Nine Things That are Common Among Serial Killers

1. They do not have motives for their murders.
2. They have no personality structures and do not fit into the usual theories of development espoused by people like Freud or Kohut.
3. They are not psychopaths because psychopaths can have the ability to control what they do, think, and feel.
4. They are not mentally retarded; most of them have an above-average intelligence.
5. They are not psychologically complete human beings, even though they can mimic and play roles.
6. They have not all been sexually abused, nor have they all been physically abused.
7. They are addicted to killings and they cannot control their actions.
8. Serial murder is not a phenomenon only of Western society. It happens around the world.
9. Serial murder is not a new phenomenon. It probably began with the most primitive of societies thousands of years ago.

Source: My Life Among Serial Killers. Inside the Minds of the World’s Most Notorious Murders (2004) by Helen Morrison, M. D. and Harold Goldberg

Point 8 is interesting. The old Soviet Union had a serial killer. Keep in mind USSR back then was one of the most controlled society. They were supposed to represent a socialistic utopia. And then there was Jack the Ripper.

I believe most serial killers don’t use guns to commit murder. Why? Because most serial killers are hands on. They want to watch their victims die. And they want to cause a lot of pain. It’s hard to do that with a gun.

As I was reading this book, simultaneously I was reading the novel Kiss The Girls by James Patterson. If you don’t know it’s a novel about two serial killers that became “buddies.” If you can believe that.

Obama’s Creative New Way of Describing the Obamacare Mandate

From The Blaze.com (May 23):

President Barack Obama told a fundraising crowd in his hometown of Chicago that Obamacare, known mostly for the individual mandate, is simply a free-market tool “to encourage people to buy insurance.”

“Encourage” is an interesting characterization of what both Republicans and Democrats consistently called a “mandate” during the debate over the Affordable Care Act, and during the legal fight that went to the Supreme Court, which ruled in 2012 that the mandate was constitutional as a tax. The law also contains subsidies for lower income Americans to purchase health insurance, which would be a carrot for some to buy insurance, and a stick for all who didn’t.

Although the health law relies on penalties to get people to buy private insurance plans, the Merriam-Webster definition of “encourage” is “to make (someone) more determined, hopeful, or confident,” “to make (something) more appealing or more likely to happen,” or “to make (someone) more likely to do something : to tell or advise (someone) to do something.” [read more]

Yea, that’s an interesting way to put it. More like doublespeak. For one thing, Obamacare is not the free-market. You do not have the option not to buy health insurance. That’s like saying being fined or going to jail is a way to encourage people to pay their taxes.

U.S. utility's control system was hacked, says Homeland Security

From Reuters.com (May 20):

A sophisticated hacking group recently attacked a U.S. public utility and compromised its control system network, but there was no evidence that the utility's operations were affected, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

DHS did not identify the utility in a report that was issued this week by the agency's Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team, or ICS-CERT.

"While unauthorized access was identified, ICS-CERT was able to work with the affected entity to put in place mitigation strategies and ensure the security of their control systems before there was any impact to operations," a DHS official told Reuters on Tuesday.

Such cyber attacks are rarely disclosed by ICS-CERT, which typically keeps details about its investigations secret to encourage businesses to share information with the government. Companies are often reluctant to go public about attacks to avoid potentially negative publicity. [read more]

This is scary. A hacker could possibly shut down a power grid. Although EMP attack would be easier. I wonder who the hacking group was. China? N. Korea? Iran? A domestic group? If it is foreign more than likely China. They have been known to hack into businesses and gov’t agencies.

13 Gun Owners Share Why They Carry a Firearm

From The Blaze.com (May 15):

Why do you carry a gun?

Gun owners are regularly presented with this particular question — and some are now speaking out. Using popular smartphone application Whisper, many Second Amendment enthusiasts have turned  to the social network to explain to others why they carry a firearm.

Whisper guarantees its users absolute privacy and, as a result, many of the resulting confessions are powerful and raw.

1. Protect My Family
2. For Equality*
3. Because Evil Exists
4. I’ll Never Be a Victim*
5. To Protect My Kids
6. For When Police Aren’t There. The average police response time is 10 min. Average time of interaction between criminal and victim—90 seconds. This is why I own a gun.
7. So I Will Never Be a Victim*
8. For Security*
9. To Protect My Home
10. So I Can Help Others
11. Independence
12. For My Personal Safety
13. To Fend Off Evil

[read more]

Just so you know, the reasons given with an asterisk were said by women. So, if you are for strong gun-control laws, you’re helping in the war against women.

Michelle Obama Would Like Students to Monitor Family Members for Racial Insensitivity

From The Blaze.com (May 19):

First lady Michelle Obama is encouraging students to monitor their older relatives, friends and co-workers for any racially insensitive comments they might make, and to challenge those comments whenever they’re made.

The first lady spoke on Friday to graduating high school students in Topeka, Kansas, and in remarks released over the weekend, Obama said students need to police family and friends because federal laws can only go so far in stopping racism.

“[O]ur laws may no longer separate us based on our skin color, but nothing in the Constitution says we have to eat together in the lunchroom, or live together in the same neighborhoods,” she said. “There’s no court case against believing in stereotypes or thinking that certain kinds of hateful jokes or comments are funny.”

To address these limitations in the law, Obama asked students to take steps to “drag my generation and your grandparents’ generation along with you” in the fight against racism.

“Maybe that starts simply in your own family, when grandpa tells that off-colored joke at Thanksgiving, or you’ve got an aunt [that] talks about ‘those people,’” she said. “Well, you can politely inform them that they’re talking about your friends. [read more]

Michelle Obama adds, “And if you want to monitor your family comments about small government, low taxes, less regulation, and gun-rights. You can do that too. Welcome to the Collective. And have a nice day.” (Okay, I’m joking. She never said that. But probably thought it anyway.)

Obama and their progressive fellows just want fight against conservatism and Constitutionalism. But we’ll leave the Islamist alone.

Price for Nevada dad to see state's school files on his kids: $10G

From Fox News.com (May 13):

Nevada dad John Eppolito got a bad case of sticker shock when he asked state education officials to see the permanent records of his four children.

He was told it would cost $10,194.

A Lake Tahoe-area real estate agent by trade and a fierce opponent of Common Core, Eppolito was concerned about Nevada's recent decision to join a multi-state consortium that shares students’ data. He wanted to know exactly what information had been compiled on his school-age kids. But state officials told him he would have to pay fees and the cost of programming and running a custom report.

“The problem is that I can’t stop them from collecting the data,” Eppolito told FoxNews.com. “I just wanted to know what it [collected data] was. It almost seems impossible. Certainly $10,000 is enough reason to prevent a parent from getting the data.”

Nevada has spent an estimated $10 million in its seven-year-old System of Accountability Information in Nevada, known as SAIN. Data from county school systems is uploaded nightly to a state database, and, under the new arrangement, potentially shared with other counties and states. But Eppolito wonders why the state is collecting data that parents can't even view. [read more]

If this is happening in Nevada it is probably happening in other states that have Common Core.

The dad doesn’t get it. He can’t see the records on kids because the state doesn’t see the kids as his kids but kids that belong to the State. And any data gathered from his kids belongs to them as well.  Welcome to the Collective. That’s what the progressives in the state believe anyway.

Along the same lines, here are some Common Core grammar lessons:

He [Obama] makes sure the country’s laws are fair.

Government officials’ commands must be obeyed by all.

An individual wants are less important than the nation’s well-being.

The mean republicans in Congress are against the Great Leader’s sacred mission for the country.

Okay, I made up the last line. But then again you never know. Learning has been morphed into propaganda. Exactly what Karl Marx always intended.

Your Phone’s ‘Tilt’ Sensor Allows People to Track You

From The Blaze.com (May 9):

Never mind what you actually text or say on the phone — now even the way you tap, hold and move it can be tracked.

A U.S. research team revealed your smartphone and tablet’s “tilt” and “swipe” motion sensor data — which cannot be blocked — can be used to track your movements and even determine your passwords.

Smartphone accelerometers — the gadget that helps your phone determine which way is up or down and how the screen should be oriented — emit a unique data “fingerprint” that can allow your phone to be tracked. Even if all other privacy settings are locked down, the phone still shares this data with hungry apps or hackers, according to the MIT Technology Review.

Tiny hardware imperfections in smartphone and tablet accelerometers lead to these unique “fingerprints” within the data they produce, Romit Roy Choudhury revealed. The University of Illinois associate professor investigated the phenomenon with colleagues at the University of South Carolina.

“There has been a lot of work to catch the leakage of ID information from phones,” Choudhury reveals in their paper. “We are now saying that accelerometer data going out of the phone can be treated as an ID.” [read more]

Interesting, but kind of scary too. So, turning off your phone’s GPS will do no good?  Huh.

Saturated fat does not cause heart disease

From Wall Street Journal.com (May 6):

"Saturated fat does not cause heart disease"—or so concluded a big study published in March in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. How could this be? The very cornerstone of dietary advice for generations has been that the saturated fats in butter, cheese and red meat should be avoided because they clog our arteries. For many diet-conscious Americans, it is simply second nature to opt for chicken over sirloin, canola oil over butter.

The new study's conclusion shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with modern nutritional science, however. The fact is, there has never been solid evidence for the idea that these fats cause disease. We only believe this to be the case because nutrition policy has been derailed over the past half-century by a mixture of personal ambition, bad science, politics and bias.

Our distrust of saturated fat can be traced back to the 1950s, to a man named Ancel Benjamin Keys, a scientist at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Keys was formidably persuasive and, through sheer force of will, rose to the top of the nutrition world—even gracing the cover of Time magazine—for relentlessly championing the idea that saturated fats raise cholesterol and, as a result, cause heart attacks.

Critics have pointed out that Dr. Keys violated several basic scientific norms in his study. For one, he didn't choose countries randomly but instead selected only those likely to prove his beliefs, including Yugoslavia, Finland and Italy. Excluded were France, land of the famously healthy omelet eater, as well as other countries where people consumed a lot of fat yet didn't suffer from high rates of heart disease, such as Switzerland, Sweden and West Germany. The study's star subjects—upon whom much of our current understanding of the Mediterranean diet is based—were peasants from Crete, islanders who tilled their fields well into old age and who appeared to eat very little meat or cheese. [read more]

Along the same lines, 60 Minutes had a show a couple of Sundays back that strongly suggested that the elderly people that were overweight (but not obese) lived longer than those who were underweight.

When science gets corrupted by ideology and money that does a disserve to science generally. The public starts to question the results science puts out. It starts to lose the trust people put in it. And science should be about finding the truth or at least objective facts. The public should not take any hypothesis or theory that science produces  anyway. Science like all social systems, it is imperfect. It can be wrong.

So, go and enjoy that T-bone steak and don’t feel guilty.

Hillary Clinton’s Thoughts on Gun Ownership

From The Blaze.com (May 7):

Staking out a position to the left of other potential Democratic opponents in 2016, Hillary Clinton said a culture where “anybody can have a gun” will lead to a country with “no rule of law and no self-control.”

The former secretary of state, New York senator and first lady spoke at the National Council for Behavioral Health conference Tuesday in Oxen Hill, Md., near Washington.

“I think again we’re way out of balance,” Clinton said of the Second Amendment debate, according to the Associated Press. “I think that we’ve got to rein in what has become an almost article of faith that anybody can have a gun anywhere, anytime. And I don’t believe that is in the best interest of the vast majority of people. And I think you can say that and still support the right of people to own guns.” [read more]

Anybody? Well, as far as I know if you have a felony record or are mentally imbalanced you can’t have a gun. Does “anybody” include her and her husband’s bodyguards I wonder?  Or is it the elite that should own guns and no-one else.

If a country becomes chaotic because of no rule of law and no-self control it isn’t the gun’s fault. That’s because there isn’t any morality or self-control in the country anymore. You know like the Congress not able to control their spending. You could just as well substitute the word “knife” for “gun” or any other weapon and get the same meaning.

Bus-Sized Asteroid Makes Close Pass by Earth

From Blaze.com (May 5):

A bus-sized asteroid passed by the Earth at a distance closer than the moon Saturday — but the more disconcerting part is how little warning astronomers had of the event.

Scientists learned of the 25-foot asteroid named 2014 HL129 just three days before it came within 186,000 miles of Earth.

The asteroid was spotted by astronomers with the Mt. Lemmon Survey, located in the Catalina Mountains of Arizona.

Though Saturday’s event was only a close shave, incidents like the 65-foot-wide meteor that crashed in Russia in February 2013 — which went undetected until it was too late — are why NASA and other government space agencies around the world are working to better predict these giant space rocks that can have catastrophic consequences. [read more]

Darn, that dark matter! See my April 30 article if you don’t know what I am talking about.

I hope NASA can find time in their Muslim outreach program to better predict asteroids and other flying objects in space. You know to do actual space science.

Hackers Can Mess With Traffic Lights to Jam Roads and Reroute Cars

From Wired.com (April 30):

The hacker in the Italian Job did it spectacularly. So did the fire sale team in Live Free or Die Hard. But can hackers really hijack traffic lights to cause gridlock and redirect cars?

According to one researcher, parts of the vehicle traffic control system installed at major arteries in U.S. cities and the nation’s capital are so poorly secured they can be manipulated to snarl traffic or force cars onto different streets.

The hack doesn’t target the traffic lights directly but rather sensors embedded in streets that feed data to traffic control systems, says Cesar Cerrudo, an Argentinian security researcher with IoActive who examined the systems and plans to present his findings at the upcoming Infiltrate conference in Florida.

The vulnerable controllers–Sensys Networks VDS240 wireless vehicle detection systems–are installed in 40 U.S. cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, Washington, DC, as well as in nine other countries. [read more]

That’s kind of scary. I guess you can just about hack anything anymore.

Source: U.S. Knew Weapons and Aid Were Going to Al Qaeda-Linked Militants in Libya

From Blaze.com (April 28):

A U.S. businesswoman and paid CIA and FBI informant in Libya who said she was a good friend of Ambassador Christopher Stevens’ told TheBlaze the Obama administration knew that weapons and aid were ending up in the hands of Al Qaeda-affiliated militants in the country before the deadly Benghazi attacks.

The informant, going by the pseudonym “Annie” to protect her identity, said she met with Stevens on numerous occasions during her time in Libya and gathered information for the CIA and FBI on rebel leaders and terrorist organizations operating inside the country.

Annie told TheBlaze TV’s For the Record that there was “a disconnect between senior elected officials [and] Obama” as to the reality on the ground in Libya. The rebels were nothing more than terrorists backed by members of the Muslim Brotherhood; the fact that the administration was “very aggressive in promoting support for the rebels” was perplexing, she said.

In an example of that “disconnect,” the State Department received multiple warnings not to hire the British security firm tasked with protecting the U.S. ambassador in Libya, just as anti-U.S. sentiment within rebel factions became an imminent danger known to Obama administration officials who did little to protect Americans working in the region, TheBlaze has learned. [read more]

So, now the Administration is now arming our enemies? Nice, real nice. As far as I know Al Qaeda is still our enemy. They still want to do America harm. And the Obama admin. is arming them. Either the admin. is stupid or the admin. doesn’t care about this nation. Possibly, both.

Dark matter 'slingshot' could send lethal asteroids crashing into Earth

From Fox News.com (April 29):

Dark matter could sling lethal meteors at Earth, potentially causing mass extinctions like the cataclysm that ended the Age of Dinosaurs, Harvard scientists say.

Physicists think the mysterious, invisible substance called dark matter makes up five-sixths of all matter in the universe. It was first detected by the strength of its gravitational pull, which apparently helps keep the Milky Way and other galaxies from spinning apart, given the speeds at which they whirl.

Scientists have recently suggested that a thin, dense disk of dark matter about 35 light-years thick lies along the central plane of the Milky Way, cutting through the galaxy's disk of stars. The sun travels in an up-and-down, wavy motion through this plane while orbiting the center of the galaxy.

Researchers suggest this disk of clouds and clumps made of dark matter might disturb the orbits of comets in the outer solar system, hurling them inward. This could lead to catastrophic asteroid impacts on Earth, of the kind that likely ended the Age of Dinosaurs, said theoretical physicists Lisa Randall and Matthew Reece at Harvard University. [read more]

And climate change scientists are worried about the earth getting hotter in the far future. I don’t know I think scientists should be worried about something that could really happen. Like asteroids hitting the earth.

Excerpts from Virginia Declaration of Rights

Section 1. That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

Section 2. That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the People; that magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them.

Section 3. That Government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community;—of all the various modes and forms of Government that is best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of mal-administration;—and that, whenever any Government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right, to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.

Section 4. That no man, or set of men, are entitled to exclusive or separate emoluments and privileges from the community, but in consideration of public services; which, not being descendible, neither ought the offices of Magistrate, Legislator, or Judge, to be hereditary.

Section 15. That no free Government, or the blessing of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.

Section 16. That Religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and, therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity, towards each other.

This document was written by George Mason in June 12, 1776. It predates the Declaration of Independence by a month. All of it is good. Section 15 is my favorite because it basically talks about self-control. You can read the whole document at Constitution Reader.com.

Liberty and Small Government in Tao te Ching

From FEE.org (April 22):

“When the Master governs,” wrote Lao Tzu, “the people/are hardly aware that he exists.” This passage, like many in the ancient Chinese wisdom poem Tao te Ching (pronounced dow deh jing), expresses the paradoxical view of passivity as the most effective political power:

If you want to be a great leader,
you must learn to follow the Tao.
Stop trying to control.
Let go of fixed plans and concepts,
and the world will govern itself.
 
The more prohibitions you have,
the less virtuous people will be.
The more weapons you have,
the less secure people will be.
The more subsidies you have,
the less self-reliant people will be.
 
Therefore the Master says:
I let go of the law,
and people become honest.
I let go of economics,
and people become prosperous.
I let go of religion,
and people become serene.
I let go of all desire for the common good,
and the good becomes common as grass.

[read more]

Interesting. I didn’t know conservatism was that old. The Tao te Ching goes continues:

When the government is too intrusive,
people lose their spirit.
 
Act for the people’s benefit.
Trust them; leave them alone.

Yea, that definitely isn’t happening in China now.

EPA human test subjects not always told about lethal risks of studies

From FoxNews.com (April 2):

The Environmental Protection Agency has been testing the impact of pollutants on human subjects without always telling them about the risks of heavy exposure -- risks that include cancer, and even death.

The findings were included in a newly released EPA inspector general report, which urged the agency to overhaul its guidelines to make sure test subjects understand all the risks before signing up.

"[E]vidence suggests that at least some human study subjects would like to know if a study involves risk of death, even if the risk is very small," the report said.

The EPA is authorized under federal law to perform human testing, as part of its ongoing effort to regulate potentially harmful pollutants. The agency has spent millions of dollars on this research. [read more]

Where is the lame-stream-press reporting this? If a private organization like a corporation had been doing this it would been broadcasted in every newspaper and on the TV. But since the “benevolent” gov’t is doing it is okay. Nothing to see here. Move on, please. Just the gov’t protecting the people by exposing other people to potentially harmful pollutants. Figure that one out. I guess you could call it a sacrifice to the collective.

If this had been animals being exposed the animal rights nuts would have had a stroke. Well, maybe not. Since, Big Gov is their god. Who knows.

I don’t know but this is close to what the Nazi’s did. I believe Hitler authorized his henchmen to perform experiments on people too.

The Truth about the Minimum Wage video

So, true.

Source: The Truth about the Minimum Wage by Fee.org.

Politicians want to raise the minimum wage for two reasons: To show they “care” and to get votes. Well, raising the minimum wage only helps those who are working—temporarily and not those looking for work. Just like rent control only helps those who are already renting.

Politicians and those who support raising the minimum wage just don’t understand side effects or if you will “what will happen in the future if I support this bill.” Economist Thomas Sowell calls this type of short-term thinking “stage-one thinking.”

Peter Schweizer’s Congressional Reforms

1. Ban the solicitation or receipt of campaign contributions while Congress is in session in Washington.
2. Place an outright ban on contributions and solicitations involving lobbyists or governmental contractors.
3. Restrict the ability of the Permanent Political Class (PPC) to convert campaign money into a lifestyle subsidy. Loaning money to your campaign is fine as long as you don’t collect interest.
4. Ban leadership PACs.
5. Restrict the ability of the PPC to extort money for their families through political power. We need to ban immediate family members (spouses and children) from registering as lobbyists. Period. We also need to prevent members of Congress from putting family members on the payroll.

Source: Extortion. How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets (2013) by Peter Schweizer.

Good ideas but I wonder how many in Congress will actually embrace these reforms. Probably not a whole lot since most are addicted to the money. And the power.

The Six Preservations of Men

If a ruler doesn’t select men around him who doesn’t’ have six preservations then he will lose his power. The six preservations are: Benevolence, righteousness, loyalty, trust (good faith), courage, and last planning.

Here’s how to select men with these qualities:

Make men rich and observe whether they do not commit offenses. Give them rank and observe whether they do not become arrogant. Entrust them with responsibilities and see whether they will not change. Employ them and see whether they will not conceal anything. Endanger them and see whether they are not afraid. Give them the management of affairs and see whether they are not perplexed. 

If you make them rich but they do not commit offenses, they are benevolent. If you give them rank and they do not grow arrogant, they are righteous. If you entrust them with office and they do not change, they are loyal. If you employ them and they do not conceal anything, they are trustworthy. If you put them in danger and they are not afraid, they are courageous. If you give them management of affairs and they are not perplexed, they are capable of making plans.

Source: The Six Secret Teaching on the Way of Strategy. A Manual from Ancient China in the Tradition of The Art of War (1993) translated by Ralph D. Sawyer.

In the same chapter, The T’ai Kung talks about the “three treasures” rulers should never loan to other men otherwise the ruler will lose his awesomeness as Kung puts. The treasures are great agriculture, great industry, and great commerce.

The American Founding: Revolutionary or Conservative? lecture notes

Three National Crises:

1. The American Revolution. When the Democrat-Republican party won the election over the Federalists party it was the first time a different type of gov’t came into power without crises.
2. The Civil War. The first time in American history that slavery was declared a good practice. Before that the Founders and people at that time condemned it. The human being is a product of time and circumstances. Not of nature or God’s providence. Time and circumstances made slaves inferior and slave owners get to own them.
3. Progressivism. Human beings are evolving. Societies are evolving.

What caused America? See Aristotle’s Four Causes.

1. The material cause- the land and the people.
2. The efficient cause- the Founders.
3. The formal cause- the Constitution.
4. The final cause- the principles in the Declaration of Independence.

Is the Constitution a revolutionary or a conservative document? It’s both. It’s conservative because of God’s law doesn’t change and is eternal. Also, the Founders talked about reason controlling the passions of men. The Constitution is revolutionary because it said nobody is born to be king. No-one can own another person. We are responsible for ourselves.

Source: The American Founding: Revolutionary or Conservative? from Hillsdale.edu.