News You Need to Know – Page 105

When the Serfs Revolt

While the manor lords continue to reign over the serfs their reign only lasts as long as the serfs are unaware of their numerical superiority. It seems the serfs in Spain are starting to understand they outnumber of manor lords:

More than 1,000 riot police blocked off access to the Parliament building in the heart of Madrid, forcing most protesters to crowd nearby avenues and shutting down traffic at the height of the evening rush hour.

Police used batons to push back some protesters at the front of the march attended by an estimated 6,000 people as tempers flared, and some demonstrators broke down barricades and threw rocks and bottles toward authorities.

Television images showed officers beating protesters in response, and an Associated Press television producer saw five people dragged away by police and two protesters bloodied. Spanish state TV said at least 28 were injured, including two officers, and that 22 people were detained. Independent Spanish media reported higher numbers that could not immediately be confirmed.

Americans will rant and rave when some referee makes an unpopular call in a football game but when they’re getting fucked by their government they merely complain that the wrong party is in power. It’s nice to see America’s apathy isn’t universal, people in other countries actually begin to rise when they’re being raped by the state.

6,000 people showing up to surround parliament is impressive and the Spanish should be proud that they can rally such large numbers to protest the state.

A Serf by Any Other Name is Still a Serf

What do you call an agricultural laborer work is forced to work a lord’s land? A serf. What do you call an agricultural laborer who is forced to work a lord’s land but is allowed to keep half of his produce? A serf:

North Korea plans to allow farmers to keep as much as half of their produce in an attempt to boost agricultural output, it has been claimed, in a move that would be a major economic reform for the beleaguered country.

How fucking generous of the North Korean government. They’re only going to take half of the serfs’ food! Obviously the new Dear Leader is far more benevolent and generous than the list. At this rate North Koreans will be free individuals within 1,000 years!

Seriously, if the population of any country should be revolting it’s North Korea’s.

Just a Minor Mistake

When you or I kick in some innocent schmuck’s door and gun him down it’s called murder. When the police do it it’s called a mistake:

A 61-year-old man was shot to death by police while his wife was handcuffed in another room during a drug raid on the wrong house.

Police admitted their mistake, saying faulty information from a drug informant contributed to the death of John Adams Wednesday night. They intended to raid the home next door.

Yes, the police admitted their “mistake.” Of course their mistake would be deemed murder if anybody without a state issued costume and badge did it. True liberty cannot exist so long as one set of individuals enjoys legal privileges other sets do not.

A Look at Things to Come

Things are not looking good for this country. The rate of unemployment continues to increase, the police state continues to expand, and now the average life expectancy is decreasing for certain individuals:

For generations of Americans, it was a given that children would live longer than their parents. But there is now mounting evidence that this enduring trend has reversed itself for the country’s least-educated whites, an increasingly troubled group whose life expectancy has fallen by four years since 1990.

Researchers have long documented that the most educated Americans were making the biggest gains in life expectancy, but now they say mortality data show that life spans for some of the least educated Americans are actually contracting. Four studies in recent years identified modest declines, but a new one that looks separately at Americans lacking a high school diploma found disturbingly sharp drops in life expectancy for whites in this group. Experts not involved in the new research said its findings were persuasive.

This is merely the beginning. First the life expectancy of the poor decreases and soon the average life expectancy across the board will begin to decrease. We cannot sustain our combination of an ever more regulated healthcare market, unhealthy eating habits, and lack of exercise forever. Reality is a harsh bitch who eventually catches up with people who continuously make bad decisions.

Destroying Evidence

A gun buyback program is a great way to destroy evidence:

Because the guns are destroyed and not tested, it’s impossible to know if any of them were ever used in crimes, Sheppard said.

“That’s part of the offer, we’re not going to check it for anything, we destroy it,” he said. “As part of our offer to bring the guns in, we’re saying there will be no questions asked. There will be no investigation about where the gun came from and what it was used for.”

Which is probably why inmates convicted of murder and other gun-related crimes were more than happy to raise money for a gun buyback:

A group of Orleans Correctional Facility inmates — some incarcerated for murder and other gun-related crimes — raised $1,050 in the prison to pay for the buyback. About 100 inmates participated in the program, raising just dollars per day, and have been dubbed the Civic Duty Initiative Team.

They are probably trying to help ensure fellow murders don’t end up in the click with them. The state continues to claim that gun buyback programs get dangerous weapons off of the streets but in reality they are effective at destroying evidence of gun-related crimes. If somebody murders another person with a gun they know they can dispose of the evidence, namely the firearm, by taking it to a gun buyback program and having the state dispose of the evidence. On the other hand if a criminal is in possession of a gun that isn’t evidence in a crime they will have no motivation to surrender it to the state. Why give the state a useful tool for your trade?

Making Mountains Out of Mole Hills

An enterprising individual has decided to open up a gun range with an attached lounge that serves liquor. As you can imagine the anti-gun crowd are up in arms:

WSB-TV reports that Lakeside Guns Shop owner Kristina Brown plans to open the multimillion-dollar indoor range with her husband in Powder Springs. And when it comes to being state of the art, the Governor’s Gun Club will not only have the best technology available to marksmen, it will also have Maker’s Mark.

[…]

However, some residents are skeptical, especially with a housing subdivision being built just 100 yards from the new range.

“I mean, that’s just stupid,” Traci Hart, mother of three, told the station. “We don’t need drunk people running around in and out of the neighborhood.”

Because those individuals couldn’t get drunk at any other bar in the area? Think McFly! Other people are concerned that drunk people will be firing guns at this new range, a worry that is entirely pointless:

Brown sent WSB-TV a statement clarifying that once someone has ordered a drink in the lounge, they will not be permitted to enter the firing range:

“Customers will have to order a drink with their identification card and once the card is accepted, and flagged, they cannot be checked back into the range that day,” the statement reads.

Common sense would lead anybody to realize that the owner of a gun range isn’t going to want drunk people firing guns. Alcohol and firearms are dangerous when combined so anybody who owns a combination firing range and liquor lounge is going to have a vested interest in keeping the customers from the liquor lounge away from the gun range.

Sometimes Juries Pull Through

Once in a while juries make the right decision. Alvin Schlangen was facing charges for voluntarily trading with fellow individual:

A Hennepin County jury Thursday found a Stearns County farmer not guilty of violating the state’s food safety laws when he distributed raw milk from an Amish farm to Twin Cities customers.

Alvin Schlangen of Freeport was charged with three misdemeanor counts, including selling unpasteurized milk, operating without a food license and handling adulterated or misbranded food. After three days of trial, the jury began deliberating on Wednesday afternoon and resumed deliberations Thursday morning.

Schlangen, an organic egg farmer, doesn’t produce milk himself but operates a private club called Freedom Farms Co-op with roughly 130 members who buy various farm products, including raw milk. Schlangen picks up milk products from an Amish farm and delivers them to members who lease the cows.

Yes a man in Minnesota actually faced charges for selling raw milk. You see raw milk is treated like a radioactive substance by the state. Anybody who comes into contact with raw milk is told to immediately seek medical attention and avoid contact with all other non-medical personell. In reality raw milk isn’t nearly as dangerous as the state makes it out to be and even if it were what you put into your body should be your own business, not the state’s.

I’m glad to hear the jury found an innocent man innocent. Far too often juries allow themselves to be suckered by state prosecutors who claim juries must uphold the letter of the law and should avoid making their decision based on whether or not a law is just.

My Hometown’s Finest

In most towns the police become infamous for beating people but in my hometown of Caledonia, Minnesota the police become infamous for drag racing squad cards down the local airstrip:

Recently the Caledonia, Minn. Police Department took delivery of a new Ford Crown Victoria (curiously, CV production ended in September of 2011) police cruiser. This got the attention of not only the local criminals, but it apparently piqued the interest of the Houston County Sheriff’s Department, too.

Just like in high school, when another kid gets a new car, there’s gonna be talk about whose car is faster. So according to reports, a Caledonia officer and a Houston County deputy lined up on a local airport runway to pit the county’s Dodge Charger against the city’s new Ford Crown Vic Police Interceptor. We imagine there were roaring engines, squealing tires and clouds of taxpayer-financed smoke.

Needless to say I called home to get the details. The linked story is incorrect because the Caledonia car was a new Ford Taurus Police Interceptor, not a Crown Victoria as reported. I was also informed that the Charger is faster off of the line by the Taurus ends up winning over the distance.

Honestly I find this story funny. Anybody who has been to Caledonia knows that the local airstrip is seldom used for airplanes. Most of the time it hosts drag races between local high schoolers, drunks, and anybody else who needs a long straight stretch of road. Obviously I’ve never done such a thing… but if I were to have done such a thing in a 1990 blue Plymouth Acclaim I would note that the airstrip is long enough to get that gutless four cylinder engine up to 70 miles per hour. I can only imagine how fast the police got those squad cars up to.

Either way it’s nice knowing that my hometown police are known for drag racing instead of hurting people.

Enforcing Equality at All Costs

One of the more interesting aspects of modern American society is the fixation with equality. I’m not talking about equality under the law, people seem content with the fact that a certain group of people have legal privileges not enjoyed by everybody else. No, I’m talking about equality in all other aspects of life. Americans have become obsessed with mental equality, physical equality, and family equality. In fact things have gotten so out of hand that father-daughter and mother-son dances are being banned:

In a move that has taken some parents by surprise, the school department has announced that it is banning traditional “father-daughter” and “mother-son” activities, saying they violate state law.
Did the Cranston School Department do the right thing in banning “father-daughter” dances? (3,477 votes)

Supt. Judith Lundsten said the move was triggered by a letter ifrom the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a single mom who had complained that her daughter had not been able to attend her father-daughter dance.

Lundsten said school attorneys found while federal Title IX legislation banning gender discrimination gives an exemption for “father-son” and “mother-daughter” events, Rhode Island law doesn’t.

This story also exemplifies my love-hate relationship with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Because a child lacked a father she was unable to attend the father-daughter dance. In a sane world no consequences would come of this and the dance would be allowed to go on. This isn’t a sane world so the ACLU sued and caused the dance to be cancelled. Everybody suffered because one child faced inequality with those who had both parents.

Perusing perfect equality is a foolhardy mission because it’s impossible. Some people are stronger than others, some are smarter than others, and some have both parents while others have only one. These circumstances exist because reality has no concern for human equality. Yet we continue to punish everybody because one or two people face inequality due to circumstances inflicted on them by life. At this rate everybody with two legs will have to have one amputated so those missing a leg can be equal to everybody else.

Nuking the Economy

What does the world’s most powerful military force do when it runs out of money? Spend money it doesn’t have on upgrading weapons that it doesn’t need:

They may be cash poor as the recession continues, but that doesn’t stop the Obama Administration from continuing to spend, with a new scheme to spend hundreds of billions of dollars they don’t have on thousands of nuclear weapons they don’t need.

The “modernization” plan seeks to upgrade some 5,113 nuclear warheads as well as refurbishing nuclear weapons facilities and replace delivery systems for the weapons, each capable of wiping out a major city, and combined capable of destroying virtually the sum total of human civilization.

I give up, what can you say about this story that it doesn’t say already?