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Category Archives: War On Nouns

Who Needs the 4th Amendment…

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Leahy’s rewritten bill would allow more than 22 agencies — including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission — to access Americans’ e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant. It also would give the FBI and Homeland Security more authority, in some circumstances, to gain full access to Internet accounts without notifying either the owner or a judge. (CNET obtained the revised draft from a source involved in the negotiations with Leahy.)

Unpossible I say, a politician rewriting a bill to be counter to the interests of Americans after debuting it as being to their benefit?  It’s like they know the public doesn’t want this but it’s the only way they can pull it off.

Who needs the 4th amendment, am I right?  They’re not even trying to be overt about this anymore.  Can someone please explain to me why the government needs this kind of power.  How is it that the act of informing a judge and getting a warrant to express probable cause for the invasion of privacy is necessary is a hindrance?

Oh, that’s right, it’s a hindrance to finding undesirables to be weeded out of the population. While anyone with half a brain should know not to expect those things to be private, which is why I’m not a big fan of the cloud, it seems a far stretch the government cannot first obtain a warrant.

Contact your legislator now and start raising hell.  Just to illustrate the double standard of this, I’m reasonably sure it’s safe elected officials will be exempt and still require a warrant. Laws for thee not for me.  If these elected representatives want this, they need to make their services public for all to see… They’ve got nothing to hide right?  At least that’s what they keep telling us.

SSCC #452-#456: Socorro

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Alvarez, Orta, Varela and Delgado are accused of official oppression, but no further details were released. In addition, Varela and Delgado face charges of aggravated perjury and tampering with governmental records.

Now yes they got busted and they seem to be tight lipped as to the problems.  But there are two serious notes, one this bust accounted for 15% of the department.  The second:

Alvarez, who has been in and out of the police department in the past couple of years, was rehired by the city in July 2011 as lieutenant. He took over as the leader of the police department after the Police Chief Jaime Avalos went on medical leave in September 2010. Avalos continues to be absent from the department, and Garcia would not say whether he has been fired or is still employed.

Alvarez was involved in a previous internal investigation in 2008, when he was accused of dereliction of duty and prisoner abuse. He was investigated for allegedly using unnecessary force against Ricardo Landeros during an arrest. A grand jury declined to prosecute.

Imagine that, there was a history with these officers and the department had a reason to be concerned about their behavior.  Have no fear though because the department is arguing these men are the exception rather than the rule.  Given the history involved here, that claim is highly suspect.

State Sponsored Criminal #452: Jose Alvarez

#453: Refugio Orta

#454: Raul Huerta

#455: Javier Varela

#456: Israel Delgado

Because the people shouldn’t pay attention to the history surrounding officers, remember the whole department is infallible. 

Quote of the Day – RobertaX (11/12/2012)

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This is how liberty is lost: one bedwetting do-gooder law at a time.

Roberta X: Scary — Go- BOOM!
November 9th, 2012

[There’s a common saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” and whoever said that was right on the money.

As usual this is a bed wetting politician who has gone into PSH over the fact that people can shoot targets that go boom!  I think his real problem is that while he may be NRA – A rated, he’s upset because reactive targets are loved by new shooters.

Senator Merritt, while this video I created was originally directed and Joan Peterson of Brady fame over pumpkins, I find that it could be easily directed at you.  Yes, we packed every one of those pumpkins full of explosives.  Yes we shot them.  Yes they exploded in a shower of pumpkin guts.  So I guess Senator you’re a perfect replacement for Joan in this video as well.

I suggest you stop being a puritan and just accept the fact that yes, there are people in this world who want to have fun by blowing stuff up.  No one is forcing you to do it and despite what you think, the majority of the public is quite safe with it. -B ]

Quote of the Day – Wolfman (11/7/2012)

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Everyone that wants to blame this on the crazy Libertarians needs to realize- NOBODY COURTED US FOR OUR VOTE. Oh, sure, we get some lip service. But nobody came out and said, “Hey, you, in the back, that just want to be left alone… What can we do to make YOU happy?” Which makes me think that we were not a critical voting bloc, yes? We were, maybe, not the moderate independents that both camps were appealing to? So why, in the fiery depths of bipartisan burning f#$%ing HELL are we the ones that are expected to compromise our beliefs and vote YOUR guy into power? How was that supposed to work? We are goddamn Libertarians, for Pete’s sake, not toeing the line IS THE ENTIRETY OF OUR PLATFORM! So we are expected to just fall into place, and vote blindly for the guy thats just as bad, bit in different ways than the other guy that sucks? I repeat: Screw you.

Wolfman – Just One Election Comment
November 7th, 2012

[I was able to retain my calm today up until the point where I started seeing BS being flung about how Libertarians cost Romney the election.  Uhh, no there sparky, you accomplished that feat all on your own.

Let me explain something to people who may not be familiar with me.  I am very principled and honestly it takes a lot for me to even contemplate it.  Bill Whittle got me to seriously think about it for all of about 30 seconds.  Is Obama bad, yeah, but honestly, let’s think about this from my perspective as a Libertarian, is Romney any better?

The only thing Romney had going for him is the media and other parts of government might start working as a check and balance again.  Deep down though that man would not have represented me, my desires, or what I would like to see from my government. That is what I’m supposed to be voting for, not the lesser of two evils.

The bottom line is that the Republicans could easily get the Libertarian vote, how, by running a candidate that agrees with our principles.  Why should we be the only side to comprise in the selection of a candidate?  Tell you what, run a candidate that isn’t big government, doesn’t focus on social issues that honestly aren’t the business of government, and focuses purely on correcting the failed economic policies of the past god knows how many years, and you will finally have my attention.

This isn’t as difficult as you might think.  You see that whole social issue thing is why the Democrats keep winning.  Republicans keep attacking social issues and attempt to use the force of government to force their morals on others.  Yeah there’s some seriously contentious issues in there, but face it, the big one isn’t going to change and all it ever does is get you in trouble.  As for same-sex marriage  let me explain something to you idiots, the government put itself in the business of marriage and there are rights and benefits that are given to married couples.  Can you explain why the state is allowed to differentiate between the two groups with regards to rights and benefits?  Because seriously that’s what this all boils down to.

The government cannot compel a priest, pastor, or whatever to marry two individuals if they believe it is against their religion.  What the government can do, is create the contract of marriage between two consenting adults.  No one is forcing people to go out and have same-sex marriages either.  What is being said is the state must recognize it.  If you’re church doesn’t want to recognize it, that’s its business, but the church has no business forcing the state to follow along with it’s views.

Yet it never fails that some Republican candidate will run his mouth about it.

What about drug use?  Well, lets cut the BS and admit that the drug war has failed and the only reason it still exists is because of the jobs and money it generates for those currently involved in waging it.  Just because something is made legal doesn’t mean you have to go smoke it.  It doesn’t mean that it’s use allows someone to being exempted from being held criminally negligent if they do something stupid.  What it does mean is someone is free to make the choice.

I could continue but the bottom line is you want my vote of support.  That means you need to run a candidate that I find worth voting for.  If you can’t or don’t want to do that don’t even think about attempting to blame us for your loss.  If you had really wanted our vote, you would have actually courted and attempted to earn it.

Nothing pisses me off more than some ass-hat telling me that I should sell my principles up the river for their guy.  No, if you want me on your side, you need to sacrifice and provide a reason to vote for your side there boy genius.

This also ignores the fact that the margin of libertarian voters in every state would not have changed the election results.  So my Republican friends, it’s your failure, own it! -B]

SSCC #370 Update–NYPD

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After Mayor Numb Nut decided to tout how great his officers were and how they are the only ones that should be anointed with the ability to carry firearms, barring even the national guard, I felt this update was fitting.

A former NYPD officer was sentenced to 15 and a half years in prison for stealing firearms from his fellow officers to sell to a drug ring.

But that’s all sorts of impossible given the fact that firearms are heavily regulated and he has stated that his officers are special!  If it was all a misunderstanding and this man was truly and upright and just LEO wouldn’t the jury have found him not guilty?

State Sponsored Criminal #370: Nicholas Mina

Because only the NYPD should have guns, that way the criminals all work for the same person.

No, I Think You Missed The Point…

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“If you think a control-system attack that takes down a utility even for a few hours is not serious, just look at what is happening now that Mother Nature has taken out those utilities,” Napolitano said at a Washington Post cybersecurity event, noting the effects in some cases can be “life threatening.”

While yes, cybersecurity should be taken seriously, Sandy is not an example of how dangerous a cyber attack could be.

What do I mean I hear you cry?  Sandy is a prime example of what someone could do to physically interrupt the power system.  While you could find a way to get a breaker to open or close unintentionally, the easier method of disrupting utilities is to find critical points and physically knock them out.

First, let me do a quick explanation of what’s going on in the NYC area.  Most power distribution in the NYC area is below ground.  This makes it below sea level.  This is one of the reasons they shut down many areas early, in an effort to protect equipment so that it can return to service more quickly.  Still, that equipment has to be cleaned, transformers for example have to be washed, insulation checked, and refilled with cooling oil.  This takes time, though much less time than having to fly in a replacement transformer, removing the old one, and installing and commissioning the new one.

So what we have is a bunch of distribution points that were/are full of water, need to be drained, the equipment cleaned, checked, maintained, and replaced possibly in some instances.  All of this must be done before re-energizing that circuit.

So why did I take the time to explain all that?  Well because it illustrates that if done properly, a physical attack, can easily do more damage than any cyber attack, and even more than that you have decreased the potential recovery time.  But that’s not all.  Say you execute an attack on physical infrastructure and take out 2 transmission level transformers on a main artery.

You have now done triple digit damage in the millions if not more.  Plus it will take 2-3 years, at a minimum, to replace the transformers.  Any stock they have for those transformers is in very limited supply.  This means if you hit a couple of places at once, you could very well permanently cripple the ability for a region to get the power necessary to operate.

Seriously, think about this, cyber-security to protect assets worth millions of dollars and provide hundreds of millions in revenue are going to be left unguarded by their owners and operators?  Get real.  The bigger and harder problem is physical security.  How do you stop someone from running a truck into a transmission tower?

Why do I bring all this up?  Because our overlords often start screaming about “necessity” in an effort to create new regulations and requirements which honestly are unnecessary.  They’re unnecessary because do you think a utility company doesn’t want to protect its equipment?  For every minute a transmission line is down they’re loosing millions of dollars in lost revenue.

We’ve seen these cries before and yet again it is to drum up “FUD” among people who don’t really understand how the system works.  FUD is how you make a bunch of people clamor to do something when nothing really needs to be done.  That’s what Janet’s doing with her latest ramblings.

This One’s for Sean…

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So, I kind of batted at Joan in my Priceless video but it wasn’t really a good solid hit.  It was more of just a fun video.  Joe took a good solid swing here which I felt was on the right track but the more I thought about it, more needed to be done.  I had piles of video of pumpkins blowing up between 2010 and 2012.

Sean posted a comment when Joe did his first post on Joan’s PSH stating we should have a self contained video that explained her break down and put everything in one easy to see spot.  Well I did just that.  Now while overall this really didn’t need to be made, it was more practice and work with the Adobe tools.  The learning curve is steep but doing projects, no matter how pointless is how you get over them.

So this one’s for Joan!

Besides, it’s quite fitting since it’s Halloween with the pumpkins and all.

Priceless…

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So last weekend Joe came out and did a private party for Barb L. and her son.  This had been planned for at least a couple of weeks earlier and since it was October we figured we’d do a pumpkin shoot.

The last two we actually did after the elections for one reason or another that’s just how it worked out.  The upshot was that’s when pumpkins end up being dirt cheap since it’s after Halloween.  Well I swung by the store the Friday before and picked up over 300lbs of pumpkins. The trick is to buy pumpkins larger than their scales.

Now why would I discuss our plans about pumpkins… Well it seems that Joan Peterson (link safe), went into full PSH(link unsafe) over a video from Hickok45.  Joe promptly stated that he was in agreement with Joan because there’s a better way to carve pumpkins, you just use the gun as the detonator!  So without further ado, here’s a new commercial I did…

Some things are absolutely priceless.  While certainly sending Joan over the edge to spout quotes like:

So wouldn’t it be great if families got together in their neighborhoods and carved pumpkins with handguns?

Or even better, Evil Black Rifles™ like we used here.  But you know what’s even more priceless, something her and her ilk can never recreate.  Go back and look at the smile on that kids face at the end of the video.

Or this smile:

DSC_0216

Or this one:

DSC_0217

And that was despite being soaked to the bone and freezing cold.  But wait, there’s more!

DSC_1516

Honestly I could keep on going with picture after picture and video after video of the grins Boomerite have created.  But since it’s Boomerite, that means a firearm has to be involved too!

We all know why Joan says these things, she’s a delusional Puritan who thinks the world revolves around her and her feelings.  I’m sure she would object to my method of celebrating the 4th of July as well.  (Not to mention this video has yet another grin and expression of happiness!).

The crux of Joan’s rant was that bullets go through stuff, evidently most bullets contain PFM that allows them to penetrate everything and keep going forever.  You see evidently, according to her, the bullets Hickok used after leaving the pumpkin were blood seekers and sought out his neighbors and killed them.  Evidently somehow the bullets can just go straight through the berm and then fly until they find a person.

Now she does use a couple of examples of people who violated the 4 rules and tries to use that as justification for disarming everyone.  First is this quote from Tam:

I don’t care if every other gun owner on the planet went out and murdered somebody last night. I didn’t. So piss off.

Second is that she’s in a world of denial, her side lost, and her only grasps for relevancy are when people break existing law and then she claims just one piece of paper would have stopped evil or stupid.  She’s wanting to prohibit exercise of this right by everyone for the actions of a few.

Honestly the thing I think she hates most about that video, is she knows there is no way for her side to compete with the joy that shooting pumpkins brings.  So I will bring that joy to someone new every chance I get.

*Now while I was actually going to spoof Mastercard to begin with, Joan’s PSH made finding a good punchline that much easier.