Month: August 2014

Down the Memory Hole

In the book 1984 the Party uses a device called a memory hold to dispose of information that it wants censored. A little known fact is that the United States government (and probably every other government) also have memory holes in the form of classified information. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently got to see this wonderful eraser of information as the National Security Agency (NSA) attempted to rewrite the history of a court transcript:

On June 6, the court held a long hearing in Jewel in a crowded, open courtroom, widely covered by the press. We were even on the local TV news on two stations. At the end, the Judge ordered both sides to request a transcript since he ordered us to do additional briefing. But when it was over, the government secretly, and surprisingly sought permission to “remove” classified information from the transcript, and even indicated that it wanted to do so secretly, so the public could never even know that they had done so.

Read the story, it’s an eye opener if you’re one of those poor unfortunate souls who still trusts the state. What’s more worrisome is that an unknown number of court case transcripts may have been altered in the past. In other words even the reliability of the judicial system is in question in this country. It’s pretty hard to set precedents when the information regarding a case is classified.

On Vacation

It’s time again for me to take a little vacation. In all likelihood I’m not going to have reliable network access for a few days so you shouldn’t expect any timely updates. However, as with previous vacations, I’ve taken the liberty of writing some posts beforehand so you won’t even know that I’m gone (except for the fact that I told you).

During this vacation I will not be responding to e-mails and comments from new commenters probably won’t get approved (your first comment has to be approved on my site as an anti-spam measure, sorry) until I return.

You Can’t Stop the Signal

The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) really though it was hot shit after shutting down the original Silk Road. But the Internet doesn’t take kindly to censorship and markets cannot be stifled. Since the original Silk Road was taken down others have popped up to replace it. And online advertisements for unpatentable drugs have actually increased:

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) closed down the original online illegal drug market, Silk Road, in 2013.

But new figures suggest the trade has actually increased since then.

And other research indicates one in four British drug users has accessed hidden websites.

This is a beautiful thing. Silk Road, in addition to providing for the wants of drug consumers, also reduced the amount of violence in the drug trade. Nobody should be surprised by this since violence is much harder to perpetrate when both parties in a transaction are anonymous. It’s also much harder for the biggest perpetrators of violence in the drug trade, the police, to storm the homes and kill the dogs of drug consumers if they cannot identify them.

It’s always nice to see the state’s control slipping through its fingers. The war on unpatentable drugs is untenable because markets always win. Agorism is such a powerful tool against the state precisely because it relies on markets, which are the manifestation of human action.

We Have to Do Something

I didn’t pay much attention to the anti-gun kick Rolling Stone magazine was on last month. For some reason I came across its article the supposedly explains how gun control advocates can win against the National Rifle Association (NRA). The article is mostly bullshit but one item stood out to me because of how blatant it was:

4. Act, Don’t Dither

When catastrophic events like Newtown unfold, there’s an impulse from many elected officials to slow down, to gather facts, to ensure that cooler heads prevail. Politically, this is why gun-control dies.

This point is so blatant yet so correct. It’s true that gun control dies when the facts come in, which is why gun control advocates need to exploit tragedies immediately if they hope to gain any success. But I would argue that any movement that dies because of facts isn’t a movement worth fighting for.

I think the biggest reason gun rights have been winning against gun control is because the latter relies on deceit and falsities. Gun control’s heyday was the era directly preceding the information age. Before widespread Internet connectivity it was much easier for gun control advocates to control the message and conceal the facts. Now that so many people have access to the Internet the facts are impossible to conceal and the facts speak pretty clearly in favor of gun rights. So the only hope gun control has a succeeding is making a move before the facts have actually been gathered.

Another Loophole Created by Gun Control Advocates

Anybody who has been involved in the gun rights movement for any length of time knows that advocates of gun control love to toss around the word loophole. Loophole, when used by advocates of gun control, simply means a legal method of an individual to possess a firearm. Shannon Watts, the head of Michael Bloomberg subsidiary Moms Demand Action (MDA), tweeted yesterday about needing to close the gun rental loophole because of its link with suicides:

Because I’m a helpful guy I decided to read the linked article to see how this horrifying problem is affecting every man, woman, and child in the United States. As it turns out the problem this loophole is supposedly responsible for isn’t much of a problem:

Following a death this January at the Los Angeles Gun Club, the Orange County Register scoured coroners’ data from just three counties and found 64 cases of gun-range suicide over a 12-year period.

64 cases in 12 years? That’s an average of approximately five suicides per year. So far this year six people have been killed by lightning strikes in Florida. The reason the problem of suicides at gun ranges is seldom discussed is because it’s exceedingly rare. More lives would be saved by finding a way to mitigate lightning strikes in Florida.

Humans in general perform poorly at assessing risk. Proof of this exists in this week’s Ebola scare even though the risk of contracting Ebola is very rare. Like the people currently losing their shit over the non-threat of Ebola virus, advocates of gun control have been losing their shit over any non-threat they can somehow associate with firearms. I advise advocates of gun control to stick to issues that actually harm people such as American imperialism and police brutality… oh yeah, they never mention those, which is funny considering they want those agents of the state to have a monopoly on gun ownership.

The Vatican Armory

By today’s standards the Vatican’s Swiss Guard look goofy as fuck. While their purple and yellow uniforms look as out of place in today’s world as plated mail their weapons, at least the ones stored in the armory, are pretty modern:

Rifles of the Swiss Guard have long been whatever is standard with the Swiss Army. Since 1990, that has meant the SIG SG550 rifle. This 5.56mm NATO select-fire rifle has a 20.8-inch barrel and is one of the most accurate and reliable modern combat rifles. Its 30-round clear lexan magazines clip together like ‘jungle mag’ style for rapid exchanges. The Guard owns both the standard StW90 rifle variant and the SG 552 Commando model (with 8.9-inch barrel, 19.8-inches overall with stock folded). With the Swiss military tradition of marksmanship, it’s guaranteed that these soldiers can use them if needed.

[…]

In the 1970s, these guns were augmented by HK MP5s from West Germany, one of the first instances of the Guard using non-Swiss made guns. Today the Guard now carries the ultra-modern HK MP7 PDW chambered in 4.6×30mm. This is a good choice as these same types are used by US Navy Seals, German GSG9 and just about anyone who doesn’t agree with Jerry Tsai.

The article has many pictures of the Swiss Guard and the armory, which is full of both modern and historical weaponry. Where else in the world will you see rifles like this:

on-the-same-rack-are-SIG-SG-550s-with-double-magazines-alongside

alongside plate armor like this:

the-armory-of-the-SG-contains-many-sets-of-actual-armor

The Vatican’s Swiss Guard even have Glock 19s with the Vatican seal imprinted on the slide (you can’t go to Hell for shooting somebody with one of those, right). I would love to have an opportunity to tour the centuries of history that that armory (and the Vatican itself) contains.

More Puppycide

At this point news articles about cops killing dogs is a daily event. But this story has an interesting slant:

David Kuge, the county’s chief probation officer, said two officers were contacting a post-release offender on Sequoia Drive in Oildale.

The officers rattled the gate to see if dogs would come out. They had previously been told that there were dogs at the home, and that the dogs would bite, according to Kuge.

No dogs initially came running, so the officers entered the yard. That’s when two dogs came out of the pet door.

One officer got out of the yard. The other officer was trapped and shot one of the dogs four times, because he felt threatened, according to Kuge.

How did the one officer become trapped in the yard? The gate obviously opened both ways since the other officer was able to get out. Was the second officer holding the gate closed to troll his fellow? How tall was the fence and gate? Since they officers could likely see over it since they noticed no dogs came out when they rattled the gate I’m lead to believe it was short enough to jump over. Was the officer who got out of the fenced area pushing his partner back into the fenced area? Seriously, this story is fishier than the coast of Iceland.

Calm Down, Ebola isn’t Going to Kill Us All

Are you scared of the Ebola virus yet? With how much media coverage is being given to the disease one would believe that it’s the next bubonic plague. A lot of people are worried about the disease spreading here and killing every man, woman, and child in the United States. But everybody should calm down. Ebola virus isn’t the death knell of the human race and would have a difficult time spreading through this country according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC):

No Ebola cases have been reported in the United States and the likelihood of this outbreak spreading outside of West Africa is very low. It’s more likely that the countries surrounding Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone may see cases because of the wide geographic spread of this outbreak.

While it’s possible that someone could become infected with the Ebola virus in Africa and then get on a plane to the United States, it’s very unlikely that they would be able to spread the disease to fellow passengers. The Ebola virus spreads through direct contact with the blood, secretions, or other body fluids of ill people, and indirect contact – for example with needles and other things that may be contaminated with these fluids. Most people who become infected with Ebola are those who live with and care for people who have already caught the disease and are showing symptoms.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) between 1975 when the disease was discovered and 2012 only 1,590 people have been confirmed killed by it. Compared to H1N1, which killed 575,400 people in 2009, it isn’t even a drop in the bucket.

Ebola virus is a nasty organism but the chance of it spreading in the United States and most other countries with relatively modern medical technology is slim.

2nd Annual Twin Cities Gun Owners and Carry Forum Family Picnic

I received an e-mail alerting me that the Twin Cities Gun Owners and Carry Forum is hosting its 2nd annual family picnic on August 9th at Boom Island Park in Minneapolis. It’s scheduled to go from 11:00 until 15:00. The website for the event is located here and the Facebook event can be found here.

2nd-tcgo-cf-family-picnic-flyer

I will be at Defcon during this event so I won’t be able to attend. But it’ll probably be a good time for you if you’re into guns (which I’m assuming you are since you’re reading this blog).

Inventories of Soldiers From 1066 to 2014

I came across a neat slideshow of various soldier load outs from 1066 to today. For the most part there is a trend of increasing equipment as time goes on but the variety of weapons carried decreases. Once our species masted firearm manufacturing (at least to a point where they were reasonably reliable and accurate) we said “Fuck these axes, maces, and swords.” That’s not surprising since the firearm really is the epitome of infantry weaponry.