Category Archives: Current News

This is about stuff in the mass media that generally has a short interest life span. Speculation about an election outcome a few days before the election is an example.

Quote of the day—Brett

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This won’t end well.

Brett
November 13, 2015
In regard to the ISIS attack on the people of Paris.
[Brett is an extremely smart guy I work with. His knowledge of physics, computers, geology, anthropology, statistics, history, politics, economics, banking, and just about everything is astounding.

At first I thought maybe he was one of those people who just pretends to know everything. But when off the top of his head he tells you the hour an earthquake occurred over three hundred years ago (21:00 on January 26, 1700) and you go looking and find out he was right you start to get a clue. I’ve looked up numerous numbers and things that I found incredible to believe or believe he could remember such details and found he was right. A few times he would report back to me with a correction on something before I got around to look it up.

One time he said a co-worker may be leaving the company soon. I asked why, because I was pretty sure I had all the same information he did in regards to this other person. He told me his son called him “the correlater”. “And?”, I asked. “It’s what I do. And that is what my son calls me sometimes”, he replied. “But why do you say this about our co-worker?”, I insisted. Before he could answer the co-worker appeared, we went silent, they walked up to us, and said, “I’m giving them on month. Then I’m out of here.” Brett looked at me with wide eyes and said, “See?” then expressed his sympathy for our co-worker’s situation.

Friday, as the news of the Paris attacks Brett became very sad and concerned. And repeatedly said, “This won’t end well.” Anyone could have said it and one would find it plausible if not exceedingly likely. When Brett says it then it takes it to a whole new level.—Joe]

ATF Data

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The ATF tweeted about their Open Data website the other day and I started poking around this evening. There is some interesting stuff there. It includes developer APIs for accessing their data, number of people in various positions, budgets, the number of explosives manufactures in each state, the heat produced by burning a Christmas tree, and tons of other stuff.

SAFE act

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The 2nd Circuit Court upheld the NY “SAFE Act 2013” last week. Bummer. They said that NY could ban certain arms, prohibit private transfers, etc. On the one hand, that really sucks for the people of NY, another in a long line of suckage. Oh, well, I don’t live there, and I’m never planning too. And it sets a circuit court precedent that specific guns can be banned. On the other hand, it was passed so fast, and is so broad, it’s likely to get appealed to the Supreme Court, and it’s also likely to get taken up.

High risk appeal. If we win, it’s big. If we lose, it’s HUGE.

Interesting times.

Hearing protection act

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Unlikely to pass, but a good idea none the less. The bill would remove the $200 tax stamp on suppressors and make them a normal 4473 item handled by FFLs the way a firearm would be as far as the FedGov is concerned.

Yes, I know they shouldn’t be regulated at all beyond a basic buyer-beware consumer-safety sort of “do they work as advertised” thing, but it would be another step in the right direction. It would also help the economy by increasing demand for something domestically-made.

Civil disobedience

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The American People elected a handy Republican majority in Congress, in part to repeal Obama Care. Republicans ran, and were elected, based on that promise. Then they turned tail as soon as they were sworn in. They lied. As a Party, they lied.

We are now faced with the a representation system, as a means of redress of grievances, as a means of carrying out the will of the People with regard to upholding and protecting human liberty, which has failed. With Boehner’s recent stunt of shutting down an election for a new Speaker, the Republican Party is clearly maintaining its practice of running interference for the Progressives (incremental communists), and so there is no apparent correction in sight for this situation.

That leaves us with one option left before we get out our guns; civil disobedience. Refuse to take part in ObamaCare. Don’t even acknowledge it. There are ways of dealing with this, which your accountant/tax preparer, if he’s any good at all, can discuss with you.

Some Americans, as I type this, are in the Middle East in harm’s way, taking smallarms fire, in their attempts to save some of the Christians who are under attack and being killed for no reason other than their faith. They are risking, and some will lose, their lives in standing up for what’s right. I think we can risk getting a few letters in the mail, don’t you? I’m looking forward to it.

Not a gun-free zone this time

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Update: As more information becomes available it’s clear the campus was “gun-free” by policy even though not by law. Students and campus employees were defenseless by college decree. Those who made and enforced such a despicable policy should be accountable for the deaths they enabled.
End Update.

Don’t spout off about the mass murder happening in another “gun-free” zone too soon. The details are not entirely clear yet. It wasn’t in a government mandated “gun-free” zone but it could have been campus policy that discouraged carry by students and staff.

From John Lott:

— 5 states now have provisions allowing the carrying of concealed weapons on public postsecondary campuses.  These states are Colorado, Mississippi, Oregon, Utah, and Wisconsin.

…

According to Students for Concealed Carry there are 206 colleges that allow this.  Here is a partial list.

…

26. UMPQUA COMMUNITY COLLEGE

But there is speculation that state law allows it but the college will discipline employees and students who exercise their rights. So perhaps only visitors can safely carry on campus without risk of being fired or expelled.

Isn’t that interesting?

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If true (this early information is frequently nothing more than unsubstantiated rumors) this tidbit about the mass murder in Oregon today is very interesting:

The gunman who opened fire at an Oregon community college was forcing people to stand up and state their religion before he began blasting away at them, survivors said Thursday.

A woman who claimed to have a grandmother inside a writing class in Snyder Hall, where a portion the massacre unfolded, described the scene in a tweet.

“The shooter was lining people up and asking if they were Christian,” she wrote. “If they said yes, then they were shot in the head. If they said no, or didn’t answer, they were shot in the legs. My grandma just got to my house, and she was in the room. She wasn’t shot, but she is very upset.

For certain he was a nut job. But what flavor? Probably not “right-wing” as the anti-gun people want to speculate. Probably not Jewish because for the last few hundred years Jews seldom have differences with Christians so great they think it worth killing for.

So my wild speculation is they were either Muslim or some flavor of the political left.

I’ll blame public education

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People sign petition to ban discussion of politics and religion in public.

And, not as an aside but as the central issue, notice how readily some people are led to do something that, if they thought about it and had control of themselves they would know is wrong. Some of them sign reluctantly, but they sign. You’re seeing the standard American’s hypnotic state being briefly co-opted. You can see the hesitation and the resistance, but they go along as a way of avoiding the more uncomfortable of options.

If the guy with the petition understood just a little bit more about how this works, he could have some of those people explaining in detail, specifically why the first amendment is a terrible idea, and ultimately why America should be reduced to ashes.

If we don’t get it at home, we are programmed to be pliable and moldable to other people’s will, to avoid confrontation, when we enter public education as small children.

Thank you for signing my petition to repeal the first amendment, now go back to your regular programming.

Police car stolen on Mugme Street

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The story includes dash cam footage from both the stolen police car and the pursuit car:

Shortly after noon, officers were investigating a disturbance at 3rd Avenue and Pike Street when the suspect suddenly jumped into a running patrol car and drove away southbound.  After a brief pursuit, the suspect stopped and surrendered to officers at 3rd and Marion.

Of course it was on Mugme Street in Seattle.

Mugme street news

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Why am I not surprised this took place near 3rd and Pine in Seattle?

Officers Matthew Newsome and Britt Kelly were patrolling near 3rd and Pine yesterday around 10 p.m. when they spotted a wanted person walking towards 2nd Avenue. Officers Kelly and Newsome caught up to the 23-year-old suspect in the 100 block of Pine and placed him under arrest.

Officer Newsome searched the suspect and found 108 baggies of heroin, 2.7 grams of crack cocaine and $338 dollars.

Oh! That’s right. This is what Barb calls Mugme Street. I’m so glad I don’t work near there anymore.

Robber

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There was a bank robbery here in Moscow, ID this afternoon. Somedude with a big bushy black wig, black-face makeup and loose clothing walked out with an undisclosed about of cash and got away. No story at all on how he got someone at the bank to hand over the cash, as it is reported as unknown whether was armed.

I believe it would be good bank policy to immediately open fire on anyone who attempts to rob the place, no questions asked, but that’s just me.

Where are the demands for knife control?

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She wasn’t playing with a full deck and had thousands of bladed weapons:

A Florida woman was arrested Tuesday night after she tried to stab a deputy with a large sword or machete inside a mobile home filled with thousands of other bladed weapons, authorities said.

You really should watch the video provided at the link above. Her collection and nuttiness was impressive:

TampaKnives

Of course there won’t be any demands for knife control. That would demonstrate the crazy of the anti-freedom people as much as the nuttiness of the knife collector.

QOTD – from the guy that coined the word “menticide” in 1933

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“One important result of this procedure [use psychological torture and mental manipulation while pushing for a “confession” and public show trial] is the great confusion it creates in the mind of every observer, friend or foe. In the end no one knows how to distinguish truth from falsehood. The totalitarian potentate, in order to break down the mind of men, first needs widespread mental chaos and verbal confusion, because both paralyze his opposition and cause the morale of the enemy to deteriorate – unless his adversaries are aware of the dictator’s real aim.”

From “The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing” by Joost A. M. Meerloo, first published in 1933

This explains the true damage “PC” speak and the language police really pose. It’s a fascinating book in many ways, and I’m not that far into it yet. It really hammers home the idea of “if you are accused of being [non-PC], never apologize, never back down, never quit (force them to fire you).”

I’m reading this book at the time – one of several I’m slowing slogging through, along with the Gulag Archipelago. Combine with “SJWs Always Lie” by Vox Day, and two recent articles on victim culture, microaggression, and “trigger warning,” ( http://righteousmind.com/where-microaggressions-really-come-from/  http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/ ) it’s awful easy to get depressed at just how messed up, and how mentally fragile, humans are. On one hand, these ideas explain so much of human history and current political events that it is scary, and understanding opens all sorts of doors; the fact that such ideas are all now known to me is potentially very useful. On the other hand, the fact that the people that need to know what’s being done to them are the ones that need to know this the most, and are going to be the most resistant to hearing it, and will tend to make the problems worse, is terrifying. Continue reading →

Self defense is not a tragedy

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What do you think of when you read something like this?

Schellman said Thursday’s shooting was the latest instance of a child using a gun with deadly consequences. He referenced last week’s deadly accident in which a 21-month-old toddler in another part of the county found a loaded handgun and shot himself. The child later died at a hospital.

“Children have access to guns all too often, and all too often they end in tragic circumstances,” Schellman said.

A tragedy is when innocent people are hurt or killed. I have no problem calling the case of the toddler accidently shooting themselves a tragedy. But the rest of story referenced above causes me to part ways with the portrayal of the story being of the same nature:

An 11-year-old St. Louis-area boy fatally shot a 16-year-old who entered his home during an alleged home invasion Thursday, police said.

…

Two people had approached the home twice before Thursday, and on the third attempt entered the house through the front door, police said. The 11-year-old who lives in the home shot the 16-year-old intruder in the head, St. Louis County police said in a statement.

…

Police said the 11-year-old and a 4-year-old girl who was also inside the home were not injured.

While I am saddened by the turn of events if the story is accurately described it was a justified shooting and the tragedy would be if the two children in the home had been injured or killed by the thugs invading their home. The invaders made extremely poor life choices and they are responsible for the outcome. The 11-year-old merely delivered the bullets that brought things to regrettable but satisfactory ending.

That NBC news and others are seeing this shooting as an instance of “children have access to guns all too often” there is no point in “having a discussion” with them. Self defense of innocent life is not a tragedy and when people claim it is there is something very wrong with their mental and/or moral health. They deserved to be mocked, ridiculed, and then ignored.

It’s the gun’s fault

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Found at ZeroHedge. They got it from Town Hall.

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The sad part is that it’s not so much satire as truth WRT how the media spins the narrative.

Sasquan post, obligatory

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It’s been an interesting week and a half. School starts this Tuesday, but I didn’t have a job lined up yet as of ten days ago (and the spousal unit was getting worried about that fact). The septic system had a pump die, needing replacement. And Sasquan, the World Science Fiction Convention that was being held in Spokane this year was fast approaching. The latter normally wouldn’t mean much, except that this year I had been nominated for the John W. Campbell award for best new SF writer, and my publisher had encouraged me to go. Continue reading →

Interesting data

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Ashley Madison was a bunch of dudes talking to each other, data analysis suggests:

Gizmodo editor-in-chief Annalee Newitz analyzed the data from the site’s user database and found a lot of suspicious stuff suggesting that nearly all the female accounts were fake, maintained by the company’s employees.

…

she found three really damning pieces of data:

  • Only 1,492 of the women in the database had ever checked their messages on the site. That’s compared with more than 20 million men.
  • Only 2,409 of the women had ever used the site’s chat function, versus more than 11 million men.
  • Only 9,700 of the women had ever responded to a message from another person on the site, versus almost 6 million men. (This number was greater than the number of women who checked messages because it’s possible to answer messages in bulk when you first visit the site, without ever opening your inbox.)

It’s possible that most of the women signed up but never did anything.

Either way, Newitz writes, Ashley Madison is a site where tens of millions of men write mail, chat, and spend money for women who aren’t there.”

So, basically, the business model was fraud.

Ry and I have frequently suggested to each other we could be wealthy if only we weren’t constrained by our morals. This is another data point suggesting this hypothesis may be true.

Quote of the day—Hillary Rodham Clinton

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We have got to do something about gun violence in America — and I will take it on.

Hillary Rodham Clinton
August 26, 2015
Hillary Clinton vows to be gun-control president
[It’s good that she is making this very clear. Maybe this will make it a campaign issue as well. With support for gun rights the highest it has been since 1993 there is a good chance this will make it a loosing issue.—Joe]

Mugme Street news

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Via email from Ry we have this story:

Police have increased patrols around 3rd Avenue and Pine Street this week after three tourists from Rhode Island were attacked and robbed outside the downtown bus tunnel.

Jonah Spangenthal-Lee of the Seattle police said the incident unfolded Sunday at around 11 p.m. as the tourists were walking to the tunnel’s entrance and passed by a group of men and women on the street.

One of the women in the group confronted the tourists and accused them of bumping into her. When one of the tourists apologized, a woman in the group responded by burning one of the tourists, a 29-year-old man, with a lit cigarette.

The group of suspects then stole a cellphone from the victims and struck the 29-year-old man in the head with a broken bottle when he began shouting for help, Spangenthal-Lee said.

The suspects also attacked the two female tourists – who are 23 and 24 years old – punching them both in the face.

When police arrived at the scene, the group of suspects had fled. However, officers did arrest one man at the scene after he interfered with medics’ efforts to treat the victims and told the victims they “deserved” to be beaten and robbed.

There is a reason Barb calls this street “Mugme Street”. I wish the tourists had guns with them and had encouraged these thugs to reconsider their life choices.

Flavored air

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With the entire Northwest on fire, it’s been smoky here for what seems like forever. Below is the view from my deck this morning, looking south and then west.

The other side of town is now invisible

The other side of town is now invisible

Tastes like wood smoke this morning. The other day it was grass smoke.

Tastes like wood smoke this morning. The other day it was grass smoke.

Continue reading →