Category Archives: Unfiled

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.

Apparently, people now, in the US, have the ability to screen their future offspring In vitro and choose which embryo to keep and which to “discard”.  Not only can gender be selected, but genetic diseases can be tested for and culled out by not choosing the vulnerable embryos.

DNA analysis of human embryos are also currently used to
determine vulnerability to illnesses such as Down syndrome, hemophilia,
kidney disease and cystic fibrosis, according to Kisken.

People seem to want this ability without realizing the consequences of their own actions.  When I read the article, a particular movie came to mind.  Gattaca, despite being science-fiction, is scary on the basis that it is indeed plausible.  Steps are being taken to lead us in that direction.  It is getting harder and harder to have a natural birth in hospitals.  Doctors feel it is safer for a woman to give birth via Cesarean section (though i think they are just thinking about their pocketbooks).  Pretty soon, it this keeps up, women will not be able to have a natural conception, let alone a natural birth if they so please.  With the government spreading its grimy little fingers into every facet of our daily lives, it would not surprise me if the new healthcare will start to require In vitro fertilization and screening.  To “ease” the requirements of the public health system.  Next thing you know, you won’t be able to exchange any bodily fluids without a permit to do so.  As one will have to be screened as fit for reproduction.

Just as in Gattaca, embryos will be screened for genetic superiority and if a child is conceived and born by natural means, that child will be classified inferior, provided the pregnancy is even allowed to go to term.  What better way to induce someone into wanting to get an abortion if there is no way to obtain health insurance for their child.  The only way to make it anywhere in life will be through registration as a genetically superior being.

Stop playing God, all it does is allow discrimination of the “lesser beings”.