Just looked over yesterday’s mail. Apparently the land will burn, the seas will boil, and the sky will be taken away unless I give money to at least one of the 2A political organizations that burned a postage stamp to reach out to me.
Thought for the Day
Posted by daddybear71 on July 14, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/07/14/thought-for-the-day-88/
Good Ideas
Today, we have a round up of ideas from the headlines that make me do a face-palm or head-desk maneuver, whichever comes to mind first:
- A 9/11 survivors group is being kept out of the commemoration of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center due to a lack of space. The reason given is that the ceremony will be primarily for the families of those who perished in the attacks, but it seems a little callous that some slots can’t be freed up to allow at least a few of the people who were actual witnesses to the attacks in. Here’s an idea for Mayor Bloomberg – How about we dis-invite the local imams, a few of the hack local politicians who skulked in basements while survivors were digging at the ruins with their bare hands, and maybe even a couple of the media darlings who showed up in starched shirts and fresh shaves once the all clear was given? Maybe then the people who actually deserve to attend can be there.
- The European Union is suggesting that they should take over the job of combing through banking records looking for the money used to fund international terrorism. Because, you know, they’re so good at keeping track of money and all that. Oh that’s right. We childish Americans can’t understand the subtlety needed to know that when Farukh Ali bin Badguy is spending 1 million dollars euros on Bulgarian “chocolates”, he’s really setting up a shop in Rotterdam for cheap confectionaries, not planning on massacring innocent women and children in Sandusky. Our bad, sorry.
- A group in Michigan is promising to hold a book burning if a tax measure on the ballot is not approved. Funny, I thought those kind of tactics were only found in Illinois politics. This is the Michigan version of “Sit down or the bunny gets it!”. Hopefully the tax measure will pass, these cretins won’t re-enact some of the more lurid scenes from the Nuremberg rallies, and everyone can be happy.
- An ‘artist’ in the Ukraine plans to spend 35 days locked in a cage with a lioness, with occasional visits from a male lion. He hopes to use this to raise money for his personal ‘mini-zoo’, and seems excited that the lioness will be giving birth while he’s in there. Yeah, nothing can go wrong here. There’s nothing an apex predator like an African lioness enjoys more than having a hairless ape poking his opposable thumb into her delivering cubs. Heck, she’ll probably even let him babysit the cubs while she practices her creeping, pouncing, mauling, and dismembering skills post-partum. This may be a win-win. The guy gets some press, and in the worst case scenario, his zoo doesn’t have to buy any Purina Lion Chow for a couple of days.
- Yet another town in America has gotten rid of all their crime and fixed all their problems. They must have, because a town in Illinois just passed an ordnance that makes it a crime to wear low-hanging pants. Hey, I think a guy walking around with the crotch of his jeans between his knees looks stupid, but don’t we have anything better that we could be doing? If someone complains to the police because some gangbanger wanna-be has the waistband of his BVD’s showing above his shorts, then the officer can make a judgement as to whether or not the person in question’s appearance is an example of public nudity. If so, there’s probably already a law on the books for that. If it’s not, then file the idiot with the droopy drawers away for disdain and get on with your life.
Posted by daddybear71 on July 14, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/07/14/good-ideas/
Today’s Earworm
I know you’re working for the CIA!
They wouldn’t have you in the Maf-i-ay!
Posted by daddybear71 on July 13, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/07/13/todays-earworm-130/
News Roundup
- From the “Snausages” Department – A woman in California has been arrested after drugging her husband, tying him up, cutting off his male member with a kitchen knife, and throwing it into the garbage disposal. She may have found something worse than divorce for dismembering a husband. Remember guys, even if they don’t kill you, they can make you wish for death. Keep your wife happy.
- From the “Why Can’t We All Just Get Along” Department – Rodney King has gotten himself arrested for drunken driving again. You all remember Rodney, don’t you? He’s that fun loving kid who got his ass beat pretty horrifically by the police after driving drunk in 1991. The acquittal of the police officers who beat him in 1992 sparked massive rioting and looting in Los Angeles. I’m not defending the police here, but if King’s mom and dad had raised him right, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Maybe if they’d smacked him a few times for acting like he does, he wouldn’t have gotten smacked by the LAPD, then we wouldn’t have had all those problems.
- From the “Let’s Name Her Coleman” Department – A lady in Kansas gave birth in a tent when she went camping when she was 39 weeks pregnant. She claims her doctor told her she would not go into labor that weekend, and thought a few nights in the woods was just what she needed to get ready for a C-section. Ma’am, I’m not going to call you a fool, but you’re an idiot. It’s the hottest part of the summer, you’re as big as a house, and you thought that sleeping in a tent for the weekend was a good idea? You have another child, so you must know that they tend to do things at the darndest times and in the darndest places. Thankfully, both you and the child seem to be OK. In this case, stupidity didn’t turn into tragedy.
- From the “Kabuki and Other Forms of Theater” Department – A lawmaker wants something done about the state of airport security in the United States. Apparently there have been about 25,000 security incidents at American airports since late 2001, and dadgummit, there oughta be a law! No word on whether his proposed reforms entail disassembling the TSA, actively profiling and checking on the people who use our airports, including the people who work there, and leaving little kids and grandmothers alone. Of course, the TSA is squealing like a pig with his testicles caught in a fence. Nothing tells me a bureaucracy is ready for reform than when it reacts emotionally to the thought of being reformed.
- From the “Just How Big Was That Cup” Department – Someone dropped a cup of orange soda off of a highway overpass in Pennsylvania, and it smashed through the windshield of a police vehicle. Thankfully the officer wasn’t harmed. Something tells me he’s never going to get that sicky-sweet citrusy smell out of his car though. I also would like to thank McDonalds for their new 55 gallon size Coke. There’s nothing better than buying a soda in Louisville and having enough Coke Zero to get you through to Denver.
Posted by daddybear71 on July 13, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/07/13/news-roundup-106/
Incriminating yourself by unlocking the safe
The Register is reporting on a case in which investigators and prosecutors in a mortgage scam case are trying to force a Colorado woman to give them the passcode to the encryption she uses on her laptop. The EFF has become involved, and I’ll be watching this case.
Basically, the question is whether, without violating the 5th Amendment to the Constitution, a person can be forced to divulge information that could lead to other information that would incriminate them. In the past, the Supreme Court has said that a defendant cannot be forced to divulge a safe combination, so I don’t see where this is different.
Encryption of media is one of the basic things that we should all be doing in this age of dense, portable storage. A laptop, smartphone, or thumb drive could contain a huge amount of your personal data, and losing it or having it stolen can give someone else the keys to your kingdom. If you’re doing something that the government might find objectionable, encrypting your data is an absolute necessity. If a drive is encrypted, it’s damn hard to get at the information without the keys to decrypt it.
I use Truecrypt to secure my removable media, and to store things like financial documents, resumes, contacts, and such on my laptop. In addition, I use Apple’s baked-in encryption to encrypt my hard drive. Granted, the stuff from Apple isn’t great, but it’s better than nothing, and if I came to the point that I had too much sensitive stuff on my laptop to manage it through encrypted directories, there are better products on the market for whole system encryption. Oh, and don’t forget to encrypt your backups.
Posted by daddybear71 on July 13, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/07/13/incriminating-yourself-by-unlocking-the-safe/
Overheard in GBC
While hanging out with the good people of the GunBlogger Conspiracy today, Dixie mentioned that she was getting a new puppy today. I mentioned that I had shown BooBoo Marko’s pictures of his new puppies, and that he is now pestering me to get him that puppy. Not a dog, but that exact puppy. The boy loves hotdogs, and I told him it was a weiner dog, so in his mind, it’s a puppy made of hotdogs and that’s gotta be awesome.
During our discussion, we started talking about names for dachshunds, and Dixie wins the Internetz for her idea:
dixie: I have the perfect name
dixie: Boo’s Kloos
SCI-FI: …
Vic_Tokyo: HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA
DaddyBear: yeah, not gonna happen dixie
SCI-FI : I liked Kaiser
DaddyBear: but that is genius
Unfortunately, as much as we like to indulge Boo, I don’t think we’ll be driving to New England for a dog anytime soon. But that would be the perfect name.
Posted by daddybear71 on July 13, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/07/13/overheard-in-gbc/
Retraction
Yesterday, I took Arizona State Senator Klein to task for breaking safety practices by showing off her carry gun and muzzling a reporter.
Today, thanks to Uncle, I’ve gotten more information:
I was asked to show the reporter my weapon so that they could take pictures of it. I ensured that the chamber was clear before displaying the weapon. That is basic gun safety and something that I do instinctively, just like virtually every gun owner.
Senator Klein’s side of the story is that she was asked to show her gun to a reporter and demonstrate some of its features, including the laser. She cleared the weapon, showed him how the laser showed up on a wall, and he inadvertently got muzzled when he saw down.
I’d like to express my sincere apologies to Senator Klein for yesterday’s diatribe. While I think that her decision to no longer show people her gun unless it’s at a range is wise, I should have waited to hear her side of the story before taking her to the woodshed over basic gun safety.
Posted by daddybear71 on July 13, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/07/13/retraction/
Bad Week for Chase Bank
Chase Bank is really having a bad week.
First, they had one of their customers arrested after he tried to cash a check that Chase sent him because they thought it was fake. Through a comedy of incompetence, Chase kept both the check and the money that backs it, the man lost his car after it was impounded and auctioned, and subsequently he lost his job. He’s of course gotten himself a lawyer, and I hope that the next few Chase branches that are opened are named “Ikenna Njoku’s Big Building With Money”.
Next, Chase somehow decided that one of their customers in Florida had died, sent a condolence letter to her family, and reported her passing on to the credit bureaus. Even after the lady reported the error to Chase, her credit report still says she’s dead, which is apparently causing issues. Again, she’s lawyered up, and I hope she’s successful enough that the headquarters of Chase is renamed to “Wrenella Pierre Memorial Bank and Trust”.
If I were Chase, I’d shut down all of the offices for a day or two, get everyone together, and remind them of Rule Number One: “Don’t Be F…ing Stupid!”. When a customer comes to you with a check from your own bloody bank, you cash it. Maybe you make them put the money into an account if it’s large and you want to be sure it’s not a fake, but you accept your own bloody check. Next, you don’t unilaterally declare your customers dead. When you think that one of your precious customers has passed away, you inquire with the family, then have them do the paperwork and such to take care of accounts. And when you do screw up and mark one of your customers as deceased and they call you on it, you don’t go home until everyone you’ve told about this has been told about the new information and corrects their records.
Come on guys, we gave you billions of dollars to keep the doors open. You could at least try to act like a responsible adult.
Posted by daddybear71 on July 12, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/07/12/bad-week-for-chase-bank/
Facepalm
A state senator in Arizona is taking HEAT rounds because she took her pistol out of her purse and was showing off her laser sight when it apparently got pointed at a reporter. Some say she pointed it at the reporter, she says he sat down in its beam.
Either way, she says it was no big deal because her finger wasn’t on the trigger.
Sigh.
If you’re in Arizona, especially if you are represented by Lori Klein, please remind her about the Four Rules:
1. All guns are always loaded
2. Never point your gun at anything you don’t want to destroy
3. Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot
4. Know your target and what is beyond it.
At the very best, Senator Klein was breaking at least rules 2 or 4. Worse, if she hadn’t cleared her pistol before activating and demonstrating her laser, she was doing it with a definitely loaded firearm. It doesn’t matter of the reporter intentionally got into the way or not. You don’t take your gun out in a place like the Senate lounge in the state capitol, activate the laser sighting device and point it around in order to show how neat it is. You do something like that on a range or in your basement after you have cleared it.
Someone please take the good Senator aside and gently remind her of basic gun safety, please.
Posted by daddybear71 on July 12, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/07/12/facepalm/
Where do we get such men?
Today, President Obama will present the Medal of Honor to Sergeant First Class Leroy Arthur Petry. During a daylight raid in Afghanistan, then Staff Sergeant Petry left a place of relative safety to help fellow Rangers clear a building. After being wounded, he took cover with other soldiers in a chicken coop. When insurgents threw a grenade into their position, he scooped it up and threw it away from his fellow soldiers. The grenade went off just as it left his right hand, blowing it off. Petry put a tourniquet on his own arm to stop the bleeding and rejoined the fight.
I am always amazed by these stories. Remember, I was in a nominally peace time army. Our heroes came from the first Gulf War and Vietnam. But plain old regular men and women who were Corporals and Lieutenants when I was in are now senior NCO’s and officers, and have served through 10 years of war. There are going to be stories of heroics from all corners of this conflict for years to come. SFC Petry himself has deployed 8 times in this war, and is still serving other wounded warriors minus his right hand. Think about that the next time you complain about having to work a weekend.
We don’t raise our sons and daughters to be warriors in this country. JROTC programs in our high schools tend to be a tiny percentage of the students, and the Boy Scouts has cut a lot of its doctrinal ties with the military. Service isn’t emphasized in our schools anymore. Heck, civics and patriotism are actively de-emphasized. But it never seems to be hard to find young men and women who are willing to give up, at the very least, what could be the best years of their lives in order to serve all of us.
SFC Petry, thank you for your sacrifice and your service. Men like you, recognized or not, belong in the pantheon of heroes.
Posted by daddybear71 on July 12, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/07/12/where-do-we-get-such-men/
DaddyBear
