Wall of Fame Assholes – Page 31

Pure Sensationalism

One of my friends posted this story from Natural News, a site known for sensationalist stories. This story fell within my area of expertise so I found it more annoying than most sensational articles posted on that site. According to the article:

(NaturalNews) We have already established that Healthcare.gov is not a functioning database application that allows people to shop for competing health plans. It is actually a government-run Trojan Horse that suckers people into creating accounts where they hand over:

• Name and address
• Email address and password
• Social security number
• Private bank account details
• Employer details and other information

During the enrollment process, your computer also hands over your IP address which is then tied to your social security number.

This time the emphasis isn’t mine. With the exception of your Social Security number and employment history all of these things are handed over to any site you buy products from. With that information your Social Security number can be found for $0.25 through services like Tracers Information (I was Kevin Mitnik bring up a volunteer’s Social Security number using this site in the Social Engineering Village at Defcon 21). And, more to the point, this is all information that the federal government already has. In fact the federal government is the organization that gave you the damn Social Security number in the first place.

The article then goes on to claim that all of that information is transmitted to the National Security Agency (NSA). Why would the NSA have to get Healthcare.gov to send it that information? Thanks to Edward Snowden we know that the NSA is spying on people directly through direct access to Internet Service Providers (ISP) and companies that offer online services (Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc.). As a federal agency the NSA also has access to your driver license records (name and address), Social Security information, and bank information (financial institution regulations are glorious, aren’t they). A simple peek at your bank account will almost certainly reveal who you’re working for (and who you have worked for). The NSA doesn’t need a healthcare website to get all of this information, it has setup a pervasive surveillance apparatus to get all of this information already.

The reason these types of articles piss me off is because they drum up unnecessary fear of technology. In order to overcome tyranny fear must first be alleviated. Or, to put it another way, the only way to fight gods is to first prove that they’re not gods. So stop with the fear mongering and sensationalism. It’s annoying because I then have to explain all of this shit to my less technically minded friends.

More Dogs Shot by Police

We can’t even get through an entire week without a report of another dog shot by another police officer. This time around police officers stormed a home looking for a man who hasn’t lived there in six years. Upon seeing dogs at this address they had no business being at they opened fire:

Warrant officers stormed a home overnight waking up a family and nearly hitting their dog with a gunshot.

Bienvenido Gutierrez said he and his fiancé, Nina Castro, heard noises coming from the back of their row home on Ashmead Street in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia around 12:30 a.m.

Gutierrez told NBC10’s Jesse Gary that they then heard a knock on the front door and he let in about a half dozen First Judicial Warrant Unit officers who said they were looking for Gutierrez’s brother Joshua Gutierrez.

Gutierrez said he tried to explain to the officers that his brother moved out six years ago. He also said he warned the officers that there were two dogs in the home, including one pit bull sleeping in the same room as Gutierrez’s children — ages 7, 2, and 10 months.

So the National Security Agency (NSA) is spying on every phone call and e-mail message and the state still can’t figure out where people live? Also, why couldn’t the cops have walked up to the front door, knocked, and asked if the person they were looking for was there? It’s a pretty simple procedure and far less dangerous than trying to break into a home, especially when you’re not sure if the person you’re looking for is even there.

Never Call the Police

A lesson that bears repeating time and time again is that you should never call the police. Why? Because police forces are heavily populated with psychopaths who will make matters worse more often than not. Take this example. A woman called the police to investigate a car she and her roommate suspected was stolen. What did the police do when they arrive? Shot her dog, of course:

JONES COUNTY, GA — A woman says that her ten-month old puppy was shot in the head after asking officers not to shoot it — twice.

On September 22, Anna “Chrissy” Music-Peed, of Macon, GA, drove to the Jones County Sheriff’s Department to request an officer come to and investigate a vehicle that had been brought to her property by an acquaintance, that both she and her roommate strongly suspected to have been stolen. Music told policestateusa.com that it was a Nissan Xterra from Virginia Beach, VA. As Music wrote in a blog post, “I will not have that influence around my family,” saying she was trying to do the right thing by making a report. The acquaintance was still on the property and Music had not let on that she had gone to talk to the police.

Modern policing in the United States looks more like Judge Dredd than Andy Griffith. It seems as though one cannot call the police without somebody or something getting shot as a result. I believe part of this is due to the fact that police officers are seldom held accountable for misdeeds. Hell, in Minneapolis there have been 439 complaints filed against its police department and not a single disciplinary action has come of it. You can see how such an environment would attract psychopaths looking for a way to hurt people without getting punished.

American Politics

Where else, besides America, are executions rescheduled because they interfere with a campaign fundraiser:

There is no graver responsibility and act of state government than an execution.

In Florida this week, a campaign fundraiser takes precedence.

Attorney General Pam Bondi persuaded Gov. Rick Scott to postpone an execution scheduled for tonight because it conflicted with her re-election kick-off reception.

I think this story sums up everything that is wrong with American politics and our society as a whole. My theory is that Attorney General Pam Bondi gets off on watching people die and didn’t want to miss the fireworks because of a stupid campaign fundraiser. Thanks to Governor Rick Scott she can announce that she’s running for the position again, rake in campaign contributions, and still get to finger herself while watching somebody die. Our entire political system is made up of fucking psychopaths.

Taking Bets

The Committee on Foreign Relations voted to enter the United States into another Middle Eastern war. Syria will become the next Iraq and Afghanistan as the military first move in with cruise missiles and later decided to “stabilize” the region by sending young men and women to die in yet another desert country. The Senate is expected to vote on the matter next week:

A US Senate panel has approved the use of military force in Syria, in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack.

By 10-7, the Committee on Foreign Relations moved the measure to a full Senate vote, expected next week.

Who wants to bet that the Senate will choose Wednesday, 9/11, to vote on the matter? I think it’s a pretty good possibility.

Being a Bad Person

Poe’s law, which states “Without a blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of extremism or fundamentalism that someone won’t mistake for the real thing.” That’s the first thing that popped into my head when I read this:

You are a bad person if you send your children to private school. Not bad like murderer bad—but bad like ruining-one-of-our-nation’s-most-essential-institutions-in-order-to-get-what’s-best-for-your-kid bad. So, pretty bad.

Considering the source of the article I’m left to belief the author is being sincere. The article can only be an attempt for the gold metal in mental gymnastics. What the author proposes, that any parent who doesn’t send their child to a public school is a bad person, is asinine. The author actually encourages parents to disadvantage their children in the hopes of improving public schools for their potential great grandchildren:

I am not an education policy wonk: I’m just judgmental. But it seems to me that if every single parent sent every single child to public school, public schools would improve. This would not happen immediately. It could take generations. Your children and grandchildren might get mediocre educations in the meantime, but it will be worth it, for the eventual common good. (Yes, rich people might cluster. But rich people will always find a way to game the system: That shouldn’t be an argument against an all-in approach to public education any more than it is a case against single-payer health care.)

It seems that the author hasn’t thought her clever plan all the way through. Let’s assume that you, a highly educated parent who wants to improve the public education system, decides to inflict a mediocre education on your children. Because your plan requires generations to work you must plan for your children to pick up the fight after you’re gone. How is a child with a mediocre education going to properly articulate the need for improving public schools? Where is that child’s motivation going to come from? If a mediocre education is all he or she knows then they are unlikely to fight for something greater. The author has the advantage of private schools to compare public schools to. This advantage would disappear if people actually followed her plan because private schools would disappear. After a generation or two without any alternative to public education the number of people fighting to improve the system would dwindle. Instead of creating a society of brilliant people the author’s plan would create an idiocracy.

Authoritarians often fail to see the inevitable outcome of their plans. While us anti-authoritarians often suffer the same failure we aren’t trying to force everybody to follow our plans, we simply state what we’re going to do and let any interested parties join us if they want. If our plans fail there are other plans that may succeed. If the author’s plan fails America becomes the society envisioned by Mike Judge in Idiocracy.

Instead of demanding every parent send their child to a public school, the author should be demanding every parent try something different. Perhaps public education isn’t the best option. Charter schools, private schools, Montessories, home schooling, and unschooling are all alternatives to public education currently being perused by parents. If one of these alternatives ends up failing then the others are still free to continue. Survivors can learn from the mistakes of the failures and improve.

You’re not a bad person for sending your children to a private school but you are a bad person if you attempt to inflict what you think is best on everybody else.

The Sheer Stupidity of the American Legal System

Even with all of the stories I’ve read about corrupt judges, police officers, and politicians I can still be left dumbfounded. For example, how does this make any fucking sense:

HOUSTON (CBS Houston) – A 10-year-old girl is facing rape charges from playing an alleged game of “doctor” with a group of children from her housing complex.

The girl, who is only identified as “Ashley,” was charged by police for aggravated sexual assault.

Where can I possibly begin? I guess I’ll start with the inappropriate action of the accused. Children do inappropriate things all the time. Their sense of right and wrong are different than an adult’s. In cases where children perform a misdeed it is generally up to the parent to take disciplinary action. It would be appropriate for the girl’s parents to sit her down and have a talk about what is appropriate touching and what is inappropriate touching.

Another thing that would be good to know is where the girl picked up this behavior. It could be such a thing where she’s merely at the age where she’s becoming curious about such matters. She may have seen part of a porno. Or, more concerning, she may have been molested by somebody. Children tend to either mimic behavior or explore. Finding out whether she was merely exploring or mimicking behavior she’s encountered before could be important.

We also have the fact that children play “doctor.” I’m sorry, but that’s a fact of life. Once again, we return to the fact that children are curious and satisfy their curiosity by exploring. Welcome to childhood development.

But let’s not let common sense get in the way of good legal chicanery. It would make far more sense to take a 10 year-old, run her through the legal system, and tag her as a sex offender for the remainder of her life (if she’s really lucky she may get that expunged from her record when she turns 18, but you never know these days). Traumatizing the child will certainly teach her a lesson about… something, I guess. Seriously, fuck everything about this story.

Bloodletting

Anarchists understand that the state is behind the times. When it comes to medical science the United States is practically in the medieval period. Upon creating or hearing news that the Syrian regime may have used chemical weapons the United States diagnosed the country with a severe case of violence. Instead of applying modern medical techniques, the United States opted for an ancient medical procedure known as bloodletting. In the eyes of American politicians the disease of violence in Syria can be cured if enough blood is removed from the country. In lieu of leeches the United States plans to use cruise missiles. My only hope is that the patient recovers before they bleed out.

Standard Weapons and Tactics

Denizens of the United States are very familiar with Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams. At one point in our history SWAT teams, true to their name, were special forces that were called in when a situation required more firepower and training than standard police officers had. Today SWAT teams of used for everything breaking up unapproved poker games to evicting squatters:

OAKLAND, Calif. — There were some tense moments Thursday morning as a SWAT team stormed an apartment building in Oakland to evict squatters who had been living there for months without paying rent.

At this point I believe the term Special Weapons and Tactics should be changed to Standard Weapons and Tactics. The regular police force has been mitigated to issuing speeding tickets and serving parking citations. Everything else is now the job of the heavily armed and armored SWAT teams.

Category: Wall of Fame Assholes