Author Archives: TMM

I pretty much have written them off as nothing more than another reason to invest in metals such as Lead, Copper, and Brass.  At least this movement has the benefit of gathering all those NUBs* together into one common location to make them more easily identifiable.

Surfing through my news blotters today I stumbled across an article in the Huffpost that made me start laughing uncontrollably.

There’s no shortage of talking, and you never know who will take hold
of the People’s Mic. Persuasive speakers on all sides can give General
Assembly meetings a roller-coaster feel. Someone always seems to oppose a
budget proposal, or have a strong dissenting opinion on something that
seems on its way to sure passage. Just one voice joining the debate at
the last minute has the power to sway the entire discussion.

With every proposal, there are questions and there are concerns, and
the process continues and continues. The facilitators say numerous times
the group has strayed off process. Questions are sometimes ignored for
being “off-topic” even when they aren’t, time constraints are cited and
frustrations boil over. Occupiers curse, speak out of turn and sometimes
they just keep on talking, despite “Mic Check” calls over them. Those
on all sides alienate each other.

It is often said that Democracy is nothing more than two wolves and a sheep getting together to decide what’s for dinner.  It appears that the Occupy movement is finally getting a solid lesson in what Democracy is, mob rule, where to win a debate you just need to sway the ignorant.

Earlier last week it came out that the leadership and operation of the movement was doing many of the very things they were protesting against Wallstreet for.  Including having a tax man taking from part of the group.  The group that was taxed was ignored by the remaining part of the Occupy group and is not given the support they require.

The drummers claim that the finance working group even levied a percussion tax of sorts, taking up to half of the $150-300 a day that the drum circle was receiving in tips. “Now they have over $500,000 from all sorts of places,” said Engelerdt. “We’re like, what’s going on here? They’re like the banks we’re protesting.”

Not to mention that a bunch of the protesters learned what it was like to have people come and claim their personal property as belonging to the public [commune].

Another argument broke out next to the pile of appropriated belongings, growing taller by the minute. A man named Sage Roberts desperately rifled through the pile, looking for a sleeping bag. “They’ve taken my stuff,” he muttered. Lauren Digion, the sanitation group leader, broke in: “This isn’t your stuff. You got all this stuff from comfort [the working group]. It belongs to comfort.”

The article then goes on to point out how they have people freeloading within their borders and there’s nothing they can do about it other than just deal with it.  That all sounds really freaking familiar you know that?  The only support they get from me is that I support their right to speak and peaceably assemble.  That said, I have serious problems with the property damage and costs these individuals are inflicting on those who do not support them or their cause.  It is not the job of the public to pay for their protest.  It is for those latter reasons I do not consider it a peaceably assembly and while it is certainly possible that the police have used excessive force I’m disappointed it’s taken them this long to start throwing the bums out.

So when I saw this at the end of the first article:

They’re planning to “Occupy Central Park” next month — on 11-11-11 — and hope the move will bring the protesters together again and unite them with their counterparts across the world.

I immediately started wondering what could be done as a response this time around.  Last year for the 10/10/10 green BS we went and made Mother Gaia our bitch.  Some of you might not be in the area, feel free to come up with your own methods of flipping the bird to the Occupy whatever movement.  Looks like I need to email some people to see what we can come up with.

*For those unfamiliar with the term, it’s Non Usable Body.  It’s also used in video games for players that just can’t seem to learn, but I’m channeling Disgruntled Sailor here.

So yesterday I got an email about an emergency exercise this weekend asking for help.  Local coordinator needs some help at Whitman County dispatch.

Unsurprisingly they wanted my information in advance to clear me into the building.  I just got an email from the coordinator.  Included in it was the response to him from the dispatch center. 

Subject:	RE: ARES Quarterly Exercise 10/29
Date:	Tue, 25 Oct 2011 18:26:49 +0000

Ok but I want to emphasize, there is absolutely no weapons allowed in or near the
dispatch center. That being said, I will make sure the dispatch center knows you will
be allowed into the building.

Now I know someone probably noted that I have a CPL on my background check.  Now for those of you from outside the area, here’s why this is a facepalmable moment.

Police said the gunman started shooting from a parking lot across from the Latah County Courthouse shortly after 11 p.m. Saturday. A hail of more than 30 bullets ripped through the county’s emergency dispatch center, Duke said. Dispatchers were moved to a room in the jail area of the courthouse. Officers rushed out of the building.

This incident occurred in May 2007, and the whole incident took place less just over 10 miles by road from where the dispatch is.  In this incident officer Lee Newbill was killed as well as a civilian who responded to aid the officer.  During the incident Whitcom actually took over emergency communications for Latah county.

There is first hand experience for the area, even this dispatch center, that the disarmament does nothing to actually make anyone safer.  Yet instead of learning from that lesson and how ineffective it was at protecting people they continue the illusion.  Not only do they continue the illusion, but ignore the fact that the person they’re admitting is statistically more likely to be law abiding than the general population.

So I will bite my tongue and leave it locked up.  I will have the most important tool still with me, I just hate leaving the most effective accessory for use with the most important tool.

*As a random thought, I doubt they saw my ATF paperwork for explosives.  I don’t see why the state records would indicate it, but I can’t help but laugh at what the response would have been if they had.

Mr. Schneider, you say the following like it’s a bad thing.

Andrew Schneider of the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union thinks this is a bad policy because, among other reasons, “Young people will learn not to trust the police.”

The Police are representatives of the government and most certainly the government should not be trusted.  It is a necessary evil.  Police are there to investigate crimes after they have been committed and as we can see by my count, they are not all angels with halos*.

Ultimately a cop is not your friend.  Most definitely he is not if he’s investigating a crime.  If you learn to not trust someone by the observation of them doing their job, that should be considered a clue. 

*As I’ve said before, not all cops are bad, look at the nice conversation I had in June.  A cop though is not your friend and if you provide information indicating you’ve possibly committed a crime, he can nail you for it.  That’s why you don’t talk to the police.  If I have a conversation with an officer I make sure it’s on my terms and I ease into it to get a feeling for the officer.  That conversation I had above, was started by me in the open in a manner that left me free to leave at any time.  Cops can be friendly, they can be nice, but what they do for a living can interfere with your ability to trust them.  It’s a fact of life.

h/t Say Uncle.