Category: News You Need to Know

My Favorite Thing About Neocons

My favorite thing about neocons is their naive belief that various government agencies can be reeled in or reformed. While this belief is annoying it is also kind of cute. It’s like looking at a child who hasn’t had a chance to fully experience the world and thus still holds the belief that good can be found in everything.

Sadly most neocons haven’t learned from reality and thus still hold theses naive beliefs. Take one neocon’s remark about the Transportation Sexual Assaulters Security Administration (TSA), she posts a horrific story of sexual abuse performed by a TSA agent and then points out the fact that the TSA isn’t about security:

Is there anyone out there who still believes that all this has anything to do with safety? It does not. These procedures are simply “security theater,” and when a traveler like Tabitha ops out of the potentially carcinogenic scanners, he or she has inconvenienced the TSA workers, who then retaliate by making the pat-down as invasive and unpleasant as possible.

I’m with the author up to this point. Unfortunately in the commends she makes a statement that demonstrate her ignorance regarding government agencies:

Stricty speaking, I’d like the TSA leashed, rather than completely abolished.

Of course this is the same woman who said she wanted to see at least one Republican candidate address the problem of the TSA and when another commenter pointed out Ron Paul she simply dismissed him as a racist and 9/11 truther (neither of which are true). This being the case I don’t expect much logic coming from her as she’s living in a world of cognitive dissonance by believing government agencies can be reformed and that the Republican are somehow different than the Democrats.

Government agencies can’t be reformed. Once the government obtains power over a market they never willingly relinquish it. The TSA is a great example of this as they moved in on the airport security market and are now expanding out to drug enforcement in Tennessee.

Hell the TSA are becoming more corrupt by the day. Yesterday as one of my friends was going through the airport she said a TSA agent pushed her into the radiation scanner before she had any chance to opt-out. I wasn’t even surprised in the slightest to hear that as the TSA are power hungry authoritarian assholes who have no problem pulling such stunts to exercise their authoritah.

As a completely unrelated side note the site I linked has the web address www.conservativecommune.com. How can you have a [neo]conservative commune? There is only one thing neoconservatives hate more than individual freedom and that’s communists.

More Dictator Behavior

For a country that founded itself on tossing out a tyrannical jackass of a king we sure are in a hurry lately to establish the President as a new dictator. Not only can the man in the Oval Office declare war willy nilly on any nation we no longer aprove of but now he has the power to overtake all media:

It’s the first-ever nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS), which hopes to provide key information immediately to all Americans in the event of a truly national emergency. This national system will look and sound much like the current (and local) emergency warnings often seen on TV or heard on radio, but the scope is larger and it can be put under the direct control of the President. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the National Weather Service (NWS) will all coordinate the test, but it’s FEMA that actually transmits the alert code.

Emphasis mine. So are there any other systems that we can just toss under the control of the President? Perhaps the President should be allowed to kill the Internet whenever he pleases… oh wait, they’re already working on that. Why not give the President exclusive deciding power on launching our nuclear arsenal while we’re at it?

Currently the government is slated to run a test of this system on Wednesday at 13:00 but they’re trying to figure out how to ensure the test doesn’t panic people:

Concerned that such a test might alarm people, the agencies are going to extraordinary lengths to provide a heads-up. I first heard about the test in an e-mail newsletter from my city government, which told residents last week, “Do not be alarmed when an emergency message will take over the airways… this is only a test.” The test will display a warning message on TV screens, though as my city helpfully noted, “Due to some technical limitations, a visual message indicating that ‘this is a test’ may not pop up on every TV channel, especially where people use cable to receive their television stations.”

Instead of spending buckets of money trying to alert everybody of the test I have a very cheap means of preventing panic; perform the test early in the morning, let’s say around 3:00. As a much smaller percentage of the populace is awake watching television and listening to the radio at that hour there will be a far smaller chance of creating widespread panic. I did it again, I came up with an effective way to save the government a ton of money so why haven’t I been hired as a financial consultant yet? Oh yeah, I refuse to work for the government.

Regardless of how this goes down those of us who are creeped out by the government’s constant grabs for power are going to be freaked out by this test no matter what propaganda we’re fed.

Hiring Police to Stand Around is Expensive

Anybody who has wandered down to the Government Plaza since the occupiers showed up has likely noticed there are a lot of police officers patrolling the two blocks that make up the Plaza. While those officers aren’t doing anything it sure is costing the taxpayers a great deal of money:

The cost to Hennepin County for security and management of the Occupy Minnesota protests has hit $152,295. The county board is seeking a transfer of funds to cover the cost.

$152,295 just to hire a bunch of cops to walk around? There is no reason the police presence should cost that much. For crying out loud the Plaza is right across the street from the mother fucking police station! It’s not like they even need officers walking around the Plaza as they could just ask one of the officers working in the police station to look out the window from time to time.

Some people I’ve talked to have blamed the occupiers for this burdon on the taxpayers. No, that’s bullshit! The only blame here lies on Hennepin County because there is no reason it should cost that much to hire officers to stand around and do nothing. Hell Minneapolis has deployed three of their $29,000 mobile camera rigs that probably suck enough fuel to power a couple police vehicles. Why do both police officers and those camera rigs need to be used? According to the Minneapolis Police Department those cameras are supposed to magically make crime go away so either those things don’t serve the purpose they’re supposed to or the police aren’t necessary.

Perhaps Hennepin County should hire me to do the security. I can promise adequate security for a fraction of the cost they’re paying right now. Pack up the cameras, send the cops home, and hire a couple of retired individuals to walk around with radios in hand. If the retired guys see something they can call the police who can walk all the way across the street to deal with the situation. There you go, I just saved the country a ton of money while giving some work to retired individuals looking for some income.

Occupy Minneapolis Being Handed an Eviction Notice

It was bound to happen sooner or later but Hennepin County has decided that it’s time for the occupiers at the Government Plaza to pack up an leave, at least during the evening:

According to a memo issued by the county, once snow falls and temperatures fall below 25 degrees, overnight sleeping on the plaza will be prohibited, portable toilets will be removed and a canopy shelter taken down.

County officials announced that winterization of the plaza will begin Friday. That means not only blowing out irrigation system lines but “consolidation” of items left in the plaza, storing sleeping bags during the day and removing all non-county signs.

A copy of the actual notice can be downloaded here [PDF]. To summarize Hennipen County isn’t going to let anybody sleep at the Plaza between the hours of 22:00 and 6:00 and all portable toilets will be removed once the mercury falls below 25 or the first “significant” snowfall occurs (what defines a significant snowfall is never defined).

Now comes the interesting part, what will Occupy Minneapolis’s response be. I’ve been hanging out in the chatroom periodically to see what is being planned but so far there is no generally accepted plan. Unlike many of the other occupy events, the Minneapolis crew is pretty few in numbers meaning they won’t be able to put up much resistance if the police decide to roll in and remove the occupiers by force. Thus civil disobedience is probably out leading the only other option being to plead with a government that has thus far been unwilling to provide much in the way of favorable rulings (although they’ve thrown the occupiers a few crumbs here and there for keep them disillusioned that the county is trying to help them).

Another idea that seems to be floating around is getting the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) involved to bring a lawsuit against Hennepin County although I’m not sure how well that’s going to fly (knowing the ACLU, whom are pretty decent at fighting for free speech and right of assembly, it is likely that they will take the case). This may be the only interesting thing to watch regarding Occupy Minneapolis since the whole tent confiscation occurred on its second weekend.

State Censorship

Uncle let us know that members of law enforcement in the United State have amped up the frequency in which they ask Google to remove videos of police brutality from YouTube:

The technology giant’s biannual transparency report shows that Google refused the demands from the unnamed authority in the first half of this year.

According to the report, Google separately declined orders by other police authorities to remove videos that allegedly defamed law enforcement officials.

The demands formed part of a 70% rise in takedown requests from the US government or police, and were revealed as part of an effort to highlight online censorship around the world.

Figures revealed for the first time show that the US demanded private information about more than 11,000 Google users between January and June this year, almost equal to the number of requests made by 25 other developed countries, including the UK and Russia.

First of all that’s one hell of an increase in takedown requests by the government. Second let us all take a second to thank Google for refusing to remove the videos. The rate of attempted government censorship and demands of customer personal information isn’t surprising but it is still depressing for those of us who would rather not live under a police state.

Loaded Gun Makes it On a Plane

Congratulations Transportation Security Administration (TSA), your goal of ensuring no firearms make it onto the plane has failed spectacularly:

Airport security officials at Los Angeles International Airport failed to detect a loaded handgun that was contained in a traveler’s checked bag Sunday, according to several law enforcement sources.

An airport ramp crew discovered the loaded .38-caliber handgun Sunday after it tumbled from an unzipped compartment in a duffel bag they were loading onto Alaska Airlines Flight 563, according to the sources. The aircraft was leaving the terminal at LAX at 8:15 a.m. Sunday, bound for Portland, Ore.

Workers called Los Angeles Airport Police to report the discovery. The owner of the gun was questioned at the LAPD’s Pacific station and released and allowed to board a later flight to Portland. The gun was turned over to Los Angeles police, the source said.

Bang up job boys. Even with your metal detectors, luggage scanners, pat downs, naked body scanners, water bottle confiscators, and other pointless security theater you missed a loaded firearm that would set off any cheap metal detector. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with firearms being in airplanes and in fact I advocate pilots, at the bear minimum, be armed. But when your mandate is to prevent weapons from getting onto planes and you’re trying to further crawl up our asses by establishing checkpoints on highways I’m going to call you on being complete fuck ups.

By the way a tip of the old hat goes to Victoria for sending me this story.

John McCarthy is Dead

Fuck it, I’m renaming this month Black October. Along with technology giants Steve Jobs and Dennis Richie, John McCarthy has passed away this month:

The creator of Lisp and arguably the father of modern artificial intelligence, John McCarthy, died today. He studied mathematics with the famous John Nash at Princeton and, notably, held the first “computer-chess” match between scientists in the US and the USSR. He transmitted the moves by telegraph.

McCarthy believed AI should be interactive, allowing for a give and take similar to AI simulators like Eliza and, more recently, Siri. His own labs were run in an open, free-wheeling fashion, encouraging exploration and argument. He won the Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery in 1972 and the National Medal of Science in 1991.

He was a great mind that contributed an unfathomable amount of knowledge to the field of artificial intelligence. Like Dennis Richie, the works of John McCarthy are marvels that enrich our lives everyday but few know anything about them. He was another grand master who worked in the shadows to deliver us better computing technology.

I would damn him for creating the LISP programming language and the endless number of parenthesis it demands his contributions well makeup for the syntax of the language he born. We will miss you John, and while your contributions to society won’t be celebrated to the degree Steve Job’s were do know that many of use recognized you for who you were and the accomplishments you made.

Now if every other major player in the technology industry would do me a favor and stay alive until November I’d greatly appreciate it. I don’t enjoy having to write three obituaries in one month.

Something Tells Me Xe Just Earned a Huge Contract

Obama has finally announced the end of United States military occupation of Iraq:

All US troops will be pulled out of Iraq by the end of the year, President Barack Obama has announced.

He ordered a complete withdrawal from the country, nearly nine years after the invasion under President George W Bush.

This would be far better news if it didn’t likely mean our troops will be replaced by private contractors from the likes of Blackwater Xe. I’m actually willing to bet money that we’re going to increase the number of mercenaries in the region which means we’ll still be dumping untold trillions into this ill-fated war.

They’re Probably in Mexico

Snowflakes in Hell Shall Not Be Questioned reports that the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) are missing 30 submachine guns:

Los Angeles police officials searched on Monday for a stolen cache of submachine guns and semi-automatic handguns that disappeared from a SWAT training facility, and said they were embarrassed by the loss.

More than 30 Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns and M1911 pistols that had been stored at the training facility were stolen, Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman Karen Rayner said.

The weapons had been altered to fire blanks, and it would be “difficult” — although not impossible — to convert them back to full use, she said.

Have they searched in Mexico? Maybe the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) stole them to arm the Mexican drug cartels.

Verizon to Collect Personal Data for Marketing Purposes

If you’re a Verizon customer take note that the company is making changes to its privacy policy so they can collect your personal information for marketing purposes:

For the last month, Verizon Wireless has been notifying customers through email of a major change to its default privacy setting: it will begin collecting your Web browsing history, cell phone location and app usage, for third-party marketing purposes.

You can opt out of such surveillance, although Verizon has promised not to share any identifiable information with these third-party companies.

It wouldn’t be so bad if this change was an opt-in instead of opt-out program. For example if Verizon told customers they could receive a $5.00 monthly discount on their Internet bill if they chose to allow their anonymized personal information to be shared with third-parties there would be little to complain about. Sadly whenever a telecommunications company decides to make sweeping changes to their privacy polices they always make them opt-out ordeals.

I would also like to point out that anonymizing data leaves little comfort these days. Data mining techniques are becomes ever more sophisticated, which allows companies to take mounds of anonymized data and tie that data to specific persons with a high degree of accuracy. Personally I would prefer third-parties not have access to information such as my location or web browsing history.