Disqus - Latest Comments for marktaff

Re: 2014: The Second Amendment’s Triumph

Mark A. Taff — Fri, 02 Jan 2015 05:05:30 -0000

594 wouldn't have passed at all if the NRA hadn't abandoned WA. Neither the NRA nor GOA are doing a damn thing about it; it is SAF that filed the lawsuit challenging 594.

And let that be a lesson to everyone, especially Nevadans: the NRA will take your dues, but don't expect them to expend resources on your behalf.

Re: What's the difference between immigrant and refugee?

Mark A. Taff — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 19:13:51 -0000

Under the 1967 protocol, there are more requirements for refugee status than this article notes. The refugee must have come directly from their home country, so a Guatemalan may have refugee status in Mexico, but not in the US. Also, in addition to the specific targeting and fear the article notes, they also must fear that their own government won't even try to protect them.

Also, a person that would qualify as a refugee in the US under the 1967 protocol can't be punished for illegally entering the US, if upon entering, they directly surrender themselves to the authorities.

Refugees can't be deported (refouled) against their will, and we are obligated to protect them, in good faith, from the situation the refugee status is based on. However, nothing in the 1967 protocol requires us to give refugees resident status, or citizenship, or even to mix with our society. We could house them in refugee camps until the situation in their home countries is corrected enough that they choose to return.

Anything we decide to do above and beyond this is reflection on our own morality and humanitarianism, not a requirement under international law.

Re: ‘Highly valued’ gun rights sponsor offers authorities gun disabling technology

Mark A. Taff — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 15:40:50 -0000

Anytime you put electronics in or on a firearm, you open the door to potential remote 'kill-switches'. Even a red dot sight could be easily built to lock on government command. We will need to be vigilante to protect against this class of technological infringement.

Re: Help Us Raise $25,000 For the Family of Joe Wilcox, the Hero Who Confronted Vegas Killers

Mark A. Taff — Sun, 15 Jun 2014 12:17:00 -0000

Cool. Thanks for the update Dan. :-)

Re: Help Us Raise $25,000 For the Family of Joe Wilcox, the Hero Who Confronted Vegas Killers

Mark A. Taff — Sat, 14 Jun 2014 20:57:03 -0000

Donation link is dead. What happened?

Re: Family needs help to lay slain Walmart hero to rest

Mark A. Taff — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 05:25:14 -0000

There has already been almost $10k raised for the family from another gun-owner initiative. I'm not recommending this one or that one, making it known:

http://www.gofundme.com/a54vjs

Re: Seattle cops’ 2A argument in lawsuit v. city, DOJ an interesting point

Mark A. Taff — Fri, 30 May 2014 04:36:09 -0000

The suit is absurd on its face, and I hope it gets tossed. We should not be tossing our hat in with these thugs. These cops have the same protection under RCW and case law as anyone else--what they are demanding is that they be exempt from following their employer's rules about workplace conduct. Furthermore, these folks wouldn't know a 'right' if it bit them in the ass. They actually claim their rights are being violated because they are no longer authorized to conduct unjustified Terry stops!

And lets not forget how we got here in the first place: SPD's long history of racism, abuse, corruption, and excessive force.

Re: U.S. gets new, hyper-accurate atomic clock

Mark A. Taff — Sat, 05 Apr 2014 07:42:52 -0000

U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8: "To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;".

The cesium clock is the frequency standard that defines the second--the measure of time.

Re: How access to power can fuel Africa's economic growth

Mark A. Taff — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 11:59:29 -0000

Africa's GDP (2009, PPP) was $2.2T USD, with GDP growth of about 6% per year. If they spent 2% of GDP on their own power infrastructure, they could build it themselves in 7 years. Why the heck should US taxpayers have to pay for it for them? We have our own infrastructure and debt to deal with.

Re: If judged by the numbers, Ukraine's military loses war with Russia

Mark A. Taff — Sun, 02 Mar 2014 23:55:55 -0000

I think you mean i.e. :-) Damn typos. The chance of Russia winning a war against the United States (let alone NATO) is the same as Ukraine winning a war against Russia--exactly zero.

If Russia went on a 100% war footing, the U.S. would only have to dedicate 20% of our economy to the war to out-class them.

Contrary to Putin's chest-thumping, Russia isn't the Soviet Union, and they aren't a superpower.

Other than that, I agree with you.

Re: Truce, talks in Ukraine after 28 die; past talks have failed

Mark A. Taff — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 06:22:17 -0000

Nonsense. Russia was a world power during the cold war even without the satellite republics, and would have been capable of mounting an admirable defense from within their own borders. The real benefit to Russia of the satellite republics was in their ability to nuke invading troops while they were in countries other than Russia itself--no country wants to nuke its own territory.

The only reason the Germans made it so far into Russia is because Russia was militarily unprepared to oppose them. Once millions of Russians died buying the country time to ramp up, with logistical support from the allies, the Germans were no match for the Russian war machine.

At no point in the cold war were the Russians un-prepared to repel an invasion as they were when Germany invaded.

Re: Laws, childproof triggers may cut back on gun violence

Mark A. Taff — Mon, 17 Feb 2014 04:32:38 -0000

Your numbers are *way* off. Don't you guys do any fact-checking before publishing? According to CDC WISQARS (2010 data), the firearms fatalities in the US breaks down as:

Homicide (not just murder, but homicide in general) 11,078
Suicide 19,395
Unintentional 606
Undetermined Reason 252

Re: Ninth Circuit gun rights win underscores need for SCOTUS carry ruling

Mark A. Taff — Thu, 13 Feb 2014 19:13:06 -0000

Actually, the Court went a bit further than that. The reason that having to show 'good cause', when defined as an atypical need, is that it is *atypical*. Any requirement that can't bet met by a 'typical' law-abiding citizen would also be unconstitutional.

I have no doubt that CA would generally proceed as you describe, but they wouldn't get away with taking it to the extremes you suppose.

Re: Time for SCOTUS to define ‘bearing’ arms, and state limits?

Mark A. Taff — Thu, 13 Feb 2014 16:23:55 -0000

Today's ruling in Peruta against 'good cause' will hopefully help persuade SCOTUS to take Drake.

Re: Does Inslee need lessons from Florida, Texas?

Mark A. Taff — Wed, 12 Feb 2014 17:22:53 -0000

Disregarding the nonsensical phrasing in the abstract of the linked paper (Sunstien, et. al.), the body of the paper notes "The most striking finding is that on average, each execution results in 18 fewer murders." (page 8, end of second paragraph). Also, this was not Sunstien's finding--Sunstein was referencing the work of Dezhbakhsh et. al., which notes in the abstract "...each execution results, on average, in 18 fewer murders--with a margin of error of plus or minus 10.".

Frustratingly, Dezhbakhsh wasn't smart enough to embed his fonts in the pdf, which makes the equations unreadable.

According to the FBI UCR, Washington State had 206 instances of Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter in 2012. Each execution prevents as little as 8 fewer murders, an average of 18 fewer murders, and as many as 28 fewer murders. By the linear model championed by Dezhbakhsh, we would have a negative number of murders in Washington State if we executed 26, 12, or 8 people per year.

Presumably these negative murders would be evidenced by people just poofing into existence in random locations. :-)

Clearly, the Dezhbakhsh model is crap, as we can be certain it doesn't accurately model reality at or near zero, at a minimum. Also, 18 fewer murders with a margin of error of +/- 10 murders is so preposterous that I'm surprised Dezhbakhsh was willing to put his/her name on the results. Such a massive error (nearly 50%) is likely to get them laughed out of the room (a 10% error is considered quite bad).

Even more interesting is that Dezhbakhsh concludes that NRA membership causes an increase in the murder rate, as does the mere presence of guns. So perhaps we could eliminate the death penalty, and just ban the NRA and civilian possession of guns. Obviously, I don't support that, but I find it curious that this column is championing the notion that 'guns cause murder'.

As to the 'evidence', the data is from 1977-1996, or between 37 and 18 years old. Personally, I wouldn't consider that to be 'recent', and interestingly, Dezhbakhsh agrees that the evidence isn't recent.

I find it to be alarmingly curious that the alleged deterrent effect *only* shows up with an econometric analysis, but not with the more time-tested methods employed by psychologists and criminologists.

Even Dezhbakhsh admits “it remains possible that the recent findings will be exposed as statistical artifacts or will be found to rest on flawed econometric methods.”

Steiker, also of the Harvard Law School, and many others, also respond to Sunstien. These papers are also available at papers.ssrn.com

Re: Gov. Inslee sides with killers, say death penalty supporters

Mark A. Taff — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 17:44:57 -0000

"The death penalty is punishment."

I concur, which is why I oppose the death penalty. The base desire for vengeance doesn't justify an act of vengeance, any more than homicidal ideation justifies homicide, or tendencies to sexual sadism justifies rape.

Killing a prisoner will not stop them from killing a member of the public any more than just keeping them incarcerated. Killing them won't bring back the people they killed. Killing them may be more expensive than keeping them alive. It may also be excessively inhumane, as in the recent botched execution in Ohio. It may also be pre-meditated murder, complete with malice aforethought, in the case of those executed that were posthumously found to be innocent.

I would submit that society's just interests wrt violent crime are limited to sequestration, and, to the extent possible, restitution.

Re: European Space Agency awaits word from comet-chasing probe

Mark A. Taff — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 17:47:18 -0000

What? The 2012 ESA budget was $5.45B USD at current exchange rates, while the 2012 NASA Budget was $18.7B USD. As you admit in another post, the UE28 has a larger economy that the US, yet we spend more than 3 times as much each year as the EU on civilian space exploration. How does that translate into us 'narrowly focusing' our research efforts on military equipment and NSA capabilities?

As for GPS, this year we will launch the first GPSIII satellite, and over the course of the next few years, more and more of the new signals will reach operability (some of the new signal capabilities are already on our block-IIF birds), with the entire GPSIII constellation being completed by 2020, and far more capable than Galileo (expected to be done in 2019).

Re: 'Guns Save' day an insult to Newtown victims

Mark A. Taff — Sat, 19 Oct 2013 08:07:42 -0000

Don't you guys do any research before you form your opinions and commit them to paper (or bits, as the case may be)? GSLD was changed to Bill of Rights Day, December 15, about five days ago, along with a challenge to anti-gun-rights groups to also not use "one of the darkest days in our nation's history for political gain".

If history is any lesson, the anti-gun rights groups will certainly exploit the anniversary to push for political gain.

Re: Big asteroid buzzes past Earth and will again in 20 years

Mark A. Taff — Fri, 18 Oct 2013 07:15:19 -0000

(and to @Sheldor) No, it is assuming all the known factors and minding the uncertainty. The only 'gotcha' would be an unknown body impacting the asteroid or otherwise altering its trajectory. In any event, as the article noted and as is standard practice, they will make more observations to further refine its orbit. Also, as it is a known object sufficiently large enough to cause us grief, they will check on it periodically to ensure its orbit hasn't changed.

If you want to learn more, you can read up on the principle of superposition and the generalized N-body problem.

Re: The United States is still getting rid of its chemical weapons

Mark A. Taff — Sat, 12 Oct 2013 01:58:10 -0000

The author leaves out some salient points. The original plan when we signed the CWC was to ship all of our CW to a single location to be destroyed. Congress quashed that plan after we signed the CWC for public safety reasons, and mandated that they be destroyed in place, which meant we had to build destruction facilities at each of the nine locations. This increased the cost and meant we wouldn't be able to meet the final deadline in the CWC. Erring on the side of public safety doesn't make us hypocrites.

Also, 90% of our stockpile was destroyed before the final deadline--it is just the last 10% we have left to destroy. The author also failed to mention that the last plant being built in KY is being used to advance the technology for the destruction of dangerous chemicals, and the engineering and technology development for that takes time.

Russia has only destroyed 50% of its stockpile thus far, and the US has paid for most of that activity. After Russia signed the CWC, their economy tanked, which made it very difficult for them to finance the destruction of their CW stockpiles.

Both Russia and the US continue to make good-faith efforts to destroy their respective CW--the fact that the job isn't done yet or that it is taking longer than we expected doesn't make us hypocrites.

Re: You're still dead, Ohio court tells man

Mark A. Taff — Wed, 09 Oct 2013 16:08:41 -0000

Um, no. 'Due process' doesn't just mean that the law was followed. If it did, how could any law ever be ruled unconstitutional on due process grounds?

This man's rights have been violated, and he will certainly win on appeal. The law will be ruled unconstitutional, at least as applied in this case.

Re: 5 things that couldn't happen in 'Gravity'

Mark A. Taff — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 20:56:37 -0000

What? If I recall, all of the ships except for the mothership entered the atmosphere and took up positions over major cities. I don't recall them saying in the movie exactly what type of orbit the mothership was in. Was it in Earth orbit? Or an Earth-following (or Earth-leading) solar orbit? Was it orbiting a LaGrange point?

In any event, any sufficiently advanced spacecraft can enter any orbit or make atmospheric entry from any trajectory*. The fact that there are limits to what we can do is function of our current technology, not any limits imposed by physics.

*subject to limits like the prohibition of instantaneous change.

Re: 5 things that couldn't happen in 'Gravity'

Mark A. Taff — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 20:08:24 -0000

Robert, there is indeed gravity in space, and at the altitude the shuttle typically flew, it is nearly as strong as it is at sea level. For simplicity, let us assume the shuttle is in a uniform circular orbit. That means the shuttle's tangential speed is constant, and the only thing that is changing is the direction of the tangential velocity vector.

The change in the tangential velocity vector's direction is an acceleration, and given F = ma, that acceleration must be supplied by a force. Furthermore, that force must be acting 'towards the center', i.e. a centripetal force. In the case of a spacecraft in orbit, that centripetal acceleration is provided by gravity. If there were no gravity in space, it would not be possible for the shuttle to orbit the Earth unless it was constantly using its engines to change its direction.

In the real world, orbits are not perfectly circular, nor is a spacecraft's speed constant, nor is the Earth's center of gravity located at the center of the earth, nor is the acceleration due to gravity constant at all locations a constant distance from the center of the Earth, nor is the Earth perfectly spherical. This reality complicates the math and the physics a bit, but Newtonian mechanics still applies.

Re: Tesla CEO Elon Musk explains fiery Model S crash

Mark A. Taff — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 09:18:26 -0000

These are not lead-acid batteries, Richard.

Re: Tesla CEO Elon Musk explains fiery Model S crash

Mark A. Taff — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 09:11:08 -0000

Forces don't 'go' anywhere. Energy gets transferred. The metal bar did not magically pass though the kevlar armor--it had to transfer energy to it.