Quote of the day—Liz Crokin

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I began looking into how strong the bias and censorship runs in these forums after I did an interview on the pro-Trump podcast, MAGAPod. The show’s host, Mark Hammond, was disappointed Apple wouldn’t run his show without an “explicit” warning. Hammond’s podcast didn’t contain content that would be deemed explicit under Apple’s policy, and most other shows in the News & Politics category aren’t labeled as such.

On June 18, Hammond talked to Sandra, a representative from Apple. She explained that, since the description of his show is pro-Trump, his show is explicit in nature—because the subject matter is Donald Trump. So, an Apple employee concluded the Republican presidential candidate is explicit.

Liz Crokin
August 12, 2016
Tech Companies Apple, Twitter, Google and Instagram Collude to Defeat Trump
[H/T Michael Krieger.

Ry and I had breakfast together the other day and discussed some things tangentially related to this. I.E. Germany and Japan had culture issues that apparently could only be fixed by their complete surrender at the end of WW II and then the rebuilding of their government and social institutions with a different set of values.

Today there seem to be things in our society and/or government that appear to be so broken, corrupt, and/or deeply ingrained that they can’t really be fixed via normal means. One could make the case that a hard reset may be necessary.

[Heavy sigh]

I really don’t want us to go there.—Joe]

Random thought of the day

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If someone is physically and mentally able to defend themselves, at least to some degree, but is unwilling to expend any time or effort in doing so doesn’t that mean they must not believe their life is worth defending?

Furthermore, suppose someone is willing to defend themselves. But if they are only willing to defend themselves with one hand tied behind their back, are they really serious about self defense? Do they really believe their life is worth defending if they insist on handicapping themselves when they defend themselves?

Why should someone be willing to risk themselves to protect someone else who doesn’t believe their own life is worth defending?

Why should someone defend another person who isn’t willing and able to use tools, and the best type of tools, to defend themselves?

Why should friends, neighbors, and the police provide physical security for people who are anti-gun?

No exceptions

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Via Fred’s comment we have this:

Because the feds rely heavily on state and local law enforcement assistance to enforce federal measures, passing a state law banning such assistance will make federal gun control “nearly impossible to enforce.”

Our strategy takes a step-by-step approach, with each step building on the last, until all federal gun control is nullified in practice within the state.

2a-no-exceptions

Quote of the day—Alan Korwin

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People in the United States of America want it understood that designating arms, ammunition and related accessories, which are currently legal to make, keep or bear in any state, which may later be declared illegal to make, keep or bear, or encumbered in any way by any means and for any reason, constitutes Second Amendment infringement.

Such actions are null and void, amount to prima facie violation of the oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, and are grounds for removal from office for failure to faithfully execute the duties of the office.

Any action or attempt by any person to enforce such infringement on property possessed in our state will be a class four felony for a first offense, and a class three felony for second and subsequent offenses.

County Sheriffs and law-enforcement agencies in this state will be authorized to enforce this Declaration and to deputize as many residents as may be necessary to enforce this Declaration.

This Declaration, circulated widely by people who support it, is provided as a courtesy and notice of protected civil rights to candidates, politicians and people working in any capacity in government. It will be introduced as state legislation to authorize peaceful enforcement of those civil rights. Model legislation is in the draft stage and will be circulated soon.

…

Consider yourselves notified of impending disaster, if the headlong rush to infringe the public’s right to arms — and all the other blatantly unconstitutional abuses — continues on its current path. Don’t shoot me, I’m only the messenger.

Alan Korwin
August 21, 2016
American Protection of Arms Declaration
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Warren Tolman

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We were concerned about copycats and that if we tried to be too specific, that these people are very adept at figuring ways to get around (the law).

We wanted the law to be dynamic and evolving but aimed with the purpose to ban assault weapons.

Warren Tolman
Former Massachusetts Democratic state Senator.
Cosponsor of the 1998 law.
August 20, 2016
1994 Massachusetts law at center of assault weapons clash
[I think the title should be “1998…”, not “1994…” but that’s not important.

The important part is that non specific and “dynamic and evolving” are weasel words for “unconstitutionally vague”.

Update: Weer’d gives us the contradictions in the Massachusetts AG “clarification” letter.

And, as pointed out by Archer, don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Gary J. Byrne

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Terrorists can recognize the difference between actual security and it’s mere appearance. You think they can’t see past a gun free zone sign? It might as well say, “Terrorists welcome! Ready access to undefended scores of innocent children.” Please get over the gun-control distraction. Ask yourself, “What stops four men from going to a school with knives or bombs?” I know that by the time a threat reaches me on an airplane there is no time for hesitation, talk, quarter. I want to win more than I can tolerate losing.

In 2016 federal agencies are training their law enforcement personal to respond to active shooter scenarios. Concealed carry permits for civilians are going up. That’s great!

But we need a more honest discussion. By the time a terrorist or a criminal boards a plane with ill intentions we’re past the time for obfuscating their plans or negotiating them down. Either FAMS personal is on the plane when it takes off or its passengers and crew are marked for death and they better know it. The Federal Air Marshal, the passengers, the flight crew, and pilots are truly the last line of defense. Public spaces and schools need the same approach.

Let’s cut the feel good politics and recognize by the time someone with dangerous plans reaches your doorstep it’s too late to ponder root causes of anti-social behavior. It’s time to act. All of the thinking should have been done beforehand. And the level of commitment to stop grotesque violence in its tracks, stone cold dead, has to exceed theirs if protecting the principal is going to succeed.

Have no misconceptions. Any outcome at that point will be bloody, ugly, and lowdown. It’s like nothing you have seen in any Hollywood movie. It’s going to be bad breath and fingernail close. But it’s a fight that is coming our way whether we get ready for it or not.

Let’s get ready.

Gary J. Byrne
2016
Crisis of Character: A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His Firsthand Experience with Hillary, Bill, and How They Operate
[I listened to this as an audible book so I probably have some punctuation messed up and maybe some spelling and other minor stuff. But it’s pretty close.

The book, as you can see, isn’t just about his time as a Secret Service Officer for the Clintons. It briefly covers his time in the Air Force, time with the Bush’s before the Clintons, testifying during the investigation by Kenneth Star, and time with the Federal Air Marshals.

There are some quotes I’m going to pull out about the Clintons too. But I thought this was higher priority. I really like it.

It’s a good book. I highly recommend it.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Figment @Figment_Imagine

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IOW – We’re bullies and we want you to see our guns to make up for our other tiny appendage.

Figment @Figment_Imagine
Tweeted on January 16, 2016
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

Via a tweet from QuackHead/PotterHead ‏@Duck_Hunter7.—Joe]

Hike to Annette Lake

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Last June Barb had originally wanted to hike to Annette Lake for her birthday. But there was too much snow so she opted for her second choice, Cedar Butte.

Instead of 3.8 miles and 900 feet of elevation gain Annette Lake is 7.5 miles and 1400 feet of elevation gain. So they say. We discovered there was about 1600 feet of elevation gain and we reached an altitude of over 3700 feet. I’m not sure about the distance but 7.5 miles sounds about right.

It was easy trail to find and follow. Just follow the signs:

WP_20160820_13_57_48_Pro__highresWP_20160820_09_57_35_Pro__highres

Continue reading →

Quote of the day—Lord Jacob Rothschild

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The six months under review have seen central bankers continuing what is surely the greatest experiment in monetary policy in the history of the world.

We are therefore in uncharted waters and it is impossible to predict the unintended consequences of very low interest rates, with some 30 per cent of global government debt at negative yields, combined with quantitative easing on a massive scale.

In times like these, preservation of capital in real terms continues to be as important an objective as any in the management of your company’s assets.

Lord Jacob Rothschild
British investment banker
August 16, 2016
Rothchilds Buying Gold On “Greatest” Money “Experiment” In “History The of World”
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Kyle Smith

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As is often the case with virtue-signaling lifestyles, number-crunching doesn’t quite justify the supposed benefits of granola-crunching. “When applied to an entire global population, the vegan diet wastes available land that could otherwise feed more people,” concluded news site Quartz in a review of a scientific study published in the journal Elementa that compares the sustainability of various eating patterns.

Just as global-warming hysteria leads to draconian restrictions and taxes that devastate the poor in order to provide conscience relief to progressives, totalitarian eating habits aren’t as sustainable as more moderate ones. For instance, trying to grow crops on land best suited for use as grazing land for cattle means wasting resources.

Kyle Smith
August 4, 2016
Selfish vegans are ruining the environment
[“As is often the case with virtue-signaling…”. I think a good case could be made that it goes beyond problems with simple number-crunching. Data and logical thinking in general is not something they are really all that familiar with.—Joe]

Why people become terrorists

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Via Bruce Schneier:

young people adrift in a globalized world find their own way to ISIS, looking to don a social identity that gives their lives significance. Groups of dissatisfied young adult friends around the world ­ often with little knowledge of Islam but yearning for lives of profound meaning and glory ­ typically choose to become volunteers in the Islamic State army in Syria and Iraq, Atran contends. Many of these individuals connect via the internet and social media to form a global community of alienated youth seeking heroic sacrifice, he proposes.

Preliminary experimental evidence suggests that not only global terrorism, but also festering state and ethnic conflicts, revolutions and even human rights movements — think of the U.S. civil rights movement in the 1960s — depend on what Atran refers to as devoted actors. These individuals, he argues, will sacrifice themselves, their families and anyone or anything else when a volatile mix of conditions are in play. First, devoted actors adopt values they regard as sacred and nonnegotiable, to be defended at all costs. Then, when they join a like-minded group of nonkin that feels like a family ­ a band of brothers ­ a collective sense of invincibility and special destiny overwhelms feelings of individuality. As members of a tightly bound group that perceives its sacred values under attack, devoted actors will kill and die for each other.

He says it applies to the U.S. civil rights movement in the 1960s. Why shouldn’t it also be applicable to present day politics in the U.S.? Perhaps the Black Lives Matter movement and the police shootings?

Interesting. Very, very, interesting.

Use cash

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I use a credit/debit card online. But when I’m in a physical store, except in rare cases, I use cash. This is one of the reasons why:

Clothing store chain Eddie Bauer said today it has detected and removed malicious software from point-of-sale systems at all of its 350+ stores in North America, and that credit and debit cards used at those stores during the first six months of 2016 may have been compromised in the breach.

I work in security and POS systems are one of the things we watch and worry about a lot.

What media bias?

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Via Paul Koning we have The Unknown Olympic Champion Kim Rhode has won medals in six games. Cue the non-coverage:

How do you manage to win a medal at six straight Olympics and remain more or less unknown? The answer: win by shooting a gun. American skeet-shooter Kim Rhode last week became the first athlete, male or female, to win a medal at six summer games and the first on five continents, but don’t look for her on a box of Wheaties.

Mrs. Rhode, who won a bronze medal in Rio, has received little media attention despite her historic feat. The 37-year-old also lacks a single major corporate sponsor, though her ammunition and training costs are offset with sponsorship and donations from such firearms companies as Beretta and Otis Technology.

Her agent told Bloomberg he had pitched the sharp-shooter to more than 20 companies, with no luck. Our guess is they don’t want to risk a backlash from the progressive antigun culture. It probably doesn’t help that Mrs. Rhode is an outspoken critic of gun-control laws and a Donald Trump supporter.

What media bias?

Quote of the day—Larry Correia

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Mr Kuntzman my 10 year old daughter shoots her AR-15 often and she has never shown signs of PTSD so I am assuming she is doing it wrong. Could you look at her picture below and please let us know what she is doing wrong? Is her wrist not limp enough? signed frustrated father

 Little-girl

Dear Frustrated, the answer is simple. Your daughter does not have what it takes to be a reporter for a big New York City paper.

Larry Correia
June 16, 2016
ASK KUNTZMAN!
[This is Larry mocking Gersh Kuntzman who wrote about how terrible the recoil, among other things, is when shooting an AR-15.

Via email from Paul Koning.—Joe]

Attitude

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From here:

fruit-of-the-loom-cotton-t-131313

Interesting attitude. There are several ways to interpret this:

  • Don’t mess with us because…
  • We don’t want to go there because…
  • Civil wars are very messy so prepare yourself.

Ammonium Nitrate for sale

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Interesting.

Amazon now sells Ammonium Nitrate:

It’s 1.50 per pound delivered. When I last bought it, nearly two years ago, in a 5000 pound batch, it cost me $1.13 per pound delivered. Plus, I took off a day from work so that I could accept delivery in Idaho.

Also, people are mixing it with Aluminum powder, also available from Amazon, to make their own reactive targets.

Interesting times

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It appears there are people, besides me, who really, really don’t want Ms. Clinton to be our next president. Yet another hack at her:

Bill and Hillary Clinton’s charitable foundation hired the security firm FireEye to examine its data systems after seeing indications they might have been hacked, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

So far, no message or document hacked from the New York-based Clinton Foundation has surfaced in public, the sources said.

One of the sources and two U.S. security officials said that like hackers who targeted the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democrats’ congressional fundraising committee, the hackers appear to have used “spear phishing” techniques to gain access to the foundation’s network.

I need a bigger bowl of popcorn.

Quote of the day—Chris Rock

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I don’t want to live in a world where hacking comes in second to ISIS.

Chris Rock
August 6, 2016 at Defcon 24
How to Overthrow a Government
[This is the white Australian Chris Rock, not the black U.S. Chris Rock.

This was his response to someone who said the biggest threats the world currently faces are, in order, ISIS, Hacking, … some other stuff. His point was that he thinks hacking should be number one in the list of threats to the world. Why should hacking come in behind a bunch of incompetent amateurs? So, he showed how hacking was used to create changes in the government of Kuwait a few years ago. At least that was strongly implied. It wasn’t clear to me whether this actually happened or was just a plausible explanation of what might have happened.

Here are some pictures from his presentation:
WP_20160806_10_06_08_ProWP_20160806_10_08_16_ProWP_20160806_10_17_45_ProWP_20160806_10_25_49_Pro

Interesting stuff.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Tatiana Schlossberg

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Crime is one example where a rebound in carbon emissions could be an issue, according to this study. While there is an energy cost to operating prisons, the study notes, inmates generally consume less than an average citizen in the country, so fewer prisoners might mean higher overall energy consumption.

Additionally, the money saved from reducing crime would go into the government’s budget and people’s pockets. All that money could be spent in other ways — infrastructure, buildings or goods — that may require more energy to produce or operate, possibly adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

Tatiana Schlossberg
August 3, 2016
How Lowering Crime Could Contribute to Global Warming
[H/T to Anonymous Conservative.

I found this very telling. The violation of the rights of people by criminals is secondary to the concern about carbon emissions. And, most importantly, they now have the idea that putting lots of people in prison is good for the environment. Think about what that might lead to.—Joe]

Survey says….

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Monday morning I called a surveying company, and they happened to have an opening Tuesday. I drove down to meet them and talk about what was there.

Short version: The internet lies, and I was a bit further off than she, but it’s 95% fixed now. Continue reading →