A Geek With Guns

Remember that somebody, somewhere thought this was a good idea:

Less Lethal Africa, a South African company, had their less lethal .50 BMG rounds on display at SHOT.

So instead of having a mere 110 percent chance of killing you these rounds will only have a 100 precent chance of killing you? These seem to be the most pointless rounds developed in recent history. What’s next? Less lethal nuclear weaponry?

Huh:

A bill introduced in the Oklahoma Legislature has some folks scratching their heads, as it prohibits “the manufacture or sale of food or products which use aborted human fetuses.”

I didn’t realize that was a problem.

I just came across something that I didn’t know existed… a cappella metal band. Whether this will create a tear in spacetime is uncertain but one thing is for certain, this band proves anything can be made metal. For your listening pleasure and/or confusion I present you Iron Maiden’s Fear of the Dark done a cappella style by Van Canto:

I’m not going to lie, I’m rather enjoying this.

Mossberg has announced a new rifle, the 464 SPX lever-action:

I’m not sure what the fuck that is but I’m pretty sure it breaks several laws of common decency. I can understand the rails, everybody love mounting absurd amounts of shit to their rifles, but an M4 style collapsable stock? Seriously? It doesn’t even look good.

It appears as though Mossberg’s new marketing strategy is to make the most retarded guns imaginable. If that is their strategy I must commend them for going through with it so completely though.

I’ve always through Thom Hartman was an idiot and a shill but he really putting his dickery into overdrive this time:

Today we learned that our democracy could be hacked by an eighth grader with 26 bucks.

That’s what a security assessment team with the US Department of Energy discovered when they successfully hacked into a Diebold electronic voting machine – and were able to change voting results without leaving a trace behind.

[...]

And today – with the rise of hack-activist groups like Anonymous – this gaping hole in the security of our elections – could be exploited for absurd purposes.

We’ve already seen what Anonymous is capable of – from taking down government websites in Tunisia – Egypt – Libya – Syria – and Bahrain – to hacking into emails belong to the security firm HB Gary Federal – to taking on Bank of America – to organizing mass protests against San Francisco’s transportation system – to most recently uncovering the identity of a New York City cop who maced women on Wall Street and posting his name, address, and family members on the web – and the list really goes on and on and on.

So imagine – if they and other hackers coordinated together to hack into voting machines nationwide – and skew the voting results of, say, the Republican Party Primaries coming up in a couple of months.

Suddenly – Libertarian hero Ron Paul might be the guy to take on President Obama.

Emphasis mine. Apparently Thom believes the only way Ron Paul can get the nomination is if evil hackers circumvent our democracy and use security holes in electronic voting machines to rig the results. Is Thom trying to start a meme to throw out election results if Ron Paul wins because it could only happen if hackers rigged the vote?

I guess Dr. Paul couldn’t get the nomination simply by being the only candidate with a brain. With that said everybody is well aware of the fact that these voting machines are vulnerable to attack and that is why many of us had opposed their adoption.

It’s good to see the important issues are being covered by the We the People petitions:

Thank you for signing the petition asking the Obama Administration to acknowledge an extraterrestrial presence here on Earth.

The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race. In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public’s eye.

That’s a relief, I was worried a Wraith disguised as a punk was roaming around Las Vegas and feeding off of the life force of my fellow humans. Now I can rest assured that I won’t be dealing with a creature that can heal itself almost instantly from bullet wounds.

Sometimes I wonder how the Supreme Court selects the cases they’re going to hear. Usually I can see some kind of Constitutional question that will lie within the rulings and thus understand why the case was taken but other times it appears as though the cases are nothing more than frivolous wastes of taxpayer money. Can you guess which category this case falls in:

The case of an American-Israeli couple who want the US to recognise their Jerusalem-born son’s place of birth as Israel has reached the Supreme Court.

Menachem Zivotofsky’s US passport lists Jerusalem as his birthplace, but his country of birth has been left blank.

It seems the whole argument about who owns Jerusalem is so contentious that our own government advices people simply don’t bring it up:

They cite a provision in a 2002 law, the Foreign Relations Authorisation Act, allowing Israel to be listed as the birthplace for Americans born in Jerusalem.

But former President George W Bush overrode that provision, saying it interfered with his authority over foreign affairs.

The Obama administration says it does not want to appear to take sides on the status of Jerusalem.

State department guidelines say: “For a person born in Jerusalem, write Jerusalem as the place of birth in the passport.”

This case is now going to the Supreme Court and my only questions is… why? Seriously why the fuck is the supposed highest court in the land wasting taxpayer money on this case? Once again I have a simple solution to resolve this issue and save taxpayers money. If the family wants to birth certificate to say Jerusalem, Israel then put that on the birth certificates. On the other hand if the family wants the birth certificate to say Jerusalem, Palestine then put that on the birth certificate. Hell if the family wants the birth certificate to say Jerusalem, Valhalla then put that on the birth certificate. After all does it really matter? Is anybody unaware of where in the world Jerusalem is? Does anybody care? OK, obviously somebody cares so let me rephrase, does anybody who matters care?

While I’m a cynical guy I’m generally not what you would consider conspiratorial. Yet when news like this sprouts up at an overly convenient time it’s hard to consider it a coincidence:

The US says it has broken up a plot by agents linked to Iran to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington using explosives.

Two men originally from Iran – one a naturalised US citizen – have been charged with counts of conspiracy, Attorney General Eric Holder said.

[...]

The two accused were named as Manssor Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old naturalised US citizen with dual Iranian and US passports, and Gholam Shakuri, based in Iran and said to be a member of Iran’s Quds Force.

Mr Arbabsiar, who was arrested at New York’s John F Kennedy airport on 29 September, has confessed to his involvement in the alleged plot, Mr Holder said.

Mr Shakuri was said to be in Iran.

US officials said that on 24 May 2011, Mr Arbabsiar made contact with an informant for the US Drug Enforcement Agency, who was posing as a Mexican drug cartel member.

Over a series of meetings, it is said that details emerged of a conspiracy involving members of the Iranian government paying $1.5m (£960,000) for the assassination of Saudi ambassador Adel al-Jubeir on US soil.

Let’s just link up all the memes in this story. Iran hired a member of a Mexican drug cartel to kill a Saudi ambassador in the United States. Somehow the United States was able to swoop in, stop this supposed plot, and hand Eric Holder the credit by having him announce the miraculous work of the United States government. This single story is so convenient that I honestly don’t believe it’s true.

It’s no secret that the United States government wants to go to war with Iran and is simply looking for an excuse that it can feed the American public. Eric Holder is in some very hot water right now due to his knowledge of operation Fast and Furious, which involved the United States government smuggling guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels . Finally the drug cartels are becoming more of a problem as their violence spills across the American-Mexican border and we’re looking for an excuse to march in after them (mostly so the government can continue it’s war on drugs).

Basically this story creates propaganda against Iran and the Mexican drug cartels while it boosts the image of Eric Holder and America’s anti-terrorist initiative. I’m sorry but this pill is a little hard to swallow. Hell if you’ve ever seen the movie Wag the Dog this is basically the same idea.

Why is it when we need the ghost of Charles Darwin the most it’s nowhere to be found:

Getting lost in a corn maze is supposed to be fun.

But it turned into a nightmare for a Massachusetts couple who got so lost that they had to be rescued by the police.

It all started late Monday afternoon, when the couple entered a corn maze at Connors Farm in Danvers, Mass., about 23 miles north of Boston.

After about an hour in the maze, darkness began to fall. The couple, who were there with their 3-week-old baby, were unable to find a way out. As the mosquitoes started to descend, they placed a desperate call to 911 asking to be rescued.

The Danvers police released audio of the call.

Here’s an edited transcript:

Woman in tears: Hi, I just called. I’m still stuck at Connors Farms. I don’t see anybody. I’m really scared. It’s really dark and we’ve got a 3-week-old.

Police officer: Your husband is with you?

Woman: Yes. But my baby…

Police officer: A police officer is on the way. Can you put your husband on the phone?

Husband: I see lights over there at the place, but we can’t get there, we’re smack right in the middle of the corn field.

Woman: I don’t know what made us do this, it was daytime when we came in, we thought if we came in someone would come in and find us… We can hear [the police officers]… Oh, my goodness. The mosquitoes are eating us alive, and I never took my daughter out, this is the first time. Never again.

Woman: This is embarrassing.

The family was lost in a corn maze so they decided to call 911… how fucking stupid can somebody be? I’m actually shocked that this lady remember to breathe. Just stop and think about this for a moment, between the woman and her husband the couple didn’t have enough brain cells between the two of them to determine the best way out of the corn maze would have been to pick a direction and start walking straight. Corn isn’t concrete, it doesn’t form a solid barrier you are unable to pass through.

Recently an Occupy Wall Street protester posted a list of demands. As I stated in my article covering the local OccupyMN movement these types of protests are composed of a great number of individuals with varying grievances. It is unfair to state any set of demands is attributed to the entire movement but alas the recently posted set of demands are being promoted by a great number of the participants so I thought it would be fun to go through the demands one by one and point out the complete failure of logic.

Admin note: This is not an official list of demands. This is a forum post submitted by a single user and hyped by irresponsible news/commentary agencies like Fox News and Mises.org.

Stating that the Mises Institute and Fox News are in any way comparable demonstrates the complete ignorance of the person posting that note. One is a news organization that panders to its neo-conservative audience while the other is one of the few sources of real scholarly economic knowledge and libertarian philosophy.

Anyways we know what level of idiocy we’re dealing with here so let’s move onto the demands:

Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending “Freetrade” by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages.

Oh wow… at least the author presented his complete ignorance from the get go. First of all free trade isn’t the problem with our economy, government regulations are. The author stated other countries have wage and environmental regulatory advantages so the United States government needs to respond by enacting further regulations to offset the disadvantage created by their current regulations. I’m guessing if the author’s house was burning down he’d try dousing the blaze in gasoline in an attempt to improve the situation.

While current economic conditions are one of the most common complaints being presented at these occupations, many of the most vocal complainers obviously have no knowledge in the field of economics. Perhaps they should read some articles on that irresponsible Mises Institute website. Also, why not throw in another rather arbitrary demand:

Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

How did the author come up with $20.00 an hour? Also the author further demonstrates his economic ignorance by not realizing minimum wage laws is part of the reason unemployment in this country is as high as it is. Jacking up the minimum wage to $20.00 and hour would only create one of two outcomes; either it would cause a majority of businesses to fail causing even higher unemployment or it would cause the price of all goods to increase as an offset to the new influx of money into the economy (this is called inflation). Do you think McDonald’s will continue selling $0.99 burgers if they have to pay every employee $20.00 an hour? If they did they would fail, if they didn’t the cost of their burgers would increase drastically.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

This makes sense. Government regulations is what ultimately cause the massive increase in healthcare costs so the author’s solution is to… give the government more control over the healthcare industry? If the author actually knew anything about economics, healthcare, and liberty he would advocate the government remove itself completely from the healthcare industry and allow the free market to find viable solution it did back in the day when mutual aid societies were still allowed by the state to exist.

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

If people are no longer required to work in order to survive what will motivate them to produce the goods and services needed by society? Would you work your ass off farming if you knew simply sitting on your ass would allow you to draw enough income to live? Most people would not and this is ultimately the problem with communism. If nobody has to work nobody will work and if nobody is working to produce the needs of society the needs of society will not exist. You can’t eat if nobody is producing food, you won’t have shelter if nobody builds it, and you won’t have clean drinking water if nobody takes care of sanitation.

Demand four: Free college education.

There is no such thing as a free college education, somebody has to pay for it. What the author probably means is, “Force all the people wealthier than me to pay for my college education.” Somebody has to pay the teachers, maintain the facilities, and provide the supplies needed to keep a college running.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

How? The only viable alternative source of energy that will meet the current and future needs of our society is nuclear. Nuclear energy is basically verboten so we continue to rely on the only viable alternative, fossile fuels.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

Seriously, who the fuck is supposed to pay for all of this? Where is that $1 trillion going to come from? Why was $1 trillion chosen instead of another arbitrary number? Did the author do a study? If so, where is the study?

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America’s nuclear power plants.

It’s amazing that the exact same amount of money needed for infrastructure is also needed for ecological restoration. That’s so convenient it must be an arbitrarily selected number that the author thought was sufficiently big to fix any problem.

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Umm… it’s currently illegal for an employer to discriminate against somebody because of their race or gender. Perhaps the author means we should make all forms of racial and gender discrimination illegal. That would be great because I would absolutely love to receive some maternity leave even though I’m completely incapable of becoming pregnant. We could force white supremicists to converse with minorities at the point of a gun because they wouldn’t further forge their irrational hatred or anything.

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

Wait… the author wants to restrict free trade but also wants to make it legal for anybody to enter the country and work without hinderance? I love being for what I’m against as well.

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

How exactly is that going to fix the problem of election fraud? The primary problems encountered in this country stem from either idiots too stupid to properly fill out the ballot as instructed or straight up fraud via people voting multiple times. Our problems run much deeper than a simple inability to counter ballots correctly.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the “Books.” World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the “Books.” And I don’t mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Instantly all financiers go out of business and those wanting to get a loan for a home, piece of necessary equipment, or to expand their business are unable to. Since businesses are unable to expand they are unable to hire more employees and thus unemployment increases when those involved in the finance market suddenly find themselves without jobs. People who would have become successful entrepreneurs and flooded the market with new and amazing products sudden find themselves unable to start a business because no institution exists to loan them the money they need. Other currently established businesses will then start to fail because a very expensive piece of equipment critical to their operations breaks down and they are unable to get a loan for a replacement.

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Why? No, I’m dead serious, what the fuck is this supposed to accomplish?

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

Is there going to be an equal right to vote yourself exempt from a union? If you want to voluntarily come together and form a union that’s cool, I full support you in your endeavor. Personally I prefer to represent myself or hire another individual with my own money who exclusively represents me and my interests.

These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.

No, those demands will create a new economic dark age of record high unemployment rates, starvation, and pestilence.

I’m glad to see a lot of opposition to these demands in the comments section. Since I understand the nature of these occupations I realize these demands are not representative of anybody besides the author and the people who decide to sign onto them. With that said the media doesn’t have the same understanding and they are going to take these demands as though they apply to the entire movement. That is to say the media will state these demands are wanted by everybody currently occupying Wall Street and it will discredit the movement as a whole.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad people are finally pissed off enough to stand up and take action. It’s refreshing to see American people doing something besides sitting on their asses complaining about the current condition of the economy, corruption in the government, and disagreements with current socially accepted norms. With that said, the protesters need to realize that the media is going to take anything said by a crazy participant and run with it. When that happens others in the movement needs to loudly declare that no single individual represents the entire movement and statements made by individuals can only be applied to those individuals.