Month: December 2016

You Have No Right to Privacy, Slave

It’s a good thing we have a right to not incriminate ourselves. Without that right a police officer could legally require us to give them our passcodes to unlock our phones:

A Florida man arrested for third-degree voyeurism using his iPhone 5 initially gave police verbal consent to search the smartphone, but later rescinded permission before divulging his 4-digit passcode. Even with a warrant, they couldn’t access the phone without the combination. A trial judge denied the state’s motion to force the man to give up the code, considering it equal to compelling him to testify against himself, which would violate the Fifth Amendment. But the Florida Court of Appeals’ Second District reversed that decision today, deciding that the passcode is not related to criminal photos or videos that may or may not exist on his iPhone.

‘Merica!

George W. Bush was falsely accused of saying that Constitution was just a “Goddamn piece of paper!” Those who believed the quote were outraged because that sentiment is heresy against the religion of the State. But it’s also true. The Constitution, especially the first ten amendments, can’t restrict the government in any way. It’s literally just a piece of paper, which is why your supposed rights enshrined by the document keep becoming more and more restricted.

Any sane interpretation of the Fifth Amendment would say that nobody is required to surrender a password to unlock their devices. But what you or I think the Constitution says is irrelevant. The only people who get to decide what it says, according to the Constitution itself, are the men who wear magical muumuus.

Monday Metal: The Rise Of Hannibal by Ex Deo

I’m a huge fan of metal and history. Any band that can combine the two well jumps to the top of my list of favorites. Ex Deo has released two fantastic albums about Roman history but, sadly, the bad was on hiatus. But the gods have shown us mortals favor by brining Ex Deo back. Their new album is slated to drop early next year and they’ve released one of the songs, The Rise of Hannibal, last week. I’m happy to say that it kicks ass and if the rest of the album is this good the wait will have been worth it:

TSA Warning About Slave ID Deadline

Minnesota is one of the few remaining states that has told the federal government where to stick its REAL Slave ID requirements. If you do live in Minnesota and you really want an official Slave ID you can pay an extra $15 and go through the additional hassle necessary to convert your drivers license but it’s not required.

While it’s been known that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) would begin requiring Slave IDs to board aircraft the exact deadline has remained unknown. Soon the TSA at the Minneapolis International Airport will post signs indicating that the deadline will be January 22, 2018:

MINNEAPOLIS (KMSP) – Signs will soon be posted at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport with a warning that your current Minnesota driver’s license won’t be enough to pass through security in 2018.

Starting Jan. 22, 2018, you will need an alternate ID to fly if you have a standard driver’s license or ID card issued by any of the following states: Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina or Washington. Alternate forms of ID include a passport, military ID, or permanent resident card. You can find a full list of accepted ID at https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification

If you live in Minnesota and wish to travel on an airplane you should consider getting a passport. In fact, if you live in the United Police States of America you should consider getting a passport just so you have the option to leave this forsaken Orwellian nation.

I hope the Minnesota government continues to push against the Slave ID requirements but I fear that they’re going to kowtow to their federal masters before the deadline.

Facebook’s Attempt to Combat Scam News Sites

Fake news is the current boogeyman occupying news headlines. Ironically, this boogeyman is being promoted by many organizations that produce fake news such as CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. For the most part fake news isn’t harmful. In fact fake news, which was originally referred to as tabloids, has probably been around as long as real news. But fake news can be harmful when it’s used to scam individuals, which is a problem Facebook is looking to address:

A new suite of tools will allow independent fact checkers to investigate stories that Facebook users or algorithms have flagged as potentially fake. Stories will be mostly flagged based on user feedback. But Mosseri also noted that the company will investigate stories that become viral in suspicious ways, such as by using a misleading URL. The company is also going to flag stories that are shared less than normal. “We’ve found that if reading an article makes people significantly less likely to share it, that may be a sign that a story has misled people in some way,” Mosseri wrote.

Mosseri indicated that the company’s new efforts will only target scammers, not sites that push conspiracies like Pizzagate. “Fake news means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but we are specifically focused on the worst of the worst—clear intentional hoaxes,” he told BuzzFeed. In other words, if a publisher genuinely believes fake news to be true, it will not be fact checked.

On the surface this doesn’t seem like a bad idea. I’ve seen quite a few people repost what they thought was a legitimate news article because the article was posted on a website that looked like CNBC and had a URL very close to CNBC but wasn’t actually CNBC. If you caught the slightly malformed URL you realized that the site was a scam.

However, I don’t have much faith in the method Facebook is using to judge whether an article is legitimate or not:

Once a story is flagged, it will go into a special queue that can only be accessed by signatories to the International Fact-Checkers Network Code of Principles, a project of nonprofit journalism organization Poynter. IFCN Code of Principles signatories in the U.S. will review the flagged stories for accuracy. If the signatory decides the story is fake news, a “disputed” warning will appear on the story in News Feed. The warning will also pop up when you share the story.

I don’t particularly trust many of the IFCN signatories. Websites such as FactCheck.org and Snopes have a very hit or miss record when it comes to fact checking. And I especially don’t trust nonprofit organizations. Any organization that claims that it doesn’t want to make a profit is suspect because, let’s face it, everybody wants to make a profit (although it may not necessarily be a monetary profit).

Either way, it’ll be interesting to see if Facebook’s tactic works for reducing the spread of outright scam sites.

Be Safe Out There

This weekend is forecast to be fucking brutal. First we’re supposed to be nailed by snow today and then Saturday and Sunday the temperatures are looking to be rather unpleasant. This kind of weather isn’t a joking matter. It kills people.

If you can avoid traveling do so. If you can’t make sure you don’t let your gas tank drop below half full. If you become stranded you can turn on the engine periodically to keep the inside temperature from dropping to lethal levels but only if you have gas in the tank (also, if you’re stuck in this situation, periodically get out and verify that the exhaust pipe is unobstructed by snow). Have a full winter survival kit in your vehicle that includes warm clothes (as in clothing appropriate for surviving this weather, not an old coat you had lying around that’s barely rated for 10 degrees, let alone -20 degrees), a heat reflective emergency blanket, a jump pack in case you need to jumpstart you vehicle, a small shovel and some kitty litter in case you need to get unstuck, and a winter rated sleeping bag in case you’re going to be stranded for a while.

This kind of weather is lethal, treat it with the seriousness it deserves.

The Smell of Desperation

The defense attorney for Jeronimo Yanez, the officer that is being charged for the death of Philandro Castile’s death, has filed a motion for dismissal. What’s interesting is the justification used by the defense because it reeks of desperation:

Gray said that autopsy results indicated Castile has high levels of THC in his blood, the chemical responsible for marijuana’s psychological effects, and was “stoned” while driving that day. The memo said Reynolds confirmed that the two were “smokers,” had marijuana in the car and had smoked marijuana before the stop that day.

St. Anthony police officer Jeronimo Yanez is charged in the fatal shooting of Philando Castile.
“The status of being stoned (in an acute and chronic sense) explains why Mr. Castile, 1) did not follow the repeated directions of Officer Yanez; 2) stared straight ahead and avoided eye-contact; 3) never mentioned that he had a carry permit, but instead said he had a gun; and 4) did not show his hands,” the memo said.

Apparently using cannabis is grounds for summary execution according to Yanez’s lawyer. I say that because the motion doesn’t appear to claim that Castile posed a deadly threat to Yanez. It seems to only state that Castile was unresponsive to commands and chose poor wording for his attempt to inform Yanez about his firearm, not that Castile presented any kind of threat that one could reasonably construe as deadly. Furthermore, the lawyer tries to argue that Castile also violated the State’s bureaucracy:

Additionally, the memo said that Castile had falsely claimed on his application for a permit to carry a gun that he was not a user of an unlawful substance.

We know that Castile received his carry permit on June 4th, 2015. He was killed on July 6th, 2016. So he had his permit for over a year when he was shot. I bring this up because a lot can happen in a year. It’s quite possible that Castile wasn’t lying when he filled out his application but instead only started using cannabis after the fact. Either way, Yanez would have known none of this and even if he did lying on a form is not an execution worthy offense.

For you and me deadly force only becomes a legal option if there is a reasonable belief that great bodily harm or death could come to us. But as we know, the rules are different for those with badges. I only hope that this filing for dismissal is laughed out of the courtroom but it’s possible that the person in the magic muumuu will accept it.

The Doom and Gloom Predicted by Drug Prohibitionists Fails to Materialize

Every time it appears as though firearm restrictions may be loosened gun control advocates predict blood in the streets. Even though firearm restrictions have been loosened significantly in recent times the gun control advocates’ predictions have remained unrealized. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Violent crime has been going down.

A similar thing is happening with drug restrictions. Every time it appears as though drug restrictions may be loosened drug prohibitionists predict massive spikes in drug usage amongst teens. Drug restrictions have been loosening in recent years but drug usage amongst teens is going down:

Teen drug and alcohol use has fallen to levels not seen since the height of the drug war in the 1990s, according to new federal survey data.

The Monitoring the Future survey of about 50,000 high school students found that “considerably fewer teens reported using any illicit drug other than marijuana in the prior 12 months — 5 percent, 10 percent and 14 percent in grades 8, 10 and 12, respectively — than at any time since 1991.”

Teen alcohol and cigarette use are at historic lows, too. Among all students surveyed in 2016, just over 36 percent had drank alcohol in the previous year. That’s down by nearly half from the high in 1991, when 67 percent of high school students had consumed alcohol.

What’s the cause of this reduction? I could only offer guesses. But I can say for certain that drug prohibitions do not reduce drug usage amongst teens. If anything, the opposite may be true (or there may be no relation between drug usage amongst teens and the legal status of those drugs). Either way, we should stop taking the doom and gloom predictions by drug prohibitionists seriously.

Blaming Russia isn’t Exclusively an American Pastime

Blaming Russia for interfering in elections isn’t just an American pastime. It appears that our friends across the pond enjoy playing it as well:

A Labour MP has claimed that it is “highly probable” that Vladimir Putin’s Russia interfered in the UK’s Brexit referendum.

Ben Bradshaw said Moscow’s likely interference in the vote would fit a pattern of meddling in other nations’ affairs, following the CIA’s accusation that Russian hackers tried to influence the recent US elections.

Democracy is wonderful because the blame can always be put on somebody else if the election doesn’t go your way. Did your incompetent presidential candidate lose? You don’t have to blame it on your candidate’s incompetence, which would necessarily require admitting that your support was unwise. Instead you can blame the voters for being too stupid to choose the right candidate, the people who didn’t vote for not supporting your candidate, third-party candidates for stealing votes from your candidate, or an outside sinister force influencing voters against your candidate.

Did the people of your country tire of the yoke of an outside governing body and vote to leave that body? Again, you can blame everybody from the stupid voters to an outside sinister force!

Democracy means never having to admit fault.

Trump Will Turn the Propaganda Machine into a Propaganda Machine

Post election outrage is probably the only thing that is more annoying than pre-election campaigning. It doesn’t matter who wins, all of us end up having to listen to the apocalyptic predictions of the supporters of the losing candidate.

If you listened to all of the outrage you would believe that Trump is going to single handedly destroy the entire United States government (trust me, he won’t, if he could I’d support the guy). And the predictions are becoming more bizarre and more disconnected from reality. Take this prediction, which is titled “Trump could convert government news agencies to propaganda machines”:

One more thing President-elect Trump will inherit when he takes office next month: a large, state-run media operation with little or no impartial oversight. As the Washington Post‘s editorial board wrote this weekend, the United States’ official external news sources Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty and others are about to lose the buffer that keeps the content they project to the world fair and objective.

Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Liberty are fair and objective? Jesus Fucking Christ. How stupid are the people who write this nonsense? Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were never fair and objective. Both stations were created for the expressed purpose of spreading propaganda:

During the Cold War, Radio Free Europe (RFE) was broadcast to Soviet satellite countries and Radio Liberty (RL) targeted the Soviet Union. RFE was founded as an anti-communist propaganda source in 1949 by the National Committee for a Free Europe. RL was founded two years later and the two organizations merged in 1976.

Not only where both stations designed to be propaganda machines but they even received a great deal of funding from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) until 1972. Voice of America (VoA) is also a propaganda machine, although a more subtle one. Instead of being overtly anti-communist, the purpose of VoA is to spread general propaganda showing the United States in a positive light.

Any claims that Trump will turn these stations into propaganda machines are based on the false assumption that these stations aren’t already propaganda machines or were ever anything but propaganda machines.

Don’t get me wrong, I hate Trump too. In fact I probably hate him more than most of the people freaking out about him. But he wasn’t elected to the position of god emperor. He was elected to be the president and the president only has so much power. Unfortunately, he is unable to destroy the United States government so let’s all stop claiming he will. Such claims just give people false hope.

If Keynesian Economics isn’t Solving Your Problem Then You’re Not Using Enough of It

Although it’s unlikely he actually said it, it is often claimed that Albert Einstein said that the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result. By that definition there are a lot of insane people out there discussing mainstream economics.

Take this article, for example. The article tries to argue that Keynesian economics could save the United States. The problem with the article, besides its advocacy of nonsense, is that it’s based on the false premise that the United States government ever stopped following Keynesian economics.

The United States is in the mess that it’s in, in part, because it followed Keynes’ advice instead of Mises’. Instead of relying on free markets, a commodity based currency, and debt avoidance the United States has been relying on cronyism, a fiat currency, and racking up more debt than a drunken teenager with their parents’ credit card. The natural correction mechanisms of markets have been suppressed for decades, which has lead to a massive misallocation of resources. Eventually the problem will become so bad that no force will be able to continue suppressing these market forces and people will get to enjoy the mother of all depressions. Debt, likewise, is unhealthy in the long run because creditors eventually refuse to loan any more money (or buy your debt in the case of the United States) and call in outstanding loans. When those loans are called in and you don’t have the money to pay you end up going bankrupt (or killing your creditors as the United States will likely try to do).

The current United States economy is what you get when a government goes full Keynesian. If you’re really interested in trying to fix this mess you should pick up some books written by Ludwig von Mises and follow their advice.