Month: July 2014

Salon Goes Full Retard Again

You writers at Salon are like an enteral fountain of stupid ideas. That’s probably because…

you're-all-a-bunch-of-socialists

More to the point, you’re all a bunch of state worshiping socialists. As far as you’re concerned the only problem in this world is that we don’t have a state boot stomping on our faces quite enough yet. And that leads you to say really stupid things like this:

They’re huge, they’re ruthless, and they touch every aspect of our daily lives. Corporations like Amazon and Google keep expanding their reach and their power. Despite a history of abuses, so far the Justice Department has declined to take antitrust actions against them. But there’s another solution.

Is it time to manage and regulate these companies as public utilities?

No. No it’s not. And I’m going to tell you why it’s not by using your own stupid arguments against you. You see, every argument you use against Google and Amazon can be equally applied to the state.

Big Tech was created with publicly-developed technology.

Publicly-developed technology are built by private companies. Think of the state’s major technologies. Fighter jets, bombers, tanks, drones, missiles, and aircraft carriers are all built by private companies. The technology that runs the Internet? Yup, it’s all made by private companies such as Cisco, Dell, HP, and IBM (which has quite a history of building things for governments). When the state wants something it throws money at private companies that actually build it. Without private companies there would be no “publicly-developed” technology.

Big Tech’s services have become a necessity in modern society.

Then why ruin it by giving it over to the state? The only thing the state does competently is steal and break shit. While it does throw some money at private companies to build substandard roads much of its resources are invested in militarizing the police so they can better murder our pets, building more efficient ways for our military to blow up people overseas, and protecting the politically connected private companies from its not as well connect competitors.

If Google and Amazon were nationalized the would use them to collect even more data on you and I. Gmail would exist to allow the state to know when we’re communicating about something illegal and our purchases on Amazon would be scrutinized to see if some tangible connection to terrorism could be made. Google Maps would probably be used to drop Hellfire missiles on whoever used it as well.

They’re at or near monopoly status – and moving fast.

The state is a monopoly. In fact it is the monopoly that makes all other monopolies possible.

They abuse their power.

And what does the state do? Let me think. It sends heavily armed men to kick down people’s doors at two in the morning, shoot their dogs, and kidnap them for possessing a fucking plant. Then you have the National Security Agency (NSA), which is the state’s apparatus for spying on our phone calls, e-mails, instant messages, and other communications. When it finds a little free time it also likes to put people to death even though the evidence supporting those people’s guilt is nonexistent. I haven’t even gotten to the number of foreigners it slaughters.

They got there with our help.

So did the state. It acquires its resources by stealing them from us. Sometimes it’s in the form of taxes other times its in the form of fines and other times its in the form of slave labor (which it rather humorously refers to as prison labor).

The real “commodity” is us.

Guess what? The state’s commodity is us. We’re nothing more than tax cattle and cannon fodder to it.

Our privacy is dying … or already dead.

Edward Snowden really brought this point to light. The NSA has been spying on our digital communications for years. While I dislike many of the data collection policies used by Google and Amazon there is a major difference between what they do and what the state does with my data. Google and Amazon use my data for personal profit and to find more shit for me to buy from them. The state uses my data to decide whether or not it will send armed thugs to my home at two in the morning so they can shoot my pets and kidnap me. I’d say that’s a pretty big difference.

Freedom of information is at risk.

Are you referring to the Cyber Information Sharing Act (CISA)?

The free market could become even less free.

And your solution is to preemptively restrict it by putting Google and Amazon under the state’s direct control? That’s not a solution to the hypothetical problem of the free market becoming less free; that’s making the hypothetical problem a reality.

They could hijack the future.

So could the state. The difference, of course, is that Google and Amazon hijacking the future doesn’t lead to people being locked in cages, bombed, and otherwise brutalized.

Expensive Porn

Lest somebody believe that the Republican Party has a monopoly on candidates saying really stupid and offensive shit I present you the words of Mike Dickinson, a Democratic candidate for the Virginia House:

Mike Dickinson, the Virginia liberal Democrat seeking the House seat currently held by Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., despite not being on the ballot, offered a $100,000 reward for nude photos and videos of Kendall Jones, the 19-year-old Texas Tech cheerleader who recently made news with a series of hunting photos on her Facebook page.

“I have 100k to anyone who has nude photos or videos of #kendalljones at Texas tech (sic),” Dickinson tweeted. “She deserves to be a target.”

$100,000 for nude pictures of a teenage girl? Is this guy a fucking idiot? Does he not know that you can get all of the nude teenage pictures you want on the Internet for free? Somebody tell this man about Google stat!

OK, I admit that I’ve tried to stay out of this entire debate. My guess is that the outrage over Kendall Jones is mostly manufactured. I’m guessing she wants to do a hunting show or something like that and got ahold of a good marketing agency that started drumming up this controversy. Before all of this is said and done the people who oppose safaris will have the people who support safaris so fired up that they’ll buy whatever Mrs. Jones is selling just to spite their opposition. Is it cynical for me to think this? Absolutely!

However when you have candidates offering $100,000 to get nude pictures of a girl for the expressed purpose of embarrassing her just because he disagrees with what she does shit needs to be called out (at least if your hobby is making politicians look more like idiots than they normally do). Such activities indicate deep seated psychopathy, which was already indicated by the fact that he is running for office.

Krav Maga

So this has to be one of the funnier tweets I’ve come across:

Anybody who has done Krav Maga or knows something about the system will get it. Also, I post this purely from a martial arts standpoint not a political standpoint (so don’t bother bitching at me that Israel is defending itself against evil Hamas or whatever, that’s not the point of this post and I’m not going to get drawn into that unending argument).

Training

There was a time when I thought, as I believe many people think, that military and police personnel were highly trained in areas of fighting. It’s a logical assumption. If somebody’s job relies on the use of force you would expect them to be well trained in the use of force. However as I learned more about firearms I also learned that military and police personnel commonly have substandard firearm training. As Tim at Gun Nuts Media explained:

Those who have never been in the military often make the mistake of assuming that everyone within the organization is extensively trained in the use of small arms. This is not true. The unpleasant reality is that a large chunk of the people in uniform (be that a police or military uniform) are extremely poorly trained with small arms. I know a number of people who did multiple tours in the military without ever once touching a weapon. The handgun training that does happen is very rudimentary, happens infrequently, isn’t sustained by any ongoing practice, and generally results in somebody who it is hoped will be at least intelligent enough to know which end of the tube the bullet comes out of. That’s it. Even infantrymen who are supposed to be the warfighters get minimal handgun training that doesn’t leave them remotely prepared to use the weapon under combat conditions.

I’ve shot with quite a few military and police trained individuals who were, what I consider, abysmal with all manners of small arms. As I study martial arts I’m also learning that military and police personnel also have substandard training in hand to hand combat. Many, if not most, of the supposed hand to hand tactics taught to police have a very narrow range of applicability. For example, many of the pressure point tactics work well against a semi-compliant opponent but are practically impossible to execute on a fully resistant opponent who knows even a little about hand to hand fighting. From what I’ve noticed the military does a slightly better job since it spends time teaching soldiers how to utilize many objects as hand to hand weapons but even their training is surprisingly limited (granted, their primary weapon is their rifle but I already covered that their training with small arms is pretty pitiful).

Here in the United States we seem to have adopted a quantity over quality mentality when it comes to training police and military personnel. This is probably because training, for anything honestly but specifically for fighting in this case, takes dedication and a lot of fucking work. If you look at professional fighters and high ranking competition shooters they invest a great deal of their lives into mastering their trade. On the downside that means we’re stuck with a local police force running around with weapons they’re generally not well trained to handle and foreign countries get to deal with our military personnel who suffer the same problem. On the upside it also means that both groups will have very few if any encountered with people whose training exceeds their own. The number of professional fighters and competition shooters in the world is fairly small and most of the people who have invested so much of their time into mastering a skill are too busy to be fucking around with the police or military.

But I’m left wondering if our country’s decision to focus on quantity is partially to blame for our military and especially our police having a propensity to use far more force than is necessary. Competency often leads to confidence. Would a cop be a likely to shoot somebody if they were extremely confident in their hand to hand skills? Would cops be less likely to spray and pray with their firearms if they were extremely confident in their marksmanship? I’ve seen quite a few people who, in lacking competency, opt for overkill. Not just in fighting mind you. But in fighting the consequences are higher because those who tend to lack confidence will often attempt to compensate with more violence than a situation would actually need. In the case of police work that can make the difference between restraining a guy without hurting him and brutally assaulting him.

Perhaps it’s time that we demand military and especially police personnel dedicated a major chunk of their time to training. Yes it will involve high drop out rates as the lazy will seek alternative, less rigorous, work. But do we really want those people throwing around their authority? And it’s possible that those who remain will be less apt to cause great deals of harm. It’s an idea I’ve been throwing around recently and thought others might wish to consider.

GOP Stupid Train Stops in Minnesota

I’ve been documenting a major problem for the Republican Party (GOP), the mouths of its candidates, under the headline the GOP stupid train. Admittedly it’s not a particularly clever name and when I chose it I mean to use it as a one off. But Republican candidates keep saying absurdly stupid things so I’ve been forced to continue running with the theme.

After making a tour around a good chunk of the country the GOP stupid train has finally stopped here in Minnesota. I give you Bob Frey who has this to say:

Frey then explained his view: “When you have egg and sperm that meet in conception, there’s an enzyme in the front that burns through the egg. The enzyme burns through so the DNA can enter the egg. If the sperm is deposited anally, it’s the enzyme that causes the immune system to fail. That’s why the term is AIDS – acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.”

There you have it. According to Mr. Frey anal sex causes AIDs. This man better be trolling us because if he managed to get through our school system and still believe this shit then all hope is lost.

Police Want to Create Child Pornography to Prove Minor’s Selfies were Child Pornography

I’m not entirely sure where to begin with this:

A Manassas City teenager accused of “sexting” a video to his girlfriend is now facing a search warrant in which Manassas City police and Prince William County prosecutors want to take a photo of his erect penis, possibly forcing the teen to become erect by taking him to a hospital and giving him an injection, the teen’s lawyers said. A Prince William County judge allowed the 17-year-old to leave the area without the warrant being served or the pictures being taken — yet.

If you read the story you will find that the 17 year-old is accused of sending a sexually explicit video of himself to a 15 year-old girl. Even though the video was of himself he is still accused of manufacturing and possessing child pornography because he is a minor. To prove their case the police now want to take the 17 year-old kid, inject him with viagra, and take a picture of his dick to compare to the dick in the video. Because when you have a badge drugging a kid and taking sexually explicit pictures of him isn’t possessing and manufacturing child pornography because of mother fucking reasons you stupid fucking slaves.

Fortunately the boy’s guardian gets it:

Carlos Flores Laboy, appointed the teen’s guardian ad litem in the case, said he thought it was just as illegal for the Manassas City police to create their own child pornography as to investigate the teen for it. “They’re using a statute that was designed to protect children from being exploited in a sexual manner,” Flores Laboy said, “to take a picture of this young man in a sexually explicit manner. The irony is incredible.” The guardian added, “As a parent myself, I was floored. It’s child abuse. We’re wasting thousands of dollars and resources and man hours on a sexting case. That’s what we’re doing.”

That is exactly what they’re doing. They’re taking a parental issue of two teenagers acting as expected at their age and using it as an excuse to create some child pornography by drugging a kid. How anybody thinks the police in this situation aren’t a bunch of sicko fucks is beyond me. If I were the prosecutor I’d be filing charges against the cops.

St. Paul’s Finest

Wednesday the heroes of the St. Paul Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team executed two dogs during a brave no-knock raid:

It was 7 a.m. when police executed what is known as a no-knock search warrant. Arman said he and his two children were sleeping on a mattress when armed members of the SWAT team barged through the front door. The next thing he remembers is seeing the family’s long-time dogs stagger and fall.

Of course the brave men and women of the St. Paul SWAT team claimed that the dogs were coming right for them and they had to gun the vicious beasts down for officer safety. Because knocking on the door and giving the owners a chance to secure their dogs was totally out of the question because, well, reasons. And pepper spray? Why the fuck would they use that? It doesn’t kill anything and being on the SWAT team isn’t fun unless you to get kill things!

This shit pisses me off because it’s entirely avoidable. All the officers have to do is knock on the fucking door and say “Police, we have a warrant to search the premises.” But they didn’t because of their exaggerated fear of people shooting through the door. Such an occurrence is exceedingly rare because most people are as violent as police officers, but logic doesn’t matter when the words “officer safety” are muttered. How about this, if you’re worried that somebody might react violently because you’re a police officer don’t because a fucking police officer. Enforcing the state’s decrees is dangerous work.

Or better yet how about we just end the war on unpatentable drugs and the police can simply leave people who are using drugs and harming nobody else alone.

People are Very Upset About Imaginary Lines

OK, I lied. Here’s some content for today. Never let it be said that I’m not benevolent. Following Hobby Lobby’s stranglehold on the news last week the topic of “illegal” immigration has been bombarding every fucking news source I have this week. I was just going to leave the topic alone. After all everybody who is bitching about it this week will cease caring next week since this is America and we have the attention span of goldfish. But all of the outrage has lead me to believe that talking about “illegal” immigration is good for page hits. Also people are making some very strange assumptions that I feel need to be addressed.

Let’s consider what “illegal” immigration is. There exists a bunch of imaginary lines. I know that these lines are imaginary because I can’t see them when I go to where the map supposedly says they exist. Supposedly when somebody crosses one of these nonexistent lines without first receiving permission from some petty bureaucrat in a far away marble building it’s an illegal act. That’s a very strange concept to me.

Now let’s consider the thing that has most peoples’ panties in a bunch: costs. The main criticism I hear about the state failing to enforce immigration laws is that us Americans have to pay to care for these “illegal” immigrants. Apparently the people making this criticism believe that they will be required to pay less taxes or that their tax dollars will be used for better purposes if the state does a better job of enforcing its immigration laws. Guess what, that’s now how things work here.

First we need to acknowledge that the state doesn’t use actual money it uses debt. None of the money Obama has requested to deal with this situation exists. Second if we want to be honest with ourselves we should accept that our taxes wouldn’t decrease if people entirely stopped crossing the imaginary lines without permission. The state is already taking less from us than it’s spending so it’s not going to suddenly take even less. And the amount of money being spent on immigration related issues is a microscopic drop in the bucket. Third, even if we assume the money being used to care for “illegal” immigrants is real, we need to understand that money won’t be redirected for anything helpful if “illegal” immigration suddenly went away. It would just be moved to fund other parts of the police state we live in. Cops would get more armored personnel carriers to use on no-knock raids, the military would get more bombs to drop on the Middle East, and the politicians’ cronies would get more money to build worthless shit that doesn’t work.

Basically what I’m trying to get at is that arguing about “illegal” immigration is pointless. It’s a non-issue. Nothing would change if “illegal” immigrants suddenly disappeared tomorrow. This is just another fairytale created up by the state and it’s corporate media partners in an attempt to split us into two warring camps and distract us from the actual problems we’re suffering from.

The only thing I take solace in is knowing that nobody will care next week when our media overlords issue us our next weekly crisis.

Nothing to See Here

Last night I was busy creating aggregate demand by helping tear down my friend’s old deck. Paul Krugman would have been proud since we destroyed the shit out of that old deck but he also would have been unhappy that we left the rest of the house standing. I would like to say we walked away without injury by a high speed 2×4 did manage to clip my friend in the knee. But that may have further stimulated the economy by encouraging him to drink more beer to help relieve the pain!

The point I’m trying to get at here is that I didn’t get around to blogging last night because I was wrecking shit. So if you want more content you’ll have to check back tomorrow.