Wall of Fame Assholes – Page 17

Ted Nuget Riding The Crazy Train

I offer this post in the hopes of being helpful to the gun rights community. As with any community the gun rights community has its good and bad members. While many of the old guard rub me the wrong way, specifically because of their socially conservative views, I don’t really hold them in ill regard. However, there are some positively vile members. One of those is Ted Nuget who not only involves himself in gun rights but is a member of the National Riffle Association’s (NRA) board.

Deciding he hasn’t been in the spotlight for saying vile shit for too long, Ted decided it would be a jolly good idea to post some anti-Semetic shit on his Facebook page. Here’s a screen shot in case the post is pulled:

I feel it necessary to first point out that judaism and Israel aren’t synonymous. Unless Ted is implying Israel is behind the gun control movement, which would seem rather odd to me, he can’t even get his bigotry symbolism right.

Speaking of bigots, they really are my least favorite part of, well, pretty much any movement. My support for gun rights stems from my belief that everybody should enjoy a right to self-defense. I don’t care what your race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or any other defining characteristics are. Hell, I don’t even care what species you are. If you’re an organism you have a right to fight anything that attempts to kill you.

My advice is that individuals involved in the fight for gun rights should strongly consider disassociating themselves with Ted Nuget. He’s a vile piece of shit that contributes absolutely nothing of value.

Detecting Wrongthink Early

1984 taking place in London was very appropriate. The United Kingdom (UK) has become the granddaddy of the surveillance state. Surveilling an entire nation isn’t easy, which is why the UK, like every other surveillance state, is desperately searching for new way to automate its activities. I’m sure that desperation is what lead to this idiocy:

London, United Kingdom – Schoolchildren in the UK who search for words such as “caliphate” and the names of Muslim political activists on classroom computers risk being flagged as potential supporters of terrorism by monitoring software being marketed to teachers to help them spot students at risk of radicalisation.

The “radicalisation keywords” library has been developed by the software company Impero as an add-on to its existing Education Pro digital classroom management tool to help schools comply with new duties requiring them to monitor children for “extremism”, as part of the government’s Prevent counterterrorism strategy.

[…]

The keywords list, which was developed in collaboration with the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism organisation that is closely aligned with the government, consists of more than 1,000 trigger terms including “apostate”, “jihadi” and “Islamism”, and accompanying definitions.

I’m not sure if schools in the UK have deteriorated as far as the schools here but if they haven’t then it’s quite plausible that many of the keywords being looked for would appear quite frequently in a history class. What’s more interesting is that they keywords don’t seem to so much be targeting terrorism as Islam.

It must be noted that using keywords to detect wrongthink is a fruitless endeavor. Because terrorism is currently the biggest target of the State’s propaganda it is a topic of general interest. A lot of people searching for keywords related to terrorism aren’t interested in becoming terrorists but merely want to learn about events related to terrorism. The number of false positives such a system will throw out are going to be far greater than any potentially useful information. Drowning out the signal in noise is counterproductive but it seems to be the strategy most automated surveillance systems rely on.

Fascism Is Alive And Well In Europe

A lot of people in the United States who lean more towards the neoliberal side of the political spectrum seem to have a love affair with Europe. Whenever somebody points out the idiocy of socialism they’re quick to point to Europe as an example of socialism working. Socialism certainly is alive and well in Europe but it’s mostly of the national variety, which means men wearing armbands first blaming and then attacking minorities:

Hundreds of masked men marched through Stockholm’s main train station on Friday evening, reportedly beating up refugees and anyone who didn’t appear to be ethnically Swedish.

Wearing all-black balaclavas and armbands, the men “gathered with the purpose of attacking refugee children,” Stockholm police spokesperson Towe Hagg said.

The biggest problem with socialism is that it’s a collectivist ideology. Instead of viewing people on an individual basis it encourages thinking of people as groups. When you strip away individuality it’s much easier to start blaming entire groups of people based on rather arbitrary labels such as where they were born or what religion they believe in. National socialism is slightly scarier because it doesn’t even pay lip service to all people being equal. Instead it preaches that the people of a particular nation are superior to all other people.

As Europe continues to circle the drain because of political decisions made decades ago fascism is beginning to surge once again and the target of its scorn are the newly arrived immigrants.

Democracy Has No Place In The Crypto Wars

AT&T’s CEO, Randall Stephenson, had some choice words for Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook. Namely, Stephenson doesn’t appreciate Cook’s stance on effective encryption:

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson doesn’t think Apple CEO Tim Cook should be making long-term decisions around encryption that could ripple across the technology industry. “I don’t think it is Silicon Valley’s decision to make about whether encryption is the right thing to do,” he told The Wall Street Journal in an interview on Wednesday. “I understand Tim Cook’s decision, but I don’t think it’s his decision to make,” said Stephenson. “I personally think that this is an issue that should be decided by the American people and Congress, not by companies.”

I’m sure this has everything to do with Stephenson’s strong belief in democracy and nothing at all to do with his company’s surveillance partnership with the National Security Agency (NSA). But let’s address the issue of democracy.

Stephenson says that effective cryptography should be decided by the American people. Unless I’m missing something Tim Cook is an American citizen. His stance on effective cryptography is his decision. Therefore is position is decided by an American person. Furthermore, why should anybody outside of Apple have a voice in the company’s stance? Stephenson is an employee of AT&T so his opinion shouldn’t be relevant to Apple. Congress, likewise, isn’t employed by Apple so their opinions shouldn’t be relevant to Apple either. Democracy, outside of groups voluntarily decided to vote on matters involving only themselves, is bullshit. It’s a tool for people to inflict their will on others. In fact it may very well be the grossest form of might makes right our species has developed.

I understand Stephenson’s decision, part of his business relies on surveillance, but it’s not his decision to make. This is an issue that should be decided by those creating the tools. If Stephenson wants to insert backdoors into his company’s products that’s fine, I’ll simply avoid using his products. But his has no right to demand other companies follow suit.

It’s Always About The Money

Late last year the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) declared that all personal drones must be registered. This declaration was sold as a means to attach accountability to mishandling drones but as with all government declarations it was about the money. The FAA came down on a hobbyist drone operator because he posted his footage on YouTube. Because the operator allows YouTube to display ads on his videos the FAA said he was flying his drone for commercial purposes:

If you fly a drone and post footage on YouTube, you could end up with a letter from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Earlier this week, the agency sent a legal notice to Jayson Hanes, a Tampa-based drone hobbyist who has been posting drone-shot videos online for roughly the last year.

The FAA said that, because there are ads on YouTube, Hanes’s flights constituted a commercial use of the technology subject to stricter regulations and enforcement action from the agency. It said that if he did not stop flying “commercially,” he could be subject to fines or sanctions.

Now the operator has a choice. He can either buy whatever license the FAA requires for commercial drone operations or he can pay a hefty fine. I guess he can also be a good little slave to turn off YouTube’s monetization option since the State is only unhappy with you making money if it doesn’t get a cut of the action.

As always, when the State wants to establish accountability it means it wants to make the people accountable for handing over a chunk of their income.

I’m A Good Little Slave And You Should Be One Too

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has decreed that anybody who owns a drone must register. Sally French, a reporter for Forbes, registered herself and wrote an opinion piece encouraging others to do the same. It’s titled “I registered my drone. Here’s why you should too” but it might as well be titled “I’m a good little slave who rolls over on command and you should too!”

I logged onto the site and entered my name, home address and email address.

There is a registration fee, so I also had to enter my credit card information. The registration fee is $5 per drone owner — the same $5 processing fee charged for any aircraft registration — but the FAA says it will refund the $5 fee for drones registered through Jan. 20 to encourage participation.

Once I hit the “next” button, I received a personal identification number and certificate to print out (though like most millennials, I don’t have a printer). I did write the identification number on a sticker, which I then pasted on my drone, an original DJI Phantom that I have been flying since early 2013.

[…]

Registration is intended to force some education upon pilots who may not have malicious intent, but also may not have read the “Know Before You Fly” guidelines included with most drone purchases in the U.S. It also means that government and law enforcement officials will be able to track down reckless drone operators — something that, until now, they haven’t been able to do.

The fool! Registration is not intended to educate drone pilots, it’s meant to rake in a little extra cash for the FAA. Although $5 per operator, a fee that’s being refunded until January 20th, doesn’t sound like much when you consider the FFA estimates one million drones will be sold this Christmas alone you can see the cash, which requires the FAA to do almost nothing, becomes a tidy sum. And anybody familiar with how government extortion works knows that the initial $5 fee is just the bait and the price will only go up. But the registration fee isn’t the real money maker. There is an up to $250,000 fine for anybody who flies a drone without registering with the FAA by February 19th. Since a lot of drone owners will likely remain unaware of the FAA regulation there a large pool of suckers the FAA is going to be able to extort some money out of.

Now let me explain why you shouldn’t register your drone. If you do your name and home address will be made publicly available:

The FAA finally confirmed this afternoon that model aircraft registrants’ names and home addresses will be public. In an email message, the FAA stated: “Until the drone registry system is modified, the FAA will not release names and address. When the drone registry system is modified to permit public searches of registration numbers, names and addresses will be revealed through those searches.”

Sounds like a public wall of shame to me. But you know this list will be abused. Most likely drone manufacturers will use it to send you unwanted advertisements via snail mail (hey, look, the registration system raises some money for the Post Office too). And anybody looking to steal a drone knows exactly where to go.

In this day and age it has become obvious that publicly releasing personal information is dangerous. The fact the FAA’s official policy is to public release the names and home addresses of every registered drone pilot is reason enough not to register. If the FAA isn’t willing to protect the privacy of its “customers” then nobody should do business with it.

So instead of being a good little slave who rolls over on command think about giving the FAA a giant middle finger.

Petty Tyrant Syndrome Leads To Gentrification

I’ve found another outbreak of Petty Tyrant Syndrome. This time it’s happening right here in the Twin Cities. The overlords of Columbia Heights are tired of all the blue collar workers on Central Avenue. Why? Apparently blue collar workers give off the wrong image. Instead of having the street populated with productive people the overlords wants people unproductively sipping lattes in coffee shops. In order to bring up this unproductive utopian vision the overlords have banned any new automobile related business from opening on the street:

Columbia Heights residents can buy an oil filter on nearly every corner of Central Avenue. But there’s no coffee shop where they can linger over a newspaper and sip a latte.

That’s a problem, city leaders say.

Fearful that a glut of mechanics, auto-parts stores and gas stations along Columbia Heights’ main drag is pulling down the city’s image and muscling out other businesses, the City Council is banning new auto-related businesses for up to six months.

City leaders figure that will be enough time to tighten up zoning regulations and set more design controls with an eye toward attracting a more eclectic mix of restaurants, shops and small service businesses along Central Avenue.

You thought I was joking about that sipping lattes remark, didn’t you? Here again we have a handful of people using their power to force everybody to comply with their vision of what is best. Because they’re unproductive bureaucrats who have time to sip lattes in a coffee shop for hours they are forcing everybody else to go along with their plan. I can’t help but think that there’s also a desire to see auto shops booted from the street because they’re run by people who get dirty doing their job. As we all know, people who get dirty are better heard, not seen, at least when you’re a petty bureaucrat trying to foster an image of sterile sameness.

Even more important to the overlords than their vision is the issue of income. Not for the businesses but for the city. Trendy hipsters with more money (technically it’s their parent’s money) than brains are cruising around on their brakeless fixies so they have no need for automobile related businesses. They’re also a major part of the group dumb enough to pay the stupidly high rental rates of high-density luxury apartments. So without them it’s hard to attract developers of said apartments, which means the city doesn’t get to collect absurd amounts of property taxes. Gentrification exists because cities want to increase their income and the easiest way of doing that is to replaces the lower and lower-middle class with the upper and upper-middle class. And in the end that’s what the result of this ban and rezoning scheme will be, gentrification.

Punishing The People Because Of Terrorism

The San Bernardino attack is just another tragedy on a long list of tragedies exploited by the State. Again we’re seeing the tired claim by the political body that the people must be severely punished:

Obama said he will “urge high-tech and law enforcement leaders to make it harder for terrorists to use technology to escape from justice,” without going into details, and order a review of the visa waiver program that allowed one of the San Bernardino terrorists into the US. Obama also called on Congress to ban people on no-fly lists from buying guns. “What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon?” he asked. “This is a matter of national security.”

Mr. Obama may not have gone into specifics but we know what he’s hinting at. “Making it harder for terrorists to use technology to escape from justice,” is a euphemism for prohibiting the use of effective cryptography. In other words the basic security tools every one of us relies on every day must be broken so the State can further expand it’s already too expansive surveillance apparatus.

Reviewing the visa program is a euphemism for finding more ways to restrict people from crossing the imaginary lines often referred to as borders. Anybody who has been paying attention to recent political maneuvering is aware that the State is becoming more interested in tightening the borders. Just remember that a secure border prevents tax cattle from leaving.

Finally the question, “What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon,” is a euphemism for removing due process from decided who can and cannot own a firearm. Apparently having to go through the process of finding somebody guilty of a crime before they can be prohibited from owning a firearm is just too damn inconvenient.

Notice how each of these proposals requires punishing the entire population of almost 319 million for the actions of two individuals. Also notice how none of these proposals will do anything to curtail terrorism. Just because domestic companies can’t release tools that use effective cryptography doesn’t mean foreign entities can’t. According to the United States government the border is 102,514 miles long. Any thoughts of effective controlling over 100,000 miles of territory is nothing but a fantasy. Prohibiting more people from owning firearms only ensures attackers will be met with lighter resistance.

There are many ways of making a society more resilient to attacks. Punishing everybody in society whenever attack occurs is not one of them.

Interrogation Trump Card

Shortly after the 2016 presidential election an ISIS member is captured. After extensive sleep deprivation and waterboarding he still refuses to talk. He’s sitting in the same unfurnished interrogation cell that has been his home for the last two weeks awaiting more of America’s worst. Suddenly the door opens and in comes an a person he hasn’t seen before. At first the ISIS member believes the mystery man is another interrogator. “Let him do is worst,” the ISIS member thinks, “I can withstand any pain.” The mystery man stares at the ISIS member for a few silent minutes then squats down. From his suit coat he pulls out a small photograph and slides it to the ISIS member. Picking it up the ISIS member sees it is a photograph of his family standing in front of their house. No words are spoken but the message is quite clear.

Ministry Of Truth

Since shutting down the Internet isn’t a feasible option what can the righteous nations of Christendom do to combat the scourge of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS)? According to to the governor of Ohio, John Kasich, a Ministry of Truth must be established:

During a speech Tuesday at the National Press Club, Ohio Governor and Republican presidential candidate John Kasich offered a litany of ideas meant to broaden the influence of the United States and combat the rise of the Islamic State. Among them was one that, on its face, seemed to contradict the 1st Amendment to the Constitution.

“We must be more forceful in the battle of ideas,” Kasich said. “U.S. public diplomacy and international broadcasting have lost their focus on the case for Western values and ideals and effectively countering our opponents’ propaganda and disinformation. I will consolidate them into a new agency that has a clear mandate to promote the core, Judeo-Christian Western values that we and our friends and allies share: the values of human rights, the values of democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of association.” The areas he would target: the Middle East, China, Iran and Russia.

I do appreciate politicians like Kasich being honest about what they want. Too many politicians try to conceal their true intentions under layers of bullshit. Kasich is just straight up saying he wants the government to espouse particular religious beliefs. Maybe the United States can do what jolly old England did and declare its own church with the president as the pope!

Remember, this guy is one of your so-called leaders. Do you really want a guy who wishes to established a Ministry of Truth running your life?