News You Need to Know – Page 69

Wet Willies Now Felony Assault

Wet willies are a schoolyard prank that are likely older than schools themselves. As far as I know nobody has actually been injured, killed, or made ill as a result of a wet willy. But none of that matters because the rules in this country are made up and the punishments never match the crime. A Mankato man gave an officer a wet willy and is now facing felony assault charges:

A wet-willy has landed a man in trouble with police.

Police told our sister station in Mankato that 24-year-old Riley Swearingen put his pointer finger in an officer’s ear while waiting in line for a bus early Saturday morning.

Since it involved bodily fluids, police say it rises to the level of felony assault.

I’m surprised the officer didn’t simply stream “Office safety!” and gun the man down. I guess arresting him and charging him with felony assault does count as restraint in this wonderful police state of a country.

Representative Mike Rogers Wants Edward Snowden Charged With Murder

When you find out that you government is doing something unlawful and tell the world in the hopes of getting it to change its behavior what do you end up getting? If you said deserved reward for uncovering unlawful activity you are incorrect. If you said being accused of murder by a Congress critter you are correct:

Republican Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House of Representatives intelligence committee, told an meeting in the House of Commons in London on Tuesday evening that Snowden was a “traitor” who was now living in the “loving arms” of Russian spies.

“The [US] government has pressed charges on Mr Snowden,” he said. “We are treating him, as I would argue, the traitor that he is.” Rogers added: “And by the way, and this is important, I would charge him for murder.”

“He took information that allows force protection, not only for British soldiers, but for US soldiers, and made it more difficult for us to track those activities. Meaning it is more likely that one of those soldiers is going to get their legs blown off or killed because of his actions,” he said. “Anybody that provides information to the enemy is a traitor, period, pure and simple.”

By supposedly removing protection from American soldiers he is responsible for their deaths? By that logic every member of Congress and the president should be charged with murder. They are the ones that have removed the protection of the oceans that lie between this country and the Middle East from the country’s military personnel and put them directly in harm’s way.

Again I will reiterate that Snowden did the right thing. The United States government has been on a “If you see something, say something” kick since 9/11. Snowden saw something and he said something. The problem was he saw something that the government didn’t want him to say anything about and it therefore changed its mind and should have changed its motto to “If you see something illegal being done by the government shut the fuck up, slave.”

I’m Just Declaring Today Stupid Wednesday

That’s it, I’m declaring today Stupid Wednesday. There’s just so much idiocy in the news that I’m left wondering how many humans remember to breathe, let alone function at a high enough level to make the news. The City of St. Paul is looking to set a minimum price on tobacco products. But that’s not the dumbest part. As hard as it may be to believe the justification for this plan is even dumber than the plan itself:

“I’ve seen people come in — of age, because they’re purchasing in front of a police officer — but they simply throw down change on a countertop,” Gannon said. “And they have enough change in their pocket to buy a single cigarillo. And I just wonder where that cigarillo ends up at. Does it go out to somebody who may be younger who can’t afford more expensive cigarettes.”

Where does one even come up with such a conclusion? Just because somebody plunks down a bit of change to buy some cheap tobacco doesn’t mean, or even remotely imply, that they’re buying for underage individuals. And it gets dumber:

For law enforcement, limiting access to cigars can be important, because cigar wrappers also can be used to smoke marijuana.

Yup, cigar wrappers have to be controlled because they can be used to smoke weed. Because there’s no other possible way for somebody to smoke weed other than using an old cigar wrapper. No siree!

And just think, these are the people tasked with running your life. These are the people that make up the institution known as government. Your lives are in the hands of total fucking morons.

A Bigger Domestic Abuse Problem

Thanks to the National Football League (NFL) domestic abuse is on the front page of many news outlets. It’s quite sad that the only time people care about domestic abuse is when celebrities are involved but that’s the way it is. But since the topic is being discussed I think it’s worth bringing up a larger source of domestic abuse issues than NFL players:

And there is another American profession that has a significantly more alarming problem with domestic abuse. I’d urge everyone who believes in zero tolerance for NFL employees caught beating their wives or girlfriends to direct as much attention—or ideally, even more attention—at police officers who assault their partners. Several studies have found that the romantic partners of police officers suffer domestic abuse at rates significantly higher than the general population. And while all partner abuse is unacceptable, it is especially problematic when domestic abusers are literally the people that battered and abused women are supposed to call for help.

I’m not surprised that studies are showing that domestic abuse rates amongst police families are higher than average families. As I’ve noted before the primarily job of modern policing is extortion in the form of fines, citations, and civil forfeiture. That’s why you can find police officers with radar guns on most major highways and more police resources put towards enforcing the prohibition on unpatentable drugs than solving murders, burglaries, and assaults. The problem with focusing on extortion instead of protection is that it attracts a different kind of person, namely a kind of person who has no moral issue with hurting others. If your police force is made up of enough people who enjoying hurting people then chances are high that you’re also going to have a notable rate of domestic abuse amongst them.

Columbus Day

For a few years now there has been a lot of outrage of Columbus Day. Some regions in the United States have even begun renaming the day Indigenous People’s Day to avoid associating the holiday with Columbus.

I don’t understand why people are surprised, shocked, or outraged by the fact that the federal government declared a holiday to celebrate Columbus. Christopher Columbus sailed to a random plot of land, stuck a flag in it, declare the land and its inhabitants property of the Spanish crown, and started killing them and taking their shit. Let’s face it, this single man embodies everything that a government wants to do.

Even today the United States government tries to emulate its hero, Columbus, by sailing aircraft carriers around the world, sticking American flags in Middle Eastern land, declaring the land and its inhabitants the property of whatever puppet government the United States actually controls, and killing those inhabitants and taking their oil. The only thing that surprises me is that Columbus’s face isn’t on the flag of the United States.

Bloomington Police Spying on Shoppers at Mall of America

The Mall of America is one of those places I try to avoid like the plague. I don’t like shopping in meatspace on the best of days so throwing me into a vast complex of clothing stores is basically torture. Combine that with mall security that does its best to make mall ninjutsu a real thing and you get a recipe for bad times. Now I have another reason to avoid that hellhole, the Bloomington police are spying on everybody who shops there:

License plate readers are cameras that capture your license plate information just driving by. They record the plate number, the date, time and location of your vehicle. The information is then checked against a “hot list,” which includes license plates of people suspected of various crimes.

At the meeting, law enforcement officials from St. Paul, Duluth, Mendota Heights and Ramsey County all said the technology has helped them solve crimes.

You can add Bloomington to the list too. In their case, they have an agreement with Mall of America. According to Bloomington Police Chief Jeff Potts, the mall is allowed to access the data, although they have yet to do so.

“It’s solely for the purposes of safety, security and traffic management. Not marketing, not other things that were discussed here just a few minutes ago,” Potts explained. “We’re just using these cameras to try to keep the mall safe. The scans, the license plates that we read, are bounced against a database of known vehicles that are either stolen, wanted persons, people with warrants.”

I like how the Mr. Potts first says that the scanners are meant to keep the mall safe and immediately admits that the scanned license plates are being bounced off of a database of wanted persons. Which of the following scenarios is likely to be safer? An individual with a warrant out for his arrest goes to the Mall of America and while there buys (or even steals) a shirt and grabs some lunch or an individual with a warrant out for his arrest goes tot he Mall of American and his license plate informs the Bloomington Police Department to gear up, head to the mall, and have a wild shootout with the suspect. I’m much rather see the latter since modern policing seems to be entirely unconcerned with innocent bystanders.

As the article says, license plates scanners are used throughout Minnesota to violate what little privacy we still have. Because of this it’s difficult to avoid a place simply because you don’t want some nosy police officer stalking you via their license plate scanners. But when a place I already don’t like to go to admits to using these devices it just gives me more reason to avoid it.

Another Shooting in Missouri

There was another shooting in Missouri. Once again it was a white cop, working as a private security agent at the time, who shot a black teenager. But this time the teenager wasn’t unarmed and apparently exchanged fire with the officer:

An off-duty police officer in St Louis, Missouri, has fatally shot a black teenager, leading to angry demonstrations on the streets.

The white officer was on patrol for a private security company when he exchanged fire with an 18-year-old after a chase, say police.

He fired 17 shots at the teenager, police added.

Obviously very little concrete evidence has been released regarding this shooting as it is very recent. I bring it up primarily because this situation is an example of a no win situation. Assuming the story is being reported accurately, the officer came under fire after pursuing the teenager and returned fire. On the one hand returning fire is a smart thing to do when somebody is shooting at you. On the other hand any incident in Missouri of a white cop shooting a black teenager is going to cause civil unrest as the memory of the incident in Ferguson is still on everybody’s mind.

It’s not uncommon for people to concoct self-defense scenarios and plan for a way to survive them. But sometimes there is no winning. That is something we should all come to understand and accept.

Assisted Suicide in the News Again After a Long Absence

I haven’t seen assisted suicide as a headline news item since the last trial of Dr. Jack Kevorkian. With the announcement that a woman by the name of Brittany Maynard is planning to commit suicide on the first of next month I am again seeing the often heated debate over whether or not assisted suicide is proper return. This story is timely for me because I’ve been reading a book on seppuku, which is Japanese ritual suicide for those who do not know.

The big questions people seem to be debating is whether she is going to die with dignity, acting cowardly, or making a horrible decision. It is not my place to judge such matters, my interest is more clinical.

Here in the United States suicide carries a similar stigma as mental health. That is to say the often held believe in the United States is that suicidal people are weak or otherwise less noble than other people. This isn’t a constant in all cultures though. Seppuku, for example, was often viewed as a good way to die. Often times this was because seppuku was a way for a samurai to prevent his family status from being taken or deny his opponent the satisfaction in killing him. But a common thread that seems to run through seppuku is the desire to take control of one’s fate.

She has terminal brain cancer and faces a lingering and painful death. Based on the interviews I’ve read Brittney also sees suicide as a way to take control of her fate. This attitude seems rather foreign to many people who are discussing this story but if you study enough history you will see that it’s an attitude that pops up in several cultures. And it’s an attitude that I sympathize with. I have often said that if I am faced with a painful death that is likely to linger for some time I would probably choose a better way to die (maybe find some two-bit shitbag human trafficker or similar scum and go after him in a almost certain to be suicidal attack). So I understand her motives and can’t argue against her decision. On the other hand I also find it interesting reading arguments against her decision. Regardless this is a complex issue with no objective correct solution, which is kind of ironic because so many people seem to believe they have the absolute correct answer.

As an aside, one of the criticisms I see commonly brought up is that she will be putting her family to a great deal of pain by going through with her suicide. I don’t really get that since they will be suffering a great deal of pain whether she commits suicide or not. The main difference is that her committing suicide will likely reduce the extent of her family’s pain. Anybody who has had to witness a family member suffering a lingering and painful death knows that the pain of watching them suffer is extensive and their death almost comes as a relief.

Decentralized Coding Schools

I’m a big fan of decentralized systems. One of the greatest benefits of the Internet, in my opinion, is how it decentralized access to information. You no longer have to go to a library to acquire a research article or attend a university to learn the fundamentals of scientific fields. While having access to information is much of the battle qualified instruction is extremely useful. To that end a group of hackers have proposed a really neat method for instructors to teach programming skills without having to rely on centralized universities:

The idea is that if you’re planning to work on some programming tutorials at, say, your local coffee shop, you’ll announce when and where on Hackvard, and other aspiring programmers will show up and join you—regardless of what languages they’re learning or what materials they’re using. When you have some time to learn, you can check to site to see if anyone nearby has announced a gathering. These events could lead to the formation of ongoing study groups, or they could just be one-off gatherings. The point is just to get people together, so they can support each other as they learn the craft.

I think this could be useful not just for teaching programming but as a system where already skilled programmers can help each other excel even more. Sometimes the hardest part about learning programming or continuing your education in programming is finding other people who share your interest and have the skills necessary to assist you. Hopefully this idea does well or, if it doesn’t, inspires an even better idea.

Michael Bloomberg Gets Labeled Lower Nobility by Royalty

Michael Bloomberg, being the gun control psychotic at the top of the heap, gets a lot of press on gun blogs such as this. The man is a tyrant and views himself as a king. So it must have really deflated his ego when the Queen of England labeled him a knight:

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) can add a new title to his name — he’s been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

[…]

The British Embassy says the distinction was in recognition of Bloomberg’s “prodigious entrepreneurial and philanthropic endeavours, and the many ways in which they have benefited the United Kingdom and the UK-US special relationship.”

The common belief this day and age is that receiving a knighthood from the British royalty is one hell of an honor. For most people it probably is. But for somebody like Bloomberg it has to be a slap in the face. Let me explain. Historically a knighthood was a title of lower nobility. Receiving the title meant that you were now in a position where you were expected to fight and die for the actual nobility. Bloomberg, if you pay attention to the words that come out of his mouth, views himself as a king, or at the very least a duke. The Queen of England just said that he isn’t a duke or even a measly baron. He’s just a knight and his place is to die for everybody above him.

In other words Bloomberg didn’t receive a whole lot other than a kick in the fact and, if he’s smart enough to realize what he actually received, a strike against his ego.