Sending off a "Mighty Twitter" !!

U.S. Is a Vast Arms Bazaar for Mexican Cartels

PHOENIX — The Mexican agents who moved in on a safe house full of drug dealers last May were not prepared for the fire power that greeted them.








When the shooting was over, eight agents were dead. Among the guns the police recovered was an assault rifle traced back across the border to a dingy gun store here called X-Caliber Guns.

Drug gangs seek out guns in the United States because the gun-control laws are far tougher in Mexico. Mexican civilians must get approval from the military to buy guns and they cannot own large-caliber rifles or high-powered pistols, which are considered military weapons.

The authorities in the United States say they do not know how many firearms are transported across the border each year, in part because the federal government does not track gun sales and traces only weapons used in crimes. But A.T.F. officials estimate 90 percent of the weapons recovered in Mexico come from dealers north of the border.

therestofthestory

Even Funnier NOW, Idnit??

Ahead of the next crisis - why is this man's name not a household word?

Solving

the

World's

Water Problems

Ok, so the Segway sort of tanked and medicare may not cover this incredible wheel chair but inventor, Dean Kamen has come up with some other amazing ideas ...

like this one:

The "Slingshot"

"If you stick a hose into anything that looks wet ... it comes out as perfect distilled clean water."

-here are some specs from his appearance on the Colbert Report(!)

the cutting edge show for new technologies(?!)

• It is designed to supply a village with 1,000 liters/day of clean water.

• Any water source works -- ocean, puddle, chemical waste site, hexavalent chrome, arsenic, poison, 50 gallon drum of urine.

• • There are no filters to replace, no charcoal, no anything disposable.
    
  • The Slingshot can use half the waste heat (450 watts) from a sterling engine electrical generator (prototype also being designed by Kamen's company) to boil its water.
    
  • The heat put into the water is recovered with a "counter-flow heat exchanger" and recycled to heat the next batch of water
    
  • Slingshot will be less then 60 lbs.
    
  • The prototype slingshot was hand-built for $100K. The goal is to get production units down to $1,000 to $2,000.
    
  • The sterling engine, used as an electrical generator, can produce about 200 watts of power (it will never be more then 20 percent efficient) and 800 watts of waste heat (the waste heat that slingshot uses).
    
  • Later sources say the sterling engine can generate 1 kilowatt or enough power for 70 high-efficiency light bulbs.
    
  • The sterling engine can run on anything that burns, propane or even cow dung.
    
  • The slingshot is a David and Goliath reference aimed at putting water and power back in the hands of the individuals.
    

Evidently inventing something incredible is only half the battle.

The other half is raising awareness and getting it to the people who need it in a way that works.

Guns for Roses

Guns Traded for Roses on Valentine's Day in South Carolina

Saturday, February 14, 2009

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Police in South Carolina gave away roses on Valentine's Day. All you had to do to get one for your sweetie was turn in a gun.

Hoping to get the weapons off the streets with the "Guns for Roses" program, authorities in two central South Carolina

cities set up a program where anyone who turned in a gun received a free rose and a Best Buy gift card.

At a Columbia church, five cars lined up to give away guns before the exchange had even started. At the end of the day, Columbia area police had collected 191 weapons and police in Sumter collected 32.

"We've got a great turnout so far," Richland County sheriff's spokesman Lt. Chris Cowan said.

A handgun was worth a $100 gift card, while a rifle or shotgun netted a $50 gift certificate. Cowan said one man turned in six handguns, worth $600 in gift cards.

Cowan did not immediately have a total value for gift cards given out. Sumter Police Chief Patty Patterson said her program gave out $550 in gift cards for long guns and $2,100 for handguns.

There was no amnesty for those turning in the guns. The weapons were being checked to see if they were stolen, names and addresses were jotted down and ballistics tests would also be done to see if the firearm was used in a crime.

Both Cowan and Patterson said there were no incidents and no arrests made Saturday.

Cowan said the idea was spawned in part by Columbia Police Chief T.P. Carter and Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott, who has made headlines recently for investigating Michael Phelps after a photo surfaced showing the Olympic swimming champion smoking a marijuana pipe. The program was modeled after a California one; similar exchanges have been done in New York and San Francisco.

Cowan said gun donors were young and old, men and woman. Many had a big smile and some said it was a relief to get rid of the weapons.

And did they even care about the rose?

"Most of them have taken it," Cowan said.

What a Card!

On Wednesday night President Bush's former Chief of Staff, Andrew Card, told "Inside Edition" that "there should be a dress code of respect....I wish that Obama would wear a suit coat and tie." Much has been made of Obama's informal appearance in a photograph taken on January 21st, the day after his inauguration.

The photo of Bush was taken on January 22nd, 2001--two days after his own inauguration.

Card also told "Inside Edition":

"The Oval Office symbolizes...the Constitution, the hopes and dreams, and I'm going to say democracy. And when you have a dress code in the Supreme Court and a dress code on the floor of the Senate, floor of the House, I think it's appropriate to have an expectation that there will be a dress code that respects the office of the President."

Perfect spokesman for the NRA?

Bad rap for Chuck!

By Henry Goldman (with our commentary)

Feb. 2 -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg got not only a Groundhog Day’s forecast of an early winter’s end today - he got what he asked for. When Staten Island groundhog Charles G. Hogg stepped out of his hut - like cage in pursuit of his shadow, he appeared to become so frustrated with Bloomberg’s teasing him with corn-on-the-cob that he bit the mayor’s hand.

At a City Hall news conference, the mayor quipped that “security concerns” forced him to place “a limit to what I can say.” The groundhog attacked (defended himself) at about 7:20 a.m., the mayor said.

He faced no risk of rabies (how about Chuck??) because the animal has lived in captivity since it was born two years ago

at theStaten Island Zoo, mayoral press secretary Stu Loeser said.

“If the district attorney wants to press charges,

I leave it to the Staten Island District Attorney to do so,” Bloomberg said. (maybe Chuck wants to press charges!)

Still smarting from the incident, with a bandage around his left index finger where Loeser said the groundhog had drawn blood after biting the mayor’s gloved hand, Bloomberg described his furry assailant as a “terrorist rodent that might very well have been trained by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.”

yes, that al-Qaeda's new tactic - suicide groundhogs. watch who you're prodding with those corncobs, sheeple!

A video of the event shows the mayor teasing the mammal over an ear of corn, giving it a nibble and then yanking it away. Bloomberg also grabbed the animal with two hands and held him up to the cheering crowd as Charles G. Hogg struggled to get free. what a jerk!

For the record, Charles G. Hogg didn’t see his shadow, indicating an early spring.