Tag: You Can’t Cure Stupid

California Assemblywoman Trying to Ban Open Carry

Well the pants shitting hysteria is upon us. Apparently Assemblywoman Lori Saldana (there’s supposed to be some goofy mark above the ‘n’ in Saldana but if it isn’t in the ASCII table I ain’t fucking with it) thinks the open display of unloaded handguns is evil and needs to be stopped. And of course she is citing that incident where 20 people were murdered by open-carry protesters… oh wait that never happened so she’s using this as her justification:

Saldaña cited an open-carry event in Pacific Beach last year as alerting her to the need for a ban on displaying guns, even unloaded, in public. There, with thousands of people at the beach on a Saturday, about 60 members of the movement walked along the boardwalk.

The gall of those people to peaceably demonstrate in a public area! My God somebody could get ideas that we should respect peoples’ rights! This must be stomped down immediately. But there’s more:

“Guns are an intimidating presence,” Saldaña said. “The average citizen can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys.”

Let me run this quick multiple choice question past you that should help the average citizen identify friend from foe.

You see a man walking down the street openly carrying a handgun. Is he:
A) Shooting at you?
B) Not shooting at you?

If you answered ‘A’ he’s a bad guy, if you answered ‘B’ he’s a good guy (as far as you’re concerned of course, if he’s not shooting at you he’s not a concern of yours).

Anyways the bill is Assembly Bill 1934. 1934? That number sounds familiars. Oh yeah it’s the year the National Firearms Act was enacted. A coincidence but a funny one regardless. Those of you in California need to stomp this law and a few others worming their way through your legislation down, HARD. I know your representatives don’t listen to you but make it damned clear if they pass anti-gun bills they won’t be getting another term. And follow that by actively working against them to ensure they don’t get another term.

Oh to close this we have a quote from a police officers:

Said Emeryville Chief James, “We view open carry as an officer safety issue. Officers are taught from Day One at the academy that guns are a threat. … We teach tactically how to respond to that threat.”

Holy shit how do the police deal with the guns other cops are carrying? After all the police are all openly carrying their firearms therefore all of your officers must treat each other as a threat. We know you can’t trust the uniform since people impersonate police officers quite often.

Remember These People Make Regulations

I’m always harping on government interference in our every day lives. Lately I’ve been looking at peoples’ desire to get the government further involved in Internet regulations. Well I’ve already shown the United States government’s incompetence in selecting people to work on Internet regulations when they put Mr. Series of Tubes, Ted Stevens, in charge. Well the latest episode of No Agenda shows us that Britain isn’t any more competent at finding people to work on Internet regulations:

The Right Honourable Stephen Timms is the UK’s “Minister for Digital Britain.” He’s the guy behind the Digital Economy Bill, which makes the US DMCA look good by comparison. Seriously, this is some terrible, terrible lawmaking.

OK got that? Here’s his disqualifications:

Here’s what appears to be a letter the DigiMini sent to another MP, explaining why the Digital Economy Bill needs to go forward. It reads, in part, “Copyright owners are currently able to go on-line (sic), look for material to which they hold the copyright and identify unauthorised sources for that material. They can then seek to download a copy of that material and in so doing capture information about the source including the Intellectual Property (IP) address…”

Yup that’s right. Mr. Minister for Digital Britain himself believes IP in the term IP address stands for intelectual property not Internet protocol (which is actually is). Remember these are the kinds of people making decisions in government. Think about that for a good long time when you decide the government should get involved in regulating anything.

What’s Mine is Mine and What’s Yours is Mine

Jay over at MArooned has a post showing some people don’t understand the concept of private property. Here’s the jist of the story:

A group of homeless people and housing activists took over a privately owned Mission District duplex on Sunday in what served as the climax of a protest designed to promote use of San Francisco’s vacant buildings as shelters for the needy.

OK so we have a bunch of people who decided they could just take over a home for a while and protest. The police stood by and did nothing but watch and eventually left without making any arrests. But some of the things aid by those homeless individuals made me realize something. People respect the concept of private property until they don’t have property:

Because of housing speculation during the real estate boom, “a lot of tenants were evicted,” Gullicksen said. “Now a lot of those homes are sitting empty. The city should be doing something to turn vacant buildings into affordable housing.”

They may be vacant but they aren’t owned by the city you putz. But of course Mr. Give-Me-Your-Money has a solution to the city not owning the property:

Specifically, he said the city should foreclose on buildings where hefty back taxes are owed or use its powers of eminent domain to turn over long-vacant homes to nonprofit developers. The group is not advocating turning over the city’s stock of new but unsold properties to the homeless.

So the city can either steal the house by collecting on taxes that shouldn’t exist (I’m sorry but property tax isn’t a legitimate tax in my book it’s just a mechanism to ensure you don’t actually own your property) or use their power of eminent domain to outright steal the house. Now eminent domain has always troubled me since it allows somebody to steal another person’s property so long as the one doing the stealing has the government on their side. Like property tax, eminent domain is a mechanism that prevents individuals from actually owning property since ownership implies it can’t be taken without the theft being labeled a crime giving the owner recourse. Needless to say anybody who makes a suggestion based on leveraging property taxes or using eminent domain pisses me right the fuck off. Oh and I love this part:

Jose Morales, 80, lived in the San Jose Street building for 43 years before he was forced to leave in 2008 through the Ellis Act, which allows property owners to get out of the rental business.

Morales said he now lives in a small space in an office building in the Mission District.

“The city should have protected me,” he said. “It’s like they don’t see me. It’s like I’m a ghost to them.”

Guess what buddy you just learned something, you need to take your own protection into your own hands. My question is this, you rented this home for 43 years right? Why the Hell can’t you just go rent SOMEWHERE ELSE? I know what a concept huh?

In this case the city shouldn’t have protected your whiny ass. The individual who owned the house decided he no longer wanted to rent it out. Tough shit buddy. What an individual does with his own property is his business alone. Thankfully the property owner’s attorney understands the concepts I’m talking about:

Zacks said he hopes charges are filed over what he characterized as “people taking the law into their own hands and breaking into property.”

“It’s sort of ridiculous to think that a private property owner like Mr. Tehlirian would have any obligation to house the homeless,” he said. “It’s a problem we should deal with as a community, not something that should be foisted on the back of a small property owner.”

Exactly a person who owns a house should not be required to let somebody else live there. If you want to set up a charity home and let homeless people live there you have that right. But nobody should be demanding a government entity force a homeowner to house the homeless. If you want the government to steal shit from those who can afford it and give it to you who can not afford it move to a communist nation. What is being demanded is redistribution of wealth which is exactly what Karl Marx was all about.

Kind of Scary When You Think About It

According to the Department of Defense:

According to a Department of Defense report, there have been at least 32 “accidents involving nuclear weapons.” And the report only counts US accidents which occurred before 1980.

What kind of accidents you ask? Well:

They include such gaffes as nuclear bombs inadvertently falling through bomb bay doors; the accidental firing of a retrorocket on an ICBM; the vast dispersal of radioactive debris; and the loss of enriched fissile material and nuclear bombs (which are “still out there somewhere”).

I’m sure after each of these accidents the only words uttered were, “Oops.” Read the entire report here (It’s a PDF document so be warned).

I Hate the TSA as Much as Anybody But Come On

OK I hate the TSA just as much as everybody else, possibly more. But after seeing a story on Dvorak Uncensored I have to call bullshit. Let’s see if you can find what’s wrong with this story. The story is titled, “Child rape charge rocks TSA.” Here is the story opener:

A Transportation Security Agency worker who pats down members of the flying public was charged with multiple child sex crimes targeting an underage girl yesterday.

The bust outraged privacy and passenger advocates who say it justifies their fears about Logan International Airport’s full-body scanner.

So what do you think happened? If you answered the TSA agent used his authority to take a child to the back interrogation room and raped the child you would be completely incorrect. Here is what happened (Buried towards the end of the article):

The 14-year-old victim watched a movie at his house, Okeeffe said. She said during the film, he massaged the victim’s thigh and touched her under a blanket, then during the February school vacation the girl stayed at his house with his daughter.

So what’s the point of this article? The huge majority of the article makes a big fuss about the fact that the TSA have naked body scanners attended by agents. It makes a huge fuss about one of these TSA agents being a pedophile. But the fact the perpetrator was a TSA agent is COMPLETELY irrelevant here since everything he did was done at HIS house not the airport. At no point was any evidence brought forth stating he made initial contact with the child at the airport or through his “authority” as a TSA agent. In fact the kid was apparently friends with his daughter. Yes instead of focusing on the crime it’s made into a hit piece about the TSA.

I hate the TSA with a passion. The entire organization is nothing more than security theater run by people given a badge and just enough authority to feel they can toss people around. But this hit piece is fucking stupid. It’s akin to making a hit piece about a police department because on of the officers committed a crime off company time and at his place of residence and didn’t in any way use his position or authority to commit the crime. The fact that a man committed statutory rape and was also a TSA agent are completely irrelevant. Yes the article focuses almost exclusively on the fact the person was a TSA agent and purposely misleads you to believe the crime happened at the airport. Finally the fact that the crime happened at the agent’s house is briefly mentioned in the second to last paragraph. Fuck!

Oh and since I’m on a rant I might as well point out the following bloody obvious:

TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis said Shanahan had passed two background checks, neither of which picked up any record that would prevent him from getting a job.

That’s right background checks don’t determine if you’re going to commit a crime, only if you have committed a crime and got caught. But Dippity Dipshit says:

“It’s a huge, huge issue,” said Kate Hinni of FlyersrRights.org. “The TSA needs a complete overhaul… If you have a pedophile looking at those naked pictures, they’ve got all your information, it’s a gross violation of their authority…. They should make sure none of them is corrupted in any deviant sexual manner.”

So how in the Hell are those hiring TSA agents suppose to make sure any applicant isn’t corrupted in any deviant sexual manner? Answer me that. What you don’t have an answer? Maybe that’s because it’s fucking impossible. This article is just full of stupidity from start to end.

Broadband For Free*

Tam at View From the Porch brings up an article dealing with the recent decision by the United States government to provide broadband for everybody. The article is about a whiny ninny web developer who is crying because she doesn’t have broadband:

Like a photographer without a camera, or a mechanic who doesn’t own a car, Kelli Fields is a webmaster without high-speed Internet access.

By day, the 42-year-old uses a broadband connection at work to update a university’s Web site, which she built and codes from scratch.

But when she goes home at night, the rural Oklahoman struggles with a dial-up Internet connection so slow, she does chores to pass the time while Web sites load. Her high school-age son is so fed up with the glacial pace of their Internet connection that he asks his mom to update his Facebook page from the office.

Let’s look at this shall we. My father is a mechanic and he owns his own shop. I can tell you one thing the government never provided him with a car, tools, hoist, alignment rack, or even a front desk. Likewise I don’t know a single photographer who has a camera purchased for them by the government. But using these examples this story tries to convince you that the government should be providing Ms. Prissy with boradband for her work? Why does a web developer get special treatment?

Oh because she’s in a rural area where she only has dial-up. Let me check if the government will provide tools to an auto shop that’s in a rural area away from any tool shop. Nope. Will the government provide cameras to photographers in locations far away from a camera store? Nope. Hm I guess those situations still remain irrelevant.

Stop running to the government every time you need something. Oh and I love this part:

She could install a satellite and connect to the high-speed Internet, but the installation fee is $300, and she said she can’t afford that right now. She’s been waiting for wired broadband to come to her home for five years, and she holds out some hope that the network will get to her eventually.

She can’t afford $300.00 but wants broadband Internet? How much money does she think it’ll cost to run wired broadband out to her rural house? Here’s a hint, a fucking lot. Of course I’m sure she’s fine with it so long as every tax payer in America is footing the bill and not just her. God this entitlement society pisses me off. And I haven’t even touched on the subject of government provided and therefore controlled Internet access.

* And by free I mean you’re paying for it through your tax dollars.

Scorched Earth

Mississippi style. A lesbian girl wanted to bring her girlfriend to prom. The Itawamba County Agricultural High School said Hell no (And muttered something about being afraid of catching the gay cooties). Well the student decided to call in the ACLU who eventually told the school yes she’s going. The school’s official response was to cancel the prom.

Talk about taking your ball and going home.

Something That’s Always Annoyed Me

I rarely touch the Health Care debate but there is one little thing about it that’s always annoyed me. Take a look at the picture:

Nothing something odd, besides the condescending ass in the center. Those “doctors” behind him are wearing lab coats. When the Hell is the last time you’ve seen doctors wearing lab coats outside of the office? Hell most doctors I know don’t wear lab coats half of the time they’re in the office.

Does the president believe the American people are so stupid that we can’t identify a person as a “doctor” unless they’re wearing a lab coat? That’s the message I get out of that.