Chronicling the depravities of the State.
Let’s say you’re a guitarist playing a show. During this show you fall down and that fall results in you breaking breaking four ribs and puncturing your lung. In this situation do you (1) go tot he hospital or (2) continue playing the show? If you answered two then you can live the metal life just as Herman Frank did.
I don’t care who you are or what music you play that right there is fucking metal.
A huge congratulations needs to be given to Arizona as they have finally managed to score a perfect zero on the Brady Campaign anti-gun scorecard:
Gun-rights activists called Arizona’s ranking proof that they are successfully protecting gun rights, and they vow to continue their efforts. Gun-violence-prevention groups said it’s proof that the state is continuing to move away from the values of most Arizonans.
With the current legislation moving through Minnesota we’re trying our best to catch up with the great example being put forth by Arizona. Although I doubt we’ll be able to achieve the same score anytime soon I promise us gun owners are doing everything we can to ensure that we receive the best possible score.
While the National Rifle Association (NRA) was holding their annual meeting with some 71,000 attendees the Brady Campaign held a little presser. You’ll notice that had a few less attendees:
The photograph comes courtesy of Snowflakes in Hell.
We have good news on the Minnesota gun rights front, the Defense of Dwelling and Person Act passed the Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee by an eight to three vote. Now the bill can move on to an actual vote and hopefully get passed.
You know the drill; it’s Monday which means it’s the beginning of the work week and thus some metal is needed to get things started off right. This week’s offering is Burning Times by Iced Earth. Bang your head but remember to keep it clear of your desk.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Btd2KxXOvNc]
Do you have 211GB of hard drive space free? Do you want a collection of some of the greatest pieces of literature, audio, and video ever made on the subjects of liberty and Austrian economics? Well I just found out that the Mises Institute website is available in torrent form. The latest torrents can be found in this directory and include separate torrent files for books, journals, media, PDF documents, papers published in Reason, and one giant monster with everything.
This is one great thing about websites being published under the Creative Commons (the same license I use on this webpage), people are able to legally consume it in any form they damn well feel like. It also ensures that even if the Mises website is taken down all of their great information can live on.
Those of you with iOS devices should clear out your Internet tubes because you’re going to need them wide open for the next 666.2MB update that Apple has released to fix the recent tracking fiasco.
The only things listed in the changelog that Apple provides are corrections to the location caching functionality in iOS. Personally I’ve found this entire thing overblown simply because of the fact that nobody could demonstrate that the save location information was transmitted anywhere. Unlike TomTom iOS wasn’t sending the location data anywhere, it was only backing it up to whatever computer the device was synced with.
Beyond that the simple fact that cellular phones can track you solely as a side effect of this technology really made the potential threat held by iOS’s location data caching specialized. If the government needed a history of your locations they could get it easily by subpoenaing your phone company. The only real threat held by iOS’s caching was if somebody was able to get physical access to the system you sync your devices with and only so long as you don’t encrypt those backups (iTunes has the ability to encrypt your iOS backups).
Still it’s good to see Apple responded to this pretty quickly and now people can breath a sigh of relief… unless you’re using iOS 4 on an iPhone 3G then you’re just plain old fucked.
A common method used by copyright holders to sue file sharers is to file John Doe lawsuits against IP addresses. This type of lawsuit has always been on shaky ground in my opinion and it appears as through a District Judge has decided that shaky ground was falling apart:
A possible landmark ruling in one of the mass-BitTorrent lawsuits in the U.S. may spell the end of the “pay-up-or-else-schemes” that have targeted over 100,000 Internet users in the last year. District Court Judge Harold Baker has denied a copyright holder the right to subpoena the ISPs of alleged copyright infringers, because an IP-address does not equal a person.
This is a great ruling because of the simple fact that having somebody’s IP address is in no way proof that said person was actually committing a violation against copyright holders. For example if you have an unencrypted or weakly encrypted wireless network it would be trivial for somebody to connect to it and start downloading movies illegally. When the copyright holders get a list of IP addresses that downloaded said movie illegally yours would be one on the list. Thus the lawsuit would be failed against the IP address holder, yourself. As you can see though just because the IP address traces back to you doesn’t imply any proof that you committed the crime. In fact this exact scenario has played out before:
In the case VPR Internationale v. Does 1-1017, the judge denied the Canadian adult film company access to subpoena ISPs for the personal information connected to the IP-addresses of their subscribers. The reason? IP-addresses do not equal persons, and especially in ‘adult entertainment’ cases this could obstruct a ‘fair’ legal process.
Among other things Judge Baker cited a recent child porn case where the U.S. authorities raided the wrong people, because the real offenders were piggybacking on their Wi-Fi connections. Using this example, the judge claims that several of the defendants in VPR’s case may have nothing to do with the alleged offense either.
This ruling is just but I bet money that a long process of appeals will be going down until VPR Internationale is able to buy find a judge more sympathetic to their crusade cause. For now though it’s good to see there is at least one judge out there with some common sense on this issue.
Gun rights are moving fast in the upper Midwest. Minnesota is pushing for self-defense reform and now Wisconsin is pushing to give the citizens there the right to self-defense. What’s most interesting through is how this legislation was introduced:
State Representative Jeff Mursau (R-Crivitz) and Senator Pam Galloway (R- Wausau) wrote two bills, one requiring licensure and one without a licensing component.
One bill would enact what is usually referred to as constitutional carry while the other would be more akin to Minnesota’s law which require a license in order to practice your “right.” Wisconsin’s House and Senate have passed carry legislation before but it was vetoed by their previous scumbag governor Doyle:
The Wisconsin measure has a good chance of becoming law, as Republicans control both the Senate and Assembly and Republican Gov. Scott Walker has indicated his support for the idea. Republicans passed it in 2004 and 2006, but both times then-Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, vetoed it.
That asshole is gone and Walker has said he supports the idea of carry in Wisconsin so there is a good change that those living in Wisconsin will have the right to defend themselves with the best tool available. Of course the police aren’t in support of this bill at it would allow the peasants to defend themselves and erode the police’s government granted monopoly on the use of force:
Police organizations in both states have vociferously opposed legalizing carrying concealed weapons, saying it puts public safety officers and the public in danger. But the National Rifle Association and other supporters of the legalization argue it’s needed for people to protect themselves from criminals, many of whom do not obtain firearms legally.
Unless the various police organizations can demonstrate numerous situations where carry legislation has lead to dangerous situations for police officers this claim is completely bogus. We’ve learned through having carry legislation in 48 states that nothing bad has come of such laws and in many cases the rate of violent crime has dipped. Let the police organizations continue to make their false statements, they’re baseless.
On the legislation itself I will note that the Wisconsin bill requiring a license sounds similar to Minnesota’s although it would be cheaper:
Under the bill creating the licensing system, people 21 years old and over could apply to obtain a license valid for five years at a time from the state Department of Justice. Applicants would have to pay a $13 background check fee and an application fee of up to $52.
Likewise the legislation would have similar restrictions:
Concealed weapons would not be allowed in police stations, jails, courthouses, beyond the security checkpoint in airports, or on school grounds. Homeowners, businesses and governments could also prohibit concealed weapons on their property. Likewise, convicted felons, convicted domestic abusers, anyone with a restraining order against them and anyone committing a crime could not legally carry a concealed weapon.
But the definition of a weapon would be more broad than we have in Minnesota:
Concealed weapons are defined as a handgun, an electric weapon, a billy club, or a knife other than a switchblade.
In Minnesota those of us given permission by the state to carry a gun can do so but carrying one of those horrible switchblades is still a gross misdemeanor. It’s nice to see the authors of Wisconsin’s bills realize the type of weapon being carried isn’t really relevant.
I’ve been told that H.F. 1467 passed the House Judiciary and Public Safety Committee yesterday and is ready to head out for a vote by the entire House.
So far, so good. Now we just have to get it through the Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee, get it on the Senate floor, get both the House and Senate to vote in favor of it, and finally get Dayton to sign it.