Month: April 2011

Amazon to Allow Library Lending of Kindle Books

The Sony E-Reader has had the capability to allow libraries to loan e-books to their customers for a while now. It seems Amazon wants in on this action and are now going to allow libraries to loan Kindle e-books:

SEATTLE, Apr 20, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — (NASDAQ: AMZN)– Amazon today announced Kindle Library Lending, a new feature launching later this year that will allow Kindle customers to borrow Kindle books from over 11,000 libraries in the United States. Kindle Library Lending will be available for all generations of Kindle devices and free Kindle reading apps.

What I really like about how Amazon is going about this is any highlights or annotations you make on a rented book will be saved:

Customers will be able to check out a Kindle book from their local library and start reading on any Kindle device or free Kindle app for Android, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, PC, Mac, BlackBerry, or Windows Phone. If a Kindle book is checked out again or that book is purchased from Amazon, all of a customer’s annotations and bookmarks will be preserved.

I’d say that’s pretty important because it would be a huge pain in the ass to lose any notes made on a book because the loan expired.

Apparently Women Shouldn’t Be Getting Into Shooting Sports

Sometimes I forget that there are still people in this world who believe a woman’s place is in the kitchen. Bitter over at Snowflakes in Hell pointed out an idiotic column:

I’m not trying to trigger trepidation among firearm enthusiasts.

Yeah he is.

The industry is unlikely to successfully tap that market until it conquers the pesky preconceived notions that likely turn off many females to the idea of gun ownership. Women likely won’t consider packing pistols if they are concerned that:

— Spending several hundred dollars on a serviceable handgun might leave them without enough money to get the full treatment at that next visit to the day spa.

— Carrying a gun in a small purse would leave less room for more important items, such as lipstick or compact.

— The baggy clothing required to successfully conceal most holsters would make them appear frumpy.

— Gunpowder residue might stain the new Karen Scott blouse they just bought at Macy’s.

— The gunpowder smell when the weapon is fired could totally overwhelm the Chanel they’re wearing.

— Most firearm accessories come only in one boring color: black.

— Target practice earplugs simply aren’t sexy.

It’s strange because none of this seems to have been a problem for the several female shooters I know. I guess the author, Mr. Heyl, believes women would just be happier if they stayed in the kitchen and made him his sandwiches.

I’m going to have to have a conversation with the women I know who enjoy shooting and tell them apparently they made the wrong choice in life.

ATF Trying to Cover Up Their Gun Smuggling Efforts

When you are given the power to enforce laws it’s often the case you will come to the understanding that you are above the law. Apparently this is what the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) think as they have been blowing off requests for information on their little gun smuggling effort:

Rep. Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is not a happy man. He is not happy because the Department of Justice and the Acting Director of ATF, Kenneth Melson, are continuing to blow off the requests for documents related to Operation Fast and Furious (aka Project Gunwalker). This is in the face of a supoena requesting documents issued by the Committee.

Rep. Issa is so unhappy that he is threatening to have Melson cited for Contempt of Congress according to a letter released this morning.

I’m not surprised by this turn of events. The ATF was caught doing something illegal, something they were charged with stopping. Now that people are wondering what the Hell the ATF was thinking they agency is trying to sweep the entire situation under the rug.

Communism Fails Again

It’s only a matter of time until any communist country either falls or has to adopt capitalism in some shape or form. Soviet Russia chose to collapse while China chose to setup economic freedom zones which is just a fancy term for parts of the country where capitalism is practiced. It seems Cuba wants to stave off collapse and has begun to establish some capitalist ideals:

The Communist government of Cuba said it will permit people to buy and sell their property for the first time since Fidel Castro took power of the island in 1959, as part of a raft of economic reforms.

The measure was passed during a congress (meeting) of the Communist Party (the first such parley in fourteen years).

Under the old regime, Cubans were only allowed to bequeath their homes to their children or to exchange them in a complex system that was riddled with corruption.

This is only one small step obviously but it’s a start on the road to economic reform.

Mileage Based Tax and Other Fun Uses for GPS

Those of you who have purchased hybrid or electric cars recently probably remember a pretty nice tax incentive. Not only has the government been granting tax breaks to those purchasing fuel efficient vehicles but those who have these cars pay the government less gasoline tax as well. Unfortunately for you guys the government doesn’t like missing out on what it considers revenue and the State of Minnesota is looking into mileage based taxation:

The state’s Department of Transportation is recruiting 500 drivers in Hennepin and Wright counties to travel with GPS-enabled smart phones for a “Minnesota Road Fee Test.” The data will be used as state officials consider replacing gas taxes with mileage-based user fees.

It seems the state has a hard on for putting GPS devices in automobiles. If that state decides to go this route I wouldn’t be surprised if inclusion of these devices becomes mandatory (maybe that’s when I’ll move to join the Free Staters in New Hampshire) through legislation. These types of devices would grant the state three major benefits as I see it; the ability to tax people based on miles driven, the ability to track the whereabouts of vehicles for law enforcement uses, and the ability to automatically write traffic violations.

The first item is the justification being used by the states to get the pilot program going. It’s doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to see the police using these devices to track where somebody has been. Police have a bigger hard on for violating rights than the politicians.

The second item is the most interesting because it would create an additional source of revenue. A GPS system can be used for many things including determining the speed of a vehicle. With the correct data the device in your vehicle could know the speed limit on each street in Minnesota. The GPS could be used to determine the speed of your vehicle and the speed limit of the street your traversing; if the first value is higher than the second the device can automatically issue you a speeding ticket. And there you have it, instant additional revenue.

Man I miss the days when I was naive of government desires and thought these ideas were just cooky conspiracy theories.

Voter ID

Voter ID has been a debate making it’s away through Minnesota for a while now. For those of you unaware Voter ID would require each person have a government issued photo identification card on them when they went to the polls. I’m against this and as I’ve found in several discussions about this topic my reasoning appears to be relatively unique. As I’ve written about this before I’m just going to be lazy and link to my previous post.

New Hampshire Hearing on Permitless Carry Today

The New Hampshire Senate Judiciary Committee is having a hearing on a bill that would turn the state into another territory where people can exercise their right to self defense unhindered. The bill in question is HB 330. The National Rifle Association (NRA) is also pushing people to ask members of the Committee to consider an amendment:

However, an important amendment is still needed. The NRA, along with its state affiliate – Gun Owners of New Hampshire (GO-NH) – is supporting the Luther Amendment, an omnibus amendment to clarify certain provisions in HB 330. In addition, this amendment would keep the existing law in place for individuals 18 years of age or younger to possess a firearm for hunting under certain conditions.

Hopefully the bill makes it out of committee and gets passed into law. It would be nice if the free state was a little more free.

Facebook Has Finally Grown Into a Mature Company

Although Facebook’s estimated market value is over $50 billion it still wasn’t a mature company in my eyes. In my opinion a company can’t be considered mature until the politicians start trying to crawl in and thus the company needs to resort to hiring lobbyist to protect itself from these government bureaucrats. Well Facebook is now looking for exactly that:

Until lately, Facebook has spent very little money in Washington, even by Silicon Valley’s frugal standards. The company’s outlays on lobbying totaled $351,000 last year, federal records show. That’s a fraction of the amount spent by other technology giants, including Google Inc.’s $5.2 million and Microsoft Corp.’s $6.9 million.

Facebook’s new Washington office, designed to look like a hacker’s lair, with walls of faux construction rubble, is a work in progress.

This is the price of running a successful business in America, you need to pay the politicians off twice. First you need to pay them taxes and then you must pay them in incentives in order to get favorable legislation passed and unfavorable legislation shot down. On a side note I found this funny:

President Barack Obama will travel to Facebook Inc.’s Silicon Valley headquarters Wednesday to hold a “town hall” meeting on the economy with users of the social-networking site.

Maybe the President should go down the the Ludwig von Mises Institute (LvMI) instead. Facebook knows how to function in our currently regulated economy so the advice they’re likely to give is going to be more of the status quo. The (LvMI) on the other hand could explain to the President how the only way to save our economy is to move to a free market where producers and consumers are able to make transactions without interference from government bureaucrats. Of course that would require the government to surrender some of it’s control and we know they don’t want to do that.

White House Tried to Stop S&P from Downgrading the Country’s Credit Rating

Standard and Poor’s (S&P) recently downgraded the United State’s long term credit rating to “negative.” This isn’t surprising really as the United States government keeps spending more and more money which only leads us to spiral into deeper debt. It’s kind of like a person who has a maxed out credit card, makes the minimum interest payments, but their credit limit keeps getting extended and they keep increasing the amount on the card.

Well the White House wasn’t too happy with the downgrade and it seems they tried to stop S&P from downgrading the country’s credit rating:

Even though the White House has publicly downplayed the credit warning issued Monday from a leading agency, Obama administration officials were privately trying in recent weeks to convince Standard & Poor’s not to lower its outlook for U.S. debt from “stable” to “negative,” Fox News has confirmed.

I guess the White House found out that they can’t make secret deals with everybody.

SAF Sues Massachusetts Over Their Gun Ban for Legal Alien Residents

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) has quickly risen to being my favorite gun rights organization. Although they don’t have nearly as much money as the National Rifle Association (NRA) I feel SAF is better utilizing what they have by suing government entities that try to bar second amendment rights from people in the United States.

Their latest lawsuit is against Massachusetts. SAF is none to happy with the state’s law that prohibits legal alien residents from owning firearms:

The lawsuit alleges that Christopher M. Fletcher of Cambridge and Eoin M. Pryal of Northboro – both legal resident aliens – have been specifically denied the ability to obtain a Firearms Identification Card or a License to Carry of any kind. Before moving to Massachusetts, Fletcher lived in California, where he had a Basic Firearms Safety certificate and Handgun Safety certificate, which allowed him to purchase and own firearms including handguns. Pryal, who is married to a citizen of this country, and had a shotgun certificate and international dealer’s license while living in the United Kingdom.

SAF is really good at playing it smart with these lawsuits. They manage to find the best people who have been wronged by the government but have a background that makes it hard to argue said persons should be barred the right to bear arms.

It seems SAF really wants me to donate more money as they keep doing awesome things like this. Well I’m more than happy to oblige them.