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Category Archives: Unfiled

These are posts that have not been filed yet. They will be over time, category info did not transfer correctly in the move.

SSCC #335–TSA

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This one is just all sorts of fail.   The article leads off with this.

A security supervisor at Newark Liberty International Airport accused of stealing the identity of a murdered Queens man two decades ago began using the victim’s identification three weeks before he was killed, officials said today.

To which I said, well he hadn’t done anything illegal until after hiring maybe?  Nah I didn’t really think that, though the following did actually surprise me.

The supervisor, Bimbo Olumuyiwa Oyewole, 55, of Elizabeth, a Nigerian immigrant living in the United States illegally, is accused of using the birth certificate and Social Security number for Jerry Thompson, who was shot and killed in Queens on July 20, 1992.

Emphasis mine.  That’s right folks, our fearless leaders in the department of homeland security who claim to be doing everything in their power to protect us from those dangerous terrorists couldn’t even find someone using the identity of a dead man.  They couldn’t find someone who was violating the law and walked up to them and asked for a job.  It almost makes you think that they don’t bother vetting these miscreants before letting them rape and pillage the populace.

Oh wait, they don’t.  That’s why you have pedophiles working for them.  That’s why you have thieves working for them.  It is where criminals go to have the state protect them.

State Sponsored Criminal Count #335: Bimbo Olumuyiwa Oyewole

Because proper background checks and rectal exams are for people who want to fly, not for the people doing the checking!

Quote of the Day–Captain Capitalism (5/21/2012)

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It won’t be until there are guarantees enshrined via constitutional amendments that the government cannot confiscate/tax beyond a certain level and that private individuals property and income rights are maintained, that you will get people to start investing in the US again.  And so you can go ahead and come up with all the Keynesian stimulus you want.  The vast majority of the United States’ economic strength will remain dormant, or just outright afraid.

Captain Capitalism – Updating the Factors of Production

May 21, 2012

[I stumbled across this via Kevin Baker and he nails it right on the head.  Go read the whole thing.

Honestly that’s why I don’t work on many of the ideas and pet projects I come up with at home.  There’s no incentive since come tomorrow all my work could just be taken away.  What’s the point?  Why do all that work if someone else just comes along and says thanks and you don’t get so much as a dime.  None of my ideas or projects are things that just generate a quick buck, they take time and effort and frankly I have no interest in investing the time currently.

Why do I not have an interest in investing time, the pay off could be great.  Yeah, but the risk is way too high.  You see instead I could spend that time with my family.  I could spend it on my hobbies.  There is much less risk with those.  For me to invest a lot of my time and effort in something means that the behemoth of government needs to stay the hell out of my way.  Currently I have no guarantee, and even more than that I am hearing nothing but increasing taxes, increasing debt, and how I am fiscally responsible for it.

Yeah, screw off.  I’m not working more than I have to so that some ass-hat in Washington can go spend money he didn’t earn that he obtained at gunpoint from my hard work and effort.  Yeah, I shrug!]

SSCC #334–Vallejo

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Call 911 and kill your dog, at least that’s what happened here.

A Vallejo family expressed outrage Thursday that police shot and killed one of their dogs after it ran toward an officer coming to their home to take a report.

So why was the officer coming to the house I hear you ask.

The incident began at 12:10 p.m. Wednesday when Officer Chase Calhoun went to Erika Gregory’s home to investigate a case of identity theft she had reported, said police Lt. Ken Weaver.

So he opens the gate into the yard and the two dogs come around the corner in what he claims is an aggressive manner.  I know most dogs get upset with strangers but that doesn’t mean that they are going to actually bite and attack unless actually provoked.  The full kicker though:

Gregory, 49, said police had never told her that an officer was coming to take the report, and that she would have kept the dogs inside had she known. Although her dogs are friendly with visitors who are familiar to them, they are protective and will bark at strangers, she said.

However, the dogs have never attacked anyone, Gregory said.

You know, maybe officers should be trained into actually thinking all the way through into determining if something is actually aggressive.  If my neighbors dog gets out of his kennel and starts running at me, odds are I’m not going to shoot it.  Even dogs I’m unfamiliar with, I don’t shoot them.  Unless they have actually attacked something or are attempting to bite me there is no reason.  Is a dog running at you scary?  Yeah, but pull up your big boy pants and stare it down.  Most dogs are not trained attack dogs.  Yes there are reasons to shoot a damn dog, and it seems these bums are never around when it’s necessary.  Even then they didn’t shoot the dog when they showed up, no it was taken to quarantine. 

No this officer is just like every other officer.  Oh god a dog is running towards me, kill it.  The officers story would be believable if it wasn’t for all the incidents of puppycide like this, this, and this, by officers for no actual reason.  Which made the following quote:

Weaver said, “No one likes to use deadly force on a person or a dog. It’s unfortunate circumstances, and we feel for the family. We do feel bad.”

All sorts of ironic.  While shooting a dog isn’t exactly a crime, this happens often enough that it is easily animal abuse.  Doubly so when you also consider incidents like this or this where the dog is still living.  If their dog can maul me and get away with it, maybe they should just stay the hell out of my yard, if they want to talk to me, they can call me out of my house to the gate.

State Sponsored Criminal Count #334: Chase Calhoun

Because as I’ve said before, whenever a cop shows up, a puppy has to die.

Update: I forgot to thank Ry for sending this one in.

Stupid Murphy

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So today there was a partial eclipse where I live.  All was well except the weather decided to do the complete opposite of cooperate.  Yesterday it was hot and clear.  Today it was cloudy and sprinkling.  The overcast was thin, but enough that it diffused the light to the point where you couldn’t see the edge of the moon.

The wife and I are both planning for 2017 at this point.  It will be a full eclipse which at this point is fairly close to home.

Overall though today was a pretty lazy day and the ice cream isn’t flowing.  So I’m taking the night off!

Do Someone a Favor…

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And if you build a house and have a sprinkler system installed for the yard, hire professionals to do it.  Putting the drain valves for winterization in such a location that one can barely get their hand in is a bad thing.  Doubly so when the valves are very stiff.

IMAG0205

My hand barely fits between those pipes, each one has a drain valve underneath. 

IMAG0207

How stiff I hear you ask?  To turn them off I actually need to use a stick to properly apply pressure to get them to turn vertical.  Turning them back on I have to work it in the opposite direction.  Getting the valves started is actually difficult.  This year I had one that stuck so hard the handle on the valve broke.

Yes, you read that write, the plastic broke, that’s how stiff it was.  To get it to turn I had to resort to using some line and a loop wrapped around the other end of the valve handle.  I got it to finish closing however as it closed the line slipped free and I smashed my hand into the side of the box.

Immediately the pain was sharp enough I wondered how bad it was.  I stripped off my gloves and thankfully no broken skin.  However my thumb was already feeling stiff and immediately after the incident it hurt to move.  I splinted it with some scrap wood in the shop and finished the rest of what needed to be done for the sprinkler system.

As I finished up the pain subsided, but the time I got back in the house I could use my thumb again.  I’m able to push around on all sides of the impact point without problem.  Pushing on the impact point itself however hurts like a bastard.  So I’m thinking at this point I just bruised it.  I can put pressure through my thumb and grip as well, with only very minor discomfort at the most extreme of movement.

So, yeah, if you’re going to install one, do it right, or hire someone to do it right.  If you don’t, the next guy is going to hate you, doubly since he now gets to figure out how to fix your screw up.

In Which I am NOT TJIC

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Earlier this week an individual went full wookie.  By full wookie I mean he with the the most extreme ends saying that someone doing his job as a paramedic was equivalent of gassing Jews in a death camp.

Here’s the thing.  If you want to kill yourself, that’s your business and yours alone.  Don’t tell anyone else, just go out back and do it.  It may seem cold hearted but by god calling up someone and saying “I’m going to kill myself” is nothing more than a ploy for attention, either in life or death.  In death it is done by the guilt caused by those wondering, “Was there anything I could have done to stop them” or even worse, the looks given by family members.

Does someone have a right to take their own life. Yes, that is their decision and their choice.  That said, most often suicide is not a rational decision and done out of fear and depression.  I have family and friends who have taken their own life and the wake it causes makes me very morally opposed to it.  So by god, if you want to kill yourself don’t threaten to do so just do it.  Don’t lay a guilt trip on me by calling me up and threatening to do so.  Doesn’t mean I agree with their being a law, but the law is there.

If you do call me up you have waved your absolute rights to kill yourself.  Why?  You decided to involve an outside party.  You have decided to involve me.  You have no right to force me to be complacent to your plan.  You have no right to lay upon me the guilt I will feel every time a family member looks at me for not stopping you.

Do I agree with the fact that we have laws doing all of this, no.  Frankly I think Phil’s statements put it better than I could possibly put it myself.

AD’s job boils down to that of a care taker. He could be twice as ineffectual towards people as I am and he still would have had to do what he did. If a person truly understands emotional vampires then they’d realize that he did exactly what the guy wanted him to do, no matter how much the guy pretended to protest.

Even without the law, if you involve me in your plan to head to that undiscovered country who’s borne no traveler returns, I am going to try and stop you.  I am going to make sure that this is a calm, rationally thought out decision.  Not one made in the heat of the moment of some very bad news because as a friend has said before, “Stuff is stuff.”  Stuff can be replaced however a person cannot.

The above isn’t to say I don’t understand why some would want to take their own life.  On the contrary, I have seen pain and suffering that I wish upon no other person.  Suffering that haunts me and there was nothing that we could do but wait and let life take it’s course as prescribed by the law.

Someone who presents a clear concise rational reason as to why, go ahead, just go out on your own and do it.  In fact those who do make it as a rational decision do exactly that.  Those who make the threats however are doing anything but.  They are as Phil says, emotional vampires.  Believe me, it is not a way to make me your friend if you’re not already one.  If you are a friend and you make a threat like that, you better be mentally broken because I would assume my friends would know better and just say, “Dude, I need someone to listen than to go full drama queen.”

So the bottom line is this, if you actually want to kill yourself, don’t call me up and tell me you want to.  Just go out back and do it.  If you’re an attention seeking parasite, then by all means call.  If you do don’t be surprised when it turns out just like Ambulance Driver said it would.

SSCC Honorable Mention – Washington DC

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Via Uncle we get to see an up and coming state sponsored criminal in the making.

Including an indemnification clause, which means Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy L. Lanier
cannot be held liable for actions done on the job, is standard practice
in contracts for police chiefs and other government officials, said Leonard A. Matarese, a public safety expert with the International City/County Management Association.

Standard practice?  See here’s the thing, it’s complete horse crap.  It’s an effort to skate around the laws that cover “under color of law” when an officer does something wrong.  Guess what, as an engineer I’m held responsible for my actions.  Just the same a cop, no matter their position in the department should be held accountable for theirs.  If you can’t take it, if you’re afraid you might make a wrong decision and can’t handle the consequences it’s quite simple, get the hell out of the kitchen.

Now it isn’t giving her free reign to commit murder while on the job.

The contract states the District “shall defend, indemnify and hold harmless” Chief Lanier
in any civil or criminal proceedings so long as she was “properly
exercising or performing her duties and responsibilities within the
scope of her employment” and “acted in good faith, did not act in a way
that violates an applicable law, and did not act in an intentionally
tortuous manner.

“Did not act in an intentionally tortuous manner.”  So in other words you now must have an intent-o-meter to go after her for doing something bad.

Here’s the problem with these types of things, including qualified immunity.  It is they exist specifically to prevent thinking and bringing consequences to bear on those who decide not to think things through. 

I’ve said it before, but I will say it again.  You know who has more of a right to go home at the end of the night to their wife and kids?  Any innocent law abiding citizen.  More often than not however some innocent is caught up with some cop who instead of thinking just reacts.  Well the reaction results in injury or death to the innocent person. 

Who is at fault for this?  No it’s not the officer who committed the act.  For you see that would be silly in a world where we blame inanimate objects for the actions of others.  You see it was the fault of the department for improper training.  No one is actually at fault.  Then thanks to things like qualified immunity like that you get incidents like this.

Wait, he was never charged or convicted of a crime.  They fired him, but they couldn’t prove intent.  Maybe in fact that clause does allow for murder.

State Sponsored Criminal Count Honorable Mention: Chief Cathy L. Lanier

Because everyone who works in law enforcement should be able to work outside the law.  We wouldn’t want them to have to arrest their own you know.

Carry Your Damn Guns…

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There is no advanced warning.  You don’t know when it could happen, and it may not even be for a two legged varmint.  The problem could be of the four legged variety.  The life you save may not be your own either, but the life of your pet.

According to Lewiston Police, Renee Carter was walking her dogs in front
of a home when the Pit Bull ran across the street and grabbed her small
dog by the neck. Carter was bit on the arm while attempting to rescue
her dog. At that time, a passerby scrambled out of his car to help.

Thankfully there were a couple bystanders in the area who intervened to help.  The dog is currently in quarantine for 10 days.  Since the attack killed the other animal it has been declared a dangerous animal and if a home isn’t found outside the city it will be put to sleep.

That aside, thankfully there were others around to help this woman but that is not a assurance.  The only assurance is that this could happen to you and you are not immune and some how special and exempt from the possibility.

Stand tall, be ready, and carry your damn gun.