Month: June 2012

Some People Don’t Want to See the Truth

You know the “Rand Paul is actually a secret libertarian who knows how to manipulate the Republican better than his father” group? Some of them are still lying to themselves:

Time to tell which Paul supporters are intelligent enough to read between the lines and which will allow their knee-jerk reaction be to abandon Rand Paul and call him a traitor to the cause of liberty.

So, tonight Rand Paul endorsed Romney for president. I think it was a good move on Rand’s part seeing as party loyalty runs deep for the sheeple of our country. Deep down, however, I’m sure he knows it will garner exactly zero votes for Romney from the Liberty movement… in fact, with that in mind, I see no danger in the move at all.

After Romney loses in a landslide to Obama, Rand can run in 2016 without being blamed for contributing to the margin that caused Republicans to lose in 2012. I’m sure the faint of heart will abandon Rand, will cry foul play, will call him names, but that’s ok. So far, he’s given me no real reason to mistrust him. Besides, it’s not like he says he agrees with his philosophy (as if he Romney has one) – just that they have similar family values and agree on like 4 policies (none of which Romney will actually do anything about).

I’m sorry that I’m the one who must tell you this but… you’re in an abusive relationship.

I know you believe politics truly loves you. After all it offers you liberty, freedom, and all the other sweet things a lover has to offer. Unfortunately when you’re not around politics is cheating on you with tyranny. It’s offer of this entire Rand Paul announcement being nothing by a clever ploy to lower Romney’s guard is enticing, and I know you want to believe it but… it just isn’t true. Politics is just lying to you again in order to stop you from leaving. Please, for your own sake, leave politics. Until you do the cycle of abuse will continue and you’ll find yourself constantly hurt.

I Hate Being Right Sometimes

I did say I wasn’t a fan of Rand Paul:

Another common theory being put forth by those desperately trying to continue believing in the campaign is that the way is merely being paved for Rand Paul’s run next election cycle. To that I say woopty fucking doo. I’m not a big fan of Rand. Many neocons will claim they like Rand better than his father because Rand makes sense. For the same reasons neocons like Rand I don’t. If the master plan has been to pave the way for Rand then I’m sorry I had any involvement in this campaign.

It appears as though my concerns were justified:

That’s right, Rand Paul just endorsed Mitt Romney. This didn’t surprise me at all, Rand has always struck me as a man who wanted the ring. His rhetoric has been very neocon and I haven’t heard him say much about actual liberty.

While I should be mad about this announcement I’m actually kind of happy it happened, and not because it proves I was right about Rand. The aftermath of this announcement has been nothing short of amazing. Many of my friends in the liberty movement are pissed. They spent their time and money getting Rand Paul elected and now he’s gone and stuck a knife in their backs. This appears to be waking them up to the reality of politics and they’re looking for another way to achieve liberty, a way where they don’t face the constant threat of being betrayed by politicians. This may be one of the most effective agorism recruiting videos ever produced.

Zimmerman’s Prosecutor is Nuts

When Zimmerman was charged I put forth the fact that this case could make Angela Corey’s career:

My fear that a fair trial may be impossible considering the strong emotions felt by the public regarding this case still hold. It could make Corey’s career if she successfully prosecutes Zimmerman because nothing builds a career like ruling in favor of public opinion in a high profile case.

It appears as though she was a little too anxious to forward her career and got caught effectively lying in her affidavit:

The special prosecutor handling the case is Florida State Attorney Angela Corey. Dershowitz says that he believes she submitted documents that withheld all of the truth in the Trayvon Martin case.

“She was aware when she submitted an affidavit that it did not contain the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. She deliberately withheld evidence that supported Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense. The New York Times has reported that the police had ‘a full face picture’ of Zimmerman, before paramedics treated him, that showed ‘a bloodied nose.’ The prosecutor also had photographic evidence of bruises to the back of his head.”

Like most politicians caught with their fingers in the cookie jar, Corey then lashed out against Dershowitz:

State Attorney Angela Corey, the prosecutor in the George Zimmerman case, recently called the Dean of Harvard Law School to complain about my criticism of some of her actions.

She was transferred to the Office of Communications and proceeded to engage in a 40-minute rant, during which she threatened to sue Harvard Law School, to try to get me disciplined by the Bar Association and to file charges against me for libel and slander.

[…]

Her beef was that I criticized her for filing a misleading affidavit that willfully omitted all information about the injuries Zimmerman had sustained during the “struggle” it described. She denied that she had any obligation to include in the affidavit truthful material that was favorable to the defense.

While Zimmerman shot his credibility by lying about the amount of money he had available to him, Corey just shot her credibility by filing an affidavit that left out key pieces of evidence in the case. She claims that such evidence need not be addressed in her affidavit but by not addressing it she leads one to believe she didn’t think her affidavit would hold up with the included evidence. In other words it appears as though her case was on shaky ground from the beginning.

Regardless of her intentions I believe it is, at least, entirely unprofessional to not only omit evidence in an affidavit but to then threaten somebody who pointed out your omission.

This case is a never ending legal soap opera.

The Hypocrisy of Protection Laws

I touched on this subject last week but it bears a more in depth post. The nanny state has been passing laws meant to protect people for ages now, unfortunately any law meant to protect people is automatically oxymoronic.

Let’s consider what a law is. A law is a decree that either allows, mandates, or prohibits an action or set of actions by threat of violence. This is always the case, there is no such thing as a law that isn’t backed by the threat of violence. For example, if you commit murder you will be arrested and if you attempt to resist the arresting officers they will use force to take you; If you resist sufficiently they will even go so far as to kill you.

Protection laws are ones that mandate or prohibit an action or set of actions that have been deemed harmful. In my previous posted I talked about the new law being pushed in New York City that would ban restaurant and theater owners from selling soft drinks in containers that have a storage capacity greater than 16 ounces. In Minnesota we have laws that mandate the wearing of seat belts while in a motor vehicle and prohibit smoking cigaretts inside publicly accessible buildings (basically any building somebody works in). The idea behind these laws is that not wearing a seat belt is dangerous as is smoking.

Mandating or prohibiting an action through the threat of force to protect somebody is hypocritical. When Minnesota mandates vehicle occupants wear a seat belt they’re actually saying, “Wear a seat belt or else…” The “or else” part starts at a fine which, if not paid, will escalate into kidnapping and even murder. There is no logic behind such laws. How can one claim to be protecting another by threatening that person? Can I enter your home, pull a gun on you, and demand you stop eating potato chips? No, I would go to jail for such an act. Yet when the state does the exact same thing people cheer it.

Anytime a politician starts promoting a law to protect you remember that he really means to threaten you if you perform actions that he believes are harmful.

Soon to be Blacklisted in Europe

Several European governments are coming together and pondering the development of an Internet blacklist:

Internet users could contribute to an official blacklist of suspected terrorist content under the European Commission’s budding ‘Clean IT’ project.

The project aims to create a text that commits the internet industry (web hosts, search engines and ISPs, among others) to helping governments weed out content that incites acts of terror.

As I often discuss counter-economics I’m sure my site would certainly qualify as “inciting acts of terror” as the “black market” has already been tied to terrorism. Needless to say this site will likely be blacklisted in Europe if this censorship project moves forward. What’s interesting is the claim that such a blacklist would be used to block sites that “incite acts of terror” in one paragraph and is claimed to be used to report “illegal sites” in the next:

Among those 13 courses of action is a proposal for a system that will allow users to ‘flag’ content they believe to be illegal when surfing the web. These alarms would be sent for review to the service provider and in turn, a government agency.

Which is it? Will the reporting mechanism be used solely for sites “inciting acts of terror” or will it be used to report all illegal content? I guarantee it will be the latter.

If this goes through I’ll feel a bit bad for the people tasked with sifting through all of the reported sites because I intent on reporting every site I go to. That should keep the thought police busy.

Can Magical Computers Solve Crimes Before They Happen

That should be the title of this headline:

At around 3:45 a.m. on March 24, someone in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., used a mobile phone to Google “chemicals to passout a person.” Then the person searched Ask.com for “making people faint.” Then Google again, for “ways to kill people in their sleep,” “how to suffocate someone,” and “how to poison someone.”

The phone belonged to 23-year-old Nicole Okrzesik. Later that morning, police allege, she and her boyfriend strangled 19-year-old Juliana Mensch as she slept on the floor of their apartment. The Google searches, along with incriminating text messages between Okrzesik and her boyfriend, came to light as authorities investigated Mensch’s death. But what if they could have been alerted to the suspicious-sounding searches immediately? Could they have rushed to the apartment and saved the girl’s life?

Can you guess where this is going? Yup, Slate is hypothesizing the use of search data to effectively go pre-crime on peoples’ asses:

Web search data, by contrast, contains information about specific individuals’ thoughts and plans. In theory, Google or Ask.com could have flagged Okrzesik’s search queries as suspicious and sent the cops her device’s IP address. In the Hollywood script, a vigilant officer would notice the alert, rush to the scene, and knock on the door just as Mensch’s assailants were about to do her in.

In reality, there are a few obstacles that scenario. For starters, police would need instant access to the search data and a way to connect it to a physical address. These days they usually get electronic records only after a crime has been committed and they’ve built up enough evidence to obtain a warrant. They use the data not to prevent crime but to build their case for arrest and conviction.

There is also another obstacle to Slate’s scenario, people search for shit they have no intention of doing all the time. While I’ve never smoked marijuana before yet I often search of marijuana related topics for blog posts, historical information, and genuine curiosity. I’ve searched for terms like “can X kill somebody” where X is a random chemical because I’m simply curious. If somebody went through my search history they would probably think I’m quite the suspicious individual. I’m sure the search string “how long can a person survive without oxygen” would raise a few red flags in a law enforcement database (for those of you who are curious the answer appears to be somewhere between three to five minutes).

Yet the next three Google searches on Okrzesik’s phone—“ways to kill people in their sleep,” “how to suffocate someone,” and “how to poison someone”—seem to clearly indicate that someone has a strong curiosity about how to kill someone. One can also imagine other searches—say, a series of queries about the ingredients used to make anthrax—that law enforcement agents might like to know about.

Yeah, because law enforcement’s time should be wasted looking into a kid who was just wondering what antrax is and how it’s made.

Computers aren’t magic, they can’t predict crime. Using search terms to predict crime is absurd. People search for strings that appear criminal in nature all the time. Sometimes the people are looking for a recent story related to a crime, sometimes they’re interested in case histories surrounding such crimes, and sometimes they’re just curious if such a crime could be perpetrated.

It’s unfortunate that people who don’t understand computers have bestowed these wonderful electronic devices with mythical powers. Articles like this remind me of those yahoos who think the Venus Project is a good idea. If you’re not familiar with the Venus Project count your blessings, it’s an idiotic idea to centrally control economics with a super computer in order to bring forth utopia. How we’re suppose to build a computer that can control an entire economy when we can’t even build one that can accurately predict the stock market still remains unanswered.

Computers, like any other tool, is very good at performing the task they were build for. If you need to crunch numbers a computer is the right tool for the job. If you need to predict human behavior computers are all but entirely worthless. In order to build a computer that can do something we must first know how to do it. Since we can’t predict human behavior there is no way we can build a computer to do it. These people who talk seriously about using computers to solve crimes before they happy are living in a fantasy land made possible by a complete ignorance of computer technology.

Unfortunately other people who are ignorant of computer technology will latch onto this and think it’s a good idea. Thus this idiocy will continue to perpetuate.

So Long Ray Bradbury

I’m sure, by now, everybody has heard that Ray Bradbury has died. The man was a great writer but an unfortunate luddite. With that said, even though he forsake many great technologies, I must say he was quite the visionary:

You’re known as being anti-politics. Are you still that way?
I don’t believe in government. I hate politics. I’m against it. And I hope that sometime this fall, we can destroy part of our government, and next year destroy even more of it. The less government, the happier I will be.

So long Ray Bradbury, your memory will live on through your writings (unless we make reading books illegal and change firemen from fight fighters to book burners).

Shocking Fast and Furious News

Absolutely shocking evidence has arisen that shows high-ranking state officials actually knew about Fast and Furious:

A House investigative committee said Tuesday it has obtained new information from wiretaps related to the Obama administration’s Operation Fast and Furious that suggests high-ranking officials know more than they are telling Congress about the flawed weapons sting.

“The wiretap applications show that immense detail about questionable investigative tactics was available to the senior officials who reviewed and authorized them,” Issa said in a June 5 letter to Holder. “The close involvement of these officials — much greater than previously known — is shocking.”

Who would have guessed that there was corruption afoot? That was a rhetorical question, the entire Fast and Furious operation was nothing but a corrupt state scheme meant to bring in more gun control measures.

When Obama told the Brady Campaign that he was going to work on gun control under the radar everybody assumed he was either placating the gun control zealots or was going to promote gun control through some form of nation campaign. I don’t think anybody expected he would go so far as to authorize an operation that would get people killed and then try to cover the entire mess up. Then again we shouldn’t be too surprised that a psychopath, who ordered the assassination of two American citizens without any form of due process, also authorized an operation that was obviously going to cost lives (what other outcome could have come from arming violent drug cartels).

This new evidence is damning. Not only does it demonstrate higher ups knew about the operation but is also demonstrates that they outright lied about having such knowledge. It also shows the complete disregard for human life the current administration holds. Anybody could have told you what the outcome of arming violent drug cartels was going to be, yet the current administration decided it was OK. I’m sure they feel the ends justify the means.

The Meetings

It’s pretty well known that I’m a staunch individualist. Collectivism isn’t my thing. One of my biggest gripes with the collectivist philosophy is the whole idea of needing to reach consensus.

For those who haven’t observed collectivist decision making I can sum it up as this: it’s a big meeting where nobody is allowed to leave until everybody agrees on something. One example of this are the general assemblies made popular by the Occupy movement. I actually went and observed several of these assemblies and they were amazingly efficient at being entirely inefficient. Nothing of importance could get done because it’s impossible to get everybody to agree on anything. If you have a group larger than one simple decisions, like deciding where to eat during lunch, become more complex. While you may want Mexican food the other person may have a hankering for Chinese food. Expand this now, imagine you have 50 or 100 people trying to decide where to eat. Change up the scenario a bit more and instead of deciding where to eat now our group of 50 to 100 people are trying to decide what to use their collective funds on.

While I understand meetings are periodically necessary I hate them. They eat into time that could be used more productively and often accomplish nothing of value. Imagine if every societal decision had to be made by holding a meeting. Do you think Henry Ford would have been able to introduce the masses to the efficient assembly line if he needed the approval of everybody in his community? Do you think Apple would have been able to built the first personal computer if they needed everybody’s approval? Probably not. Innovation comes from individuals with drive, and nothing kills drive like long meetings. If you want to shutdown a go-getting quickly schedule him for consecutive back-to-back two hour meetings. Before you know the go-getter will be making a difficult decision between hanging himself or shooting himself.

I could never survive in a collectivist society because I couldn’t stand the fucking meetings. When I want to do something I do it. The last thing I want to do is sit on my ass, twiddle my thumbs, and wait for everybody to decide on whether or not I can do what it is I want to do.

In my opinion the ultimate downfall of collectivism are the meetings. I witnessed the failure of collective decision making at OccupyMN, decisions that appeared to be simple matters often took days of arguing between any decision was finally made, and often people voted in favor of it solely because they were sick of arguing and wanted to move on to other things. The only time anything notable was accomplished was when a few individuals said, “We’re doing this! Anybody who wants to join us do so.” Consensus decision making doesn’t work with me, I don’t even want consensus. In fact I won’t even attend the pointless meetings, while people are wasting their time trying to decide on how they’re going to make decisions I’ll be busy doing something. If you need me I’ll be in the shop.