Category: News You Need to Know

Happy Loyalty Day You Stupid Serfs

Are you a good an obedient serf? Do you always do what your oligarchs commands of you? If so I have good news. Today is your day! That’s right, today is Loyalty Day:

In order to recognize the American spirit of loyalty and the sacrifices that so many have made for our Nation, the Congress, by Public Law 85-529 as amended, has designated May 1 of each year as “Loyalty Day.” On this day, let us reaffirm our allegiance to the United States of America and pay tribute to the heritage of American freedom.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 1, 2014, as Loyalty Day. This Loyalty Day, I call upon all the people of the United States to join in support of this national observance, whether by displaying the flag of the United States or pledging allegiance to the Republic for which it stands.

For those of you not familiar with the history of Loyalty Day, it was first observed during the First Red Scare as a response to uppity socialists who chose May 1st to remember the 1886 Haymarket Massacre. During the Second Red Scare Congress passed observance of Loyalty Day into law.

It might seem pretty absurd that Congress would waste time passing the observance of Loyalty Day into law but when you look at the big picture it makes sense. The United States government opted for fascism, which made socialism its ideological enemy (national socialists really hate international socialists and vice versa). Hoping to stomp out its ideological rivals the United States government worked very hard to instill hatred of international socialism in the American people. This resulted in many stupid things included two Red Scares, the Cold War, and an absolutely retarded level of nationalism. Loyalty Day is merely the result of the retarded level of nationalism that exists in this country.

Now get out there, wave your flag, and pledge your lifelong obedience to the oligarchs that run this nation!

Regulation Nation

For being the freest nation on Earth (no, seriously, that’s why my patriotic friends tell me) the United States sure has a lot of red tape. I think the the term “regulation nation” accurately describes the United States. After all, if the costs of complying with its regulations were a nation it would be the 10th largest economy on Earth:

After years of rapid growth during the Obama administration, the cost of federal regulations is now bigger than the entire economies of all but nine countries in the world.

That’s according to the latest annual report on the regulatory state issued by the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute, titled “Ten Thousand Commandments.”

Suddenly the fact that the average bank regulator makes more money than the average banker makes a lot of sense. There’s a lot of money sunk into regulatory compliance and all of that money is entirely wasted (unless you believe investing in an institution that bombs the shit out of foreign nations is productive).

There are a lot of people looking for work at the moment. Once in a while one of these poor souls will ask me what I think a good career move would be. My first question is always “Do you have any moral issue working for criminals?” Surprisingly nobody who has asked me for advice has answered in the negative to that question. But if they had I would then tell them to get a government job. That’s where the real money is made. You usually have to start out as a peon but you can quickly work your way up the ladder. When you get high enough on the ladder you gain authority and connections. The authority is there for personal amusement and allows you to get revenge on all of those kids who laughed at you in elementary school. Connections, on the other hand, are a valuable currency because when you rub enough elbows with enough government bureaucrats you can whore yourself out to a regulatory commission, lobbyist group, or non-profit organization. After that you really rake in the cash!

America is still a land of opportunity, so long as you have questionable or entirely absent morales. As the linked story shows government is a growth industry!

Relevancy of Evidence

Byron Smith was found guilty of first degree premeditated murder and most people (myself included) seem to believe that this ruling was correct. But there are some people who believe everything Smith did was totally cool because those teenagers broke into his house. Those people are now in the process of grasping at straws in an effort to discredit the trial, which has lead to complaints about what the judge didn’t allow the jury to hear. This is most common article I’ve seen passed around regarding the supposedly omitted data:

Now, for the first time, MailOnline can reveal the story the jury DIDN’T hear, the history suppressed by the prosecution and the truth behind the hideous explosion of violence in Smith’s Little Falls home that Thanksgiving morning.

Because though the prosecution argued that Smith did not know whom he was pulling the trigger on that day, he DID know both his teenage victims.

Oh. My. God. This changes everything! Just kidding. But this does open the door to discussion relevancy of information in trials. According to Smith’s few advocates the history of the teenagers (you see they were evil drug using gang bangers who knew Smith personally) was critical information withheld from the jury and that caused the horribly unjust ruling.

How is such information relevant to Smith’s actions? The trail wasn’t a simple case of Smith shooting two teenagers who broke into his home unexpectedly. Evidence presented at the trial strongly suggests that Mr. Smith setup an ambush. Even if he didn’t setup an ambush he still continued the use of deadly force after the threat of death of great bodily harm was no longer a reasonable fear. After his initial shots he moved the bodies to another location in the house, said some disparaging remarks about the teenagers, and eventually put a gun under one of the teenager’s chins and shot her dead.

Does it matter if Smith executed complete strangers or people he knew? Not under the law. In either case he would be guilty of murder. And that is why Smith’s prior interactions with the teenagers and the teenagers’ histories of criminal activities were irrelevant to the case and thus not presented to the jury.

Byron Smith Found Guilty

Over a year ago two teenagers broke into Byron Smith’s house and were shot. What made this story different from other break-in stories was the fact that the teenagers were effectively executed by Mr. Smith. Yesterday the jury ruled Mr. Smith guilty of first degree premeditated murder:

The jury of six men and six women deliberated for about three hours in deciding that fate of the 65-year-old Smith, who shot 18-year-old Haile Kifer and 17-year-old Nick Brady after they broke into his home on Thanksgiving Day in 2012.

Smith faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In closing arguments Tuesday, prosecutor Pete Orput hammered home the idea that Smith, 65, plotted the killings of the intruders as they descended his basement steps about 10 minutes apart on that fateful Thanksgiving Day in 2012. After repeated break-ins to his home and his adjacent property throughout that fall, Smith set up an ambush, the prosecutor argued.

His gun was loaded; he moved his truck from his garage; he got a book, food and water, as he waited at the bottom of his basement steps. All of that points to premeditation, Orput said.

Smith also had a tarp ready and quickly wrapped up Brady’s body to move it after the shooting. “Some of you hunters will think this sounds like deer hunting,” Orput said.

This is the outcome I expected and, after hearing the evidence submitted at the trial, believed was right. Some people argued that Mr. Smith shouldn’t have been found guilty. Advocates of Mr. Smith’s innocence argued that the teenagers broke into the home and a man has the right to defend his home. I agree that a person has a right to defend his home but I disagree that Mr. Smith was acting in self-defense.

In general if somebody breaks into your home you can safely assume they mean you harm. That being the case I believe it is a valid act of self-defense to use whatever means necessary to stop the threat. Any action taken after the threat has been stopped is no longer self-defense. In the case of Mr. Smith he physically moved the bodies after he shot them and then executed the girl. Moving the bodies indicated that he felt that the teenagers to no longer be a threat (because if they were a threat why would he approach them and physically move their bodies). Since he felt the threat was no longer present he had no justifiable reason to shoot the girl.

Then there is the evidence that Mr. Smith was planning on shooting somebody. He moved his truck, which would have made it appear that he wasn’t home. Additionally he had tarps ready to cover bodies. As his house had suffered a string a previous burglaries moving the truck appears to be an attempt to bait the burglars into returned. Having a tarp on hand, in addition to the other evidence, indicates that he was planning on dealing with bloody bodies. Needless to say all signs point Mr. Smith setting up a situation that he expected to result in him killing people.

Pentagon to Destroy $1 Billion in Ammunition; Paul Krugman Applauds Its Efforts to Stimulate the Economy

Only an organization so vast, inefficient, and dumb could put itself into a position where it willingly destroys $1 billion worth of ammunition:

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon plans to destroy more than $1 billion worth of ammunition although some of those bullets and missiles could still be used by troops, according to the Pentagon and congressional sources.

It’s impossible to know what portion of the arsenal slated for destruction — valued at $1.2 billion by the Pentagon — remains viable because the Defense Department’s inventory systems can’t share data effectively, according to a Government Accountability Office report obtained by USA TODAY.

Most of this story focuses on the Pentagon’s shitty inventory system. I will save you some reading by providing you a TL;DR. The Pentagon has a shitty inventory system, it wants a fancy new inventory system, and it needs to make up claims about the potential to save billions of dollars so Congress will fund it.

I believe the more important question is why the Pentagon is destroying all of that ammunition. Obviously Stripes couldn’t be bothered to scrounge up an answer. My guess is that the ammunition is being destroyed as part of the effort to demonstrate how badly a new tax victim funded inventory system is needed.

Setting aside my cynicism I must ask if destroying all of that ammunition is necessary. If the ammunition slated for destruction is handgun and rifle cartridges then I feel the need to propose an alternative. Handgun and rifle ammunition, so long as it’s stored properly, keeps almost indefinitely. That being the case there is no reason that handgun and rifle ammunition needs to be destroyed in most cases. If the Pentagon is simply tired of having the ammunition around it could release it for sale to use mere civilians who can put the ammunition to good work at the firing range.

NYPD Experiences the Internet

The Internet, as we know it today, was created largely by people who weren’t fans of authority. This is rather evident when you look at the mostly decentralized nature of the system. In fact the very protocols that make the Internet work are proposed through Requests for Comment (RFC) and the only deciding factor for whether or not they achieve widespread adoption is peoples’ willingness to adopt them. So what happens when a very anti-authoritarian network meets a very authoritarian organization? Hilarity:

For another case study in the perils of using Twitter for branding, look no further than the #myNYPD hashtag that is now trending for all the wrong reasons in the New York City area.

What started out as an attempt to solicit pent-up good feelings among the New York Police Department’s constituents is turning out to be a troll-fest of epic proportions.

The New York Police Department (NYPD) wanted to use Twitter as its propaganda arm by having users post heartwarming pictures of its officers helping New Yorkers. What they got instead were pictures of brutality carried out by NYPD officers.

There is a lesson to be learned by the NYPD from this. The department’s image sucks and for good reason. Officers in the NYPD have a long history of committing acts of brutality and being generally corrupt. Thanks to readily available recording equipment, namely cell phones with cameras, the amount of evidence of the NYPD’s brutality is voluminous. What this means is that any attempt to solicit the help of the Internet, which is heavily composed of people who are not big fans of brutality, will end in disaster.

What the NYPD should do now is accept that its image sucks, understand why its image sucks, and work to improve its image but not doing horrible things. What will probably happen is the person who though up the #myNYPD idea will be fired and more traditional routes of distributing propaganda will be utilized.

Bringing Serfdom Back

I’ve expended a lot of electrons on discussing the lord-serf relationship that exists between the government and the people. But until today the analogy hasn’t been completely literal. In an apparent attempt to prove my analogy the government has begun reviving the ancient practice of inherited debt:

Holding children responsible for the debt incurred by their parents is a feature of historical feudalism and a few modern third-world shitholes.

Developed countries, by and large, assume that a debt dies with the person who willingly incurred it, or at least stops with his or her estate. “By and large,” I write, because the U.S. government has broken with centuries of tradition holding individuals responsible for their choices, opting to withhold tax refunds from children whose parents incurred vague and often ill-documented obligations to the feds.

I’m sure this practice will only continue to grow. Soon we will see the government’s courts arguing that private debt incurred by parents is inherited by their children. This practice will also change another dynamic. We hear a lot of complaining from “progressives” about inherited wealth creating perpetually powerful families. Inherited debt will accomplish the exact opposite: perpetually powerless families. With that said this would also be the likely death knell of the United States as times of perpetual powerlessness have traditionally lead to uprisings by the downtrodden.

Using the State’s Rulings Against It

Ross Ulbricht, the man accused of being the operator of the original Silk Road, just demonstrated how effective he is at trolling. Facing charges of money laundering Mr. Ulbricht is now using the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) ruling that Bitcoin is property and not currency against them:

The IRS recently ruled that Bitcoin is property, not a “monetary instrument.” And now the attorney for alleged Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht is arguing that his client must be innocent of money laundering because Bitcoin officially isn’t money, reports Wired.

I think that’s a very good defense. How can one launder money using Bitcoin, which has been ruled by the IRS as not being money? That question was hypothetical because we all know that the state doesn’t actually have to follow its own laws when prosecuting people. I’m sure the state will perform the mental gymnastics necessary to continue this case.

Prussian Efficiency

Germany is well known for being an efficient country populated by efficient people. This is evident in many things the country does including policing:

German police officers fired a total of 85 bullets in 2011, 49 of which were warning shots, the German publication Der Spiegel reported. Officers fired 36 times at people, killing six and injuring 15. This is a slight decline from 2010, when seven people were killed and 17 injured. Ninety-six shots were fired in 2010.

Meanwhile, in the United States, The Atlantic reported that in April, 84 shots were fired at one murder suspect in Harlem, and another 90 at an unarmed man in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles police department alone requires as many rounds of ammunition to take down one suspect as the entire country of Germany requires for all of its police in an entire year. Talk about German efficiency (or American inefficiency).

But there’s more to this story than mere numbers. Those numbers indicate a potential cultural difference between German policing and American policing. German police appear to turn to the gun more as a last resort whereas American police turn to the gun whenever the magical phrase “officer safety” can be applied to a situation. One of my issues with modern policing in the United States is how quickly it usually turns to deadly force, armed no-knock raids, and general thuggery. The days when a couple of police officers would knock on your door, present a warrant, and arrest you are rapidly disappearing entirely. Instead those days are being replaced with an armed Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team kicking in your door at two in the morning, shooting whatever pets they see, and busting you up or shooting you before handcuffs are even brought out.

Other developed countries manage a less militant take on policing and haven’t fallen into chaos. Perhaps this is due to those countries still treating the police as a civilian peacekeeping force and not paramilitary forces. Either way our police could learn a thing or two from Germany’s police.

How Much Water Does the NSA Use

How much water does the National Security Agency (NSA) use? That’s classified. I’m not even kidding. According to the NSA the amount of water its new data center in Utah uses is a matter of national security:

The National Security Agency has many secrets, but here’s a new one: the agency is refusing to say how much water it’s pumping into the brand new data center it operates in Bluffdale, Utah. According to the NSA, its water usage is a matter of national security.

The agency made the argument in a letter sent to officials in Utah, who are considering whether or not to release the data to the Salt Lake Tribune. Back in May, Tribune reporter Nate Carlisle asked for local records relating to the data center, but when he got his files a few months later, the water usage data was redacted.

We live in an era where practically everything the government does is labeled classified, which makes the label meaningless. Furthermore labeling everything as classified makes oversight of any government agency impossible. The total lack of transparency is part of the reason elections are meaningless. How can the people know who to elect to take care of problem parts of the government if they don’t even know what those problem parts are?