Month: March 2011

Hope and Change

I’m at a loss on this story:

The Associated Press has sued several retailers including Urban Outfitters for the unauthorised use of the Hope image created by artist Shepard Fairey.

What confuses me is how can you copyright a portrayal of a person? The picture under scrutiny here is that red, white, and blue image of the Obamessiah. Being it’s a, and I use the term very loosely, work of art based on a person shouldn’t that person get a say in how it is used? Can somebody just create a painting of me and then sell it but later sue me if I violate their copyright by using it? Couple this with the fact Obama is a public figured and the entire situation gets really dicey.

How the Hell did the Associated Press get a copyright on an artistic portrayal of a person? Did Obama even have a say in this issue? From where I’m sitting this is one fucked up situation.

Takes Notes Lybia

Do you want to prevent the United States from parking their military power off of your coast? Well the Japanese found a solution, have a nuclear power plant facing a potential meltdown:

Experts say a disaster on the scale of Chernobyl in the 1980s is highly unlikely because the reactors are built to a higher standard and have much more rigorous safety measures.

But the US said it had moved one of its aircraft carriers from the area after detecting low-level radiation 160km (100 miles) offshore.

Problem solved. Slight sarcasm aside the damage caused in Japan by the recent Tsunami is pretty horrific. Between the death toll so far as the problems occurring afterward Japan is in pretty rough shape on their coastline. I have one friend who is currently living there, thankfully far enough inland to be OK, who reported that they will be facing power outages until April. That is a minor inconvenience, unless of course you’re a hospital (I’m unsure if it’s just residential areas that are facing power outages or entire cities, either way most hospitals have backup generators). I’m sure water contamination is going to be a huge problem for a while and it will probably be months before all the dead are found.

Here’s hoping for a speedy recovery Japan.

Minneapolis Police Chief Dolan Seems To Think Police Have a Duty to Kill

Somehow the anti-gunners came strolling through my neck of the woods and I completely missed it. Mayors Against Illegal All Guns strolled through Minneapolis with their big truck. Either way Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan has signed on to demand civilian ownership of standard capacity magazines:

Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan spoke out Friday in support of federal legislation that would ban ammunition magazines that hold a large number of bullets.

“Law enforcement should not be outgunned by criminals: it’s just common sense,” Dolan said Friday, according to remarks prepared in advance for an event to draw attention to loopholes in the nation’s gun background check system.

Wait,the police, who have access to fully automatic rifles, body armor, urban assault vehicles, and a legal authority to use force, are somehow outgunned by criminals who have access to standard capacity magazines? What? That makes no fucking sense.

You know what Mr. Dolan as a law abiding person I would like to not be outgunned by criminals. Can I have a machine gun, some body armor, an urban assault vehicle, and a legal authority to use force? Hell I’ll just settle for being able to continue purchasing standard OEM equipment magazines for my firearms.

It seems Mr. Dolan buys the anti-gunner’s party line that the only reason standard capacity magazines exist is to kill and many people as possible in a short span of time. He’s advocating for the prohibition of civilian purchasing of these magazines yet is advocating no such prohibition for the police force. It would seem Mr. Dolan believes it’s the duty of police officers to kill as many people as possible in a short span of time.

If I lived in Minneapolis I think I’d want a Police Chief who had a slightly less grim view on what the duty of a police officer is.

Since this attempted ban is being pushed by Mayors Against All Guns I think it’s important to remember which Minnesota mayors are members of this atrocious group. According to their website (not directly linked to due to a policy of not linking to anti-gun groups but can be copy and pasted: http://www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org/html/members/members.shtml) the following Minnesota mayors are members of Bloomberg’s Posse:

Mayor Don Ness of Duluth, MN
Mayor R.T. Rybak of Minneapolis, MN
Mayor Chris Coleman of St. Paul, MN

These people are against your right to defend yourself and should be elected out of office. Hell if you can recall a mayor it would be a good idea to recall these three bozos.

Avoiding Bankruptcy Without a Government Bailout

When General Motors and Chrysler were facing bankruptcy our government stepped in, handed both companies a ton of our money to reward them for failing, and then allowed them to pay back these “loans” with money obtained through a different tax payer funded scheme.

There is another way companies can void bankruptcy and it doesn’t involve stealing money from the tax payers. This method, although hardly known, is to produce a better product. A recent story I came across talks about Rovio, the makers Angry Birds. It seems before publishing their title that everybody and their grandmother has probably played they were facing bankruptcy:

First they had to save a company in crisis: at the beginning of 2009, Rovio was close to bankruptcy. Then they had to create the perfect game, do every other little thing exactly right, and keep on doing it.

Now the company has something like $50 million on hand. What an amazing concept, a failing business bringing itself back from the brink by offering a product or service that people want. It’s such a novel concept.

Another Reason For the Right to Bear Arms

The right to keep and bear arms doesn’t only allow us means to protect ourselves from other people but it also helps ensure something like this doesn’t happen here:

Police in Saudi Arabia have opened fire to disperse protesters in the eastern city of Qatif, a day before planned countrywide anti-government protests.

Witnesses said police also beat demonstrators with batons injuring at least three people.

When the government has a monopoly on arms the citizenry are at their mercy. Peaceful protests are great right up to the point where the government decides to start shooting the protesters. This is the point where peaceful protests no longer work and the need to take up arms to defend yourself against the government arise.

As it sits the chances of something like this occurring here are much lower as the government realizes many American citizens can shoot back. This mutually assured destruction helps keep things civil. To quote a Heinlein novel, “An armed society is a peaceful society.”

Attacking Phones Using SMS

Though this will come as no surprise to anybody but a couple of researchers have found a method of attacking phones using the Simple Messaging Service (SMS):

A pair of security researchers from Germany demonstrated several techniques at the CanSecWest conference here Wednesday that enable them to remotely reboot, shut down or even completely disable many popular mobile phones with SMS messages.

It should be noted that they’ve only test this on feature phones so we don’t know if smartphones will be affected or not. Likewise they only tested this on GSM phones so it may be such a thing where most CDMA phones will remain unaffected. Either way if you want to screw with somebody and you know their number this would certainly be a viable method. Heck if you knew somebody’s number you could potentially start a denial of service attack against their phone by constantly sending crafted text messages that cause your target’s phone to reboot.

How’s That Gun Control Working

Apparently even France’s strict control on firearms isn’t enough to prevent people from shooting each other. An 78 year-old man shot shot three people in France:

A man of 78 shot dead two council workers and a passer-by on a street in the southern French town of Rivesaltes before trying to take his own life.

Obviously France isn’t banning guns hard enough. We must remember the golden rule, if something doesn’t work you just have to try again only harder.

More Government Officials Running Guns

Bad news for several public officials in Columbus, New Mexico. It seems their plot to run guns into Mexico has been discovered:

The police chief, the mayor and a local politician of a small town on the American side of the US-Mexico border have been charged with gun running.

Prosecutors say the officials from Columbus, New Mexico, bought some 200 guns which they allegedly planned to sell to drug cartels in Mexico.

Explain to me again how enacting laws to restrict the rights of American citizens is going to stem the flow of guns into Mexico? It doesn’t seem that plan of action is going to work so well when it’s the government smuggling the guns. Maybe we should enact laws restricting access to firearms but the government instead.

Government Increasing the Cost of Medicine Again

The only thing government is really good at is fucking over the citizens under its control. Take for example the health care industry. In the United States health care costs are through the roof and it’s thanks to government intervention. I’ve come across yet another example of government interference in the health care market causing an increase in costs:

But recently, KV Pharmaceutical of suburban St.Louis won government approval to exclusively sell the drug, known as Makena (Mah-KEE’-Nah). The March of Dimes and many obstetricians supported that because it means quality will be more consistent and it will be easier to get.

The result? Not surprisingly the cost of Makena went from $10.00 to $1,500.00. I know little about the drug but apparently it requires multiple injections (roughly 20 since the article says it will cost $30,000 with the new pricing scheme). That means the total cost will go from roughly $200.00 to $30,000.00 thanks to the government granting a monopoly on the medication to a single company.

Monopolies are not naturally occurring things. In almost every care of a monopoly cropping up it has been due to government regulations either outright granting the monopoly or putting restrictions on the market in such a way to grant a defacto monopoly (such as expensive Food and Drug Administration (FDA) trials keeping new companies out of the pharmaceuticals industry). Even though government claims they are needed to protect us from monopolies the reality is monopoly protection is yet another example of a government created problem that the government claims they didn’t make but are needed to fix.

Printing Magazines

No not paper magazines, firearm magazines. It’s no secret that I have a huge love of 3D printers. I think it’s awesome being able to take rolls of plastic and print out useful objects. Sebastian has apparently been working on the idea of printing up some firearm magazines and has posted some initial schematics.

This is an awesome proposal for the use of an awesome technology. I’ll be excited to see how it turns out.