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Monthly Archives: April 2013

Quote of the Day – Paul Barrett (4/24/2013)

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The gun debate has been tilting toward the pro-gun side for more than a dozen years. The Boston Marathon bombings will continue that trend.

Paul Barrett – The Boston Terror Will Benefit the NRA, Hurt Gun Control

April 23rd, 2013

[Let me start off by saying, Paul was trying to be fair though there were a few comments that I don’t really agree with.  For example attacking Wayne LaPierre or this little bit at the end of his article.

But the NRA and some of its friends are not interested in rational discourse. They thrive on slippery-slope reasoning, according to which any limit on guns is a mere precursor to firearm registration and confiscation. As any gun manufacturer will tell you, the 9/11 attacks helped sales at firearm counters around the country and strengthened the NRA’s hand in lobbying against greater federal restrictions.

Paul most people, even the NRA, are willing to have a rational discourse.  The problem is there are so many irrational people on the other side trying to control the conversation the only reasonable thing is to just shut it all down.  For example look at Fienstein and what she was pushing and trying to tack on to that bill.  Moving further forward that bill honestly didn’t have anything really to do with background checks.  The people pushing for the bill even admit it would have not made any difference at  any of the mass shootings.

So is it irrational that we want to put on the breaks, let the emotion die, and approach this in a rational and reasoned manner instead of an emotional hysteria?

There were a few other errors, such as the comment regarding background checks for commercial firearms sales.  That is already required by federal law, so are we redefining commercial sales to include any sale?  Including letting someone borrow a firearm? At which point if you exempt it, today’s exemption is tomorrows loophole, not to mention how do you define and prove “borrowing”.

Paul’s conclusion though is correct and can easily be seen with this poll.

Sixty-nine percent say if they were in a situation similar to Bostonians, they would want a gun in their house.  

That includes a large 88-percent majority of those in gun-owner households, as well as 50 percent of those in non-gun homes.

As noted by Weer’d the lock-down also occurred in one of the most difficult areas to get a gun permit.  I expect there will be a large influx of new owners in that area.  Many of them will have an experience much like this individual.

“You’ll need a license for that,” the clerk informed me when I asked to see a modestly-priced BB gun.  Surprised but undaunted, I whipped out my drivers license and slid it across the counter.  At which point it was obvious to me that it was obvious to him I’m not a gun person. 

“To buy a gun in New Jersey you need a Firearm Purchaser ID Card from your Township’s police chief.  Even a BB gun.  Can’t even take one down to show you without it.”

Many had a wake up call last Friday.  Couple that with incidents like this, it’s no wonder people want to buy firearms for their own defense.

Then Angela Kramer softly pleads for help as the gunman who killed her parents and brother seconds earlier searches for her inside the family’s Darien home.

“I’m in my house. There’s shooting,” Kramer tells the operator in a low voice immediately after the loud gunshot.

…

Kramer’s 911 call lasted for more than 55 minutes until police searched the darkened house and rescued her from her hiding place.

Boy, Chicago’s restrictive gun laws while pushing reliance on the police really helped that family now didn’t it.

Last weeks incident served as wake-up call to many, doubly so since it was a citizen who was confined to his house that found the man on the run after they lifted the lock-down.  I’m sure that man probably would prefer to have a firearm the next time he investigates something out of place.

*As an additional aside.  I’ve met Paul and his wife both and they were both extremely nice.  I do not think Paul was trying to slight gun owners as a whole or even directly wanted was was really in that bill.  Odds are the particular publication for which he works had a serious hand in the tone of the article.

I do not know of any gun owner who actively supports giving firearms to criminals.  We all know damn well how that would have a negative affect on us and our rights.  What we don’t want though is the state coming in and arbitrarily denying or delaying the rights of law-abiding people because in the end, we know the criminals will still get their hands on a firearm.  The comments within that article do nothing more than aid in driving a wedge and turning off the other side causing them to ignore you and your position.

I do not think any firearm owner would complain about providing additional tools to aid people in “doing the right thing”.  Where we all have a problem is trying to trace that and enforce it under law.  It becomes this complicated problem fraught with danger because it will become all to easy to criminalize someone who would actually be innocent. -B]

 

SSCC Austin

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Ken Anderson faces three felony charges, including concealing evidence. Anderson was the district attorney who prosecuted Michael Morton in 1987.

Morton spent 25 years in prison before DNA evidence proved his innocence. Anderson’s attorney plans to challenge Friday’s ruling.

Another person within the prosecutors office acted to protect Mr. Anderson and did everything possible to prevent the evidence from being admitted.

25 years of a mans life gone.  All because this prosecutor lived by the following mantra

It takes a good prosecutor to convict a guilty man, it takes a great prosecutor to convict an innocent one.

Remember that the next time you think about what happened in Boston last Friday.  Doubly so since there’s no correlation between the law and justice.

State Sponsored Criminal Ken Anderson

Because when you’re too lazy to find the real killed, throw the innocent man who lost his loved one in prison.  When the real killer kills again, just play dumb.

h/t Rob Halvorson

I’m Sure They Would Have Done the Same for the Other Side

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Ryan Grim, Washington bureau chief for The Huffington Post, explains to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell how he and other “journalists” prevented Capitol Hill police from removing an anti-gun advocate from the Senate gallery after she yelled at Senators who voted down an amendment to expand background checks.

[Sarcasm] I’m sure all those journalists would have also jumped to the defense of a human rights advocate had they given the same type of outburst. [/Sarcasm]

 

Quote of the Day – Jennifer (4/23/2013)

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Gun ownership is an exercise of your right to life. Defense of self is inseparable from this most basic human right. Would a bear still be a bear if you took its claws? De-clawing a cat permanently places them in bondage to their human masters. They are no longer free creatures. Denying arms to an otherwise free man does much the same.

This is not to say that those who choose not to own firearms are not free. The freedom lies in having the choice. Freedom of religion does not mean you must worship, only that you have the choice in how you worship if you choose to do so at all.

InJennifer’s Head – There Is No Such Thing As ‘Gun Rights’

April 23rd, 2013

[Yup.  It’s a basic human right.  It is one of the many reasons why I get angry when someone tells me or someone else that they should not be allowed arms.    There is a section of the population that only support basic human rights when it suits them.

These people are most aptly described as hypocrites.  -B]

 

Yet Another Lie From Our Fearless Leader…

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“The Administration strongly supports S. 743, which will level the playing field for local small business retailers that are in competition every day with large out-of-state online companies,” reads the Obama administration’s statement on the policy.

*Blink*.  Seriously anyone who believes that helps small business is a burger, fries, and a drink short of a Happy Meal.  All you have is an empty box full of napkins.

All this serves to do is raise costs equally across everyone, small and large businesses alike.  In the end that will affect small businesses more because it will trim down their profit margin if they attempt to stay competitive.  Larger retailers have a larger profit margin and can eat the smaller loss.

The assumption for the above is that the majority of my business is coming from local states.  Not only that, but that I can in no way compete with local companies merely because of sales tax.  Further many of the large retailers do have to charge sales tax because they have store fronts within the state.

So all this law would do, is cause small businesses to have to raise prices and append an additional tax.  Large companies would have to do it just the same but they could more easily eat the cost giving them an advantage over small business.  This is merely another example of how this Administration hates small business owners.

As a small business owner the mere mention of this while claiming it will help me is down right offensive, doubly so since that no talent ass-clown of a President accused me last Wednesday of being a liar for telling the truth.  Here we are not even a week later and that narcissist is lying and trying to tell me swallow this pill of cyanide because it will help my business.  This coming from a man who’s never run a business in his life.

Mr. President, shut the hell up and stop trying to destroy my business.  It’s hard enough to get the damn thing rolling without you meddling in it and causing us to have to raise prices.

Quote of the Day – John Klein (4/19/2013)

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They’re going to think I’m inactive at church.  I have an Appleseed this Sunday, Boomershoot next Sunday, and USPSA the following Sunday.  I think I’ve found a new religion.

John Klein – Instant Message

April 18th, 2013

[Yeah, I spend most of my Sundays doing something firearms related.  Be it shooting, cleaning, or working on the blog.  -B]

 

SSCC Boston PD

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Do I really need to go into the details on this one?

State Sponsored Criminal: The Boston PD

Because the 4th amendment is suspended along with responsible firearms handling when you’re a cop.

How I know I moved to the right host

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There have been teething issues over the past week.  I’m still working out a lot of the kinks, but there was a relatively big incident last Friday.  Let me just let my hosting provider give the overview of what happened, the analysis, and their corrective actions.

Dear Customer,

Earlier today, we had to perform emergency maintenance on a critical piece of power infrastructure. Our customers’ uptime is of critical importance to us and communication during these events is paramount.  At this time, power has been restored and servers are back online. Listed below is a timeline of events, record of ongoing communications, SLA compensation information and a detailed outline of the steps we’re taking to prevent against these issues in the future. If at anytime you have any questions please do not hesitate to call, email or chat.

Timeline of Events:

  • 11:00 – During a routine check of the data center by our Maintenance staff, the slight odor of smoke was detected. We immediately began a complete investigation and located the source of the smell; a power distribution unit in Liquid Web DC3, Zone B, Section 8 covering rows 10 & 11.
  • 11:05 – We discovered a manufacturer defect in the Power Distribution Unit (PDU).  This defect resulted in a high resistance connection which heated up to critical levels, and threatened to seriously damage itself and surrounding equipment.  This bad connection fed an electrical distribution panel which powers one row (Lansing Region, Zone B, Section 8, Row 11)  of servers which is part of our Storm platform.  We immediately tried to resolve the issue by tightening the connection while the equipment was still on, but it wasn’t possible. To properly resolve the situation and repair the equipment, we needed to de-energize the PDU to replace an electrical circuit breaker.
  • 11:15 – To avert any additional damage, we were forced to turn off the breaker which powered servers in Lansing Region, Zone B, Section 8, Row 11. All servers were shut down at this time.
  • 11:48 – Servers in Lansing Region, Zone B, Section 8, Row 10 began to be shut down.
  • 11:49 – Once it was safe to begin the work, we immediately removed the failed components and replaced them with spares.  We discovered that the failed connection was due to a cross threaded screw installed at the time of manufacture.  This cross threaded screw meant the connection wasn’t tightened fully, and resulted in a loose, high resistance connection which heated far beyond normal levels. Upon replacing the breaker, we re-energized the PDU and customer servers.  Our networking and system restore teams have been working to ensure every customer comes back online as soon as possible.
  • 12:52 – Power was restored and servers began to be powered back on.

Communication During Event

We know that in the event of an outage, communication is of critical importance.  As soon as the issues were identified we provided the following updates on the Support Page and an “Event” which emails the customer as well as provides an alert within the manage.liquidweb.com interface.

Event Notice on Support Page:

“We are currently undergoing emergency maintenance on critical power infrastructure affecting a small number of Storm servers in Zone B. Work is expected to take approximately 2 hours. During this event affected instances will be powered down. We apologize for the inconvenience this will cause. An update will be provided upon completion. “

Event Notice Emailed to Customers:

“We are currently undergoing emergency maintenance on critical power infrastructure affecting 1 or more of your Storm instances. Work is expected to take approximately 2 hours. During this event affected instances will be powered down. We apologize for the inconvenience this will cause. An update will be provided upon completion.”

SLA Compensation

Liquid Web’s Service Level Agreement (SLA) provides customers the guarantee that in the event of an outage the customer will receive a credit for 10 times (1,000%) the actual amount of downtime. From our initial research into this event it appears as though most customers experienced between 1 hour and 2 hours of downtime.  However, due to the disruptive nature of this event we are providing a minimum of 1 full day of SLA coverage for any servers that were affected by this event.  Please contact support if you have any additional information regarding this event of if you would like to check on the status of your SLA request.

Liquid Web TOS Network SLA
http://www.liquidweb.com/about/dedicatedsla.html

Network SLA Remedy
In the event that Liquid Web does not meet this SLA, Dedicated Hosting clients will become eligible to request compensation for downtime reported by service monitoring logs. If Liquid Web is or is not directly responsible for causing the downtime, the customer will receive a credit for 10 times ( 1,000% ) the actual amount of downtime. This means that if your server is unreachable for 1 hour (beyond the 0.0% allowed), you will receive 10 hours of credit.

All requests for compensation must be received within 5 business days of the incident in question. The amount of compensation may not exceed the customer’s monthly recurring charge. This SLA does not apply for any month that the customer has been in breach of Liquid Web Terms of Service or if the account is in default of payment.

Moving forward

All PDU’s will be inspected for the same issue for all panels and all main breakers.

In this case, this PDU was just recently put into service.  When we purchase critical power equipment, the manufacturer performs an onsite startup procedure. This equipment check includes a physical inspection, phase rotation, voltage checks, alarm checks and many more.  This particular manufacturer defect didn’t avail itself until the PDU was under a significant amount of load.  Once the manufacturer defect began, the screw at the bus finger began to overheat. Once this overheating began, the resistance increased causing a serious risk of catastrophic failure.

Going forward, Liquid Web will perform additional tests, above and beyond our manufacturer startup procedures, on new equipment to look for manufacturer related defects and issues. We will now perform testing at full load by utilizing a Power Load Banking System.  This testing procedure was already in place for the vast majority of our power equipment but now will also include PDU specific testing.

Liquid Web performs preventative maintenance (PM) on all PDU’s.  This PM is an inspection that consists of current draw recording on all branch circuit breakers, infrared imaging of main connection points and on the transformers and a general inspection.  This is typically a quarterly inspection.

Yeah, I can’t argue with a company that honest.  Plus they go out of their way to help solve problems which technically may not even be their problem or responsibility. 

Oh, and I2R losses as always, are a pain in the ass.