On the Iraq War

Well the Obamessiah gave his speech that the United States has officially ended combat operations in Iraq. Now everybody is stating that the war in Iraq is over, but with all this talk about combat troops leaving one thing has seemingly been overlooked. We have quite a few of those mercenaries [sorry that’s the politically incorrect word now] private contractors over in Iraq at the moment:

Estimated number of U.S.-(taxpayer)-paid private contractors in Iraq: More than 180,000, again undoubtedly an all-time high. That figure includes approximately 21,000 Americans, 43,000 non-Iraqi foreign contractors (including Chileans, Nepalese, Colombians, Indians, Fijians, El Salvadorans, and Filipinos among others), and 118,000 Iraqis, but does not include a complete count of “private security contractors who protect government officials and buildings,” according to State Department and Pentagon figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Even though we only have 50,000 “non-combat soldiers” in Iraq there are over three times that many mercenaries employed by the United States still sitting there. That seems like a lot of personnel to have in a country where we are no longer performing “combat operations.”

Personally I don’t call that a mission accomplished (again?) but a sly way of claiming the war is over while still keeping the country occupied.

Stop Me if You’ve Heard this One Before

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has public comments open on a petition submitted by some jackasses Center for Biological Diversity. The petition is to ban all lead ammunition from the United States under the Toxic Substance Control Act, which had a specific exemption for ammunition contained within it.

A lot of people are jumping onto the fact that the EPA is the bad guy here. They very well could be but from what I’ve gathered they are required to hold public comments on any petitions they receive. I could be in error on this but that’s what I’ve determined from what little research I’ve put into this so far.

The good thing is comments are being taken and you can submit your input here. We have until October 31st to submit comments so let’s inform the EPA why this petition is a bad idea wrapped in a worse idea.

You have to give the anti-gunners credit for one thing, they’re relentless. Now that the right to bear arms has been incorporated they are going after ammunition. If they can’t get the ammunition they’ll probably go after springs because somebody could poke their eye out with one. Oh and they happened to be used in firearms.

Playing Dirty

I’m generally the last person to buy into a conspiracy theory but sometimes there is enough evidence that I’m willing to acknowledge there is some merit. You’ve most likely heard an arrest warrant was released for Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, on charges of rape. Shortly afterward the warrant was redacted.

According to Assange Australian intelligence warned him up an upcoming smear campaign aimed at discrediting him and WikiLeaks. Normally this is where I just scoff and figured the theory of conspiracy going on is due to paranoid delusions. Alas given the current atmosphere surrounding Assange and his organization I’m actually willing to nod my head and say there most likely is a smear campaign being performed against him. The timing seemed awfully convenient that these charges would surface so shortly after our administration urged other countries to open criminal investigations against Assange and then shortly be dropped.

Anybody who has read Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA [not an affiliate link] knows that the CIA has a long history of dirty tricks, smear campaigns, and various other misdeeds.

Fight Fire with Fire

OK I like this, I like this a lot. Somebody has setup a site called Gun Owners Against Illegal Mayors. This was bound to happen of course and the site is full of win. It lists the rap sheets of members in Mayors Against Illegal Guns who have committed crimes.

Burn Your Recyclables

Regardless of the fact that many recyclable products require more energy to recycle and create new again it seems Cleveland is going to force you to recycle:

The chips will allow city workers to monitor how often residents roll carts to the curb for collection. If a chip show a recyclable cart hasn’t been brought to the curb in weeks, a trash supervisor will sort through the trash for recyclables.

Trash carts containing more than 10 percent recyclable material could lead to a $100 fine, according to Waste Collection Commissioner Ronnie Owens. Recyclables include glass, metal cans, plastic bottles, paper and cardboard.

Yup that’s right if you don’t roll out your recyclables container enough a trash inspector will dig through your rubbish bin and fine you if they find too many things in there that could be recycled. I think it would be smart to start burning all of your recyclables. Why? Because I, like many Americans, have a problem with authority (that’s a good thing). If you try to make me do something I’m going to do the opposite just to spite your ass. Hence if I lived in Cleavland I’d now be burning every recyclable item I had just so I could avoid bringing that bin out and waste the trash inspectors time when he digs through it and finds nothing.

Charging Bloggers for a Business License

Did you real the title of this post and think to yourself that it contained one of the dumbest ideas ever conceived? If you did congratulations you’re the target audience of this site. If you didn’t think that I’m sorry to say but you probably aren’t going to enjoy reading this blog.

Apparently Philadelphia is charging bloggers a $300 for a privileged license. So it’s finally come down to it, the requiring of a license to practice your first amendment rights. It’s nice to see the analogy that is often used by us gun rights activists isn’t so far off.

According to the article the city of Philly wants you to buy a license the second you make any form of profit. At least I’d be exempt from this as I don’t make a nickle off of this site. Then again I don’t pay much to keep it going either, just a small yearly fee to WordPress for my customer domain name. Either way we have good old big government doing what it does best, fucking over the people it’s supposedly serving.

Remember Those Big Powerful Lobbyists

In the last post I mentioned one of the biggest arguments presented at last night’s event was the only way to stop lobbyists was to allow the government to regulate net neutrality. Guess what? The RIAA, one of the largest lobbyist holders in Washington, is jockeying to make net neutrality laws include filtering and the ability to spy on customer. Who called that one? That’s right I did.

This is why I don’t want government involved with the Internet in any way, shape, or form. Any company large enough can buy them and get whatever the Hell they want passed into law. At least with the ISPs in control (which I’ve mentioned is still going to fuck us over) I have the option of not paying for their service. An additional benefit is any deals groups such as the RIAA want to make will have to be done with each ISP separately. Did I mention that these deals won’t be law and thus ISPs will be free to not make those deals? Oh I didn’t? Well I did now.

At Least You Know Where Mark Dayton Stands

You know most politicians who want to tax successful rich Americans usually dance around the topic by using flowery terms such as America’s highest earners. Mark Dayton isn’t most politicians:

Progressive Taxes Read my lips, “Tax the rich.” Minnesota’s wealthiest citizens pay only two-thirds of their fair share of state and local taxes. That’s wrong. As Governor, I will raise taxes on the rich of Minnesota, NOT on the rest of Minnesota.

Wait they only pay two thirds of the state’s taxes? Only two thirds? What a condescending asshole. The wealthy make up a minority of the population of this state. The average income in the state of Minnesota was $33,059 in 2001. You know income isn’t that high when the wealthiest don’t number enough to bump the average income up by any meaningful amount. This minority is already paying two thirds of the state’s tax though. What a fucking prick.

Minnesota has a slight problem at the moment. Our largest employer is the state of Minnesota. The state employs 54,900 (not including the 25,976 employees of the University of Minnesota who are also partially on the government payroll) while the second largest employer, Mayo Clinic, employs 37,318. The state employs 17,582 more people than our largest company (that’s actually a non-profit corporation). That’s a whopping 68% more people. The reason for this is the simple fact that many large companies have moved out of Minnesota due to our “progressive” taxes which involve gouging successful companies.

If Mr. Dayton gets into office I’m betting the only employer that will remain in the state is the state. Hell they may actually begin to outsource!

Using the Surveillance State to Our Advantage

So yeah I found an article in the Red Star that made me laugh. Apparently DFL candidate for Governor, Mark Dayton, made a remark about people that follow him around with cameras. He stated it’s harassment and apparently doesn’t like the surveillance state. This is what happens Mr. Politician when we use your tools against you. Notice how you don’t like being watched 24/7 by cameras? We don’t fucking like it either.

Punishment is Overrated Anyways

I’ve mentioned a little laptop spying case that had come down upon a now infamous school district. In case you haven’t been reading that long I’ll recap.

The Lower Merion school district gave out laptops to each of their students. On every laptop was software that granted the ability for certain school officials to turn on the built-in web cam and see what was going on in front of the laptop. One of these school officials turned the camera on and saw what he or she thought was a kid doing drugs and tried bringing down the ban hammer. Bringing said hammer down revealed the fact that these laptops were being used to spy on kids. This feature was never actually mentioned to the students or parents whom received these laptops. This is where the shit storm started.

So what horrible punishment awaits the school officials whom were using these laptops to secretly spy on unsuspecting high school students? Absolutely nothing! It’s nice to see the justice system still works as it always has, in the benefit of the government.

I know what you’re thinking, at least the school will remove the said spying software from the kids’ laptops. Well that isn’t happening either. The school is going to openly admit they have the ability to spy on kids and their Scouts’ Honors they’ll only use it when absolutely necessary. You have to love this quote:

The measures require students and their parents to acknowledge the policies and consent in writing to any tracking, or give them an option to not participate in the laptop program. They also mandate expanded training about privacy and technology for teachers and staff, and will include information sessions for parents.

So you either put up with Big Brother or go without a laptop. That seems fair… so long as you get a tax refund for the percentage most likely being used to fund this program. The damnedest thing here is these spy programs don’t actually accomplish much as any thief with two brain cells to spare will just reformat any stolen computer to begin with. Logic of course has no place in our modern education system hence the promise from proven corrupt school officials is enough to shut the huddled masses up. Oh you also have to love this:

The district has already spent nearly $1 million in legal fees and expenses on the case.

Yes that’s right the school district has spent almost $1 million of tax payer money defending itself against tax payers. Government is the only entity where you sue them and have to pay for both your legal fees and the legal fees of those you are suing. Brilliant little scam right there! And just because it disgusts me here is another quote:

The meeting, at Penn Valley Elementary School, drew barely a dozen community members, and none who asked to speak about the policy.

Every fucking parent with a child in that school district should have been there and raising all levels of Hell. Fire and brimstone should have rained upon the school officials for spying on children. In any other capacity what those school officials did would have been labeled voyeurism and at the very least a massive invasion of privacy. Fuck that single sentence pisses me off to no end!

Let this story be a lesson, if a school gives your child a laptop tape over any built-in web cam and reformat the entire thing before your child uses it.

Edit 2010-08-18 11:16: Spelling and grammar, I don’t haz it. But I believe I’ve corrected the more glaring problems in the post.