Killer 2012 Magnetic Storm Barely Missed Earth | I, I & I

This image captured on July 23, 2012, at 12:24 a.m. EDT, shows a coronal mass ejection that left the sun at the unusually fast speeds of over 1,800 miles per second.

A perfect storm of events created a massive magnetic cloud that could have caused fireworks on Earth. Earth dodged a huge magnetic bullet from the sun on July 23, 2012.

According to University of California, Berkeley, and Chinese researchers, a rapid succession of coronal mass ejections – the most intense eruptions on the sun – sent a pulse of magnetized plasma barreling into space and through Earth’s orbit. Had the eruption come nine days earlier, it would have hit Earth, potentially wreaking havoc with the electrical grid, disabling satellites and GPS, and disrupting our increasingly electronic lives.

The solar bursts would have enveloped Earth in magnetic fireworks matching the largest magnetic storm ever reported on Earth, the so-called Carrington event of 1859. The dominant mode of communication at that time, the telegraph system, was knocked out across the United States, literally shocking telegraph operators. Meanwhile, the Northern Lights lit up the night sky as far south as Hawaii.In a paper appearing today (Tuesday, March 18) in the journal Nature Communications, former UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow and research physicist Ying D. Liu, now a professor at China’s State Key Laboratory of Space Weather, UC Berkeley research physicist Janet G. Luhmann and their colleagues report their analysis of the magnetic storm, which was detected by NASA’s STEREO A spacecraft.”Had it hit Earth, it probably would have been like the big one in 1859, but the effect today, with our modern technologies, would have been tremendous,” said Luhmann, who is part of the STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Observatory) team and based at UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory.

Purchased opinion alert: “Restricting High-Risk Individuals From Owning Guns Saves Lives” | Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy

This report was released by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, more specifically from the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research that NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg funded to the tune of $107,000,000 around 2001 (see here and here).  The article explains a study (that I have not yet read in the original form) that codifies gun restrictions as responsive to a public health threat.  The embedded assumptions and unchallenged premises are obvious and many.  Just goes to show that it takes real money to buy the best-branded and biggest-named dispassionate, unbiased acdemic opinions.

Beyond the “public health” meme, you will recall that this year was allso the one in which the false hazard of bullet lead as an environmental plague was struck down.  I also recall that bullets were blamed for the Utah wildfires this summer.  Make no mistake about it, these lily livered anti-gun trolls will try every door and window in thier quest to invade the house of your autonomy, empowerment and 2nd amendment rights.

Grab a barf bag.  GE.

On July 20, a gunman in Aurora, Colorado, used an assault rifle to murder 12 people and wound 58 others. Although this was one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history, all mass shootings account for a small percentage of gun violence that occurs in the U.S. every day. In the past 100 days since the Aurora shooting, an estimated 3,035 Americans have died as a result of gun violence.

Credit: HuffPo

GE Rant: Sen. Bob Menedez’ (D-NJ) OpEd arguing why New Jersey’s unconstituional gun laws need to go national | APP

GE Rant Warning (long):  I am loathe, loathe to wade into the morass of the 2nd Amendment discussion because so many of you are smarter and more well informed than I.  But as the top of my head is about to come off, I will keep this brief and – likely – unintelligible.

In my opinion Senators Mendenez, Lautenberg, Schumer and their ilk are morally bankrupt,  deluded or simple.  These men are career pols, public parasites and – at heart – each is a collectivist and authoritarian in my view.  They value and defend only their own life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, yours and mine is a problem to be managed for the ‘common good.’

Schumer may, from time to time, visit his wife Iris Weinshall for lunch in the Bronx (she’s on CUNY’s public teat. Tt’s a family thing)  … but we are assured he is driven only to the good section. Lautenberg leaves New Jersey spends his weekends and summers in Martha’s Vineyard where – to the best of my knowledge – the Crips and MS-13 have yet to gain a foothold.  Menendez seems to have his staffers writing disjunct, illogical falsehoods about his states gun control laws, while he and his security detail are likely off on a summer trip sponsored by the AFL-CIO or the Bankers Association. Menendez opines:

It could have happened here in New Jersey. We knew this as we learned of the horrible gun violence that erupted in Aurora, Colo., July 20.

101 reasons why you need an “assault rifle” | Ammoland

By Evan F. Nappen, Attorney at Law.  … A question we are all tired of hearing in the so-called “debate” over so-called “assault weapons” is, “why does anybody need one?”

Here is the answer once and for all: You need an assault weapon—

1. to help continue the American tradition of citizen/soldier.
2. for recreation.
3. to collect military small arms.
4. to get quick extra shots at more game while hunting.
5. to get quick extra shots at the same game while hunting.

Never allow a crisis to go to waste?

Sadly, I have to agree with this post.

Also have a click at this:  Get Ready – the Gun Control Fanatics are Crawling out of their Caves over at Understanding Freedom…

And Dark Knight’ Shooting To Be Exploited For Political Gristat Mountain Republic.

A Robbery of a Different Kind (the creeping police state)| Eric Peters Autos

The police state is not only here – it is being welcomed with open arms.  Exhibit A: In Aurora, Colorado, police searching for suspected bank robbers locked down an entire intersection, dragooned 40 random motorists out of their cars at gunpoint, handcuffed them and “asked” for permission to search their vehicles…. via A Robbery of a Different Kind | Eric Peters Autos.