Tag: Ranting

For Those Who Thought Zero Tolerance Was a Good Idea

Were you one of the people who thought zero tolerance in school was a good idea? If so you’re responsible for shit like this:

A 9-year-old boy North Carolina boy was suspended for calling a teacher “cute,” WSOCTV.com reports.

The boy’s mother, Chiquita Lockett, said the principal of Brookside Elementary in Gastonia called her after the incident to say the comment was a form of “sexual harassment.”

Apparently calling a girl cute is sexual harassment. Going back I wonder how many sexual harassments charges I should have against me under these new guidelines. Seriously the kid was nine fucking years old, I doubt he’s old enough to even know what sexual harassment is. Oh, and let’s not forget this gem:

The news of the North Carolina boy’s suspension comes as a Massachusetts elementary school is investigating a first-grader for sexual harassment after the boy struck another boy his age in the groin.

The mother of the accused 7-year-old tells the Boston Globe that her son was fending off another child, who had choked him in an altercation on the school bus on Nov. 22.

Sure why not? Hell we should just implement thoughtcrime while we’re at it. Can we make holding hands punishable under sexual harassment clauses while we’re at it? I mean there are still physical interactions out there where kids aren’t being nailed with sexual harassment charges and we can’t fucking have that.

Everybody who thought zero tolerance was a good idea please kindly hurl yourselves off of a cliff and save the rest of humanity from further stupidity.

There is Something Seriously Wrong with Our Legal System

Let me just take a second to say our “justice” system is all sorts of messed up. When a person gets punished harsher for possessing child pornography than for actually molesting a child things need to get changed:

A jury convicted Vilca on 454 counts of possessing child pornography, one for each image found on his computer. Under Florida law, each count is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Sentencing guidelines indicated a minimum term of 152 years, although Collier Circuit Judge Fred Hardt had discretion to impose a lighter sentence if he concluded it was justified by factors such as constitutional infirmity or Vilca’s mental health. “Had Mr. Vilca actually molested a child,” The New York Times notes, “he might well have received a lighter sentence.”

Emphasis mine. Cases like this aren’t isolated incidents. Our “justice” system is full of disproportional punishments as noted by people who have sat in prison longer for possessing small amounts of marijuana than many others have of murdering fellow human beings. People love to say the punishment should fit the crime and I agree, unfortunately that’s now what happens in this country.

The Numbers Game

One advantage to running a blog is that you have a public platform available for ranting. If something pisses you off you can tell the world (or at least a very tiny percentage of the world that reads your blog). This post is another one of my rants and it has to deal with numbers.

Everywhere you look today we see people throwing around numbers. Some will say politicians shouldn’t be allowed to accept gifts over $10,000, others say we need to pump $1 trillion into building infrastructure, and others claim no person should be allowed to own more than two homes. What irritates me about these statements is that the numbers are apparently selected arbitrarily. Whenever somebody makes a statement involving a number I always ask them how they come to the conclusion that number was valid. How comes a person making $1 million or more qualifies as “rich” and thus has to pay a 90% incomes tax? What criteria lead to the selection of $1 million and 90% tax rate? Demanding justification for the selected numbers seldom nets you any logical justification. After asking one person the logical reason for selecting $1 million as the threshold that defines “rich” and “poor” the answer I received was, “Uh, err, it’s just common sense! How do you not understand it?”

It’s not common sense though. Common sense involves culturally accepted norms and as humans are not good at dealing with large numbers there can be no cultural norm revolving around large numbers. Those who wish to restrict the number of homes a person can own also fail to provide any real justification. They will often say something along the lines of, “Nobody needs more than two homes!” Such statements are correct in a technical sense since one could always rent an apartment but from a logical sense the statements hold no water. What if a businessman periodically travels between four different company sites? Let’s say he spends an average of three months a year at each location. Why shouldn’t the businessman be allowed to own a home in each of the four locations? Allowing him to own multiple homes doesn’t hurt you in any way and does benefit the economy since it requires each home be built, maintained, and provided with utilities.

Speed limits are another arbitrarily selected number with piss poor justification. While the government claims speed limits serve as a mechanism of increasing road safety this is easily proven false by the fact that the German Autobahn has not speed limits in many locations and has a low fatality rate. Likewise if the speed limit was really a limit people should be getting into more accidents when they exceed the speed. Everyday my trip to work involves traveling on two highways where the posted speed limit is 55 mph but everybody drives around 70 mph. The number of accidents isn’t obscenely high meaning 55 mph must not be the threshold of safety where exceeding it will cause an increase in accidents. Speed limits are just another arbitrarily selected number with weak justifications.

Any desired policy must be completely justifiable. Selecting an arbitrary number and claiming it is a threshold of some sort is not justifiable. I can say my Magpul SR-25 magazines have a maximum capacity of 20 rounds of 7.62x51mm because 21 rounds will not fit. That’s a hard fact and thus using the number 20 makes sense. Saying somebody who makes $1 million should pay 90% income tax makes little sense because there are no solid facts for defining the thresholds of $1 million and 90% other than saying they “feel” right. Feelings have nothing to do with policies and should be completely ignored in that regard.

The next time somebody tells you a policy should be enacted that involves any number whatsoever demand they explain how that number was chosen. You’ll be amazed at how quickly demanding justification for the selection of a number can shutdown a debate.

Psychological Reactance

One reason I get along much better with the gun community (besides the fact I love guns) than, say, the liberal arts community is because few people in the gun community demand I change my behavior to suit their needs. I don’t have to listen to members of the gun community telling me how driving a Ford Ranger is evil and that I should switch to a battery-filled Prius or how upgrading computers periodically is killing the planet. Instead when I pull up with my Ford Ranger I’m asked why I drive such a small truck and am urged to man up and get a Ford Earthfucker.

Like myself the majority of the gun community is afflicted by a psychological phenomenon known as reactance:

Reactance is an emotional reaction in direct contradiction to rules or regulations that threaten or eliminate specific behavioral freedoms.

Basically when somebody tells those afflicted with psychological reactance to do something we do the opposite because we fucking can. No better (and hilarious) demonstration of this can be found than Jay’s response to some stupid fat sow telling people what they should be driving:

The guy handled it a lot better than I would have – about 10 seconds in I’d have started the truck up and revved it to redline a dozen times just to piss her off more. Then I’d have put it in 4WD and driven around with the A/C on – just to burn more gas. Hell, the way she was running her mouth, I’d have set fire to some plastic and then sprayed some 1980s hair spray just to widen the hole in the ozone to match her gaping maw.

I think I might look into a Hemi Challenger to complement the Earthf**ker just to piss bints like her off…

Just a future note for those who wish to control what others do: many people do not response well to such attempted authority. I personally respond poorly to people telling me what to do and instead will go out of my way to do the opposite just to piss a controlling asshole off. For example when a couple of Occupy Minneapolis members were talking about blocking off the entrance to U.S. Bank I instantly reacted by noting such action would be met with me breaking their line. I don’t hold an account with U.S. Bank nor do I like them so why would I purposely go out of my way to break through their line? Because that’s how I respond to attempts to control my behavior. Trying to tell me what I can and can’t do, even if I never had a desire to do that, is going to result in me giving you the finger and going out of my way to do the activity that you’re are trying to prohibit.

Personally I have nothing against environmentalism until its advocates attempt to control what I eat, drive, and enjoy as hobbies. Every time somebody tells me that I need to stop eating meat to save the planet I’m going to head to Fogo de Chao and eat a metric fuck ton of beef. When somebody says I shouldn’t drive a truck because it’s polluting the environment I’m going to start my truck and make some needless one mile trips just to burn gas. My message to all of you who try to control the behavior of others is this: fuck you! I am a free individual and will live my life as I damn well please.

It’s Not a Stack, It’s a Queue

In computer science a stack is a data structure that follows a first in, last out order. That is to say stacks work like magazines in firearms, the first round you place into the magazine is the last one that feeds into the firearm. The opposite of this is a queue, which follows a first in, first out order. An example of a queue is when you get in line at a restaurant, the first person in the line is the first person to get service. This is why the British refer to lines as queues for those who are curious.

During the complete wastes of time general assemblies at Occupy Minneapolis speakers are asked to go into the stack. What they call a stack is actually a queue though and this drives the computer scientist in me up a wall. Here’s a tip for those of you in the occupation movement, stop calling the speaking queue a stack. Incorrectly using terminology does not reflect well on the perceived intelligence of your movement.

A Personal Pet Peeve Regarding Legislative Activism Sites

During the couple of years I’ve been blogging one thing I’ve tried to avoid is writing posts advocating legislative action without linking to the actual bill under consideration. Honestly it irritates me when somebody demands people vote for or against a piece of legislation without linking to, or at the very least explaining, the legislation in question. As you can imagine this pisses me right the fuck off:

For months we’ve been talking about tomorrow: Election Day. We’ve been telling you how much is at stake for Ohio workers and their families. We’ve show you how unfair, unsafe and dangerous Senate Bill 5 is to our communities. And now, the time to act and repeal Senate Bill 5 by VOTING NO ON ISSUE 2 is upon us.

Tomorrow is your last chance to vote against Senate Bill 5 with a NO vote on Issue 2. Polls across the state will be open from 6:30am to 7:30pm. Click here to find more information on your polling location.

We expect long lines as voter turnout is expected to be high. Make sure to schedule time in your busy day to get to the polls and VOTE NO ON ISSUE 2. Tell out-of-touch politicians and their Wall Street cronies that you stand with Ohio’s public workers.

Click here to get more information on your polling location.

Tomorrow’s vote will come down to people like you. Without your support, we could wake up on Wednesday knowing that our communities will be less safe now that firefighters, police officers, and nurses are no longer able to bargain for the safety equipment they need to protect themselves as they protect us.

Get ready to vote tomorrow by clicking here.

After reading that do you have any clue what the fuck “Issue 2” says or purports to do? Why should I vote against it? What would “Issue 2” do if passed? Why isn’t there a single link explaining this piece of legislation on the post demanding people go out and vote against it?

Obviously I don’t life in Ohio and thus don’t care much what legislative issues are under consideration there. With that said I really wanted to point out this complete lack of information because somebody linked to this in a chat room I frequent asking that we do as the linked material advocates. Even if I lived in Ohio I wouldn’t be motivated to vote against “Issue 2” from the material presented in this link because the link doesn’t present any material.

Honestly I don’t care enough about Ohio’s politics to even bother digging up what “Issue 2” is. Judging by the lack of information presented on that site I’d be tempted to vote yes on it just because those urging people to vote no aren’t presenting any information, which makes it appear as though they’re hiding something. Here’s a pro tip for those advocating legislative action: ensure a link to the legislation under question or a very detailed summary are readily visible on the site so those who know nothing about it can seek information quickly.

More Delusions of Grandeur

The occupiers in Oakland, California were evicted a couple of days ago by the police. Say what you will about the eviction, I’m not here to talk about that. What I want to discuss is the plan put forth by some of the Oakland occupiers to take back the park:

We propose a city wide general strike and we propose we invite all students to walk out of school. Instead of workers going to work and students going to school, the people will converge on downtown Oakland to shut down the city.

All banks and corporations should close down for the day or we will march on them.

While we are calling for a general strike, we are also calling for much more. People who organize out of their neighborhoods, schools, community organizations, affinity groups, workplaces and families are encouraged to self organize in a way that allows them to participate in shutting down the city in whatever manner they are comfortable with and capable of.

Ah yes, the call for general strike has begun. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of a general strike consider yourself lucky. A general strike is a method, usually associated with collectivists, where change is obtained by everybody simply refusing to show up for work.

People participating in general strikes obviously lose money for the day and may lose their job. Needless to say the risk of participating in a general strike is high and the potential reward is oftentimes low in comparison. Those who were evicted from the park are now asking everybody to potentially risk being fired in an attempt to reclaim the park. With the way the post is written I almost think the author believes a great number of people will join his cry to join the general strike. The author actually believes this strike has a chance of shutting down the city and frankly this belief is assine.

These occupations do not have the support of a majority of the population. Because of this believing a call for a general strike by the occupiers can grind the city to a halt is delusional at best.

How Much Did This Acronym Cost

The amount of time that is spent by our government coming up with retarded acronyms must be astounding. If you thought Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism, or USA PATRIOT, Act was bad wait until you get a load of the new name for the formerly PROTECT IP Act:

Oh, and because PROTECT IP wasn’t enough of a misleading and idiotic name, the House has upped the ante. The new bill is called: “the Enforcing and Protecting American Rights Against Sites Intent on Theft and Exploitation Act” or the E-PARASITE Act (though, they also say you can call it the “Stopping Online Piracy Act”).

Emphasis mine. Somebody in Washington D.C. is getting paid to come up with this shit. Our tax money is being spent to come up with catchy fucking names to make bills sound more appealing and thus get popular support when it goes to pass. These are probably the same fucks who were paid to come up with the PROTECT Act which is a backwards acronym for Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today.

If those idiots in Washington spent half as much time educating themselves on the subjects they’re passing laws against as they do coming up with stupid acronyms we may have a free country built on liberty instead of a fascist state.

Oh, and you know what else? The PROTECT IP E-PARASITE Act is still a horrible piece of shit. You can’t polish a turd and expect anything other than a turd when you’re finished.

Be Realistic in Equipment Selection

While I love most aspects about the gun community, the handful of people advocating the utterly ridiculous really annoys me. On this week’s episode of Chris Rants About Random Members of the Gun Community we’re going to talk those who say weapons lights and laser sights are bad news when it comes to tactics. Over at Gun Nuts Media Caleb has a good post covering how absurd some people are when it comes to illumination and target verification. Caleb points to the following quote by a member of the gun community:

Given the warning of the light, and knowing the gun’s aiming point, this is a perfect setup for an armed intruder to edge up to the wall in a crouch, then reach around and shoot upwards. If t’were I doing the intruding, I would aim a little low, in case the gentleperson upstairs was also crouching. Even if not, a pelvic or thigh hit would ruin the defender’s day, and probably give me the chance for a few more shots.

Far better for the defender to wait around the edge of the stairwell, out of sight, listening for footsteps. [I’ve never run into a set of wooden stairs that didn’t creak somewhat.] Flashlight OFF, laser on, but covered by support hand until last moment. Even without a well-aligned laser pointer, a quick snap-shot or two at point-blank range would resolve the issue quite favorably. An added precaution would be for the defender to be crouched as low as possible [prone would reduce maneuverability excessively].

I completely agree on Caleb’s take of this quote:

I see comments like this all the time, and they drive me up the freakin’ wall every time I see them. I don’t know about you, but my position is going to be pretty effectively given away by me screaming at the 911 operator that someone’s in my house and that they need to get cops here most ricky-tick before I have to shoot this guy.

Now comes the harsh reality, while thinking up random tactical scenarios is fun it’s not at all practical. I enjoy sitting down with friends, drinking a few beers, and coming up with outrageous self-defense scenarios. Yet I know better than to take those alcohol induced scenarios and applying them to real life.

Let’s do some advantage to disadvantage weighing. Being able to see your target and verify it’s a bad guy is a great advantage. Giving away your position by emitting light that allows you to see and verify your target holds litte disadvantage. You likely won’t be dealing with Spetsnaz invading your home and if you are then you’re way in over your head and likely died before realizing anybody broke into your home.

Your aggressor is also going to be in the dark so the light that telegraphs your location and harms your night vision is also going to blind that fucker. Here’s the thing though, as his eyes will be adjusted to total darkness while yours are adjusted to the light he’ll be totally blind for a bit while you can see him perfectly. Having a blind opponent greatly increases your odds of winning a fight, just saying.

If you’re that concerned about using a weapons light because you feel it will give away your position while your loud footsteps and yelling as you bang into things while stumbling around a dark house won’t then you’re an idiot.

For Delayed Release

EDIT: 2011-10-07 14:39: I was informed by Mr. Rothman that my assumptions in regards to this rant were entirely incorrect. I’ll leave the post up to a testament to my ignorance but feel free to disregard the mess of text below.

On many of these occupy[x] ([x] being any location) websites the posts often start with, “For immediate release.” What the fuck is the purpose of throwing that in there? If you’re posting something on your website it’s been released.

Throwing “for immediate release” at the beginning of a post publicly available for all on the Internet to read seems like an attempt to look professional but without knowing what the fuck you’re doing. I bet the kid writing these posts is thinking, “I should say this is for immediate release otherwise people might think I meant to release this in a couple of hours and messed up.” The phrase “for immediate release” is usually for internal use and notifies an editor that the article is of a time critical manner and should be released immediately.

For instance if a school bus full of children was set ablaze and pushed over a cliff onto a retirement home which was built right next to an animal shelter that specialized in cute kittens and puppies the editor would say the accompanying story was to be released immediately. The immediately released article would normally not contain the words “for immediate release” though. If you want people to take your movement seriously then you’re going to need to sound better than a bunch of high school children with bad attitudes. There has to be at least one grammar nazi in your organization, pass all articles to that person for review before throwing them up on your website.

Yes, I realize this gripe is minor and ultimately pointless but it bugs me and this site is my personal ranting platform at times.