meaning a return to normal activities, was issued for the base.

Maxwell said military chaplains are helping Marines and their families to deal with the shooting and asked for continued support from everyone in the community.

The shooting, described as an “isolated incident,” remains under investigation, 1st Lt. Agustin Solivan said.

The Town of Quantico police department reported several residents called to report hearing gunshots near 3rd Avenue not long after the shooting was reported on base.

“A search of the area met with negative results, and the reports did not prove to be directly related to the events that occurred on the installation,” town police officials said Friday morning.

Anyone with information regarding the gunfire in the town of Quantico are encouraged to contact its police department a 703-640-7411.

Stay with InsideNoVa.com and our Facebook page for updates, and sign up for our breaking news alerts here.Three Marines are dead after a shooting late Thursday night at Marine Corps Base Quantico.

Calling the incident “truly a tragic loss,” during a briefing early Friday morning, base commander Col. David Maxwell said officials received the first 911 call around 10:30 p.m.

Military police responded to Taylor Hall, part of the Officer Candidate School, and did not hear any more gunshots. They, along with Prince William County police officers, surrounded the building as they assessed the situation, according to Maxwell.

“There was not a standoff or barricades,” Maxwell said.

Residents were told to stay inside their homes and the base was under Force Protection Delta, meaning all base operations halt except for security.

READ MORE: Full transcript of Friday morning’s press briefing

Delta is the highest level under four terrorist threat levels used by military bases. Officials found the Marine dead at the scene “of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound,” Solivan said. Two other Marines, a male and a female, were also pronounced dead at the scene. Their names have not been released, and won’t be for 24 hours pending notification of their families.

Maxwell said all three were personnel assigned to the Officer Candidate School.

Quantico employed its “Giant Voice System,” a public address system, to notify people on base about the emergency and warn them to stay inside their homes. But at 11 p.m., confusion reigned, as many couldn’t understand what was being said.

“No one can understand the public address system on base! There is an active shooter, and all the PA keeps spitting out is mumbled words! Someone needs to fix that, and fix that NOW!” one poster wrote on the base Facebook page.

“We could not hear that announcement? What’s going on??” wrote another.

At 2:30 a.m., a Code Green, meaning a return to normal activities, was issued for the base.

Maxwell said military chaplains are helping Marines and their families to deal with the shooting and asked for continued support from everyone in the community.

The shooting, described as an “isolated incident,” remains under investigation, 1st Lt. Agustin Solivan said.

The Town of Quantico police department reported several residents called to report hearing gunshots near 3rd Avenue not long after the shooting was reported on base.

“A search of the area met with negative results, and the reports did not prove to be directly related to the events that occurred on the installation,” town police officials said Friday morning.

Anyone with information regarding the gunfire in the town of Quantico are encouraged to contact its police department a 703-640-7411.

Stay with InsideNoVa.com and our Facebook page for updates, and sign up for our breaking news alerts here.

via UPDATED: Three Marines dead after shooting at Quantico – INSIDENOVA.COM: Crime & Police.

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In review of this post, I support Commissioners Georgia Hiller and Tom Henning. We all hope Commissioner Tim Nance will follow suit on the application of basic free market principles that would help all residents of Collier county, Florida.

ThursdayMan | el hombre del jueves

… above financial hand-outs to perpetually dependent corporate welfare businesses.

via Guest commentary: Jackson Laboratory » Naples Daily News.

In other words, property (government funding by taxation) belongs to Collier County residents and businesses. It’s clear there’s a push-down effect occurring with Project Peet (Jackson Laboratory project). The push-down anti-property culture begins with the Obama Administration, earmarks through spending by the Democratically controlled Congress, subsidizes the National Institutes of Health, subsidizes the national health chapters, feeds the educational institutions, subsidizes the Ave Maria University’s president, Nicholas J. Healy, bails the Ave Maria Foundation, fat-cats the Ave Maria University Board of Regents, fat-cats the Ave Maria District, and entitles the local large property owners, businesses, and, above all, Jackson Laboratory.  Silent Nicholas J. Healy, president of Ave Maria University, doesn’t conduct himself with economic leadership on a potentially immoral economic reality that may affect Collier County for years to come.

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Gates Opens Building, Talks Health « Know


In a speech Wednesday to an audience of computer science students, Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, offered his vision of how the computing revolution will dramatically improve human well-being in the next few decades.

Gates was on campus for the opening of the new Bill & Melinda Gates Computer Science Complex and Dell Computer Science Hall, a 140,000-square-foot, $120 million complex for the university’s top-10 ranked Department of Computer Science. The complex was funded in substantial part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation also contributed significantly to the complex.

Bill Gates at UT Austin

Bill Gates speaks at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. [Photo: Marsha Miller]

Following a ribbon-cutting ceremony, in which Gates was joined by an artificially intelligent robot, he spoke to a group of computer science students and faculty.

“If I had a choice to be a student at the time I was, when the idea of personal computing and the internet were being created, or today, I’m not sure which era I would choose,” said Gates. “Certainly in terms of the impact on the world, it is the era that we’re in right now, building on all that previous work, that is going to be the most exciting.”

Gates focused in particular on how computing will affect two of the primary projects of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: fighting infectious disease in the developing world and improving and democratizing education.

“The question is how do we take these extraordinary advances so that they’re not just benefitting those who are doing well, in places like the United States, but the entire globe. How do we take advances in domains like health, sanitation, agriculture and finance and make them affordable and usable for everyone, so that we are lifting up the living conditions of those who are often invisible to us, who in some ways should be our highest priority,” he said.

Gates gave as an example the work that University of Texas at Austin computer science professor Chandrajit Bajaj has done creating three-dimensional models of where the HIV molecule might be vulnerable to vaccines.

He also discussed a project the Gates Foundation launched to develop a better epidemiological model for malaria, which is the number one killer of children in the developing world.

“The model used up until recently didn’t capture the richness of the disease,” said Gates. “It wasn’t good enough to answer the key question, which is: Can we go in with drugs and bednets and insecticides and actually help whole countries where lots of children die of malaria? Will that work or not? In a sense this is a software problem, and one that we’re now much more able to solve.”

On the topic of education, Gates said that we’re just at the beginning of understanding how technology will change instruction.

Bill Gates at UT Austin

Bill Gates speaks to students about the Gates Foundation’s work. [Photo: Marsha Miller]

“Of course you use tools like Microsoft Word to write papers, and you look up facts on Wikipedia,” he said, “but in terms of the actual delivery of instruction and the personalization of that instruction, the promise is all in front of us.”

He pointed to the success of the online tutorial site Khan Academy as an example of the kinds of solutions that will emerge.

Gates said that he expects that it is the students of today who will create the new tools that will enable the most transformational changes.

“I envy you being in computer science today,” he said.

In response to this challenge, and in recognition of the Gates Foundation’s contribution to the new computer science complex, the College of Natural Sciences honored Gates by dedicating to him a new “research stream” in its pioneering Freshman Research Initiative (FRI).

The new stream, called DIY Disease Diagnostics, will honor the Foundation’s work in global public health by deploying undergraduates to develop novel, cheap, point-of-care disease diagnostics for the developing world.

Robot Welcomes Gates to UT, Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony

Related Links:

Gates Computer Science Complex and Dell Hall Open (Texas Science)
Photos: Bill & Melinda Gates Computer Science Complex (Flickr)
Bill Gates at UT Austin (Storify)
Robots Help at Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony (Vine)

via Gates Opens Building, Talks Health « Know.

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MILLER: Ragtime Cowboy Joe Biden – Washington Times


The vice president of the United States shouldn’t dispense advice that would put anyone taking it behind bars. In his role as President Obama’s top lobbyist for gun control, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has been shooting from both hip and lip, promoting the shotgun as the alternative to the sporting rifle.

The shotgun is a great weapon, for self-defense and otherwise, but only when used responsibly. “My shotgun will do better for you than your AR-15,” Cowboy Joe explained in an interview with Field & Stream magazine, “because [if] you want to keep someone away from your house, just fire the shotgun through the door.”

Earlier, at a town hall meeting at the White House, a female reader of Parents magazine asked him whether the administration’s ban on certain firearms and magazines would make law-abiding citizens more vulnerable to criminals.

“If you want to protect yourself, get a double-barrel shotgun,” he shot from his famous lip: “As I told my wife — we live in an area that’s wooded and somewhat secluded — I said, ‘Jill, if there’s ever a problem, just walk out on the balcony here, walk out, put that double-barrel shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house. I promise you, whoever’s coming in is not going to.’ “

Cops are emphatic in urging that no one, not even a frightened wife, do what Cowboy Joe advises. Meaning well is not enough. In the vice president’s home state of Delaware, Sussex County Sheriff Jeff Christopher says the advice “is ill-advised and doesn’t show prudence at all.”

Sheriff Christopher explains the proper response to an evildoer on the way into your house: “First, make sure there is an imminent threat against your life or your family. Second, make sure you have a good, viable target. Be responsible. It could be the FedEx man or the pizza guy on the other side of the door. Then don’t expose yourself or your family to further danger.”

That means Mrs. Biden shouldn’t leave the house, shoot all her ammunition and stand alone outside the house in the dark with an empty shotgun.

The veep has become the nation’s top promoter of shotguns, which are actually used in more homicides than the weapons he wants to ban. The most recent FBI data reveal that shotguns were used in 356 murders in one reporting period, compared to 323 rifles, and only some of those rifles could be classified as an AR-15 style “assault rifle.” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, says the rifles her legislation is meant to outlaw are used, on average in one particular year, in 35 out of 8,583 firearm murders.

It’s difficult to credit a politician, even a veep, whose contribution to the public debate is so outlandish. Banning certain categories of firearms based only on their appearance is an emotional response and could actually harm public safety. Violent crime has decreased as sales of AR-15s have risen to a record level. The expiration of the “assault weapon” ban in 2004 made America more safe, not less so.

Just as it would be folly to randomly fire a 12-gauge shotgun when things go bump in the night, it would be perilous indeed to make laws based on those bumps.

Emily Miller is a senior editor for the Opinion pages at The Washington Times

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/6/ragtime-cowboy-joe/#ixzz2MmPp49QI
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

via MILLER: Ragtime Cowboy Joe Biden – Washington Times.

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Sean Penn and Other Hollywood Elite Worshipped Chavez | NEWSMAX


A host of Hollywood A-listers have rushed to support Hugo Chavez over the years — the most glaring example of which was Sean Penn.

The Oscar-winning actor Penn continuously praised Chavez, saying he generously helped his country’s poor and destitute and was a fascinating and bold leader.

Chavez, who ruled Venezuela with an iron fist for 14 years, died on Tuesday after battling cancer for two years. He had, over the years, been feted by Hollywood’s elite even as he remained a thorn in the side of America’s policies in the region.

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During the Penn visit to Chavez, the loudmouth star ripped the policies of President George W. Bush towards Chavez and once whipped himself into such a frenzy that he reportedly called for the arrest of those who referred to Chavez as a dictator.

“[Chavez is] one of the most important forces we’ve had on this planet,” Penn gushed late last year as the Venezuelan president’s health deteriorated.

“And I’ll wish him nothing but that great strength he has shown over and over again. I do it in love, and I do it in gratitude.

“I just want to say, from my very American point of view, of my friend President Chavez: It is only possible to be so inspiring as he is, as a two-way street.’’

Penn also accused the American media of going after Chavez and telling “lies’’ about him.

The actor’s love of Chavez became so embarrassing to some in Hollywood that Matt Stone and Trey Parker savagely lampooned him in their movie “Team America: World Police” a parody that infuriated the star.

Penn had plenty of company when it came to his Chavez worship.

Other unabashed admirers included Kevin Spacey, Danny Glover, Oliver Stone, Harry Belafonte, Naomi Campbell, and Princeton University Professor Cornel West.

And some are nearly as critical as Penn.

Belafonte labeled George W. Bush the “greatest tyrant in the world,’’ while telling Chavez how “millions’’ of Americans supported him.

Boxing promoter Don King praised Chavez and his “revolution,’’ announcing, “To see what is happening here makes me feel good all over.’’

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/chavez-celebrity-supporters-penn/2013/03/05/id/493301?s=al&promo_code=12ACA-1#ixzz2MmIUIZkn
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via Sean Penn and Other Hollywood Elite Worshipped Chavez.

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Chavez Often Lambasted Former President George W. Bush | NEWSMAX


Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who died Tuesday, was not a fan of former President George W. Bush. Some of his more hitting comments aimed at the man he considered a chief nemesis:

• When Bush toured Latin America in 2007, while speaking to a crowd in Argentina, Chavez showed his displeasure with Bush’s visit by demanding: “Gringo go home.”

• During a Sept. 20, 2006, speech before the U.N. General Assembly, Chavez declared: “The devil came here yesterday,” while theatrically sniffing the air. “It smells of sulfur still.”

• In that same speech, Chavez also said Bush promoted “democracy for the elite” and a “democracy of bombs.”

• On a separate occasion in 2006, Chavez labeled Bush “a donkey.”

• Later that same year, Chavez said of Bush: “You are an alcoholic, a drunk, a liar, an immoral person, Mr. Danger. You are the worst . . . a psychologically sick man.”

• Criticizing Bush for his handling of the federal response after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Chavez said: “That man, the king of vacations . . . the king of vacations in his ranch said nothing but: ‘You have to flee’ and didn’t say how . . . that cowboy, the cowboy mentality.”

via Chavez Often Lambasted Former President George W. Bush.