Tag: Superdickery

Blame the Victim

You know this whole blame the victim mentality goes beyond annoying. A “study” was just released that attempts to explain why some kids get bullied:

Kids who get bullied and snubbed by peers may be more likely to have problems in other parts of their lives, past studies have shown. And now researchers have found at least three factors in a child’s behavior that can lead to social rejection.

The factors involve a child’s inability to pick up on and respond to nonverbal cues from their pals.

So the study is saying the reason some kids get beat up is because those kids don’t pick up on nonverbal cues from their “pals.” So it’s obviously the victim’s fault that they are victims. That makes sense. Let me paraphrase another potential situation here:

Women who get rapped by peers may be more likely to have problems in other parts of their lives, past studies have shown. And now researchers have found at least three factors in a women’s behavior that can lead to being raped.

The factors involve a woman’s inability to pick up on and respond to nonverbal cues from men.

That’s only logical of course. Please note that last bit was sarcasm in the highest degree. Cripes!

If You Don’t Want Security to See You Naked You Can’t Fly

Good news British subjects! If you are selected to go through a full body scanner at either Heathrow or Manchester airports you must submit or you don’t get to fly:

It is now compulsory for people selected for a scan to take part, or they will not be allowed to fly.

Previously if you were selected to go through a body scanner you could opt for a full body pat down instead. Personally I’d go that route, if somebody wants to see me naked I better be getting free drinks out of the deal.

Virginia Tech Still Isn’t Getting It

Virginia Tech is still going about gun violence prevention in the wrong manner. Currently the campus is looking at banning ammunition, including Airsoft pellets and Painballs. Here is part of the proposed ban:

Resolved, that Policy # 8300, Student Code of Conduct – Weapons be amended as follows:

Student Code of Conduct – Weapons

Unauthorized possession, storage, or control of firearms, weapons, on university property, including storing weapons in vehicles on campus as well as in the residence halls. Furthermore, ammunition can not be stored in any residence halls on campus. (Note: organizational weapons of the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets, approved by the commandant, are not prohibited by this policy.) Weapons

Firearms are defined as any gun, rifle, pistol, or handgun designed to fire any projectile including but not limited to bullets, BBs, pellets, or shots (including paint balls), regardless of the propellant used. Ammunition is defined as any material intended for use in a firearm, capable of being projected by a weapon and/or makes the weapon operational. Other weapons are defined as any instrument of combat or any object not designed as an instrument of combat but carried for the purpose of inflicting or threatening bodily injury.

Anybody who goes there needs to group behind your local Students for Concealed Carry on Campus and do everything you can to ensure this resolution doesn’t pass.

Umm… What

This certainly falls under news that makes you go, “What the fuck?” Dvorak Uncensored posted a bizarre story that could only come from the Commonwealth. Australia is looking at banning porn with women having A cup breasts. From the article and no I’m not making this up:

Breasts came under the spotlight a year ago, as Senators Barnaby Joyce and Guy Barnett commenced a campaign against publicly available porn. Rounding up magazines from corner shops and filling stations, Senator Joyce claimed that publications featuring small-breasted women were encouraging paedophilia.

Hear that ladies? If you have small breasts you’re encouraging pedophilia! Obviously the next logical step here is to arrest and imprison all women who have A-cup sized breasts for distributing child pornography.

If You Aren’t Doing Anything Wrong

You have nothing to hide. I found some chilling news that everybody already expected from Says Uncle. Apparently the TSA has been searching the electronic devices of travelers and going so far as to copy files and send them to third parties. From the link:

• In a span of just nine months, CBP officials searched over 1,500 electronic devices belonging to travelers. Under the current policy, they were not required to justify a single one of these searches.

• Travelers’ laptops are not the only devices at risk of being examined, detained, or seized by the government. In fact, cell phones were the most commonly searched and seized devices between October 2008 and June 2009.

• Other types of devices that were searched and detained during this time period include digital cameras, thumb drives, hard drives, and even DVDs.

• Between July 2008 and June 2009, CBP transferred electronic files found on travelers’ devices to third-party agencies almost 300 times. Over half the time, these unknown agencies asserted independent bases for retaining or seizing the transferred files. More than 80 percent of the transfers involved the CBP making copies of travelers’ files.

We need to have a chat for a second. When you have sensitive information it should be encrypted. A great tool to created encrypted partitions is TrueCrypt. It’s a great utility that even goes so far as to allow you to create hidden encrypted partitions in such a way you have plausible deniability should you be asked for the encryption key to a hidden partition (You can’t prove it’s there so they can’t hold you indefinitely if you say there isn’t one). On all of my computers my entire home directory is encrypted (Mac OS has a feature called FileVault that allows for easy home directory encryption). Furthermore important files are then put into a TrueCrypt partition.

Another option to consider when traveling with important and secure data is to not have it on any device you travel with. Put the information on a server and download it when you get to your destination. Some companies have started doing this practice. Nobody can get your data if it doesn’t exist.

Either way this is important and scary information. I know almost everybody assumed this was the case but it’s finally been confirmed. Encrypt everything, period.

ATF Beating Up on Legal Gun Shows

Scary but expected news via Snowflakes in Hell. There is an excellent write up over at theGun Rights Examiner. From the article:

Darwin Boedeker is the Texas Gun Shows (TGS) promoter. In a phone interview, he said that last Thursday, January 14, there was a meeting with Austin PD (APD), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the building lessee (HEB) and Andrew Perkel of Austin Market Place, who subleases the building from HEB and supports TGS.

At the meeting, Boedeker said the APD read off a “long list” of nuisance violations to the HEB representative. When Boedeker told everybody that these activities happened while another promoter hosted the gun show at that location–TGS began hosting shows November 2009–nobody else knew this.

Boedeker claimed that ATF and APD “intimidated” HEB into instituting a requirement that only dealers with a Federal Firearms License (FFL) can sell guns. Boedeker said APD invited the HEB representative “knowing he would crack.” That left two choices: cancel last weekend’s show on one day’s notice, or abide by FFL rule. Boedeker said that attendance was “horrible” last weekend, with 50 empty vendor tables and low attendance. He also said that 90% of those complaining about the new rule thought TGS was to blame.

Yes the ATF used it’s weight in an attempt to force a Texas gun show to ban private sales at the event. I guess this adds further credence to the ironic statement, “It’s OK I’m with the government; I’m here to help.”

Eight People Shot Dead in Virginia

A lone psycho in Virginia has managed to kill either people. Not many details have been given but this piece of information I thought was rather interesting:

At one point, a police helicopter was fired on and forced to land with a ruptured fuel tank.

That’s a lot more hardcore than usual. Normally in these cases the shooter would kill himself when the police arrived. Wait for the Brady Campaign and Bloomberg’s Posse to make an announcement saying the gun caused the crime. Also I’m betting they say it’s an AK-47 at some point.

ABC News “Discovers” “Secret Bible Code” on Military Equipment

Here is an interesting e-mail I just received. Apparently ABC News just “discovered” super secret Jesus Bible code on some of our military equipment. From the article:

Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.

The Michigan company, as you can guess, is Trijicon. Trijicon has been putting Bible verse references on their equipment from day one as far as I know. But of course according ABC News this is some great pushing of Christianity. Oh but this is classic:

“This is probably the best example of violation of the separation of church and state in this country,” said Weinstein. “It’s literally pushing fundamentalist Christianity at the point of a gun against the people that we’re fighting. We’re emboldening an enemy.”

I call bullshit.

This entire thing is stupid. First of all this isn’t some mysterious “Bible code” it’s printed in plain sight. It’s always been there and Trijicon has never been shy about it. Second I doubt any enemy combatants can see that tiny print while they’re being shot at and hence aren’t going to know they were shot by a “Jesus gun.” Those of us big into guns have known about this for a long time meanwhile ABC News reports this as if they discovered it and it’s some kind of grand conspiracy.

Don’t like the fact that Bible versus are printed on your optic equipment? Here are two options. First file it off. Second buy something else. I understand military personnel generally don’t have a choice in the equipment they are issued but for us private citizens it’s a right we enjoy, voting with our dollar. If you’re in the military and it offends you so dearly that your equipment has a Bible verse printed on it realize you probably have other equipment with similar “secret” markings.

This isn’t a separation of church and state issue. This is an issue of a private company making a product. It’s not military officials making soldiers pray to a Christian god, or forcing soldiers to carry a copy of the Catholic Bible. It’s some markings on a gun put there by the manufacturer because the founder believes in Christianity. Quite a few companies do things like this.

Another Great Idea Ruined By Litigation

I’m sure many of you have heard about several colleges doing pilot programs with the Amazon Kindle. The idea is to allow students to have all their heavy text books on a single device. Well the National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind decided they would have none of that and took a great big dump all over the the project. Why? Because the devices are not completely accessible to the blind.

In an agreement (At gun point) the Ministry Department of Justice barred the use of electronic readers until they are completely usable by the blind.

In other news another technological achievement will be banned in from use in universities due to inaccessibility to the blind. Although the technology has been in use for some time the two organizations in support of the blind have found that the devices were not accessible to those unable to see. They are working on brining a lawsuit against every university in the United States to bar the use of so called “text books” from use until such a time they are made accessible to the blind.

What the Government Giveth

They taketh away. The government handed banks of this country a lot of tax payer month, wether the banks wanted the money or not. Well the banks are not looking at potentially being taxed by the government to recoup costs. Yes that’s right the banks are in financial trouble so we give them bailout money. If a bank wasn’t in financial trouble they had to take the money anyways. Now those banks are going to be taxed. That’s your government at work everybody.