Tag: Evil Bastards

Parallel Situations

Bad News

From Insty I see this, about the situation in Hong Kong:

Pro-Beijing agitators are attacking random passers-by and fomenting brawls and riots in the shopping malls where pro-democracy demonstrators gather to sing. The… police are cooperating with the pro-Beijing agitators, arresting pro-democracy demonstrators, but leaving the pro-Beijing agitators alone.

Now where have I seen this kind of thing before?  Oh, I know.

Just substitute “Antifa” for “pro-Beijing agitators” and “Trump supporters” for “pro-democracy demonstrators”, and you have… Portland.

Sighting In On The DOJ

Gummint, Hunting, The Gun Thing

I can understand why people are getting all bent out of shape about this atrocity:

Own a rifle?  Got a scope to go with it?  The U.S. government might soon know who you are, where you live and how to reach you.
That’s because the government wants Apple and Google to hand over names, phone numbers and other identifying data of at least 10,000 users of a single gun scope app, Forbes has discovered.  It’s an unprecedented move:  Never before has a case been disclosed in which American investigators demanded personal data of users of a single app from Apple and Google.  And never has an order been made public where the feds have asked the Silicon Valley giants for info on so many thousands of people in one go.
According to an application for a court order filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on September 5, investigators want information on users of Obsidian 4, a tool used to control rifle scopes made by night-vision specialist American Technologies Network Corp.  The app allows gun owners to get a live stream, take video and calibrate their gun scope from an Android or iPhone device.  According to the Google Play page for Obsidian 4, it has more than 10,000 downloads.  Apple doesn’t provide download numbers, so it’s unclear how many iPhone owners could be swept up in this latest government data grab.
If the court approves the demand, and Apple and Google decide to hand over the information, it could include data on thousands of people who have nothing to do with the crimes being investigated, privacy activists warned.

What I don’t  understand is why people would want to get this poxy app in the first place, because of all the things you’re going to do with your hunting rifle, zeroing the scope is one of the easiest.  No?  Allow me to explain.

Step 1:  Remove the bolt from your rifle so you can see clear through the barrel.

Step 2:  Wait for nightfall.

Step 3:  Line your barrel up with a light source (street light, neighbor’s porch light etc.) that’s between 50 and 100 yards distant.  (If the latter light source, try not to let your neighbor see you pointing a rifle at his house;  for some reason, people get upset by this.  Sit back from the window.)

Step 4:  Anchor the rifle down so that the rifle is straight upright (i.e. the vertical line of the stock is at right angles to the floor).

Step 5:  Install your scope onto the rifle, making sure that the vertical line in the scope points straight up and down (i.e. that it corresponds to the vertical line of the stock).

Step 6:  Make sure that you can still see the light source through the barrel, and then zero the scope’s cross-hairs onto the same light source.  Re-install the bolt.

Your rifle is now guaranteed to “print onto the paper”, i.e. your shots will all fall within a 6″ square at 25 or 50 yards.

Step 7:  Zero your scope onto the bull, trying to get a 1″ minute-of-angle (MOA) at the distance you will most likely be shooting at (or just use 100 yards, as most do, and make further adjustments in the field as needed).

Now I know that this may seem a lot more tiresome a routine than just holding up your phone to the scope and letting some system do all the work for you, but as we are all fast learning in today’s world, what makes things more convenient is often either part of someone else’s profit margin (e.g. automatic gearboxes) or else malevolent (e.g. self-driving cars and, to whit, this scope zeroing app).

Giving your data to someone else has always been fraught with risk.  With this Obsidian 4 thing, it seems as though Gummint has found a great way to identify a large proportion of gun owners, simply by leaning on a couple of phone companies (who are always at the beck and call of gummint bureaucrats anyway).  What makes things easy for you makes things even easier for Gummint, as it turns out.

Caveat emptor, my friends.

Oh, and fuck the DOJ.

Eye Witness

Terrorism

From Reader Mark D, an account of 9/11:

September 11, 2001 was a beautiful fall day.  The sky was blue, the day was mild. I’d gotten up a little late that morning.  My wife suggested that I should take the later train (about 40 minutes later), but I really wanted to stop in Borders Bookstore in the World Trade Center that morning.  I did that once every couple of weeks, just to browse thru the books.  So I pushed myself out the door, drove to the train station, and caught my usual train which took me to Hoboken, NJ.  From there I took the Path train to the World Trade Center, but completely forgot that I wanted to stop at Borders, and entered the Courtlandt St subway station.  After I paid my subway fare I remembered that I’d intended to stop at Borders, but decided that I’d either stop tonight on the way home or tomorrow morning.  The time was about 8:10. I got my usual R train and headed into Brooklyn, just as I had every work day for the last several years.  I arrived, as usual, at my desk at about 8:30.

About 9:00 a co-worker came in and told us that a plane had apparently hit the World Trade Center, that he saw the smoke on his way in.  We turned on a radio and heard that a small plane had hit the North Tower.  It seemed like an accident.  As the news rolled in, we learned that it was a passenger jet, not a small plane, that hit the tower.  Then the South Tower was hit.  Then there were reports of a plane hitting the Pentagon.  I called my wife to tell her I was OK, she said they were watching the news on a TV.  I thought it was a little odd that she didn’t seem concerned about me since my commute took me thru the World Trade Center, but I decided not to press the issue.

A few of us decided to walk down to the East River to see what was happening, when we got there my first impression was that there was a lot of paper in the air, apparently sucked from the towers.  There was a huge hole in the North Tower, full of flames.  The South Tower was partially hidden from view by the North, but it was obvious that it was burning too.  We were too far away to see the people falling, we didn’t hear about that until later.

At this point I was thinking that the fire department would evacuate the buildings, put out the fires, and then something would need to be done to repair the towers.  It never occured to me that the towers might be too badly damaged to repair.  Then the South Tower (or what I could see of it behind the North Tower) sort of tipped at the top, then collapsed in a rain of dust and debris.

I didn’t have another coherent thought for the rest of the day.  I couldn’t stay there anymore, we left, headed back to our office building, where we found that the building (a New York City municipal building) was evacuated and locked down, we weren’t allowed back in.  We met up with our manager, and we all went to her apartment a few blocks away.  On the way I stopped in a store for a bottle of soda and learned that the North Tower had collapsed, but I was numb at that point.  I remember repeatedly thinking “This day needs to be over.”
Since New York City was pretty much locked down I couldn’t get home, so I and some others spent the night at our managers apartment.  The next morning we decided not to open, and by then the transportation system was functioning, so I headed for home via the Path train in Mid-town Manhattan.  Everyone I saw on the way home had a thousand-yard stare, like they were in shock.  From the train I could see the smoke rising from where the towers had been, that column of smoke would be part of the landscape for a long time.
I arrived home in the early afternoon.  My wife arrived home from work at her usual hour.  As we talked about the events of the previous day I mentioned that I’d been in the basement of the World Trade center a half-hour before the first plane hit.  She sat bolt upright and said “You were WHAT?” She’d completely forgotten that my daily commute took me thru the World Trade Center, which was just as well or she’d have been beside herself with worry.

Do not forget what happened that day.  Do not forget what you were doing, where you were.  Do not forget that three thousand people who did nothing more sinister than show up for work or ride a plane died that day.  Do not forget that those people were murdered, they did not die in a natural disaster.  Do not forget who murdered them.

Can’t (and won’t) add a single thing.  Thank you, Mark.

See You In November, Asshole

Crime, Elections, Politics, The Gun Thing

I did not need to read this.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) told Fox News on Monday that the ability for strangers to sell guns to strangers without a background check is a “loophole” that needs to be addressed.
“I think one of the things, Jon, we have to do in this country is, take a strong look at this ability for people to buy a weapon when they’ve been turned down by a background check. … I believe, as a supporter of the 2nd Amendment, we should protect that family transfer or family sale. But any stranger-to-stranger, however — we don’t know how this person got their gun, but we do know that that’s a real loophole in the law. Because I’m a gun owner, I’m never going to sell my gun to someone I don’t know that — do they have a criminal record, are they a danger to other people, are they ready to commit evil? There’s no need for that.”

Fuck you, Patrick.  If I want to sell a gun, I’ll fucking well sell it.  If a guy has been turned down for a prior gun purchase and he then tries to get a gun anyway, then he’s at fault, not I.

And what if he was turned down because a vengeful ex slapped a restraining order on him, just for spite?  Am I supposed to know that, too?

What you and your fuckbuddies in the gun confiscation business call a “loophole”, I call a personal freedom — the freedom to sell my personal property whenever I choose to do so.  If the buyer turns around and commits a crime afterwards, that’s not my fault  — just as it’s not the (FFL) gun dealer’s fault when a “legal” gun buyer turns round and murders someone.  In both cases, the actual perpetrator caused the problem, not the seller.  

As someone who wants to sell a gun, I have a right to ask the prospective buyer if he has a carry permit, and the right to refuse to sell him my gun if he doesn’t have one.  That’s the right you want to turn into an obligation?  Bite me.  If you want me to perform a “background check” on someone, go ahead and deputize me.  Otherwise, stay the hell out of my business.

Wait, here’s a thought:  why don’t you and your politician buddies pass legislation that automatically grants every concealed-carry permit-holder a FFL?  Then we’d have  to perform background checks each time we sold a gun (except to other CHL holders, of course).  Go on, I dare you.

And stop listening to the screams and wails to “do something”.  That “something” that they want you to do is going to piss off a lot of people who might otherwise have voted for you.  Like me.

#MeToo? #FuckYou

Men & Women

A recent report (no link, it’s the poxy Guardian) outlines how businessmen are invoking the Pence Rule and are either freezing out women (no un-chaperoned meetings), not hiring women if the job involves close contact (e.g. business travel) or not hiring attractive women (because they cause more trouble than they’re worth).

Of course, the Grauniad  claims that men are now “afraid” of women — when of course what’s being revealed here is that men have become cautious of what women could do to them thanks to the (male and female) feministicals in HR and the pro-feminist corporate policies (#BelieveAllWomen) they create.

Which begs the question:  what did they think was going to happen?

Did these stupid people think that in the face of unremitting and unbridled hostility towards men, that we were just going to sit and take all the bullshit they were throwing at us without some kind of response?

Did they think we were all college professors, liberal arts students or girlyman journalists?

Here’s one article on the topic which should evoke howls of laughter.  Headed “College Students Need To End The Pence Rule Now”, the author makes nonsensical statements like:

The notion that avoiding one-on-one interactions between opposite sexes is the key to fixing sexual violence is absurd. The underlying suggestion is that if a male is never alone with a member of the opposite sex, they never have the opportunity to indulge in such activities. By presenting an image of men being uncontrollable, lustful and power hungry, and women as temptresses, the Pence rule only perpetuates gender roles which help lead to sexual violence in the first place.

What utter bullshit.  The Pence Rule actually has very little (if anything) to do with “sexual violence”:  it is a precautionary measure that provides equal protection for both men and women in intimate situations, where the man can be prevented from flirting (or more) with the woman, AND where a woman can’t unjustly accuse a man of harassment after the fact.  It’s a social prophylactic, in other words, but just like a condom, which makes sex less pleasurable but prevents disease, the Pence Rule guards against the other “diseases” of sexual aggression and unjustified accusation.

If I were a young man attending college right now, I’d break my own rule and have the Pence Rule tattooed on my arm, just to remind me.  (And, by the way, I would make a video recording of each and every sexual encounter I engaged in — not for dissemination, but as a defense against post-facto  harassment from the woman.)

And by the way, college students can’t end the Pence Rule:  only male  college students can do that, and they’d be idiots if they did.  The fact that the writer of the article is a woman simply invites the male response:  “I guess I missed the memo that gives you the right to tell me how to live my life.”

It’s sad that we have to protect ourselves with all these rules, but hey:  that’s the world we live in —  well, that other  people live in;  I have no desire to inhabit such a world, ever.

But the minute that #MeToo evolved into #BelieveAllWomen — and the Kavanaugh hearings showed us all exactly what that  entails — women lost all moral high ground, and became simply antagonists and adversaries.  And if there’s one thing that men are genetically programmed to deal with, it’s an adversary.

Deal with it, ladies.  And scolding won’t work, anymore.