Disabled apartment resident shoots burglar to death

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — A disabled woman shot an intruder to death Saturday afternoon at her north Harris County apartment, according to investigators.

Around 2:50 p.m., Harris County deputies responded to the shooting at the Carrington Place Apartments in the 12700 block of FM 1960 West.

When they arrived at the scene, deputies found an 18-year-old male lying in the grass outside of Building No. 13. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Deputies said the 18-year-old and a 17-year-old male broke a resident’s patio door window. The 53-year-old disabled resident was home alone when the teens broke the window and reached inside and unlocked the door, according to investigators.

The resident fired one shot, killing the teen who was in front, deputies said.

The second suspect, Aren Lacour, as well as 18-year-old Ayanna Harrison, were detained at the scene. Deputies said Harrison was the driver of a nearby getaway vehicle.

Deputies said the getaway vehicle, a white four-door Mercedes-Benz, is linked to other burglaries in the area.

The teen who was shot has not been identified.

Felony murder charges are pending against Lacour and Harrison. They’re possibly going to be facing that charge because, according to authorities, they committed the felony offense of burglary of a habitation which resulted in the death of another person.

Harrison is also charged with tampering with evidence because deputies said she tried to conceal the pistol the deceased suspect was carrying at the time of the burglary.

1 dead [Bungler] after home invasion

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – The Lubbock Police Department is investigating a shooting after a home invasion in Central Lubbock that left one person dead.

LPD says police were called just before midnight to the 3200 block of 43rd Street. A person was trying to break into a home in the area.

The homeowner shot the suspected intruder.

That suspect tried to leave the area on a bicycle after being shot. He stopped about four blocks away on 47th Street, and was found there.

The suspect was taken to Covenant, where he was declared dead.

A Lot of People Are Finding Out You Can’t Just Buy a Gun Online

First came the panic buying of hand sanitizer.
Then, people panic bought toilet paper.
Now, food shelves are emptying and  firearm and ammunition sales are through the roof. The COVID19 outbreak might be bad for the stock market, but it’s certainly been a boon for very specific sectors of the economy. The gun industry, used to such boom/bust cycles, knows how to respond – but other sectors might not be so acclimated.

Here at Omaha Outdoors, we’ve been inundated with inquiries from out-of-state folks – many from California – asking if we can ship them a gun directly. The answer is, of course, no. Despite what politicians and many in popular media claim, you can’t buy a gun online and have it shipped to your house. Well, you could, if you were a federally licensed firearm dealer (or federally licensed curio and relic collector) and your home was your place of business. Other than that, no, you can’t buy a gun online and have it shipped, especially across state lines, to your home.

What you’ll need to do to buy a gun from us is order it on our online store and select an FFL, a federally licensed firearm dealer, during the online checkout process. We ship the gun to the dealer near you – presuming the firearm and its accessories are legal in your area – and you visit the dealer to fill out the required ATF Form 4473 and undergo the federal and any applicable state background checks. Some states might require a waiting period – sure to be a sore point at a time when people feel the need for a gun to protect themselves NOW. Only then can you take your new firearm home.

We’re not alone in noticing that usually anti-gun people are suddenly very interested in having guns. On Twitter, Robert Evans wrote, “The sheer number of normally anti-gun people who have reached out to me about buying a firearm in the last week is wild.”

And my friends who work at other gun stores have seen a crazy surge in gun buying too, with one noting that their one-day sales total exceeded Black Friday by 25%, and that 75% of buyers were purchasing their first gun. He said, in explanation, “People need to protect their toilet paper.” Another friend noted that the amount of brass cased 9mm they usually sell in a month was gone in the first week, and that everything else would be sold out soon too if things continued at this pace.

We’ve all been told to practice “social distancing” in the coming months. Firearms are, in a way, the ultimate method of enforcing social distancing. I just hope all these new gun owners learn how to safely use their guns – and that they never need them for their intended purpose.

Isis issues coronavirus travel advice: terrorists should avoid Europe

The Isis terrorist group is steering clear of Europe because of the coronavirus. Having previously urged its supporters to attack European cities, the group is now advising members to “stay away from the land of the epidemic” in case they become infected.
The group has issued a new set of “sharia directives” that instruct followers to “cover their mouths when yawning and sneezing” and to wash their hands regularly. Isis militants have plenty of experience in covering their faces, though previously they did so to hide their identities when beheading hostages on camera.
In the latest issue of its al-Naba newsletter, the group refers not to guidance from the World Health Organisation or other medical experts, but to recorded quotes by the Prophet Muhammad, known to Muslims as hadiths.
The newsletter refers to a “plague” described as a “torment sent by God on whomsoever He wills”. Another message notes: “Illnesses do not strike by themselves but by the command and decree of God.”
Isis has lost almost all its so-called caliphate in the Middle East after a string of defeats , but its fragmented remains are still active in Iraq and Syria.
The newsletter warned that the “healthy should not enter the land of the epidemic and the afflicted should not exit from it”.
But it may not be safe in the Middle East either — Iraq has already reported 101 cases of the coronavirus and 10 deaths.

Gunman killed after shooting at people during gathering in SW Houston

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — A man was shot and killed after opening fire on a group of people at a gathering in southwest Houston.

Houston police responded to reports of a shooting on Oakside Drive near Anderson around 2:30 a.m. Saturday.

Police said three men got into a fight at the gathering, and one of the men started shooting.

Another man who lives at the home returned fire, shooting and killing the gunman.

Police said the two men knew each other and have hung out before. The shooter was taken downtown for questioning.

Suspect dies in shooting after robbery attempt at Radcliff pharmacy

Lived there when  I was stationed at Knox. This really doesn’t happen much there.

RADCLIFF, Ky. (WAVE) – The Radcliff Police Department are currently investigating after a suspect died during a robbery attempt at a pharmacy store.

Police headed to the scene around 9:30 a.m. Saturday morning on reports of a shooting at Apothecare Pharmacy on East Lincoln Trail Boulevard, according to The News-Enterprise.

Radcliff Police Chief Jeff Cross confirmed with WAVE 3 News that there had been a robbery attempt at that location, where an employee of the store shot the suspect.

Police said that the suspect was pronounced dead at the scene.

 

‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ at the DC Museum of the Bible are all forgeries.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On the fourth floor of the Museum of the Bible, a sweeping permanent exhibit tells the story of how the ancient scripture became the world’s most popular book. A warmly lit sanctum at the exhibit’s heart reveals some of the museum’s most prized possessions: fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient texts that include the oldest known surviving copies of the Hebrew Bible.

But now, the Washington, D.C. museum has confirmed a bitter truth about the fragments’ authenticity. On Friday, independent researchers funded by the Museum of the Bible announced that all 16 of the museum’s Dead Sea Scroll fragments are modern forgeries that duped outside collectors, the museum’s founder, and some of the world’s leading biblical scholars. Officials unveiled the findings at an academic conference hosted by the museum.

“The Museum of the Bible is trying to be as transparent as possible,” says CEO Harry Hargrave. “We’re victims—we’re victims of misrepresentation, we’re victims of fraud.”

In a report spanning more than 200 pages, a team of researchers led by art fraud investigator Colette Loll found that while the pieces are probably made of ancient leather, they were inked in modern times and modified to resemble real Dead Sea Scrolls. “These fragments were manipulated with the intent to deceive,” Loll says.

The new findings don’t cast doubt on the 100,000 real Dead Sea Scroll fragments, most of which lie in the Shrine of the Book, part of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. However, the report’s findings raise grave questions about the “post-2002” Dead Sea Scroll fragments, a group of some 70 snippets of biblical text that entered the antiquities market in the 2000s. Even before the new report, some scholars believed that most to all of the post-2002 fragments were modern fakes.

“Once one or two of the fragments were fake, you know all of them probably are, because they come from the same sources, and they look basically the same,” says Årstein Justnes, a researcher at Norway’s University of Agder whose Lying Pen of Scribes project tracks the post-2002 fragments.
Since its 2017 opening, the Museum of the Bible has funded research into the pieces and sent off five fragments to Germany’s Federal Institute for Materials Research for testing. In late 2018, the museum announced the results to the world: All five tested fragments were probably modern forgeries.

But what of the other 11 fragments? And how had the forgers managed to fool the world’s leading Dead Sea Scroll scholars and the Museum of the Bible?

“It really was—and still is—an interesting kind of detective story,” says Jeffrey Kloha, the Museum of the Bible’s chief curatorial officer. “We really hope this is helpful to other institutions and researchers, because we think this provides a good foundation for looking at other pieces, even if it raises other questions.”

Under the microscope

To find out more about its fragments, the Museum of the Bible reached out to Loll and her company, Art Fraud Insights, in February 2019 and charged her with conducting a thorough physical and chemical investigation of all 16 pieces. Loll was no stranger to fakes and forgeries. After getting her master’s in art history at George Washington University, Loll went on to study international art crime, run forgery investigations, and train federal agents on matters of cultural heritage.

Loll insisted on independence. Not only would the Museum of the Bible have no say on the team’s findings, her report would be final—and would have to be released to the public. The Museum of the Bible agreed to the terms. “Honestly, I’ve never worked with a museum that was so up-front,” Loll says.

Loll quickly assembled a team of five conservators and scientists. From February to October, the team periodically visited the museum and pulled together their findings. By the time their report was finalized in November 2019, the researchers were unanimous. All 16 fragments appeared to be modern forgeries…….

The Art and Science of Stick Fighting: Complete Instructional Guide

‘Sticks and stones may break my bones……..’
And ‘Cane-Fu’ is pretty good too:

“Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points.” ― Bruce Lee, The Tao of Jeet Kune Do

The best of both Eastern and Western stick fighting techniques

The Art and Science of Stick Fighting is a unique, non-style specific, approach to fighting with the short stick. Its curriculum is streamlined and divided into nine logical stages of training that allow the reader to quickly and methodically learn and develop the skills needed for fighting with the stick. Whether you are just starting out, or have been practicing stick fighting for years, there is something for everyone in this book. Also included are systematic workouts and descriptions of how to make and use specific training equipment as you learn and master The Art and Science of Stick Fighting.

The Art and Science of Stick Fighting features
Nine levels of instruction, progressing from easy to expert
Over 700 photos with motion arrows
A “nondenominational” approach to the stick, utilizing the best of Eastern and Western arts
A comprehensive, methodical approach to building stick fighting skills
This book stands apart from other stick fighting training manuals because it emphasizes the dynamics of combat. Many other books focus on forms and twirling. The author draws on thirty years of martial experience, presenting the best of both Eastern and Western traditions.

The Art and Science of Stick Fighting begins with the basics, upon which everything else relies.

A stable stance
Basic footwork
An effective guard
From there you learn different types of strikes and how to practice them in helpful, easy-to-learn patterns. The aim is to grow so comfortable wielding a stick that it is as though the stick has become an extension of your body.
Once the basics are in place, you learn the strategies and tactics of fighting with the stick at long, middle, and close range. By controlling the distance, you control the fight!

Learn important guidelines for sparring, from light contact up to full-contact training.
Learn how to construct your own padded weapons.
Learn effective fighting tips that will rev up your game.
Also included are chapters on advanced techniques; combating short ranged weapons such as a knife to long range weapons like the staff. Even detailed techniques to use when your opponent is armed but you are not!

Whether you already study the stick or are just starting out, if you want to learn how to get an edge , The Art and Science of Stick Fighting is for you!

Wash Your Hands, but Also Take a Nap

Now it’s naps too? Okay. I think I can handle this one as well as the others.

As our campuses prepare to close and plans are developed to move our courses online, faculty, staff and administrators are moving into crisis-management mode. At my institution, Duke University, our team has quickly come together, by circumstance and by choice. Emails are flying, spring breaks have been forgone, phone calls are being taken in the carpool lane and so forth. We are on it!

Except how long can we sustain this?

We already know that work-life balance is a myth in the academy, and it certainly gets skewed in times of crisis. But COVID-19 threatens to be a long-term crisis. We’re not just closing campuses now but also canceling important events in the future (even graduation, maybe?), impacting enrollments in the fall and beyond, for example. We can expect many continuing reverberations.

How are we going to sustain ourselves now and for the long term?…….

We can also remind each other to take breaks, to reassure each other that it is okay to log out of email once in a while. In my case, I reminded my colleagues to pay attention to nearby Duke Forest, where there are more trout lilies than I’ve ever seen! We need to get outside and breathe deeply of our spring air before pollen descends.

Given that we are responding to a public health crisis, it only makes sense to prioritize our personal health. Yet for many of us, that is the first thing to go.

Three U.S. troops wounded in renewed rocket attacks on Iraq’s Taji base

I guess Hezbollah needs the lesson repeated.

BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Three American troops and several Iraqi forces were wounded on Saturday in the second major rocket attack in the past week on an Iraqi base north of Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi officials said, raising the stakes in an escalating cycle of attacks and reprisals.

Iraq’s Joint Operations Command said 33 Katyusha rockets were launched near a section of the Taji base which houses U.S.-led coalition troops. It said the military found seven rocket launchers and 24 unused rockets in the nearby Abu Izam area.

The Iraqi military said several Iraqi air defense servicemen were critically wounded. Two of the three wounded U.S. troops are seriously injured and are being treated at a military hospital in Baghdad, the Pentagon said.

Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman declined to speculate on potential U.S. responses but, in a statement, cited Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s warning last week: “You cannot attack and wound American Service Members and get away with it, we will hold them to account.”

The rocket attacks came less than two days after the United States launched retaliatory air strikes at facilities in Iraq that the Pentagon linked to the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia, which it blamed for Wednesday’s attack on Taji…..

White House Adds United Kingdom to Expanded Coronavirus Travel Restrictions

I had wondered, what with the UK being among the nations with a higher infection rate, why it was originally not included.

Vice President Mike Pence announced during Saturday’s coronavirus press briefing that the United Kingdom has been added to the White House’s coronavirus travel restriction list.

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday night that the U.S. would ban all travel for foreign nationals who had recently visited Europe but kept the U.K. off that list. Politico accused the White House of exempting the U.K. in order to protect business at the three Trump-owned golf resorts in Scotland and Ireland.

1st-Time Gun Ownership Reportedly Spikes as Anti-Gunners Realize 2nd Amendment Freedom Is Vital

Leave it to a worldwide existential crisis to align moral values.

As toilet paper and hand sanitizer fly from store shelves, be certain to count something else in, as well: guns. Lots of guns.

According to one report, gun sales have dramatically increased.

And what’s more, so have gun sales to first-time buyers.

“I’ve sold 12 handguns in two hours,” Gabriel Vaughn of Sportman’s Arms in Petaluma, California, told KTVU.

“People that tell me that they don’t like guns, but they’re here to begrudgingly buy one,” Vaughn said. “If it makes somebody feel safe, sure, and they’re legal to own one, then sure.”

Ammunition sales are also spiking. According to Yahoo Finance, sales at Ammo.com are up by 68 percent. Alex Horsman, Ammo.com’s marketing manager, knows why.

“We know certain things impact ammo sales, mostly political events or economic instability when people feel their rights may end up infringed,” Horsman said. “But this is our first experience with a virus leading to such a boost in sales.”

“A lot of our customers like to be prepared. And for many of them, it’s not just face masks and Theraflu. It’s knowing that no matter what happens, they can keep themselves and their families safe.”

Exactly.

Sometimes it takes a crisis that puts everyone at risk for folks to rediscover fundamental moral values — like having the means to protect themselves and others.

These values are so intrinsic to our humanity that they made their way into America’s founding documents, namely the Constitution.

Under uncertain, stressful conditions, plenty of folks come to a conclusion they might not have reached otherwise: It’s best not to take chances.

In other words, firearms are just as essential to a family’s crisis supplies as water, foodstuffs and medicine…………

Suspect Shot by Homeowner in Troy Home Burglary

I have no doubt there are more instances of self-defense occurring, but with all this coronavirus reporting sucking all the oxygen out o the news cycle, the picking have been slim. That, or the thugs are scared of the bug and have crawled back into their holes.

On Wednesday March 11, around 4:53 pm, Troy Police responded to a report of a male subject that had been shot on Pike County Road 1177 near Pike County Road 1148. When police arrived, they found a male subject in his mid-twenties suffering from a single gunshot wound.

The subject was treated at the scene by the Troy Fire Department and Haynes Ambulance personnel. He was then transported to a Montgomery Hospital for further treatment.

After further investigation it was discovered that the male victim was a suspect in a burglary that had occurred just minutes earlier near the area. The suspect was confronted by the homeowner, shots were fired by the homeowner with one round striking the suspect in the upper thigh.

A backpack containing firearms along with other items taken during the burglary were recovered from the suspect that belonged to the homeowner. All evidence was collected including the weapon used by the homeowner.

The suspect has been identified as Ezedrick Dion Merritt and a warrant for burglary 3rd degree has been obtained for his arrest. Merritt will be taken into custody when he is released from the hospital. Merritt’s injuries while serious are not life threatening.

This case remains under investigation by the Troy Police Department and the Pike County District Attorney’s Office.

The homeowner has not been charged at this time.

Why I Bought AR-15s for My Sons

According to the Washington Post, 91% of Trump coverage by the three broadcast networks, which include ABC, is negative.  When a right-wing lunatic massacred people of Mexican descent at an El Paso Walmart in August 2019, the networks blamed the attack on Trump’s “hateful” rhetoric about immigrants.

ABC News promptly produced a story to support the mainstream media’s narrative that violence by Trump-supporters had reached epidemic proportions.  Twisting itself into a pretzel in an attempt to justify the charge, the network scoured the country for instances where bad apples among the 63 million people who voted for Trump perpetrated violence allegedly inspired by him.  After an exhaustive search, ABC News came up with a grand total of 36 violent crimes where Trump’s name was invoked.

Some quick math: 36 bad apples divided by 63 million Trump voters equals 0.0000005.  In other words, ABC News hyped a story about violent acts allegedly perpetrated by zero point zero zero zero zero five percent of Trump’s supporters.  That’s five hundred-thousandths of one percent.  Some epidemic.

If ABC News ever decides to do a connect-the-dots story about Democrat bad apples who commit political violence, here are a few examples they can include:

The deranged 24-year-old who murdered nine people in Dayton, Ohio was an Elizabeth Warren–supporter who had been incited by the Democratic Party to hate Republicans, ICE, and the police.

Having been taught to hate Republicans, a Bernie Sanders–supporter shot and nearly killed GOP rep. Steve Scalise.

After Rep. Scalise was shot, Republican rep. Claudia Tenney received an email that read, “One down, 216 to go.”

Seventy-one-year-old female staffer for California GOP rep. Dana Rohrabacher was knocked unconscious by Trump-hating Democrats during a protest outside Rohrabacher’s office.

The FBI arrested man for threatening to assassinate Republican rep. Martha McSally over her support for Trump.

Trump-hating Democrats threatened the children of ICE contractor’s employees.

Trump-hating Democrats fired multiple shots through the window of a San Antonio ICE office in a targeted attack against the agency that enforces nation’s immigration laws.

Trump-hating Democrats angrily confronted DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen at a D.C. restaurant.

According to a hidden camera investigation, Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC sent paid protesters to incite violence at Trump events.

A Trump-hating Democrat waitress in Chicago spat in Eric Trump’s face.

Peter Fonda: “Trump’s 12-year-old son should be ripped from his mother’s arms and put in a cage with pedophiles.”

A Democrat college professor was arrested for beating Trump-supporters with a U-shaped bike lock.

A tweet by a Democrat front group promoted the gruesome murder of ICE agents with step-by-step instructions:

A hate-filled Democrat threatened to kill Trump-supporters at the re-election headquarters of his GOP congressman.

“I’ll f— you up!”: A Democrat instructor assaulted conservative students at anti-Trump campus protest.

Trump-hating Democrats terrified Tucker Carlson’s wife and children at home while he was at work: “Tucker Carlson, we will fight!  We know where you sleep at night!”

A 17-year-old girl was punched in the face by Trump-hating Democrat.

A decapitated animal carcass left on the porch of a DHS staffer.

A car with a Trump bumper sticker was spray-painted and its tires slashed.

A pickup truck with Trump stickers was made a total loss after being set on fire.

A minority man was pummeled in the face for wearing a MAGA baseball cap.

A Trump-supporting immigrant from Africa was beaten by Trump-hating Democrats.

A Trump-supporter was knocked unconscious by Democrat protesters.

WATCH: A white Democrat slaps the MAGA hat off the head of a black man.

WATCH: A black Democrat rips the MAGA hat from a 16-year-old’s head and throws a soft drink in his face.

A student carrying a Trump flag was beaten by eight Trump-hating classmates.

An elementary school student was beaten by classmates over voting for Trump in a mock election.

A Trump-hating student yelled, “You support Trump!  You hate Mexicans!” at a female classmate before ripping her victim’s earrings off.

A black man in a MAGA hat was called a “n—–” by Cheesecake Factory employees.

Trump-hating Democrats assaulted two women wearing MAGA hats.

A 19-year-old Democrat threw an 81-year-old man wearing a MAGA hat to the ground.

WATCH: A Black Trump supporter was sucker-punched in the face by a white Democrat.

A hate-filled Democrat was arrested for ramming a truck into a Trump voter registration tent filled with volunteers.

A 34-year-old Democrat was arrested for assaulting a 15-year-old Trump-supporter at a polling site.

A Trump-supporter in New Jersey was attacked with a crowbar.

To whatever extent the journalistically corrupt networks reported any of the above incidents, the coverage was fleeting at best, and not once, to the best of my knowledge, have they ever “connected the dots” of such violent incidents, as ABC News did in its political hit job on Trump.

What has happened to the modern Democratic Party?

Just days after the 2016 election, six members of the Democrat front group Red Guards/Austin were arrested for violent attacks on supporters of President Trump.  The six communist revolutionaries are pictured below in booking photos taken by the Austin Police Department.

A few weeks later, after Trump took office, a nighttime protest by Occupy Oakland, another Democrat front group, called on Trump’s opponents to “Become Ungovernable” by inciting chaos across America.  A tweet by the communist group boasted this: “We won this night.  We will liberate this land.  We will fight fascists.  We will dismantle the state.  This is war.”  And war is exactly what was declared by the Democratic Party’s “resistance” to a lawfully elected president, a war on our constitutional system of electing the country’s leader.  Dating to the time Donald Trump became the GOP nominee, the Democratic Party has given a wink and a nod to Red Guards Austin, Occupy Oakland, and every other communist group in America to violently act out hatred not only against Trump, but his supporters as well.

Here’s why I bought AR-15s for my sons: when Lenin was asked how the Bolsheviks planned to keep the Russian masses from listening to counterrevolutionaries, he replied in so many words, “We must teach our followers to direct unbridled hatred toward our opponents.”  A half-century later, Saul Alinsky taught Lenin’s “teach them to hate” strategy to the post-1960s Democratic Party, which turned it into an art form.

In August 2016, before Trump was even elected, frenzied rank-and-file Democrats in Minnesota put Lenin’s strategy into practice by repeatedly punching an elderly man in the kidney and spitting on other attendees who were forced to walk a gauntlet of political hatred as they left a Trump fundraiser in Minneapolis.  Please take 30 seconds to watch how successful the Democratic Party has been at inciting its followers to direct seething hatred toward Republicans.

To the best of my knowledge, not a single prominent Democrat forcefully condemned the outrageous incident in Minneapolis, or hundreds upon thousands of others like it.  And why would they?  With invaluable help from the Clinton campaign and the DNC, their own “resistance” movement has intentionally incited anti-Trump violence at every turn.

When a political party teaches its followers to hate the other side, things are not likely to end well.  If Trump is re-elected, I fear that the party of Marx, Lenin, Alinsky, and Obama will quietly turn loose its dogs of war in a seditious attempt to destabilize America, to make it “ungovernable” until Democrats regain power.  If that happens, widespread anarchy will follow.  And that’s why I bought my law-abiding sons AR-15s and enough ammunition to defend themselves — and their country — against a possible bloody insurrection incited by a once-honorable party that has betrayed the constitutional republic it swore to protect and defend.

Rights Versus Wishes
Going beyond the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Sen. Bernie Sanders said: “I believe that health care is a right of all people.” He’s not alone in that contention. That claim comes from Democrats and Republicans and liberals and conservatives. It is not just a health care right that people claim. There are “rights” to decent housing, decent food, a decent job and prescription drugs. In a free and moral society, do people have these rights? Let’s begin by asking ourselves: What is a right?

In the standard usage of the term, a “right” is something that exists simultaneously among people. In the case of our U.S. Constitutional decree, we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our individual right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness imposes no obligation upon another other than the duty of noninterference.

As such, a right imposes no obligation on another. For example, the right to free speech is something we all possess simultaneously. My right to free speech imposes no obligation upon another except that of noninterference. Similarly, I have a right to travel freely. Again, that right imposes no obligation upon another except that of noninterference.

Sanders’ claim that health care is a right does impose obligations upon others. We see that by recognizing that there is no Santa Claus or tooth fairy who gives resources to government to pay for medical services. Moreover, the money does not come from congressmen and state legislators reaching into their own pockets to pay for the service. That means that in order for government to provide medical services to someone who cannot afford it, it must use intimidation, threats and coercion to take the earnings of another American to provide that service.

Let’s apply this bogus concept of rights to my right to speak and travel freely. In the case of my right to free speech, it might impose obligations on others to supply me with an auditorium, microphone and audience. It may require newspapers or television stations to allow me to use their property to express my views. My right to travel freely might require that others provide me with resources to purchase airplane tickets and hotel accommodations. What if I were to demand that others make sacrifices so that I can exercise my free speech and travel rights, I suspect that most Americans would say, “Williams, you have rights to free speech and you have a right to travel freely, but I’m not obligated to pay for them!”

A moral vision of rights does not mean that we should not help our fellow man in need. It means that helping with health care needs to be voluntary (i.e., free market decisions or voluntary donations to charities that provide health care.) The government’s role in health care is to protect this individual right to choose. As Senator Rand Paul was brave enough to say, “The basic assumption that you have a right to get something from somebody else means you have to endorse the concept of theft.”

Statists go further to claim that people have a “right” to housing, to a job, to an education, to an affordable wage. These so-called rights impose burdens on others in the form of involuntary servitude. If one person has a right to something he did not earn, it means that another person does not have a right to something he did earn.

The provision by the U.S. Congress of a so-called right to health care should offend any sense of moral decency. If you’re a Christian or a Jew, you should be against the notion of one American living at the expense of another. When God gave Moses the Eighth Commandment — “Thou shalt not steal” — I am sure that He did not mean, “Thou shalt not steal — unless there is a majority vote in the U.S. Congress.”

Pentagon identifies US soldier, airman killed in Iraq rocket attack

On Friday morning, the Department of Defense identified the two U.S. service members killed in a Wednesday rocket attack against Camp Taji, Iraq.

U.S. Army Spc. Juan Miguel Mendez Covarrubias, 27, of Hanford, Calif. was killed in the rocket attack, as was Oklahoma Air National Guard Staff Sgt. Marshal D. Roberts, 28, of Owasso, Okla., the Pentagon confirmed in a press release.

Mendez Covarrubias was a member of the 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division based out of Fort Hood, Texas. He was posthumously promoted to the rank of Specialist.

Roberts was a member of the 219th Engineering Installation Squadron of the Oklahoma Air National Guard.

The deadly rocket attack also resulted in the death of a British service member stationed at the base. The British service member was identified as LCpl Brodie Gillon, 26, of the U.K.’s Scottish and North Irish Yeomanry reserve unit. She reportedly volunteered to join the Irish Guards Battle Group when it deployed to Iraq for 2020.

“The coalition honors the service and sacrifice of U.S. Army Specialist Juan Miguel Mendez Covarrubias, U.K. Lance Corporal Brodie Gillon, and U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Marshal D. Roberts; they will not be forgotten,” Lt. Gen. Pat White, commanding general of Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, said in a press statement.

“The international military coalition is capable and credible because of warriors like Juan, Brodie, and Marshal,” White’s comments continued. “They volunteered to serve the United States and United Kingdom to improve their lives and help keep the world free from ISIS terrorism. Our fallen comrades have a legacy that will never be forgotten.”

 

Coronavirus: Europe Now Epicentre of the Pandemic, Says WHO

Europe is now the “epicentre” of the global coronavirus pandemic, the head of the World Health Organization says.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged countries to use aggressive measures, community mobilisation and social distancing to save lives.

“Do not just let this fire burn,” he said.

His comments came as several European countries reported steep rises in infections and deaths. Italy has recorded its highest daily toll yet.

There were 250 deaths recorded over the past 24 hours, taking the total to 1,266, with 17,660 infections overall.

Spain, the worst-affected European country after Italy, reported a 50% jump in fatalities to 120 on Friday. Infections increased to 4,231.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez says a state of alert will come into effect there on Saturday for two weeks.

Why Europe could be worse off than China

Analysis box by James Gallagher, health and science correspondent

The number of cases of coronavirus reported every day in Europe has surpassed China at its peak.

But Europe is in a worse position.

The overwhelming majority of China’s cases were in one place, Hubei province and those were largely concentrated in one city, Wuhan.

It was dealt with by an authoritarian government that imposed the biggest quarantine in human history.

While there are hotspots in Europe, this is an outbreak across a continent and different countries are adopting very different strategies for dealing with coronavirus.

All these figures are based on cases that have been detected, but scientists fear there could be large outbreaks going on unnoticed in countries that don’t have the tools to spot them.

Delingpole: Trump Was Right to Shut the Gates on Plague Pit Europe

President Trump has suspended all travel from mainland Europe. If this sounds excessive you clearly haven’t been paying attention to just how bad things have got with the coronavirus in parts of the continent.

Northern Italy, especially, is experiencing horrors more redolent of a Medieval plague than of an advanced economy in the 21st century.

This thread, reportedly from a doctor working in an Accident and Emergency department in a Northern Italian hospital, gives a grim taste:

The current situation is difficult to imagine and numbers do not explain things at all. Our hospitals are overwhelmed by Covid-19, they are running 200% capacity

We’ve stopped all routine, all ORs have been converted to ITUs and they are now diverting or not treating all other emergencies like trauma or strokes. There are hundreds of pts with severe resp failure and many of them do not have access to anything above a reservoir mask.

Patients above 65 or younger with comorbidities are not even assessed by ITU, I am not saying not tubed, I’m saying not assessed and no ITU staff attends when they arrest. Staff are working as much as they can but they are starting to get sick and are emotionally overwhelmed.

In other words, many of Italy’s hospitals are overwhelmed. Every day they are having to make terrible Sophie’s Choice style decisions about which patients to save and which ones should be condemned to death — because they simply don’t have enough staff or equipment to keep them all alive.

Unless Trump takes drastic action — presuming it isn’t already too late — then this is the fate that awaits America too.

That’s why he was absolutely right to act in this dramatic way and for at least two good reasons.

First, political: it’s imperative — especially for those of us who believe that a second Trump term is America’s only hope — that by the year-end, when with luck the pandemic will have passed or at least diminished, President Trump emerges as a man who handled this crisis decisively and effectively. It would be just too awful if, despite his many achievements, Trump ended up handing the election to Joe Biden because of a public perception that he’d been dilatory in protecting America from the 21st century’s answer to the Black Death.

Second, geopolitical: Trump is right to shut off continental Europe because — in plague terms — it is the equivalent of one of those diseased carcasses that besieging armies used to fling with their ballistas over the city walls.

This is a consequence of its open borders policy. Under the European Union’s Schengen Agreement — one of the bloc’s defining features and by their own reckoning, greatest achievement — there is almost complete freedom of movement across national borders. Which means that everyone from gun- and drug-smugglers to terrorists to coronavirus victims can travel from one end of the continent to the other, with individual states virtually powerless to protect their own borders or citizens.

School Canceled Because of Coronavirus? A Homeschooler Offers Some Tips.

For those parents who haven’t already converted to home schooling to remove their children from public school those cesspools of leftist indoctrination

COVID-19 is in the news with new cases reported every day. The list of schools, colleges, and other institutions suspending their efforts is also adding up. But there’s one education sector that may get away with minimal disruption: homeschoolers. Families that take responsibility for their kids’ education have a distinct edge in terms of flexibility and adaptability when it comes to unexpected events like … well … a worldwide pandemic that has people on edge.

“Closing schools and using internet-based teleschooling to continue education” was the scenario envisioned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Dr. Nancy Messonier in a February 25 press conference. “You should ask your children’s school about their plans for school dismissals or school closures. Ask if there are plans for teleschool.”

Teleschool? Homeschoolers are so on that. Or if they’re not into teleschooling, they have a stack of books and papers, kitchen-counter science experiments, video lectures … The list goes on, and much of it adds up to the “social distancing measures” of which teleschooling is supposed to be part.

What’s “social distancing”? As Messonnier noted, social distancing is “designed to keep people who are sick away from others.” That means breaking up large gatherings where germs can be shared and spread.

Discouraging gatherings is an important move from a public health perspective, but it’s enormously disruptive to businesses, government bodies, and organizations that are designed around assembling large numbers of people in one place. That means big challenges for, among other institutions, traditional brick-and-mortar schools. Homeschoolers, however, have an edge because their efforts are not inherently constructed around large gatherings.

That doesn’t mean that homeschoolers never get together. Contrary to accusations from critics, family-based education is not an inherently solitary venture.

Homeschooling often involves group lessons that take advantage of specialized expertise, collaborative projects, field trips with homeschooling associations, sports teams, and more—which means that homeschoolers have changes to make in a time of pandemic, too, in terms of reducing or eliminating outings and activities. But that doesn’t mean cutting down on education; these days, there are loads of relatively easy work-arounds for homeschooling families.

If you’re new to family-based education, and especially if you’re busy with your own remote work, you may find it best to go with a comprehensive online program, like a virtual publicly-funded charter school or tuition-charging private school.

Virtual private schools are available anywhere in the United States, while the availability of charters depends on your local laws. Arizona, where I live, maintains a list of virtual charter schools, but you’ll need to do a bit of research for your own state.

Besides full schools, the Internet is a treasure-trove of learning materials that don’t require you to trek to a bookstore, a lecture hall, or even to wait for package delivery. Classic literature is available for free in electronic format through Project Gutenberg, Khan Academy has long since expanded beyond its original mission of delivering math lessons, the American Chemical Society gives away a complete chemistry curriculum, and a variety of lesson plans are freely available from the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Edsitement. If you’re interested, I’ve prepared a downloadable list of resources.

I’ve never met a conference software that I’ve loved—video sometimes freezes, audio drops out, and connections fail. That said, my son has used both Blackboard and Zoom in the course of his lessons, and he and his peers as young as 10 or so took to it naturally, even troubleshooting glitches as needed. Conferencing software will accommodate presentations, feedback, shared screens, and other means of simulating a classroom across distances and without putting students in one place to share germs. Teachers and students can even transfer files back and forth.

Skype is an excellent stand-by for online meetings with teachers. Yes, your kids can be verbally quizzed in a foreign language across that platform while the teacher looks on to check for cheat sheets or other shortcuts. The kids might then receive messaged feedback through the same software.

For teamwork on projects, I think working online may be more effective than getting a bunch of kids together in one room. Recently, I got to listen to a bunch of 14- and 15-year-olds collaborate on a script for a skit that they edited in Google Docs. For presentations, they’ve worked the same way in Google Slides. One nice feature is that the technological solutions really cut down on the “I left my work at my friend’s house” factor. No, you didn’t, kid; it’s sitting in the cloud.

(Incidentally, collaborative software doesn’t make teenagers act any less like teenagers. If forced to listen in, you will still want to bang your head on a table.)

When it comes to sharing short pieces of work, art, and the like, my son and his friends sometimes take photos of their efforts and text them to each other or to an instructor. That’s a quick and easy solution in many cases when uploading and downloading documents is more effort than necessary.

The hard part isn’t finding work for your home students to do; it’s keeping them focused. Every child is different, and some are more self-directed than others.

Yes, you will have to check on them even if you’re not directly administering their lessons. That can be a challenge for new homeschoolers, but my experience is that most kids respond better to mom and dad than they do to teachers they barely know and won’t see after the year’s end.

Socializing is where the “social distancing” recommended for our virus-ridden times bites deep. But I have to imagine that cell phones, social media, and video chat make easier work of dealing with the requirements of the pandemic than what our ancestors suffered when they dodged polio or the Spanish flu. The kids can all complain to each other over their favorite apps about the privations they’re suffering in these hard times.

Fast delivery, downloadable books, and streaming video do away with a bit of the sting, too. The kids can still consume current media and discuss their favorite shows and novels—just not face-to-face for a while.

And here’s the thing. If you try homeschooling, you may discover that it’s not just a good way to keep COVID-19 at bay, but an effective approach to education more generally and a good fit for your family. If so, well, welcome to a happy, healthy, and growing club.