A Geek With Guns

This time its being used to collect more tax dollars. Via Dvorak Uncensored we have a touching story of the IRS doing what the IRS does:

Arriving at Harv’s Metro Car Wash in midtown Wednesday afternoon were two dark-suited IRS agents demanding payment of delinquent taxes. “They were deadly serious, very aggressive, very condescending,” says Harv’s owner, Aaron Zeff.

Oh crap I forgot to paste in the best part:

The really odd part of this: The letter that was hand-delivered to Zeff’s on-site manager showed the amount of money owed to the feds was … 4 cents.

And that’s not all:

Inexplicably, penalties and taxes accruing on the debt – stemming from the 2006 tax year – were listed as $202.31, leaving Harv’s with an obligation of $202.35.

So because of being short four cents on his taxes Mr. Zeff now owes the IRS $202.35. Yeah the American tax code is so just and fair.

I rarely touch the Health Care debate but there is one little thing about it that’s always annoyed me. Take a look at the picture:

Nothing something odd, besides the condescending ass in the center. Those “doctors” behind him are wearing lab coats. When the Hell is the last time you’ve seen doctors wearing lab coats outside of the office? Hell most doctors I know don’t wear lab coats half of the time they’re in the office.

Does the president believe the American people are so stupid that we can’t identify a person as a “doctor” unless they’re wearing a lab coat? That’s the message I get out of that.

This time it isn’t good as The Firearms Blog reports. The FBI nailed one of their executives for bribery. The FBI agents posted as representatives of an African nation and apparently the executive attempted to bribe them. Ouch!

Also expect the Brady Bunch and Bloomberg’s Posse to make a press release attempting to say this was due to weak gun laws.

They taketh away. The government handed banks of this country a lot of tax payer month, wether the banks wanted the money or not. Well the banks are not looking at potentially being taxed by the government to recoup costs. Yes that’s right the banks are in financial trouble so we give them bailout money. If a bank wasn’t in financial trouble they had to take the money anyways. Now those banks are going to be taxed. That’s your government at work everybody.

Well it appears since the Australian government wasn’t able to get ISPs to voluntarily implement Internet filtering they are going make it mandatory via law. So long freedom of speech and thought.

Says Uncle once again presents a story showing what is wrong with Britain.

A knife wielding thug decided to brake into Munir Hussain’s home. Mr. Hussain decided he’s have none of that and defended his family and home with a cricket bat. What was the outcome? Well Mr. Hussain is serving 30 months in jail while the invader walked out with two years parole. Furthermore the invader, Mr. Salem, wasn’t exactly a law abiding citizen:

Salem was the only intruder caught after the incident in September last year, but his injuries meant that he was not fit to plead after being charged with false imprisonment. Salem, who has 50 past convictions, was given a two-year supervision order in September this year. He is now in custody awaiting trial for an alleged credit card fraud.

Yeah that’s right a person with 50 previous convictions is getting two years on parole while the person who owned the home he broke into is getting 30 months in jail. Thankfully Britain likes to do things that make sense.

A couple posts ago I talked about how I felt felons shouldn’t be barred their right to bear arms. As it sits right snow in this country anybody convicted of a felony can no longer own or use a firearm legally. One problem is the list of felony charges is every increasing and many have nothing to do with violent behavior.

Listening to the latest episode of This Week in Tech I came across this story. From the story:

A birthday party that included a trip to see “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” could send 22 year old Samantha Tumpach to prison for three years.

So she taped a few minutes of a shitty movie based on a shitty book. What kind of charge do you get for that?

The managers at the theater contacted the police and Tumpach was arrested. She spent two days in jail and now has felony charges to face for illegally copying a movie.

Yup a felony. Tell me why this girl should be barred her right to bear arms. I’m waiting. She’s done nothing violent but thanks to the Gun Control Act of 1968 she, if prosecuted, will be barred her rights because she recorded a few minutes of a movie on a her camcorder. Yeah I guess all felons should be prevented from purchasing firearms.

Via Dvorak Uncensored we have news that shows Goldman Sachs employees are better than either you or I. From the article:

“I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,” said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.

And:

The New York Police Department has told me that “as a preliminary matter” it believes some of the bankers I inquired about do have pistol permits. The NYPD also said it will be a while before it can name names.

Now somebody is probably thinking I’m going to go on a tirade about why these people should be shot and such. But I’m not because really I blame the economic problems of today on government interference into what should be a free market (I’m looking at you Federal Reserve Act).

Nope I think it’s smart these bankers are arming themselves. I arm myself and I’m not in any situation as bad as they are. But not where these permits are being granted. That’s right New York City. See if you are politically well connected enough or rich enough you to can get a permit in that city. But for average people like you and me there isn’t a snowballs chance in Hel (not a misspelling, look up Norse mythology).

An no those aren’t my words. Either way congressman King of New York is a little upset that Wikileaks posted 500,000 intercepted pager messages obtained during 9/11. He’s so upset that he’s launched an investigation into Wikileaks. From his lips to our ears:

“It does raise security issues, and we will look into it in Washington,” King (R-Seaford), the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security, said Friday.

Correct me if I’m wrong but in a open and transparent government such as our is supposed to be shouldn’t this information have been provided by the government freely? I’m going to go ahead and write my standard disclaimer that I don’t believe there is any grand conspiracy behind the 9/11 attacks. What I do believe is the government has used that event to shit all over our civil rights and allow themselves to play the “classified” card on everything.

But I think I have an idea how those messages were intercepted:

“All pager traffic is non-encrypted,” said Phil Lieberman, president of Lieberman Software Corp. of Los Angeles. “The fact that people are intercepting the traffic is not surprising.”

Poor security, it’s always biting people in the ass. By you might want to pay Lieberman since he found your hole.

Further proof people are out there trying to scam you out of your money. I heard about this little fiasco a while ago but never knew who sites were helping in it.

This article on CNet does a good job covering the actual scam. But to sum it up in a small bit of information it’s this. When you go to a website signed up with a company called WebLoyalty a pop-up appears asking you if you want to receive a coupon for your next purchase. All they ask you to input is your e-mail address.

Well when you do that they begin charging your credit card every month. See the companies listed on the previous link give your credit card information to WebLoyalty who give that said company a cut of the monthly charge. The surprising thing are the names of the companies on this list. It’s not just a series of no-name retailers. Here is a list from the article linked:

Partners Paid Over $10 Million

1-800-Flowers.com
Buy.com
Classmates.com
Columbia House
Confi-Check
Expedia/Hotels.com
Fandango
FTD
Hotwire
InQ
Intelius
MovieTickets.com
Orbitz
Priceline
Redcats USA
Shutterfly
Travelocity
US Airways
VistaPrint

Partners Paid Between $1 and 10 Million

1-800 PetMeds
Adteractiv
Airtran Airways
Allegiant Air
Allposters.com
American Greetings
Auto Parts
Avon
Barnes & Noble
Bizrate.com
Bookspan
Boston Apparel Group
BuySeasons/Celebrate Express
Campusfood.com
Cendant Intercompany Agreements
Channel Advisor
Cheap Tickets
Choice Hotels
CollectionsEtc.com
Continental Airlines
Currents USA (123 Prints)
Custom Direct
Digital River
Dr. Leonard’s
Drugstore
eHarmony
eTix
eToys
Fareportal
FragranceNet
From You Flowers
FTD Florists Online
Gamestop/EBgames
Gevalia
Haband
Half.com
Hanover Direct
Hertz
HiSpeed Media
Infinity Resources
J.C. Whitney
Joann.com
Lillian Vernon
Live Nation
Marketworks
Miles Kimball
Musicnotes
MyLife.com
MyPoints
Pizza Hut
Potpourri
Restaurants.com
Riverdeep
Shoebuy
Simplexity
Spirit Airlines
Suresource/Americart
Thompson Group
Tiger Direct
TimeLife
True.com
True Credit (True Link)
Upsellit.com
US Search
Victoria’s Secret
Vitacost
WayPort
West
Yahoo

You may ask why this scam works since the charges appears on your credit card statement every month. It works because nobody checks those. This scam here is a good lesson to always check EVERY item on your credit card bill.

Of course now there’s talk of legislative action yadda yadda. Really it’s another pony show by legislators to make people think they’re doing something. In all honesty if you aren’t checking your credit card bill every month and disputing things you didn’t buy this is on your hands.