Tag: Government

Giving In To The Commies

Elections, Politics, The Gun Thing

Dear President Trump,

“Doing something about guns” according to the wishes of the media would be an even grosser betrayal of your 2016 supporters than not building a wall along the southern border has been.

We all — even the media — know that “doing something” in this regard means, in essence, increasing control over law-abiding gun owners which will do nothing to solve crime of any sort.

I, and most gun owners who voted for you back in 2016, know that your efforts to build a wall were undercut by the Establishment Republicans and Democrats in Congress.  More ineffectual gun control legislation and the concomitant assaults on our Constitutional rights, however, will place at risk not only your chances of reelection in 2020, it will place the electoral success of the Republican senators and House legislators in a similar situation.

We are not fooled, and we will not be fooled, by the current demands to “do something”.  Try to convince us that you won’t be fooled either.

And yes, this is a warning.

Sincerely,

Kim du Toit

Third World Adventure

Behind Enemy Lines, Gummint

I once knew a German professional photographer (let’s call him Georg) who, along with a fellow German photographer (“Klaus”), decided to do one of those photo safaris — driving from Cairo to Cape Town, snapping pics along the way — that sounds so good back in Hamburg, but is completely foolish in reality.  Anyway, driving a mil-surp G-Wagen (not a bad choice, BTW), they set off and made it through Egypt without incident.  At the border, they had to get a “passing through” visa to get across the Sudan, which essentially allowed them to be in the country for three days.  When they got to Sudan’s southern border, however, the sole guard at the border post (just a hut) wouldn’t let them leave the country because they had the “wrong visa” — and they’d have to drive back to Khartoum (a two-day drive) to get the right one.  When Georg pointed out that their existing visa would expire en route and they would, in essence, be in the country illegally and imprisoned if caught, the guard just shrugged.  Not his problem.

I told you that story so I could tell you this one.  Last week, faced with a looming legal deadline, I had to fly up to Chicago to get a legal document out of the Cook County Court archives.  (Why I was unable to access the document online, or even manage to talk to someone in the County Clerk’s office to send me the document is a story all by itself.)  Anyway, after having had my 5am flight canceled (thank you, American), I made the 7am flight only by dint of paying the full fare (don’t ask) and arrived at the Cook County courthouse (2nd District in Skokie) at about 11am, with all the data needed for the request on my trusty laptop..

Of course, there’s TSA-type security at all these places these days, which is where I had a Sudan-type encounter of my own.  Reason?  No laptops allowed in the courthouse by members of the public.  I know, it’s inexplicable but hey, Cook County.  I looked around for any storage lockers:  none.

“So where can I store my laptop?”
“You’ll just have to take it back to your car.”
“I don’t have a car;  I just flew in from Dallas.  So what can I do?”
Like the Sudanese border guard, the fucking security guard just shrugged.  “Not my problem.”

At this juncture, I should point out that every single glass window and door at the courthouse has one of those idiotic little “No Handgun” stickers displayed.

I’m not saying that I would have shot someone — in fact, I absolutely would not have, even if I’d been able to bring the 1911 with me — but let me tell you, after a day which had begun at 3am, experienced a canceled flight and a massive fare surcharge along with all the other hassles of modern-day travel (full flight, idiots with too-large bags, crowded train from the airport into the city etc.), only to be faced with indifferent bovine officialdom at the end of it, I can quite believe that some other guy  might  have dropped the hammer.

Which, by the way, is what Klaus did at the Sudanese border.  He told the guard that he had the correct visa back in the car, fetched his gun instead and shot the guard dead.  Then he and Georg got in their G-Wagen and raced off into Uganda.  A real African tale, that one.

And now, the rest of my  story. Read more

Copyright Maze

Legal Stuff, Two-Minute Hate

It appears that the U.S. Senate is getting serious about people using stuff they found on the Intarwebs:

A bi-partisan bill working its way through Congress could drastically change how copyright claims are processed, and would create a system to impose up to $30,000 in fines on anyone who shares protected material online.
In other words, the Congress wants to make it easier to sue people who send a meme or post images that they didn’t create themselves, essentially a giveaway to lawyers who sue unsuspecting suckers for a living.

…and once more, a little more of life’s pleasures is sucked dry by the lawyers and politicians.

One of these days, I can see people going to a party sued by the studios (especially the godless Disney Corporation) just for wearing a character’s costume without prior approval from an attorney at Bloodsucker, Lamprey and Leech LLP.

Having recently been sued (and forced to settle out of court) by some cocksucker and his copyright huckster attorney for using an old photograph (which can be found all over the Internet and which had no attribution when I found it, so copyright was impossible to establish in the first place), I know exactly what’s involved here.  (And if he or his shyster butt-buddy should chance to read this:  by not identifying you or the work involved, I’m not breaking the terms of our agreement, you money-grabbing motherfuckers.  It’s the principle  I’m talking about — not that either of you would even begin to comprehend the word.  FOAD.)

So as of today, expect to see only memes and such created by myself (e.g. see below), unless linked to the site of origin.

And that goes for the lawyers’ little lickspittles in the Senate as well.  FOAD all of you, too.

With All Due Respect, Fuck Off

Gummint

So the Attorney General thinks we should allow Gummint access to our private lives, does he?

U.S. attorney general William Barr has said consumers should accept the risks that encryption backdoors pose to their personal cybersecurity to ensure law enforcement can access encrypted communications.
In a speech Tuesday in New York, the U.S. attorney general parroted much of the same rhetoric from his predecessors and other senior staff at the Justice Department, calling on tech companies to do more to assist federal authorities to gain access to devices with a lawful order.In remarks, Barr said the “significance of the risk should be assessed based on its practical effect on consumer cybersecurity, as well as its relation to the net risks that offering the product poses for society.”
He suggested that the “residual risk of vulnerability resulting from incorporating a lawful access mechanism is materially greater than those already in the unmodified product.”
“Some argue that, to achieve at best a slight incremental improvement in security, it is worth imposing a massive cost on society in the form of degraded safety,” he said.
The risk, he said, was acceptable because “we are talking about consumer products and services such as messaging, smart phones, e-mail, and voice and data applications,” and “not talking about protecting the nation’s nuclear launch codes.”

Really?  That little speech probably sounded better in the original Chinese.

Then there’s the tu quoque  argument:

The U.S. is far from alone in calling on tech companies to give law enforcement access.
Earlier this year U.K. authorities proposed a new backdoor mechanism, the so-called “ghost protocol,” which would give law enforcement access to encrypted communications as though they were part of a private conversation.

As though we should emulate the British — who, lest we forget already  has governmental powers which allow them to preemptively ban anything to be published which they don’t like.  (It’s called a “D notice”, FYI.)

Here’s my take.  But first, a reminder:

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Considering how the “security services” have already violated this Constitutional precept against one person they didn’t care for (FISA?  Russian collusion, anyone?), why should we trust that these fucking spies won’t abuse this power against anyone else?

OF course, the fucking feds will no doubt blackmail the tech companies into doing their foul work for them:

Barr did not rule out pushing legislation to force tech companies to build backdoors.

I’ll bet he didn’t.   And Barr, lest we forget, is supposed to one of the good guys?  Can you imagine giving this power to a Justice Department, CIA, NSA DHS or any of the other little Stasi acronyms, under a future Democratic Socialist administration?

We might as well live in Communist China or 1970s East Germany.  Which is doubtless exactly where these pricks, all of them, would like us to be.  All for our own security, of course.

FOAD, all of you.

That’s my First Amendment right coming into play.  You don’t want me invoking the Second, you motherfuckers.  There’s another wholly different meaning to “going dark”.

Oops

Business, Food & Drink, Gummint

Everybody told them that it was a monumentally-stupid idea;  but noooooo:

Restaurants Unlimited, a Seattle-based chain with restaurant locations in 47 US cities, announced on Sunday it was seeking Chapter 11 protection, citing “progressive” wage laws.
The company, which has operated since the Lyndon Johnson Administration, said rising labor costs—part of a national trend of government-mandated minimum increases—were part of its decision.

Note the 47 cities affected by these closures (see link).

I would feel more sorry for the soon-to-be-laid-off workers, but I’m betting that most of them supported the higher-minimum-wage idiocy in the first place, so… sucks to be them.  Maybe next time they’ll vote with their brains instead of with their greed.  (Granted, working-class people have trouble making ends meet in liberal shitholes like Seattle and San Francisco;  but the politicians who have caused the high housing prices are the same ones who pushed through the higher minimum-wage thresholds.  So there’s a double whammy here, and yet those idiot voters keep sending them back into office.)

Of course, it’ll be all Trump’s fault (according to the West Coast media).

Not Gonna Happen

Elections, Politics

Over at PJM, ol’ Roger thinks our presidential campaigns are too long (I agree) and wants to do something about it:

How about postponing the campaign until Thanksgiving and allowing the country and Congress to go about their real business? The British manage their campaigns in only 60 days. Maybe we could squeeze it down to, say, 180.

While he makes some excellent points about the folly of long election campaigns, Roger falls into the liberal trap of wishful thinking.  Whenever some asswipe Lefty (i.e. all of them) makes some stupid proposal, the common response from conservatives is twofold:

  • “How are you gonna pay for it?” — OR —
  • “How are you going to do that, exactly ?”

To whit:  “Free health care for everybody” gets question #1 in response;  and “We’re going to come around to your house and take away your guns!” gets question #2.

The problem with trying to limit the length of presidential (or any) electoral campaigns is that we have that pesky Constitution, in the form of the First Amendment.

If it’s (say) a week before Thanksgiving and someone says, “When I’m president, I will…”, telling someone that “You’re not allowed to say that yet” would result in you getting your pee-pee severely whacked by the courts, and deservedly so.

The Brits get away with their 60-day election campaigns by simply banning election speeches and so on before the start date.  Try doing that in the U.S. of A., and a shit-storm will ensue.  We’re a free people, and if Governor Sextoy Butt-Plug (D) of Michigan wants to announce in 2019 that she’s going to run for the presidency in 2031, she’s perfectly within her rights.

I’m irritated by  the perpetual campaigning thing myself, but at the same time, the First Amendment is more important than my irritation.  Some people are frightened by guns, but the Second Amendment is more important than their trepidation.  That’s how the whole thing works, even if it is inconvenient sometimes.