Category: News You Need to Know

REAL ID Won’t Go Away

Even though no citizen wants it out politicians are ensuring some form of REAL ID gets passed into law. This time it’s being introduced to stop the “immigration” problem. From the article:

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.

That’s right a card you’d be required to get in order to work. Doesn’t that just sound like big brother plus some? Of course Chuck Schumer’s name would appear on this project. What a bastard. Americans really want to beg the government for permission to work, make money, and live in this country. Also you know it’s a bad idea when:

Most European countries require citizens and foreigners to carry ID cards.

When most European countries do something you know it’s not good for individual liberty of human rights. Let’s not lie to ourselves our government is going to do everything it can to develop some federal method of tracking as many citizens as they can. But hey at least they aren’t using the terrorist card on this one.

Japan Sounds Like an Anti-Gunner’s Wet Dream

No not for the usual reasons such as Japan’s overly strict gun laws. But when I read this article on a Cold War era treaty Japan had that allowed nuclear armed United State’s naval units to port the following exert struck me:

The secret pact is controversial because after World War II and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan adopted the three “non-nuclear principles” – not making or possessing nuclear weapons, nor allowing them on to its soil.

Now I’m the first person to say nuclear weapon proliferation is a bad idea (Although we in the United States have no right to tell other countries they can’t build or own them). The things are vicious but if everybody else has them you really need to as well less you get nuked and not have a method of retaliation (Mutually assured destruction is the only reason I believe the Cold War stayed cold).

But Japan’s mentality mirrors that of some anti-gun and anti-self defense advocates. The idea is to blame the devices not those who are wielding it. For instance some people who are mugged at gun point becomes advocates for banning firearms since they incorrectly believe that will disarm the criminals and make streets safer. Japan seemed to develop the same attitude towards nuclear weapons. Since they got nuked they decided that ensuring there are no nukes in their country will prevent them from getting nuked again.

I just found that interesting since I’d imagine the only country to be nuked in a time of war would like a means of ensuring it doesn’t happen again (Once again mutually assured destruction). But of course this piece was also interesting:

The secret deal was sealed in the 1960s between US and Japanese diplomats, who agreed that the transit of nuclear arms through ports did not constitute the introduction of weapons into Japan, and so did not require prior consultation on the US side.

Much like anti-gunners are willing to call the police to be a proxy of violence Japan seemed just fine with our nuclear capable ships being in their waters. If Japan was so dead set against nukes you would think they would be angry about anybody having them. But it’s easier to take the moral high road when you can decry violence while still having somebody defend you if somebody brings violence upon you.

California Strikes Again

Although many people think of California as being entirely beach front property the truth is much of it is desert. Southern California for instance has very little rainfall and depends on irrigation by water drawn from Northern California. Realizing this Angelina and Quan Ha decided it was stupid having all that grass in their lawn and decided to replace it with wood chips and drought tolerant plants. What happened next is rather obvious:

Meanwhile, the couple said they had reduced their water usage from 299,221 gallons in 2007 to 58,348 gallons in 2009.

Oh and they’re being sued by their city. Apparently the city of Orange decided it would be a good idea to have an ordinance requiring 40% of a piece of property to be covered in live plants. They did this because, you know, they like things that make sense.

Seriously the problems of that state are never ending.

Senate Traitors Extend PATROIT Act

Yeah it’s official. OK it was official before but now it’s REALLY official. The senate is made up by a bunch of traitors. The senate today voted to extend the expiring provisions of the civil liberties violation known as the PATRIOT Act. This pisses me right the fuck off.

I’m very open about saying everybody who voted in favor of the original PATRIOT Act should have been brought up on charges of treason and dealt with accordingly. The law shits all over civil liberties in this country and undoes the Bill of Rights in its entirety. But here is the icing on the cake:

With the law facing a sunset date of Feb. 28, the Senate opted to vote for the extension of three crucial provisions of the act rather than opening debate on a revised bipartisan plan passed by the Judiciary Committee in October that would have imposed stricter privacy safeguards.

That’s right they didn’t even open debates on this. Nope they just passed and said fuck the American people.

To top that all of the current administration is still blaming Bush for everything. If they want to keep playing that card maybe they should show how they’re different and repeal of the of the God damned shit that got passed under his administration.

Bastards.

More On Big Brother

A few days ago I posted a story about a school district that got caught remotely activating built in web cams on laptops provided to students. Well some more information has come out. Apparently the school did activate the web cameras remotely 42 times. Of course they claim it was only to track stolen or lost laptops but I’m pretty sure those weren’t the only reasons considering how this case cam about. Now the fun part:

Either way, it looks like this is going beyond a civil case of the families suing the school district. The FBI is now investigating the case as well, to see if the district violated either wiretapping or computer-intrusion laws.

Now the FBI is involved. Yeah I hope this school district gets nailed to the wall over this. I’d love to see some people getting arrested or at least fired due to this whole fiasco.

If It Works Ban It

The United Nations in all their stupidity glory decided cluster munitions needed to be banned. But here are the best parts:

The treaty is binding only on countries that have signed and ratified it.

Wait for it:

Some of the biggest stockpilers – including the US, Russia, China and Israel – are not among the signatories.

So this treaty will only be enforced by nations that have signed it. The big three military powers, being intelligent people, decided to not sign it and can continue using cluster munitions. Why would they not sign it? Probably because they don’t want to get rid of devices that actually work.

A Novel Idea

I found a rather novel idea today. A person by the name of Darrel Ince is requesting scientists to release the source code for applications used in their research. It’s mostly directed at the Al Gore’s Apocalypse group of “scientists” but is a good idea in general. From the article:

Computer code is also at the heart of a scientific issue. One of the key features of science is deniability: if you erect a theory and someone produces evidence that it is wrong, then it falls. This is how science works: by openness, by publishing minute details of an experiment, some mathematical equations or a simulation; by doing this you embrace deniability. This does not seem to have happened in climate research. Many researchers have refused to release their computer programs — even though they are still in existence and not subject to commercial agreements. An example is Professor Mann’s initial refusal to give up the code that was used to construct the 1999 “hockey stick” model that demonstrated that human-made global warming is a unique artefact of the last few decades. (He did finally release it in 2005.)

A software application is, in essence, little more than a series of mathematical algorithms. No scientist will be taken seriously if they come to a conclusion but refuse to publish the math. Seriously try to get a scientific paper published without including the algorithms you used to come to your conclusion. You’re research paper will hit the shredder faster than the speed of light (Which will require some research into how that happened).

But somehow when the math is done on a computer nobody thinks it needs to be published. Software is never perfect. Computers aren’t good at doing most tasks outside of basic arithmetic. Doing floating point math on a computer without writing a library specifically aimed at the task is an estimation at best. At least if the code is published other people can see the logic being performed and find any bugs that could lead to an improper result. The scientific process need to remain an open debate otherwise it’s no longer science.

I would also go so far as to publish the exact specifications of the computer the software was run on. There have been quite a few problems found in processors that lead to incorrect answers under specific conditions.

The IRS Don’t Mess Around

So I noticed this post on The Firearm Blog this morning. The post opens with the following:

By now you have probably heard about the news that the IRS is buying Remington 870 shotguns. Why? Who knows.

So I thought I’d bring up something interesting that most people don’t realize. The IRS, being federal employees, actually have armed agents. The company I work for has been raided by the IRS (Not for anything the company itself did, but because of selected people in the company). This happened before I was hired but I’ve obtained the details from my co-workers who were here at the time since they do like to bring it up. One of the facts that is always emphasizes was that the IRS agents were armed when they entered the building and started rounding up all the employees. Once the employees were rounded up they were put under armed guard until the agents were able to secure all the computers in the building.

The IRS don’t screw around, if you are breaking enough tax codes to catch their ire they will do the logical thing and arm their agents when they come a knocking. The shotguns the tax men have recently purchased are most likely to be used in such raids.

Surprise, Making Things Illegal Doesn’t Stop Them

In the pursuit of common knowledge a research project was issued to determine if banning the use of cellular phones while driving was beneficial. Anybody who understands human nature already predicted the answer though. Apparently banning the use of cell phones while driving doesn’t stop people from using them while driving.

Go figure.