U.S. District Judge Edward C. Reed Jr. passed away Saturday, June 1st of natural causes. He was 88 years old and a native Nevadan.

Appointed in 1979 to serve as a U.S. District Judge for the District of Nevada, Reed became a nationally known water rights litigator during his career as an attorney in Reno. Before becoming an attorney, he served honorably in World War II as a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army both in the Europe and the Philippines and. He found himself captured by the Nazis and imprisoned in Germany in 1945.

After the war, Reed returned to school,  graduating from the University of Nevada-Reno in 1949 and then from Harvard Law School in 1952. While there he met Sally Torrance at Wellesley College and the two married June 14th, 1952 in Jamestown, New York.

He was also a championship tennis player in Nevada and won the Reno City Singles Championship in 1951, 1958 and 1959.  Reed was also an all-state basketball player at Reno High School and the University of Nevada.

Because of his many years serving as President and a member of the Washoe County School Board, Edward C. Reed High School in Sparks, is named for him.

If only real life were like the bureaucratic life.

Samantha Power has been given the nod as our newest U.N Ambassador. She’s worked for George Soros’s Open Society Institute, an organization linked to anti-Semitic rhetoric.

That can’t be good news for Israel. Hamas is jumping for joy, though.

IRS Exempt Organization Specialist Stephen Seok, who signed many of the letters sent to conservative nonprofits.  He has since been promoted to “supervisor IRS agent.”

Then there’s Sarah Hall Ingram, IRS commissioner during the time the agency singled out conservative groups. She’s now director of the IRS’s “Obamacare” Division.

Not only can she audit you, she can screw up your medical records while she’s at it.

Meanwhile Susan Rice is the president’s new National Security Adviser. She lied several times about the terrorist attack in Benghazi that killed four American.

Acting Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Robert Perciasepe is still waiting for the next scandal sword to fall on.

President Obama recently lectured the U.S. Naval Academy’s graduating class of 2013 on sexual assault during his commencement speech. The president’s remarks come amid same-stream media reports of an increase in sexual assault cases in the armed forces.

“Likewise, those who commit sexual assault are not only committing a crime, they threaten the trust and discipline that make our military strong. That’s why we have to be determined to stop these crimes, because they’ve got no place in the greatest military on Earth.”

While it’s not clear if the rate of sexual violence is any higher in the military than in the general-public, it is known one in two women and one in five men have experienced some sort of sexual violence. Obama must think rape – along with pillage and plunder – is a part of the military’s ethos.

In U.S. history class, we learned that a Richard Windsor served in the Lewis and Clark Expedition and Corps of Discovery. He’s mentioned in the Lewis and Clark journals for an accident that almost cost him his life.

While crossing a bluff he slipped and fell and Lewis told him to dig his knife in and climb up. He did so, and escaped death.

However, there is another Richard Windsor to discuss – this one is a woman.

Windsor – or rather former EPA chief Jackson – used the name to hide her email activity from anyone wanting to know about official business she was working on at the agency.  Furthermore, that didn’t stop she/he/it from being awarded many certificates for ethics, records management and cyber-security.

It was recently learned that the EPA waived Freedom of Information Act requests for at least seven “green groups,” while charging groups considered “unfriendly” to the EPA were charged nearly every time. No statement on the partisan behavior at the EPA has been issued yet.

Federal law requires agency officials to keep all official emails that may be covered by FOIA requests. Federal employees are also required to provide copies of private emails used for official business to agency FOIA officials.

Jackson resigned as EPA administrator in December 2012 shortly after her agency’s inspector-general announced an investigation into the fake “Richard Windsor.” She now works for Apple.

As an intersting side-note, Apple is working on technology to mine data from I-phone users.

Obamacare “death panels,” are real. This comes to light after Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said, “Well I would suggest sir that again this is an incredibly agonizing situation where someone lives and someone dies.”

She was talking about an Affordability Care Act regulation barring a 10-year-old girl — given just weeks to live — from getting a lung transplant because she not the mandatory age of 12. Fortunately, U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson ordered the dying girl be made eligible for donor lungs from an adult by overruling Sebelius.

Since 2007, the National Security Agency and FBI have monitored several Internet companies in an operation code-named “PRISM.”  Those companies are AOL, Apple, Google, Dropbox, Facebook, Microsoft, PalTalk, Skype, Yahoo and YouTube.

Many of these companies are denying any involvement and it’s certain there are others involved. This is happening under the early 70’s doctrine of “Third Party Access,” which claims that since you had “private information” on a check, and that check across the country to pay a bill, the information is no longer private.

Meanwhile, President Obama is appearing at two Democratic fundraisers in California today.  The first one is a cocktail party at Flipboard CEO Mike McCue’s home.

The connection: Flipboard is a digital social magazine that aggregates web links from your social circle, like Twitter, Facebook, etc., then displays the content in magazine form on an iPad.

The National Security Agency held a small ribbon cutting ceremony May 30th for its Utah Data Center. The Center, at Camp Williams near Bluffdale between Utah Lake and Great Salt Lakereportedly houses four 25,000 square foot halls of servers and routers designed to collected and store private data from the Internet, cell phones and other electronic signal-emitting devices.

Now, a British newspaper is reporting communication records of millions of U.S. citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk, regardless of whether they were suspected of any wrongdoing. The Guardian says it’s obtained the copy of an order issued in April and was good through July 19th, from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ordering Verizon to provide the NSA with telephone records of its customers.

Under the terms of the order, the phone numbers of both parties on a call are to be handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. However, the paper says the order doesn’t specify which type of phone customers’ records were being tracked or why.

And this is jus’ the one secret order we know about.

UPDATE:  Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Senator Dianne Feinstein of California says the National Security Agency’s top secret court order for telephone records of millions of U.S. customers of Verizon is a three-month renewal of an ongoing practice.  She says the practice is legal under the Patriot Act.

UPDATE 2: Now Republican RINO Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina says he’s “glad” that the NSA is collecting telephone records — including  his  own — in an  attempt to combat terrorism.

UPDATE 3: Add AT&T and T-Mobile to the list of cell phone companies on the FISA order.

Nevada’s Governor Brian Sandoval recently signed a law named after Reno murder victim Brianna Dennison which will take effect January 1^st, 2014. According to the new law, if you’re found innocent, not guilty or the charges are dropped, your DNA is expunged from the system.

Now the U.S. Supreme Court says law enforcement can legally take your DNA without a warrant from those arrested in hopes of using it to solve old cases. This comes after a court in Maryland court said it was illegal for the state to take Alonzo King’s DNA without approval from a judge.

But the Supremes issued a 5-4 ruling saying taking DNA samples from people before their guilt or innocence is proven does not violate the U.S. Constitution. It was Justice Anthony Kennedy who called DNA cheek swabs “a legitimate police booking procedure” like fingerprinting or photographing.

Have you ever tried and get your fingerprints expunged? It can’t be done.

“But I thought Da Vinci invented the gun,” I protested as I studied my assignment.

“That’s what most people think,” Colonel Jones responded, “But that’s just the product of a poor education system.”

Sighing, I returned to my piece of paper, which read, “Hugo Borchardt, 1844-1923.” Since being selected for this operation, I was pretty much lost and everything a puzzle, with bits and pieces being fed to me in a hop-scotch manor.

“They’ll let me in on the secret when the time’s right,” I kept telling myself.

Borchardt, I soon learned is credited with developing the automatic loading handgun, know know as an automatic pistol. Why I was memorizing all this information was soon made clear when Jones introduced me to Mr. Smith.

“It’s simple,” Smith said, “The Novikov Principal.”

“The what?” I asked.

“Simply stated, time travel to the past,” he answered.

“No way!” I responded.

Smith explained that many scientists believed backwards time travel could never be done. He added that any theory allowing such time travel would introduce any number of problems.

“The classic example is of course the “grandfather paradox,” he continued, “It asks: what if you were to go back in time and kill your own grandfather before your father was conceived?”

“I wouldn’t exist,” I answered.

“You’d think that,” he said, “but the Novikov Principle gets around that.”

Smith explained the principle says that if an event happens that could “change” the past, then the probability of that event is zero, meaning it is impossible to create such a time paradox.

My mind hung on the word, “if.” I knew it could mean the difference between failure and success.

That’s when the other shoe dropped. I had all the puzzle pieces and suddenly fit into one large mosaic: I was going to travel back in time to meet Borchardt.

Well almost. I wasn’t to meet him, I was to kill him.

“But why?” I asked.

“Surely you understand?” Smith puzzled.

“No, I’m missing it,” I returned.

“How many men, women and children have been killed since the gun was invented?” Smith asked.

He knew I had no way of knowing the answer to that.

“How many wars in the last quarter-century, Captain?” he quizzed.

“Perhaps twenty,” I answered.

So that was my mission, as far-fetched as it sounded, to return to the past and kill the inventor of the semi-automatic pistol. The thought left me dumb-struck as I let it sink in.

“Now that the cats out of the bag, let’s get on with it,” Jones said

The Colonel led the way to the end of the build to a large open room. It was the size of an airplane hanger and in the center of it was a machine, unlike anything I’d ever seen before or since.

There was also a doctor, who gave me a quick examination and another man who assisted me in dressing in a period costume that would help me blend in once I got to where I was going. Concealed under my heavy wool vest was a small, two-shot 25-caliber pistol, which I was to use on Borchardt.

“Have a seat,” Jones directed.

I sat down amid the wires, tubes and diodes.

“I’ll make it simple,” he announced, “You have one-hour to complete your mission.”

“Yes, sir,” I returned.

Smith pushed a button and the machine hummed to life, flashing and whirring. It was hypnotic and I felt myself grow increasingly dizzy, until I felt like I was falling through the sky.

Without warning, I found myself outside, seated on the ground.  I felt as if I were in a dream and floating as I looked around , realizing I was just outside of Trenton, Massachusetts.

It took me a few minutes to not only gather my strength but my bearings as well. After about ten-minutes, it was time to find the Pioneer Breech-Loading Arms Company and the 24-year-old Borchardt.

Though still a bit dizzy and feeling somewhat sick to my stomach, finding the gun makers wasn’t as difficult as I’d thought it would be. The company was more like a shop, a simple two-story building with a large sign over the entrance.

I felt for my pistol, suddenly realizing the irony that I was about to execute the man with the same technology he designed and I was ordered to stop.

“Can I help you?” a man with a heavy German accent asked as I stepped through the door.

“I am looking for a Hugo Borchardt,” answered.

“That is me,” he responded .

That’s when I drew my pistol from my vest and aimed it at him. At first he looked frightened, but then his fright turned to curiosity and he stepped forward to get a better look at it.

“Beautiful!” he exclaimed as he reached out and touched it with a childlike inquisitiveness.The young man seemed bedazzled, unaware of his impending death

I felt my hand begin to shake as I held the pistol in front of his face.

Then without warning, I felt that still-unfamiliar hypnotic, dizzying sensation as the small room began to tilt left-to-right. Suddenly, I grabbed my head as a sharp, hot pain stabbed it’s way through my brain.

When I woke up, I discovered myself back in the large room from where my strange journey began. Both Jones and Smith were standing over me as I had been moved from the machine to a nearby gurney.

“Well?” they asked in unison.

“I – I – I…” my voice cracked as I cleared my throat, “Didn’t get him. Back too soon. One more minute.”

“Where’s your pistol, Captain?” the Colonel shouted.

“D – d – dropped it,” I answered as I faded into unconsciousness.

My wife ordered a two-pound bag of black licorice taffy from Vermont to send to her brother in San Diego. A few minutes after placing the order, she received a phone call from a clerk informing her they couldn’t ship her order because of California’s Proposition 65.

Say what?

Officially known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, it’s supposed to protect Californians from chemicals known to cause cancer and birth defects. The official website has 22 pages of so-called harmful chemicals.

Well, I wanted to know what chemical this candy contained making it so dangerous the third largest state in the nation has banned it. So I called the number listed on the website.

After nearly half-an-hour of research by the person on the other end of the line, she said she couldn’t tell me which chemicals were in the candy or why it’s banned.  I could tell she was a baffled as me.

No wonder California’s economy is in the tank.

My wife ended up ordering the candy anyway. She plans to mail it to her brother personally, thus bypassing all the governmental red-tape.