Category: Side Notes

Hey News Outlets We Need to Talk

Right now you’re reading a blog. You’re probably doing this for one of two reasons: mass media sucks and they don’t report 90% of the important details in a story or you just like your news delivered with an appropriate amount of sarcasm and foul language. On this site I try to correct the first problem by providing links to important details (for instance the actual bill if I’m talking about a law) while also ensure you get your file of foul language.

Sometimes the first item isn’t very easy. It’s not easy because most media outlets leave our very important details (which is why the first item I listed exists). Because of this I have a couple of simple demands to make.

First when a story is talking about a bill I want to know the name of the bill along with the senate and house bill number so I can go read the bloody thing. Simple enough isn’t it? I want to see what’s actually in the damned bill instead of taking some “journalists” word for it. This would help eliminate a majority of the hysteria that floats around with currently pending legislation. Yes I know it’s all written in legalese and I’m not a lawyer but I’m a pretty smart guy and can gleam most of the information I need out of it.

Second when a story is talking about a court case give the named of the fucking court case. This is also pretty simple. For instance is John Q. Public is suing Jane Q. Private please make a reference to the case John Q. Public v. Jane Q. Private. I want to see what’s going on with the court case from multiple sources and having the actual name of the case would be beneficial.

That’s it those are my only demands. Why are either of these things so hard to do? At most it will add a few extra bytes to the size of the story and honestly bandwidth, even for people on dial-up, isn’t going to be negatively impacted by a few bytes.

The Salvation Army

I’ve been involved in a discussion with a fellow from Denmark over on Facebook. The discussion itself is really irrelevant to this topic at hand except for providing an explanation to find what I found. I was looking for details between the United States and Denmark and came across the following information [warning it’s a PDF] published by the United States Census Bureau (see they produce something for all those millions of dollars the squander on sending out post cards reminding us of the census we’ll be receiving soon enough).

While digging through it I found some rather interesting information I didn’t know. The Salvation Army is a religion its own separate denomination of Christianity. Now I knew they were a religious organization but I never new they were an actual religion separate denomination. So I did a little more searching and found this article on the BBC:

The Salvation Army is a Protestant denomination of the Christian Church with over 1.6 million members in 109 countries.

In the UK there are over 800 Salvation Army parishes (known as corps), over 1,500 ordained ministers (known as officers) and 54,000 members (including senior soldiers, adherents and junior soldiers).

Salvation Army officers wear a military-style uniform, though some officers may wear a more informal uniform when undertaking certain duties. Members of the church often choose to wear a uniform, but are not required to do so.

Salvation Army halls are registered as places of worship. Salvation Army officers are ordained ministers of religion, and can conduct weddings and funerals.

So they are a Christian based religion denomination, their positions in the church reflect that of a military army, they wear military style uniforms, their facilities are registered places of worship, and their officers are ordained ministers. Hm… does that make them a Christian militia group?

Update 2010-04-27 13:29: Change the wording. Technically the Salvation Army is a denomination (such as Catholicism, Mormon, Lutheran, etc.) of Christianity which is the technical religion.

Need a Good Artist

I have one. This post is falling directly under the, “it’s my site and I can do whatever the Hell I want with it” category. Anyways I’m throwing up some free advertising for my sister, Rebecca, who happens to be in the art field and therefore starving. She’s an artist for hire who does good work (don’t tell her I said that, it’ll go to her head) and has an online portfolio located and this oddly named web site.

She’s pretty multi-talented and does everything from comic art to web design and implementation. So go check her stuff out. Also here’s her resume (in PDF format).

I’d throw up my standard required by law FCC disclaimer but I already disclosed she’s my sister and therefore you should know this post is pretty biased.

Apparently Communism Prevailed

So I just learned something that probably everybody else already knew. There is a Unicode character for the old Soviet hammer and sickle. Note for some of you it may show up as a question mark or a box with numbers in it. That’s just poor Unicode support in action.

U+262D prints ☭ (size increased to show detail). Apparently communism prevailed.

It’s April First

That’s right it’s April Fool’s day. This is normally where people with websites post random pranks in an attempt to make suckers of readers. This would be the day where I’d say something about quitting the blog or how I’ve started understanding the need for “reasonable gun control.” Alas I’m not going to waste your time. Don’t get me wrong I love pulling pranks on people and this is the holiday to do it. But if I don’t get to see the reaction of the people I’m pranking it’s just not worth my time or effort.

So don’t worry about my trying to post a lame article to rile you up. Well unless of course I change my mind. Who knows. Either way happy prank day! Now go out and screw with somebody.

Back in Free America

Well ladies and gentlemen I’m back in Minnesota. I was in New York on business and let me tell you I missed my carry piece. It felt good to strap that Glock 30 back onto my hip.

I’m sorry for the lack of updates but the Internet connectivity I had available wasn’t great. Many sites, including my own blog, were timing so I couldn’t post new stories. Likewise since I mentioned HotSpot VPN previously I would like to make a note that I was unable to get IRC to work while connected to their service. I’m not sure if it was related to lag or if they block IRC traffic but either way I wasn’t dreadfully happen about that.

In the time I was away it appears one major news item happened and that was the passing of the health insurance (It’s not care because the government isn’t doing anything there) “reform” bill. I haven’t said much about this on here because this is one of those items that I haven’t chosen to follow much. Yes it’s important since now the federal government has asserted even more control over our lives but I only have a limited amount of time in a day and hence I chose my items to follow carefully. Not to mention it was getting wall to wall coverage everywhere else and I knew it was going to pass after Obama started bribing offering deals to politicians in exchange for a yes vote. Anyways it’s through, I’m pissed about it, whatever.

The real issue though is the fact I’m a bit behind on gun news. I’m not sure if anything major happened in the gun rights arena or not but I’m going to find out. On a side note I’m most of the way through a new novel titled Daemon by Daniel Suarez (No worries it’s not an affiliate link). It’s a great title and when I’m finished I’ll do a little write up about it. Needless to say you should check it out.

Updates are probably going to remain slow for a day or two yet while I get back into the swing of things.