Optimism is associated with higher cognitive abilities

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Interesting:

Researchers were interested in investigating the associations of dispositional optimism and pessimism with cognitive abilities in adulthood. They found that young adults with higher dispositional optimism and lower pessimism had higher reasoning skills and higher pessimism was related to lower scores on memory tests for middle-aged adults.

Previous research shows that optimism is related to positive health and wellbeing outcomes, whereas pessimism is associated with health-related risks and maladaptive behaviors. According to intellectual investment theories, it is suggested that personality traits can affect cognition abilities. For instance, joy promotes creativity and negative emotionality activates people’s thought-action repertoire to prepare them for quick decisions in threatening situations. People with optimistic views tend to pay attention to positive information and believe they are capable of influencing their lives. On the other hand, pessimists tend to believe life events are caused by external forces and their own influence is inferior.

I hadn’t thought of that. I was well aware that pessimists can and do create their own self-fulfilling prophecies. This leads to them to successfully justify their pessimistic demeaner. But, higher cognitive abilities for optimists? That’s very interesting…

Armed citizens stop mass shooters

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Via SAF we have this FBI (alternate copy here) report:

ACTIVE SHOOTER INCIDENTS IN THE UNITED STATES In 2021

In two incidents,21 citizens engaged the shooter. In one incident citizens sustained injuries. • In one incident,22 seven employees exchanged multiple volleys of gunfire with the shooter, four of them during the final encounter resulting in the death of the shooter. Two people were killed (one customer and one employee) and two employees were wounded (one was shot in the arm and one in the leg). The shooter was killed at the scene by armed employees.

2021 witnessed an increase in incidents where citizen involvement impacted the engagement.23 In four incidents,24 citizens confronted the shooter, thereby resulting in the incident ending. • In one incident, two citizens confronted and tackled a shooter until law enforcement officers arrived.25 • In one incident, a teacher disarmed and detained the shooter (a student) until law enforcement arrived.26 • In one incident, an armed citizen shot and killed a gunman who had just ambushed a law enforcement officer.27 • In one incident, an armed employee shot and killed the shooter (an employee terminated earlier in the day).

Details:

On February 20, 2021, at approximately 2:50 p.m., an identified male, 27, armed with a handgun, began shooting inside the Jefferson Gun Outlet, Metairie, Louisiana. Two people were killed (one employee); two people were wounded (employees). The shooter was killed by armed citizens (employees) during an exchange of gunfire at the scene.

…

On May 15, 2021, at approximately 7:15 a.m., an identified male, 26, armed with a semi-automatic rifle, began shooting inside and outside the Three Corners Townhouses (apartment complex), Fort Smith, Arkansas. One person was killed. The shooter was killed at the scene by an armed citizen

…

On June 21, 2021, at approximately 1:30 p.m., an identified male, 59, armed with a shotgun, began shooting in Old Town Arvada, Arvada, Colorado. One person (law enforcement officer) was killed. The shooter was killed at the scene by an armed citizen.

…

On October 21, 2021, at approximately 1:20 p.m., an identified male, 61, armed with a handgun, began shooting inside Agrex Elevator, Superior, Nebraska. Two people were killed (employees); one person was wounded (employee). The shooter was killed at the scene by an armed citizen (employee) prior to arrival of law enforcement

Quote of the day—The Editors at Scientific American

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The science is abundantly clear: More guns do not stop crime. Guns kill more children each year than auto accidents. More children die by gunfire in a year than on-duty police officers and active military members. Guns are a public health crisis, just like COVID, and in this, we are failing our children, over and over again.

The Editors at Scientific American
May 26, 2022
The Science Is Clear: Gun Control Saves Lives
[They have to lie to justify their beliefs and agenda. You only need to click on their own reference to discover the lie. Guns kill more children than auto accidents? Only if you consider 24 year old’s as children:

For much of the past few decades motor vehicle crashes were the most common cause of death from injury—the leading cause of death in general—among children, teenagers and young adults in the U.S. But now a new analysis shows that, in recent years, guns have overtaken automotive crashes as the leading cause of injury-related death among people ages one through 24.

They are intentionally lying in an effort to deprive an entire nation of a specific enumerated right. They should be prosecuted.—Joe]

Canadian cattle

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Just like a rancher dehorning their cattle to prevent them from hurting each other or their owner Canada does not allow people to carry knives for the purpose of self defense:

There are no limits on length. BUT, and this is a big but, the knife you carry must only be used as a tool (a.k.a. utility knife, hunting knife WHEN HUNTING, etc.). As stated above it do not conceal or have the intent to cause harm; this includes self defense!

This law is about intent. This means if you’re caught with a knife that’s concealed on your person while in a location you don’t require a knife to be used as a tool, you may be in for a bad time.

Example, walking through a dark alley at night with a utility knife in your pocket for protection sounds like a good idea. However if an officer of the law stops you and finds it, they can easily conclude there is no other reason for you to have it except for the intent to cause harm to another person.

Furthermore, this also means you can be charged with assault with a weapon even when defending yourself. Why, because the intent to use it for such an occasion is there before you even stepped out from your house.

Having “solved” all the “gun violence” in their country this must be what they consider as “common sense” prevention of “knife violence”.

Quote of the day—John Crump

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AmmoLand News has obtained a leaked copy of the 2019 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Industry Operations Manual.

The manual is the internal guide that the Industry Operations Inspectors (IOI) use when conducting federal firearms licensees (FFL) inspections. An IOI is not a special agent. They are an ATF employee assigned to carry out compliance inspections and audits of records that FFLs hold. While special agents are considered law enforcement and have the power to arrest, the IOIs work on the industry side of the Bureau.

The document is 190 pages long and gives an insight into what the IOIs look for during their FFL compliance inspections. The document lays down what the IOIs can and can’t do during their official visits. It includes when the IOI can run a NICS check on the FFL’s responsible parties. The document also covers when an IOI must refer a case to a criminal investigator. The IOIs cannot perform a criminal investigation.

The document not only goes into procedures used by IOIs during their compliance visits but it also covers the techniques that the IOIs will use during their visits to FFLs. The document also covers more mundane topics such as the ATF’s work from home policy and the use of government vehicles by the IOIs.

One of the interesting things about the IOI position is that IOIs are not allowed to carry firearms while working. This restriction even applies to those who have valid concealed carry permits. The IOIs are not even allowed to keep their guns in their cars.

The document will be an immense help to firearms dealers that are fighting against the revocation of their FFLs. Currently, FFL revocations are up by 500%. Under the current Biden administration, the ATF has targeted FFLs and has been revoking FFLs for the slightest infraction. President Biden calls these gun stores “rogue dealers.” By having a copy of the manual, these targeted FFLs can ensure that the ATF IOIs followed proper procedures during the inspections.

The IO Manual can also help in a criminal defense strategy of a gun dealer accused of criminal activity if the ATF employee improperly used their role as an IOI to collect evidence of illegal activity when they should have filled out a suspicious activity report. The manual makes it abundantly clear that IOIs are not law enforcement officers.

The ATF has stalled multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests trying to get a copy of the Industry Operations Manual, leading many in the gun community to wonder why the ATF would try to prevent the manual from being distributed to the public. Some think that the ATF did not want the IO Manual to fall into the hands of criminal defense lawyers and FFLs.

John Crump
May 25, 2022
ATF Leak Exposes Industry Operations Manual
[Cool! The good guys get a break.—Joe]

Quote of the day–UR a Smart Ass, Carl @Ur_a_Smartass_C

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Any black person who fights for gun control is nothing more than a tool for their own destruction.

UR a Smart Ass, Carl @Ur_a_Smartass_C
Tweeted on May 23, 2022
[Carl has an interesting story to tell about his conversion from “a young gun control Democrat” to owning a safe (or three, I’m not sure) full of guns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead

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Yet be warned: once you get snagged by a surveillance camera, flagged by an AI predictive screening program, and placed on a government watch list—whether it’s a watch list for child neglect, a mental health watch list, a dissident watch list, a terrorist watch list, or a red flag gun watch list—there’s no clear-cut way to get off, whether or not you should actually be on there.

You will be tracked wherever you go, flagged as a potential threat and dealt with accordingly.

If you’re not scared yet, you should be.

John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead
May 10, 2022
You’ve Been Flagged as a Threat: Predictive AI Technology Puts a Target on Your Back
[Prepare appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Julia Jacobo

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California water officials unanimously struck down a $1.4 billion plan to build a seaside desalination plant amid a water crisis sparked by megadrought and climate change.

The California Coastal Commission, which is responsible for protecting the state’s shores, voted Thursday to deny a permit to seawater desalination developer Poseidon Water to build a desalination plant in Huntington Beach.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom was among the supporters for the plan, which promised to produce 50 million gallons of drinking water a day. Steve Sheldon, president of the Orange County Water District, said the plant would make the county “drought resilient.”

Julia Jacobo
May 13, 2022
California panel unanimously rejects proposal for plant to turn ocean water into drinking water
[It is easy to make a case that these creatures hate humans.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Sal the Agorist @SallyMayweather

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image

Sal the Agorist @SallyMayweather
Tweeted on April 12, 2022
[It’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday, it is another science denier!

I suppose it could be a thing like what Barb said a few months after we started dating:

You are just so hot when you carry a rifle. Isn’t that weird?

But I think that is unlikely in this case.

Via a tweet from Chuck Petras.—Joe]

The original “assault rifle”

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Via Chuck Petras @Chuck_Petras:

image

Quote of the day—Sen. Chris Murphy

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There are not a lot of moments where everybody goes from Position A to Position Z. You need to build political power in order to enact important, controversial social change.

…

I think that we have made enormous progress over the last nine years, and I sort of look at Sandy Hook as the before and after moment.

Sen. Chris Murphy
May 22, 2022
From Sandy Hook to Buffalo: Ten years of failure on gun control
[I found the article fascinating. No hint of awareness that gun control might not help public safety, let alone thoughts it enables violent criminals. No hint of awareness that the Second Amendment protects a specific enumerated right and SCOTUS is about to slap down New York for their abuse of gun owners. No hint of awareness that since Sandy Hook, gun sales have exploded and the Antifa “summer of love” have changed the political landscape regarding gun ownership.—Joe]

This is what they think of you

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VIa email from pkoning.

Tyrants gotta tyrant:

IN GENERAL.—The Attorney General may deny a license under this section if the Attorney General determines that the applicant poses a significant danger of bodily injury to self or others by possessing, purchasing, or receiving a firearm, after examining factors the Attorney General considers are relevant to the determination, including…

(gg) any recent acquisition of firearms, ammunition, or other deadly weapons;

This is one of those “can’t win” scenario those who have mental issues create for you. If you buy some ammo they can declare you unfit to buy a gun because you might actually have the ability to use it.

I’ve experienced and put up with a mental issues environment… for decades. Highly discommended.

The other case you see this sort of behavior is the situation described by Ayn Rand regarding the creation of criminals. This is a situation you want to avoid even more than an individual with mental issues.

But what I find most telling about this proposed legislation is what such a politician must think of you. It must be one of the following:

  1. You are too stupid to see the trap this creates, or
  2. They believe that the desire to exercise a specific enumerated right demonstrates criminal intent.

Just say no, and keep saying no, until you run out of ammo.

Tyrant tool

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Via Stephanie:

AI may be searching you for guns the next time you go out in public

When Peter George saw news of the racially motivated mass-shooting at the Tops supermarket in Buffalo last weekend, he had a thought he’s often had after such tragedies.

“Could our system have stopped it?” he said. “I don’t know. But I think we could democratize security so that someone planning on hurting people can’t easily go into an unsuspecting place.”

George is chief executive of Evolv Technology, an AI-based system meant to flag weapons, “democratizing security” so that weapons can be kept out of public places without elaborate checkpoints.

…

Evolv machines use “active sensing” — a light-emission technique that also underpins radar and lidar — to create images. Then it applies AI to examine them. Data scientists at the Waltham, Mass., company have created “signatures” (basically, visual blueprints) and trained the AI to compare them to the scanner images.

This tool is worse than useless. It will create opportunities for more murders. That is, unless you are a tyrant intent on disarming your subjects.

First off, the mass shooter will start shooting before they pass through the detector, taking out the guards before they even had a clue a threat was present. And, since there is a “funnel” for people going through the detector there will be a group of people ready for “harvesting” by the perp. It also will make it difficult or impossible for people to defend themselves where these systems are deployed.

Hence, if your threat model is a mass shooter, the device will actually make things worse rather than better. Many other threat models suffer similar degradation of public security.

The threat model that doesn’t degrade is the one where you want your subjects to be more dependent on you for security and to make it difficult for them to threaten your position of power. In that case this system will be a useful asset to disarm your subjects.

Quote of the day—Floyd Neeland

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The only reason ten blacks murdered in Buffalo are getting so much news coverage is because that supports the false government narrative that white people pose the top threat to America, and guns are evil.

In 2019, nearly 8,000 black people were murdered.* News media failed to cover it or bring the point home. Few arrests, few trials, murderers roamed free amidst newslessness. The following year black murders increased, and again little or no coverage. But now, the so-called “news” media harps on one teenage psychopath who made advanced threats, posted his intentions, never got treatment, and media uses the tragedy to falsely claim whites are part of a scheme. Whites are more racist than blacks or other clinging ethnic groups, they say, guns are evil, while ignoring the real dead stacked in a corner like firewood.

Floyd Neeland
May 20, 2022
9,941 Black People Murdered in 2020*
Saturation coverage of 10 dead in Buffalo is misdirection
Here is hard proof that Black Lives Don’t Matter
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Cool "solar” cells

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This is interesting but I’m not sure I see a very big market for this:

New Kind of ‘Solar’ Cell Shows We Can Generate Electricity Even at Night

Conventional solar technology soaks up rays of incoming sunlight to bump out a voltage. Strange as it seems, some materials are capable of running in reverse, producing power as they radiate heat back into the cold night sky.

So far, the prototype only generates a small amount of power, and is probably unlikely to become a competitive source of renewable power on its own – but coupled with existing photovoltaics technology, it could harness the small amount of energy provided by solar cells cooling after a long, hot day’s work.

I could see potential in places where your conventional resources are scarce but have lots of open sky and very little or no sun. Winter in the extreme latitudes would be an example.Perhaps in some deep space applications. Waste heat (even inadvertent heat losses through a roof or walls) or geothermal sources could perhaps provide enough electricity to run an instrument package or something.

Quote of the day—The New York Times @nytimes

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What psychiatry calls psychosis, the Hearing Voices Movement calls nonconsensus realities. It provides support groups for people with hallucinations and is part of an effort to reform how the mental health field approaches severe psychiatric conditions.

The New York Times @nytimes
Tweeted on May 17, 2022
[While some delusions are functional that is not the way to bet.

I find it very telling that the NYTs is onboard with “nonconsensus realities”. That explains a lot of things.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Kathy Hochul

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I want to silence those voices now.

…

So yes, Lord, forgive the anger in my heart, but channel that into my passion to continue to fight to protect people, get the guns off the streets and silence the voices of hatred and racism and white supremacy all over the internet.

Kathy Hochul
New York State Governor
May 15, 2022
Video, Audio, Photo & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Delivers Remarks at True Bethel Baptist Church
[See also New York’s Governor Wants to ‘Silence’ Constitutionally Protected Speech.

So… she is saying she is going to ignore both the 1st and the 2nd Amendments. Got it.

Governor, I hope you enjoy your trial

Prepare appropriately.—Joe]

Will those at the top be brought to justice?

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FBI Deemed Trump–Russia Claims False in Less Than a Day, Agent Says

FBI agents tasked with analyzing claims about Donald Trump and Russia took less than a day to figure out that the data didn’t support the allegations, one of the agents testified in federal court on May 17.

Agent Scott Hellman was part of the team that examined white papers and data on thumb drives handed in 2016 to FBI lawyer James Baker by Michael Sussmann, an attorney who was representing the campaign of Hillary Clinton—Trump’s rival for the presidency.

On the first day of Sussmann’s trial for allegedly lying to the FBI when he said he wasn’t bringing the information on behalf of a client, Hellman told the court that he and another agent took less than a day to ascertain that the information didn’t support the allegations that Trump’s business and Russia’s Alfa Bank had a secret connection.

“I think the person who drafted [the main white paper] was suffering from a mental disability,” Hellman said.

So, they were nearly certain it was all a lie on day one. Yet the President of The United States and the entire country were subject to years of legal abuse and the almost certain change of an election result.

The criminals at the top of this should be fined into oblivion and spend the rest of their lives in prison.

I won’t be holding my breath.

Boomershoot 2022 from the air

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Awesome drone video from Devin Miller:

Quote of the day—Glenn Reynolds

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If you’re the president, if you’re a member of Congress, if you are a TSA agent, the only reason why somebody should listen to what you say, instead of horsewhipping you out of town for your impertinence, is because you exercise power via the Constitution. If the Constitution doesn’t count, you don’t have any legitimate power. You’re a thief, a brigand, an officious busybody, somebody who should be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail for trying to exercise power you don’t possess.

So if we’re going to start ignoring the Constitution, I’m fine with that. The first part I’m going to start ignoring is the part that says, I have to do whatever they say.

Glenn Reynolds
Feb 18, 2013
Glenn Reynolds on Politics, the Constitution, and Technology
From the partial transcript at The Raj Koothrappali Approach to Constitutional Law.
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]