Tag: You’re Doing it Wrong

Too Many Idiots

The Brady Campaign has been trying to build up hype for their next failed attempt to create a movement of victim disarmament. You may not have heard anything about it as nobody pays much attention to the Brady Campaign anymore but Miguel over at Gun Free Zone had his ear to the ground and found the Brady Campaign’s new site, Too Many Victims (of Gun Violence, people killed by other violent crimes need not apply). Here’s a link you can copy and paste to visit the site:

http://www.bradycampaign.org/toomanyvictims/

Yeah I know it’s kind of petty to not link directly to their site, but I don’t link directly to sites of white supremacists either. If you’re advocating the creation of victims you’re not getting any link love from me.

Basically it’s a site created so people can go post memorials of people killed by guns. As Miguel pointed out the Brady Campaign doesn’t give two shits about victims of other violent crimes. If your family member was stabbed to death that’s just too bad, find somewhere else to post his memory.

The other thing the Brady folks are doing is encouraging people to host vigils for the victims of violent crimes involving firearms (if you were a victim of rape you can just take your sob story right over there with the rest of the people who were victimized in other violent crimes). Conveniently they have a very sparse list of planned vigils (which can be visited at the following link):

http://www.bradycampaign.org/toomanyvictims/local-vigils/

Notice how most of the planned vigils don’t even have a date or location set yet, I’m guessing they never will. Sadly the only one going on in Minnesota is why the fuck up in Duluth so I’ll not be able to verify if five or six people attended.

I’m going to find it difficult to surpress me desire to troll this site. Miguel brought up the idea of posting “memorials” for criminals who were shot by their would be victims. My question is whether or not these vigils are open carry events. There is also the question regarding whether or not the Brady Bunch are so cold and calloused as to remove memorials of victims of violent crimes not involving firearms. Do Brady shills employees verify the memorials are for real people? There is certainly the potential of creating some very funny memorials for non-existant or fictional individuals (some James Bond villains would be good candidates).

Now that I’ve given you all these bad ideas I want to urge you to take the high road and do your best to resist trolling this site. Ff we don’t give it any traffic nobody will (seriously, we’re the only people who visit anti-gun websites and we do is just to laugh).

Either way the lack of factual evidence to back up their claims has lead to the anti-gunners to rely entirely on emotional manipulation. This new initiative by the Brady Bunch is a sickening demonstration of their selectiveness in opposing violence. They don’t care about violent crime, only gun crime.

Under Newt Gingrich There Will be No Court of Appeals, Only the Court of Newt

Newt Gingrich has decided that the president is the law:

During an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Gingrich suggested the president could send federal law enforcement authorities to arrest judges who make controversial rulings in order to compel them to justify their decisions before congressional hearings.

When asked by host Bob Schieffer how he would force federal judges to comply with congressional subpoenas, Gingrich said he would send the U.S. Capitol Police or U.S. Marshals to arrest the judges and force them to testify.

So if Newt gets elected he will become the supreme judge in the United States. Tremble he who hath rule against the wishes of Newt for he will be collected and forced to answer for his actions. If Newt’s position doesn’t scream dictator I’m not sure what does.

The idea of having three branches of government was to prevent any one branch of obtaining supreme power. Obviously that has failed but to this day the courts have remained somewhat autonomous. Judge’s rulings are seldom the final word as decisions can be appealed to higher courts. Ultimately a case can make its way to the Supreme Court where a final decision will be made but a judge is never supposed to be under threat of violence for ruling “the wrong way.”

This action is no different than threatening jury members with punishment for ruling in a way opposed to the views of the state. At such a point the entire idea behind a jury trial is lost because juries no longer base their decision on whether or not they feel a crime has been committed but on whether or not they will be punished for the decision. If judges can be rounded up and force to justify their decisions then they to will make their decisions based upon whether or not it will lead to their punishment instead of whether or not they believe a crime has been committed.

In the end this is one of the most dangerous ideas a presidential wannabe could conjure up. It’s obvious if Newt became the president he would work fast to remove the few remaining constraints that prevent the Office of the President from being Supreme Dictator.

The Hypocrisy is Almost Palpable

The hypocrisy of the White House is so thick I fear it may suffocate me. Yesterday the White House’s official Twitter account tweeted the following:

Happy Bill of Rights Day! The US continues to stand with citizens & governments around the world who empower free expression. #FreeToTweet

I don’t know where they get the nerve making a statement like that. While the White House put out tweets celebrating the birthday of the Bill of Rights the legislature was busy debating the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill that will utterly destroy the First Amendment:

If the bill at issue, SOPA, were to become law, it would create a “blacklist” of websites that infringe on copyrights. Private companies who allege that a site is unlawfully publishing their copyrighted content could, with a judge’s signature, demand that ad networks and companies such as PayPal and Visa stop doing business with such sites. Internet service providers would need to prevent Americans from visiting them.

The Department of Justice is trying to cover up their little false flag operation that was started to further neuter the Second Amendment.

The White House has revoked their threat to veto the National Defense Authorization Act, which has language declaring the United States a battlefield in the war on terror and thus legalizing the indefinite detainment of American citizens without charges. To rub salt into the wound it was also made apparent that they only reason Obama first threatened a veto was because the bill’s language may have restricted his ability to wield such power. If passed this will effectively eliminate the Fourth, Firth, and Sixth Amendment.

The White House has no grounds to claim they support the Bill of Rights in any way.

Nanny State Moving to Ban All Portable Electronic Use by Automobile Drivers

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Secretary Ray LaHood has been demanding a blanket ban on all cellphone usage by drivers, going so far as to advocate cell phone jammers be built-in to every automobile. Now things are heating up as NHTSA is officially pushing for a ban on all portable electronic usage, with the exception of GPS, while driving:

According to the NHTSA’s latest numbers, 3,092 people died in 2010 as the result of distracted driving, including talking on a cell phone or texting. While that number is down from 2009, when NHTSA reported 5,484 “distraction-related” traffic deaths, the numbers aren’t comparable because of a change in how the agency categorizes accidents. And despite laws in many states banning handheld cellphone use and texting while driving, a driver survey by NHTSA found that nearly half of drivers are still making calls from their phones, and 10 percent are still reading text messages.

Last year I analyzed NHTSA’s numbers and found their claims of cell phone usage increasing the rate of accidents to be entirely false:

Like I said if cell phone usage has been causing automobile accidents it should be noted on the total number of accidents yearly. The data published by the NHTSA goes from 1988 to 2008 which is what we’ll concern ourselves with. So how much have automobile accidents increased? Here’s the funny thing, they haven’t. In fact the number of accidents has been on a slight downward trend since 1988.

In 1988 the total number of automobile accidents was 6,887,000, in 1990 it was 6,471,000, in 1995 it was 6,699,000, in 2000 it was 6,394,000, in 2005 it was 6,159,000, and finally in 2008 it was 5,811,000. It seems the only correlation that exists between the increase in cell phone subscribers and automobile accidents is a slight downward trend (which I’m absolutely not implying is causality).

Inevitably this is where somebody will point out the reason for the downward trend are laws banning cell phone usages while driving. The problem is that isn’t true. From what I’ve been able to find the first law banning cell phone usage while driving was enacted in New York in 2001. The downward trend in automobile accidents has been going on since the late ’80′s at the very least. If the downward trend was occurring before the first law banning cell phone usage while driving was enacted that indicate a third party reason. In fact a recent study confirms exactly what I’m saying.

It’s nice when I’ve written so many posts that I can simply reference previous posts to explain a point. The bottom line is automobile accidents have been on the decline since, at least, the 1980s while the first law banning cell phone usage in automobiles wasn’t passed until 2001 meaning a third factor must be playing into the dropping accident rate. Banning the use of all personal electronics by drivers is nothing but knee-jerk nanny state malarkey. Stupid people do stupid things and passing a law banning the use of portable electronics by drivers isn’t going to fix anything (but will give the state more money in the form of citations and tickets which is probably the real reason behind this push).

If this passes people like myself will no longer even be able to use portable MP3 players to play music in their vehicle. As with most government regulations this one is entirely reactionary to a non-existing problem and has numerous unintended consequences.

Occupy Oakland Now a Big Business Puppet

Occupy Oakland seems to be going all out in their attempt to win the title of Douchiest Occupation Ever. They’re supposedly protesting the wealthy and government corruption yet their solution is to disrupt business at ports on the West Coast:

Heady with their successful attempts to block trucks and curb business at busy ports up and down the West Coast, some Occupy Wall Street protesters plan to continue their blockades and keep staging similar protests despite requests to stop because they’re hurting wage earners.

[…]

Protesters are most upset by two West Coast companies: port operator SSA Marine and grain exporter EGT. Investment banking giant Goldman Sachs Group Inc. owns a major stake in SSA Marine and has been a frequent target of protesters.

Demonstrators say they are standing up for workers against the port companies, which have had recent high-profile clashes with union workers. Longshoremen in Longview, for example, have had a longstanding dispute with EGT, which employs workers from a different union to staff its terminal. The longshoremen’s union says the jobs rightfully belong to them.

Emphasis mine. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that Occupy Oakland has been hijacked by unions. One thing I noticed numerous times at Occupy Minneapolis was the attempt by unions to co-opt the movement and turn it from a mostly aimless airing of grievances to another puppet in the machinery of the national unions. Occupy Minneapolis avoided the hijacking attempt, likely because it fizzled our pretty early, but Occupy Oakland appears to have fallen right into the union’s trap.

Many of the antics pulled by the various Occupy movements have been entertaining as they usually involve people screaming, chanting, and otherwise being politically disruptive without actually interfering with private entities. Blocking privately owned ports is not a peaceful protested but a direct violation against the port owner’s right to property. Were I the port owners I’d be demanding the local police force remove these protesters from my property and if they failed to act I would take action to exercise my right to defend my property. There is a vast supply of water at that port and high-pressure hoses are pretty effective means of making the lives of trespassers miserable enough to cause their retreat from the premises.

Unions in this country are not voluntarily cooperations of employees coming together to fight for better working conditions. Instead unions in this country are large national corporations where bigwigs at the top make six figure salaries by stirring up unnecessary trouble between employees at employers. I’m on record on this blog of brining up the fact that these national unions more often than not cause long term problems for the employees they supposedly represent. While they manage to get higher wages, pensions, and other benefits for union employees they are usually far above a sustainable level causing the company to eventually face bankruptcy or fire the union employees (because the unions will almost never accept reducing employee pay). Regardless of the direction taken by the floundering business jobs are lost. This problem heavily contributed to the destruction of auto manufacturing in this country.

The fact of the matter is national unions in this country are big businesses and by being puppets for these unions Occupy Oakland is now a puppet of big business. If you fight something too long you often risk becoming that thing you’re fighting.

Don’t Blame the Automobile Manufacturers

Once gain I ventured into the Letters to the Editor section of the Star Tribune and returned with blog fodder gold. This letter was penned by an individual wrongly blaming automobile manufacturers for the lack of available small trucks on the market:

After 190,000 miles of service, my 1998 Toyota Tacoma has come to the end of its life. A rusted frame has brought its use to an end. Concerned about liability, the Toyota Corp. has given me a rather generous sum to buy back my 13-year-old truck.

The bad news : Toyota no longer makes a small truck. If it did, I’m certain it would get well more than 30 miles per gallon.

My Tacoma averaged 27 mpg — not highway miles, mind you: 27-mpg average. I’m certain that 13 years of technology could easily push us into the 30-mpg range.

The small truck is gone; the question is: Why?

Why are we being dictated to by car companies? Why do we move backward rather than forward, and how much longer will such regression continue?

We are about to conclude one oil war; half of our trade deficit is petroleum, and winter no longer comes in November in Minnesota.

National strength comes from minimizing our liabilities, not ignoring them. All but a few suffer when the tail wags the dog, and it needs to end. Petroleum addiction and inaction challenges our future. Change should be parked in your garage.

MARK PALAS, ST. PAUL

Emphasis mine. Notice that Mark is blaming the automobile manufacturers for what is actually a fault of government policy. How so? It has to do with the method fuel efficiency is calculated by government busy bodies:

The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) are regulations in the United States, first enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1975,[1] and intended to improve the average fuel economy of cars and light trucks (trucks, vans and sport utility vehicles) sold in the US in the wake of the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo. Historically, it is the sales-weighted harmonic mean fuel economy, expressed in miles per US gallon (mpg), of a manufacturer’s fleet of current model year passenger cars or light trucks with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 8,500 pounds (3,856 kg) or less, manufactured for sale in the US. If the average fuel economy of a manufacturer’s annual fleet of vehicle production falls below the defined standard, the manufacturer must pay a penalty, currently $5.50 USD per 0.1 mpg under the standard, multiplied by the manufacturer’s total production for the U.S. domestic market.

In other words a car manufacturer is punished if the average fuel efficiency of their fleet is below a specified threshold. This threshold, measured in miles per gallon, is a moving target that has only ever increased (meaning the average miles per gallon of a company’s fleet must be higher).

Physics only allows for so much fuel efficiency to be squeezed out of a gasoline engine. Combine this, government regulations, and the fact that physics is a harsh bitch who also dictates that more fuel is required to produce more power and you have a formula that is just setting up small trucks for failure.

People who buy cars generally desire what they feel is acceptable acceleration and speed while people who buy trucks generally desire what they feel is acceptable towing capacity. Small trucks like the Ford Ranger are kind of an in between; they offer acceptable towing capacity without being gargantuan and therefore difficult to maneuver on small city streets. Unfortunately they’re not the most fuel efficient vehicles as people often will want to be able to pull their boat around with their small truck.

When the government increases the required average miles per gallon tough choices must be made. Increasing fuel efficiency requires decreasing power, which will irritate customers buying new vehicles (who generally assume their new vehicle will be equally or more power than their last). On the other hand if you eliminate one of the models that has a lower average miles per gallon your total corporate miles per gallon goes up. Thus in order to keep a majority of their customers happy and comply with the demands of government the automobile manufactures find they must make a handful of them unhappy.

You can’t rightfully blame automobile manufacturers for the lack of small trucks on the market, that blame is purely on the shoulders of government regulators.

Your Tax Dollars Working Hard to Fight Terrorism

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the absolute lack of fiscal responsibility exercised by government agencies. What our tax money is spent on in the so-called war on terror boggles the mind. For instance I would really like to know how snow cone machines are used to thwart the plans of terrorists:

The West Michigan Shoreline Regional Development Commission (WMSRDC) is a federal- and state-designated agency responsible for managing and administrating the homeland security program in Montcalm County and 12 other counties.

The WMSRDC recently purchased and transferred homeland security equipment to these counties — including 13 snow cone machines at a total cost of $11,700.

The machines were funded by a grant from the Michigan Homeland Security Program. The request for a snow cone machine came from another county, but all 13 counties received them.

The purchase raised some questions at a recent Montcalm County Board of Commissioners meeting. Commissioners wondered about the machine and questioned its purpose.

The Michigan Homeland Security Grant Program’s Allowable Cost Justification document, dated May 9, 2011, says the snow cone machines can make ice to prevent heat-related illnesses during emergencies, treat injuries and provide snow cones as an outreach at promotional events.

Emphasis mine. You can justify anything so long as you’re willing to stretch definitions far enough. I’m curious what heat-related illnesses can be better avoided through the application of snow cones over regular crushed ice. While I’m not a biologist I believe human beings are capable of intaking ice whether it is flavored or not.

I’m also at a loss how consuming ice, flavored or not, will help with heat-related illness. The common complication related to heat is dehydration. Anybody who has studied winter survival techniques understand that the consumption of snow actually further dehydrates a person.

I wish government agencies would just be honest and say, “We want a snow cone machine because snow cones are fucking delicious.” If you’re going to piss away money on frivolous gear at least have the decency to be honest and not attempt to bullshit the public.

Equality Under the Law

Libertarians believe all should be equal in the eyes of the law. That is to say if you break a law all factors involving gender, race, and religion should be entirely ignored. While governments around the world claim to subscribe to this fact, in truth they rarely act on it because doing so would be politically incorrect, politically inconvenient, or would grant arguments for political opponents to use in the next election cycle. Those who have read my site long enough know I have no problem with Islam, Christianity, Judaism, atheism, or any other religion or lack thereof. Knowing this you should know that this story would still disgust me whether the attackers were Muslim, Christian, or atheist:

The four women – three sisters and their cousin – were told the charge of actual bodily harm, which carries a maximum sentence of five years, against 22-year-old care worker Rhea Page would normally land them in custody.

However, the judge handed the women suspended sentences after hearing that they were not used to alcohol because their religion does not allow it.

Miss Page said Ambaro Maxamed, 24, Ayan Maxamed, 28, and Hibo Maxamed, 24, and their 28-year-old cousin Ifrah Nur screamed “Kill the white slag” while kicking her in the head as she lay motionless on the ground.

The support worker from Leicester was left “black and blue” with bruises and needed hospital treatment following the attack which came as she walked to a taxi rank with her boyfriend.

[…]

Sentencing, Judge Robert Brown said: “This was ugly and reflects very badly on all four of you. Those who knock someone to the floor and kick them in the head can expect to go inside, but I’m going to suspend the sentence.”

[…]

He said: “Although Miss Page’s partner used violence, it doesn’t justify their behaviour.

“They’re Somalian Muslims and alcohol or drugs isn’t something they’re used to.”

It looks like you can get away with beating somebody to the point of hospitalization in the United Kingdom (UK) so long as you are of a religion that detests the consumption of alcohol and have consumed some alcohol. I hereby declare a new religion, of which I’m a follower, called Odinism. Odinism does not support the consumption of alcohol in any way, it views such acts as being damnable. Now if I ever want to get into a fight with somebody in the UK all I need to do is drink a beer or two before starting the fight.

I’m just glad I live in a country where I can legally have a means of defending myself against four assailants.

Federal Government Censor Websites Using Copyright Laws

With all the debate surrounding the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) mission creep we often forget that the federal government has been practicing censorship by hijacking domains of websites. We’re told that SOPA will be OK because the government will only target copyright offenders but the truth is they’ve already used their authority to censor non-infringing websites:

Imagine if the US government, with no notice or warning, raided a small but popular magazine’s offices over a Thanksgiving weekend, seized the company’s printing presses, and told the world that the magazine was a criminal enterprise with a giant banner on their building. Then imagine that it never arrested anyone, never let a trial happen, and filed everything about the case under seal, not even letting the magazine’s lawyers talk to the judge presiding over the case. And it continued to deny any due process at all for over a year, before finally just handing everything back to the magazine and pretending nothing happened. I expect most people would be outraged. I expect that nearly all of you would say that’s a classic case of prior restraint, a massive First Amendment violation, and exactly the kind of thing that does not, or should not, happen in the United States.

But, in a story that’s been in the making for over a year, and which we’re exposing to the public for the first time now, this is exactly the scenario that has played out over the past year — with the only difference being that, rather than “a printing press” and a “magazine,” the story involved “a domain” and a “blog.”

[…]

Okay, now some details. First, remember Dajaz1.com? It was one of the sites seized over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend back in 2010 — a little over a year ago. Those seizures struck us as particularly interesting, because among the sites seized were a bunch of hip hop blogs, including a few that were highly ranked on Vibe’s list of the top hip hop blogs.

[…]

In fact, as the details came out, it became clear that ICE and the Justice Department were in way over their heads. ICE’s “investigation” was done by a technically inept recent college grad, who didn’t even seem to understand the basics of the technology. But it didn’t stop him from going to a judge and asking for a site to be completely censored with no due process.

The story goes into more detail but I’m sure you get the point. ICE has been shutting down domains based on “evidence” collected by completely unqualified individuals. Instead of laughing and tossing out requests for domain seizures judges have simply been saying, “Well I’m an agent of the state and you’re an agent of the state so you must be right. Sieze the domain!” This kind of ineptitude isn’t an exception but is the rule when it comes to government enforcement of almost anything.

Knowing this people still want to grant the government more power. What SOPA will do is allow this kind of incompetence to spread even further. I also guarantee you that many websites that are critical of the federal government will find themselves on the list of copyright offenders, by accident of course.

Wasting Everybody’s Time

The Red Cross decided it would be a good idea to waste everybody’s time:

Earlier this year, game maker Activision counted up that 62 billion people had been ‘killed’ virtually in online games of Call of Duty: Black Ops – including 242 million stabbed to death at close range.

That’s just one title among hundreds of modern war games – most of which lack any kind of ‘surrender’ button bar switching the machine off.

Now, a committee of the Red Cross is debating if gamers might be violating the International Humanitarian Law as they slaughter each other online.

Way to put all that donated money to good use boys. Instead of using every available dime to help people in need the Red Cross decided it would be a great idea to create a committee to deterime if video game players, you know people partaking in an entirely fictional and therefore non-consequential universe, are violating the Geneva Convention.

I’ll save you guys a lot of debating, the answer is no. You can’t violate International Humanitarian Law if you’re not actually physically hurting people. That’s like claiming an author writing about the death of a main character is somehow equivalent to murder. Likewise what will be the ultimate extent of this debate? Will you idiots try to determine if firing a Clan extended range particle projector cannon from a 30 foot-tall BattleMech is a violation of the Geneva Convention? Let me save you some time on that future debate as well, the answer again is no because none of the Clans, nor the Inner Sphere, ever signed the Geneva Convention.