Month: November 2011

Let’s Drive the Point Home on the SOPA

The government seems determined to slam the Stop Online Piracy Act through the legislative process in order to appease their big copyright holding donors. I feel we need to drive home the erroneous nature of this legislation, which will allow copyright holders to shut down Internet sites by filing copyright infringement claims against said sites. There is a legal gray area known as song lyrics. Many recording companies claim copyright over song lyrics and thus feel posting said lyrics without permission constitutes a violation of their copyright.

Knowing this I propose an the following: Let us to the We the People petition site, create numerous petitions containing copy written song lyrics, and then report the violations to the copyright holders. Under SOPA there would be the potential that the White House website would need to be taken down as it would be violating copyright laws. The only way to get the attention of politicians is if you give them a taste of their own medicine.

Michael Bloomberg is a Sad Panda

Who’s a sad panda? As pointed out by No Lawyers – Only Guns and Money Michael Bloomberg is a sad panda after H.R. 822 managed to make it through the House successfully. He chose to have his shit fit in the form of a written statement:

“A majority of the House ignored the advice of police, prosecutors, domestic violence experts, faith leaders and more than 600 mayors who made clear that this measure will put police and communities at greater risk. Many members also cast aside their usual respect for the authority of states to decide how to protect public safety in their communities.

Emphasis mine. What authority? I never gave any state authority over my ability to defend myself. In fact the Constitution, which I’m often told forms the foundation of our government, explicitly states I have a righ to to keep and bear arms and that that right shall not be infringed. So tell me Mayor Bloomberg, what authority are you talking about? Please tell me soon so that I can choose to refuse to recognize it.

While I still maintain some reservations regarding this legislation due to its potential to expand federal authority over individuals’ right to defend themselves, seeing this legislation pass will fill me with joy for no other reason than it will cause Bloomberg to cry and Mayors Against All Illegal Guns to fade further into irrelevancy. Honestly though we shouldn’t need legislation to carry a firearm on our person wherever we choose so long as doing so doesn’t violate the property rights of another (and the state can’t own property so they can’t claim we’re violating their property rights when traveling on “their” land).

So Much for the Dangers of Raw Milk

One of the lesser known battles in the pursuit of liberty involves the freedom to chose what you eat. The state has been cracking down hard on raw and organic food producers in the name of safety and one of their primary targets has been raw milk. We hear horror stories about the ill raw milk has inflicted upon the populace yet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently was forced to admit not one person has been killed by ingesting raw milk for 11 years:

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) refuses to acknowledge that, based on all available statistics, raw milk produced on clean, small-scale farms is actually far safer than pasteurized milk from factory farms. But the agency did admit earlier this year, after being pressed and warned of a potential Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request if it failed to comply, that not a single person has died from raw milk consumption in over a decade.

This may come as a shock to some who, because of all the propaganda about the alleged dangers of raw milk, are convinced otherwise, but it is true — one of the two deaths often cited by the CDC as evidence that raw milk is dangerous was actually linked to the consumption of raw queso fresco cheese, which is currently outlawed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). And the other is likely linked to an adulterated raw milk product as well, rather than to raw milk.

Here’s the thing, you are the sole owner of your body and thus are the only one who should have a say in what gets put into it. If you don’t want to drink raw milke that’s fine but using force to prevent other people from doing it is abhorrent. The nanny state was out of hand ages ago but it’s only getting worse with news regulations passed, what seems like, every day that attempt to further restrict and control our behavior.

Something I Don’t Get About Zuccotti Park

Earlier this week members of the Occupy Wall Street movement were evicted by the New York Police Department (NYPD) from Zuccotti Park. Protesters have been allowed to return to the park but with several restrictions put into place:

Hundreds of protesters returned to the park as night fell on Tuesday, but they will now not be allowed to pitch tents or use generators in the plaza.

[…]

Police said there was no official curfew, but that protesters would not be allowed to sleep at the park. Protesters with backpacks and large bags were not allowed inside.

Many of the occupiers are claiming these new restrictions are a violation of their First Amendment rights. Once again I find myself scratching my head as this issue doesn’t seem to be one involving the right of free speech by the right of property ownership.

Zuccotti Park is privately owned by Brookfield Properties. As Zuccotti Park is owned by Brookfield Properties they should be able to set whatever restrictions they desire on the use of the property. If Brookfield Properties wish to allow camping on the property then camping is allowed, if they wish to prohibit camping on the property than camping isn’t allowed. This situation would be different were the land publicly owned as everybody can claim, rightfully, to be a partial owner and therefore a debate over the use of the property could ensure.

The occupiers in Minneapolis were smarter in my opinion than the New York group. Occupy Minneapolis chose publicly owned land to hold their occupation and thus the rules over who gets to determine what can and can’t happen on the property are incredibly muddy. While Hennepin County will claim that right as declared owners of the property the occupiers can rightfully claim that the tax dollars spent on the property were procured from Hennepin County residents and therefore everybody living in Hennepin County is a partial owner.

Herp Derp Kaboom

I’m sure we’ve all seen gun kabooms online before and usually the involve the shooter doing something, shall we say, less than intelligent. More times than not kabooms are directly related to improperly reloaded ammunition or bullet setback caused by chambering the same round too many times. This kaboom hs a result of doing something, getting a bad result, and doing it again:

When DoubleTap started offering ammo for it, I bought a bunch of their ammo loaded with 165 grain Gold Dot bullets. It was supposed to be the ultimate 10mm self defense round.

But I noticed some of the brass looked like this:

Below that is a picture of a 10mm brass casing with a huge fucking bulge in the back. From there the poster did a smart thing, followed by a not so smart thing:

I called Glock, and they asked that I send the gun in for inspection. I asked if I could just send in the barrel, and they said no. The whole gun. Screw that. I’ll just use the KKM barrel.

Noticing the failure and contacting the manufacturer was a very smart move. Not sending the gun in upon request wasn’t so smart. At least the poster replaced the barrel which appeared to be the source of the case bulges. It’s not like he would be stupid enough to use the old barrel anyways… fuck:

So I went to the range this morning.

With the original barrel in the pistol, I used calipers to measure the overall length of a round. I loaded it into the magazine and then put another round on top. I chambered the round that was on top and fired it into the berm. I then ejected the first round and remeasured the overall length. Identical to what it was.

And there was no bulge on the fired DoubleTap brass.

Thinking it might take a few rounds to cause bullet setback, I loaded the first round again, and then two others. Chambered the round, and fired into the berm. KaBoom.

Damnit.

That’s strange whenever I fire this firearm the ejected brass always have a huge bulge in the back of the case. What should I do? I know! I’ll keep firing this gun in this configuration with this ammunition!

Seriously people don’t be this guy. If your noticing potentially dangerous issues with your firearm do not continue to fire it. Diagnose the issue and correct it or have somebody qualified diagnose and correct the issue. Remember that firearms are basically devices that harness controlled explosions in metal tubes and thus a failure has the potentially to be incredibly dangerous.

The poster was lucky that he didn’t get seriously hurt and I really hope he learned a lesson from this.

H.R. 822 Passes House

Although I’m late with posting this (sorry I was busy yesterday evening) I just wanted everybody to know that H.R. 822, the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act, passed the House successfully. The breakdown of the votes ended up being 272 for and 154 against. Now it moves onto the Senate where it will likely crash and burn. Of course I’m a pessimist and very well could be wrong although if it does pass the Senate I’m guessing it will receive the big veto from the President.

I’ve explained my overall support of this bill but maintain reservations as I perceive the potential for further federal regulations over the right to carry with this bill being used as precedence.

The Stop Online Piracy Act Hearing Looks a Little Bias

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has sent out a notice alerting people to the fact that today’s hearing on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a wee bit on the bias side:

The House Judiciary Committee will meet today for a hearing on the controversial Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA). What could have been an opportunity for the committee to hear from a variety of stakeholders has devolved into parade of pro-SOPA partisans. Scheduled to testify are representatives from the Register of Copyrights, Pfizer Global Security, the Motion Picture Association of America, the AFL-CIO, and Mastercard Worldwide—many of which helped to draft this legislation in the first place, and didn’t let anyone else into the room. The only scheduled witness in opposition to the bill is Katherine Oyama, policy counsel on copyright and trademark law for Google.

It’s almost as if the government wants to push SOPA through and are trying to control the message to that end. One way debates can be won is by stacking the deck in your favor. Excuse me while I travel down a side road to make an important point.

In the past the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had a regulation on the books known as the Fairness Doctrine. The regulation required holders of broadcast licenses to present both sides of an issue which resulted in the practice of having three people in a debate; one for the issue, one against the issue, and one neutral party.

Today many are asking the FCC to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine because they feel news today is too bais. What these same people fail to realize is the news was equally bias while the Fairness Doctrine was in effect but the game was played differently. For instance if you wanted to present an pro-gun control message you would get one person from the Brady Campaign (for the issue), one neutral party, and then a third pro-gun individual who was either crazy or just sounded crazy to the public (for instance you might get a self-declared militia leader who advocates the overthrow of the government to talk on the side against gun control). That way people the pro-gun control advocate would appear reasonable and sane so people would be more likely to side them him or her. Even with the Fairness Doctrine in place bias existed and that allowed the media to control the message.

Now that I’ve traveled down that side road let’s return to the topic at hand. The government wants SOPA to pass and they believe part of passing it requires controlling the message. Since many people don’t know the major players in this legislation the government has stacked the deck with numerous people who represent a pro-SOPA stance but appear neutral on paper (after all most people would believe Mastercard is a neutral party in this debate as their income isn’t derived from copyright). Most people will look at the list of testifiers and believe a large majority will be neutral and only a handful will speak for or against the legislation. In reality the government has simply stacked the deck in a rather underhanded manner so they can claim extensive support to justify passing the bill.

A majority of people don’t even realize that we’re being fucked over by our government since the methods being used to fuck us over aren’t blatant.

Department of Justice Deems Violating Website Terms of Service Illegal

We’ve all glossed over the Terms of Service (ToS) agreements of various websites and software packages. Most ToS agreements are composted of dense legalese that nobody without a law degree could possibly hope to translate. I view ToS agreements the same I view any broken contractual agreement where nothing of value has been lost, a non-issue. If you make an agreement with me to stand on one foot for an hour every Saturday morning in exchange for me agreeing to do a handstand at 21:00 every Thursday and one of us breaks the agreement neither party has actually lost anything. Even if there is a contractual agreement between the two of us as neither of us has actually suffered any loss of property no prosecutable offense has taken place.

If you signup for a Facebook account and use a fake name, something against Facebook’s ToS agreement, what is lost? Nothing, as the agreement stipulated no transfer of property and thus violation of the agreement is without consequence and therefore not a prosecutable offense. Unless, of course, you ask the Department of Justice (DoJ):

The U.S. Department of Justice is defending computer hacking laws that make it a crime to use a fake name on Facebook or lie about your weight in an online dating profile at a site like Match.com.

In a statement obtained by CNET that’s scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, the Justice Department argues that it must be able to prosecute violations of Web sites’ often-ignored, always-unintelligible “terms of service” policies.

The law must allow “prosecutions based upon a violation of terms of service or similar contractual agreement with an employer or provider,” Richard Downing, the Justice Department’s deputy computer crime chief, will tell the U.S. Congress tomorrow.

What the DoJ stance doesn’t take into consideration is the fact contractual agreements between an employer and employee or service provider and customer often involved actual loss of property. If you make a contractual agreement with a cell phone service provider that states the provier will give you a phone at a reduced cost in exchange for your commitment to two years of service a loss of property, the subsidized value of the phone, is inflicted upon the provider if you break the contract. This is why ending such a contract before the two years is up entitles paying an early termination fee, to reclaim the subsidized value of the phone.

A website doesn’t actually lose any property when you decide to use a fake name. In fact I’m unaware of a single ToS agrement violation that could lead to a provider losing property if violated, considering most of these services are free to use. Therefore there is no legitimate reason to prosecute somebody for violating a ToS agreement.

Either way don’t fret about violating my ToS agreement.

Something Doesn’t Add Up

I don’t claim to be a master of mathematics but I’m quite competent with basic addition and subtraction. It appears as though the New York Police Department (NYPD) is either bad at performing basic arithmetic or don’t understand the definition of basic English words:

New York police have dismantled the Occupy Wall Street camp in Zuccotti Park and arrested about 200 people following a raid in the early hours.

[…]

Police spokesman Paul Browne said most people left the park when ordered, but that a small group of people had refused.

[…]

The city authorities and Mayor Bloomberg had come under pressure from residents and businesses to shut down the camp, which had about 200 occupants as it neared its two-month anniversary.

Something doesn’t add up. The dictionary definition of the word “most” is, “Greatest in amount or degree.” Therefore if there were 200 people camping in the park and most of them left that means at least 101 people would have had to leave. If 101 people left an encampment of 200 people that would leave 99 people (perhaps they’re the true 99%). So how the hell did the NYPD manage to arrest 200 people if most of the people left?

When Self-Defense is Illegal

New York is an interesting city as self-defense is illegal (unless you’re rich or politically well connected of course). For example let’s say you’re a woman and your husband is a police officer who has just threatened to kill you. Fortune shines upon you though as you were able to obtain his service weapon and use it to defend yourself. In a free city you would not be punished for your act of self-preservation but in New York you go to prison for illegally possessing the firearm:

In a case seen as a test of the battered-woman defense, Barbara Sheehan, 50, was acquitted of second-degree murder last month after her lawyers successfully argued that she fired a gun at her husband only after he threatened to kill her.

She and her children testified during her trial about the violent household ruled by Raymond Sheehan, 49, a former New York City police sergeant. Both the prosecution and defense said the beatings and bruises came to an end on February 18, 2008, when Sheehan shot her husband 11 times in their Queens home.

She was sentenced in state Supreme Court in Queens to five years in prison and two years of probation on the unlawful gun possession charge, based on her use of her husband’s weapons. She had faced a possible sentence of 3-1/2 to 15 years.

I… I weep for humanity. For crying out loud I don’t even understand the logic behind this decision. The woman was subjected to dire circumstances, her life was in jeopardy, and she did what she felt was necessary to survive.

Let’s look at this in another way. In this scenario we will pretend you’re on a sinking ship and you boarded one of the lifeboats to preserve your life. Due to the chaos that ensued during the sinking of the ship no member of the ship’s crew is aboard your lifeboat. Using the logic arrived at by the Supreme Court in Queens you are guilty of theft and should be tossed into prison.

It appears you have two options in New York when faced with a life threatening situation; die or go to prison.