If you’re going to hate the little midget, at least do it for the right reason.

And how about a round of applause for Dunkin’ Donuts, for the most egregious display of corporate spinelessness in recent memory.  Sometimes, DD, the customer is an a$$hole.

Time to close the “hardware store loophole”!

We need to shut down Home Depot and Lowe’s immediately, people.  Do you know how many stabby things there are in those stores alone?  Not to mention poisons, electrical thingies, and BITS OF SPLINTERY WOOD!1!!  Oh, the humanity…

Republican Rep. Douglas Bruce’s remark, which drew gasps from the House, came during debate on legislation to help immigrants get temporary federal visas to ease Colorado’s shortage of farmworkers.

“I would like to have the opportunity to state at the microphone why I don’t think we need 5,000 more illiterate peasants in Colorado,” said Bruce, who represents Colorado Springs.

Is there outrage because what he said was untrue? Offensive? If the latter, offensive to whom exactly? The illiterate peasants who won’t be A) reading about it in the paper, or B) listening to it on English-language television? Seriously, do you all see a problem, other than the yellow-dog press was watching and would inevitably blow it out of all proportion?

“How dare you!” snapped Democratic Rep. Kathleen Curry, who as debate chairwoman ended Bruce’s privilege to speak.

Ms. Curry seemed to take offense. But why? Is she illiterate? Of peasant-level income? Is it some racial memory of being a peasant-oppressing feudal lord that’s pricking her conscience? What’s the big deal, people?

pan·der (pndr)intr.v. pan·dered, pan·der·ing, pan·ders
1. To act as a go-between or liaison in sexual intrigues; function as a procurer.
2. To cater to the lower tastes and desires of others or exploit their weaknesses.

I’d like to submit a third definition: to write a blatantly fellating piece about a political candidate, loosely disguised as social commentary, while simultaneously managing to promote your own whingy-liberal agenda.

So, it’s like sex with a skanky hooker, and masturbating at the same time. Win!

Ms. Mary Mitchell is guilty of option #3 in Sunday’s Chicago Sun-Times, with the implication that the NIU shooter was, like so many of Obama’s faithful, guilty mainly of a loss of hope:

According to university officials, Kazmierczak’s behavior while a student at NIU raised no “red flags,” and he was “revered” by faculty and other students.

Yet something drove this seemingly normal graduate student to drive three hours on Valentine’s Day to carry out a deadly plan that he obviously thought out in advance.

Yes, Mary, he was a bug-eyed crazy person. And frankly, I don’t appreciate you impugning the relative hopeful- or hopeless-ness of bug-eyed crazy people. It’s demeaning to them, and we should be abjectly respectful of their right to be both bug-eyed, crazy, and as full or empty of hope as they want to be. *sniff*

The man went off his meds. End of story. There is nothing socially meaningful about someone suffering from depression, being bipolar, etc. etc. etc. Bad chemicals have been a factor in human existence since the dawn of time, and no amount of happy-happy-joy-joy feelings from others can change that. The sooner bleeding-heart nancypants face the fact that there are culls in the human race, just as in any other species of mammal, the more pragmatically we can deal with them, whether it’s a bullet to the brain (as folks like the NIU shooter rate), or confinement in a nice soft room.

One experience-lacking socialist-wannabe with a skillful speechwriter isn’t going to single-handedly dispense rainbow-spewing hope nuggets, no matter how hard you clutch at your Polly Pockets pillow, squinch your eyes shut and wish for it.

I see I’ve been posting a number of anti-Obama pieces lately… I don’t want you to think I actually LIKE Hillsy, it’s just that the messiah-ization of Obama irritates me on a cellular level. And his worshipers do make it so very easy.

What Miss Liberty cares about, is whether or not Miss Janey will be on the receiving end of FCC scrutiny, as so many others have in the past few years. If they indulge in selective enforcement, THEN we shall have something about which to make a stink.

Which is why I don’t understand the hubbub about this. I went to look at the company’s site. These guys do not even attempt to create a three dimensional image with accurate representation of land forms. These guys are not giving their clients images using ground penetrating radar, cammo penetrating lidar, or multi-spectral vegetation-classifying thermal images. The zoom capability of this company’s images aren’t even as good as the images I use daily just to draw roads, bridges, and yes, even houses. (That imagery, again civilian, allows me elevational accuracy to within 4 hundredths of an inch.) The angle at which my images are created is straight up. I don’t map from obliques. (Aerial photos taken at an oblique rather than a right angle.) Obliques have mathematical problems inherent in the format that preclude accurate mapping of the type I produce. In the military, we used to use obliques only for orientation purposes since they had no other accuracy value.

The above mentioned company has been hired by a county to map every square foot of the county. In obliques. I have mapped entire counties just for storm water drainage that were more accurate than these maps are going to be, or are even capable of being. Somehow no one cared. The jobs were funded by taxpayer dollars, approved at public hearings, and used by county and state agencies. So far, my maps have yet to be used to haul someone off in the middle of the night because someone in some dingy office looking at a computer screen has noticed that Joe Q. Citizen had pot growing in his backyard (which I have seen), a covert rifle range (also seen), or even so much as cited because the grass was too high (seen way too often.)

The map isn’t the territory.

A map is a two or three dimensional interpretation of a given area. It is morally neutral. If the cops see something in the map or imagery that they think is worthy of investigation, they still have to go get a warrant from a judge. Take a guess at how many judges are going to let a computer image with six inch per pixel resolution be their guide in whether to issue one. Zero. For the cops to even see something in these images in the first place is unlikely in the extreme due to several reasons, not the least of which is the sheer amount of highly specialized training required to become a photographic interpreter. Additionally, since when do bureaucracies have the time or the budget to go ‘joylooking’ (a term we had in the service for wandering aimlessly around an image looking for cool stuff), then find something ‘suspicious’ in the first place? If you are concerned about the cops wanting to see a visual of a particular house, it’s a good bet that they are close to getting a warrant in the first place, and just want to be sure that when they go serve it, they know what planimetric features are in the area.

However, it will not tell them the terrain features. Since the imagery is flown, at best, every two years (and unless this company is better then every single other company in the country and the weather is always perfect to fly and the county appropriates the money in a timely fashion—-in other words that is never going to happen) many, many things will change from the time the county pays the contractor to the time they get the product. Many more things will change before the product is updated. Terrain features are those things such as hills , ditches, holes, ponds, creeks, mountains, etc. that vary from the mean sea level. That means that if you go dig a tiger trap after the plane flies over, it could be three for four years before anyone sees it on film. If you surround your home with a moat, the cops won’t be able to tell from the photos. If you put in a secret underground lair, and then make sure your backyard looks the same afterward, even an updated picture won’t be able to tell. But you can pretty much be sure that your neighbors will know. The deputy who patrols out in your part of the sticks may want to know what all the heavy equipment is doing in your backyard.

The map is not the territory.

If you are concerned that somehow a plane flying over at ten thousand feet with a six inch lens taking a photo of your homestead is going to tell the government how many guns you own, don’t stand outside with all your guns and boxes of ammo and your armored personnel carrier when the plane flies over. If you don’t want the cops to have easy access to your windows, install bars or plates, plant rose bushes or bougainvillea.

The map is not the territory.

Please try to understand this, I spent my formative years as an adult human person serving as “an intel weenie.” I know the capabilities of imagery. I spent my youth as the son of a county investigator as well as being an auxiliary myself. I know cops. I berate uppity cops on this site because of their unprofessionalism or because they broke the very laws they were supposed to be upholding. So don’t think for a minute that I am willing to write a free pass for any level of constabulary authority just because many of my clients happen to be government officials.

So take this for what it is worth: The map is not the territory.

The territory is overworked, unpaid, under appreciated, and over questioned good men and women who just want to get home in one piece for breakfast with their kids. The territory is alot of chicken littles picking fights or raising hell about the wrong issues. The issue isn’t whether the county took pictures of your house. The issue is whether the judges and sheriffs and chiefs of police know what the law is, what the law isn’t, and know that they too will be held to it. The territory is one more person with a grudge lashing out at any and all cops into which he comes in contact without realizing that for the most part, the cop is probably doing his level best to uphold the law. The territory is the sad realization that not one single person in authority knows your name unless they have reason to suspect you of a crime. For most of us, not being on the radar is something to shoot for.

So if you are really worried about ‘the authorities’ having a picture of your house with almost no tactical or strategic information that they would have to collect on site anyway, here’s what you can do. Go down to the local big box hardware store and load up on big blue tarps, the most mature trees you can find, plenty of nylon rope, guy stays, and a hammer. Alter your roof line with the tarps. Plant trees in front of all your windows and doors. and then after the pictures are taken, move everything around. Hell, you could even make dummy windows and doors out of plywood and paint so when the SWAT team comes, they will waste all of one second redeploying to fit the actual tactical situation.

We, and by “WE” I mean those of us who are actually trying to take back our government, all too often are ready to automatically assign ill intent to our elected, appointed, or policing officials when in reality the real rationale behind something we see as an infringement on our liberty is more likely to be innocent misunderstanding, poor planning or execution of an otherwise good idea, the government replying to the taxpayers demands for yet another service to be provided without bothering to figure out how to pay for it, plain old human error or plain old human stupidity. We are all too ready to raise hell about what we see in the news without first finding out if the reporting was accurate. We stand firm on an issue of liberty like not giving the border patrol agent proof that you are a citizen when all that really does is prevent that agent from stopping the illegal immigrant from coming in behind his back because you had to be rude. We use specious arguments like “well I need a fully automatic rifle to hunt ducks” instead of standing up and saying “I need a fully automatic rifle to shoot invading soldiers, put down looters, or kill government officials if it ever comes down to it.” The former may be true, but the latter is the TRUTH. We water down our message when we aren’t intellectually honest about our goals. If we don’t tell the truth to ourselves, how can we get anyone else to believe us? If you believe that aerial photographs of your house constitute a violation of your Fourth Amendment rights, file a lawsuit. I’m sure the ACLU would take you on gratis for the chance to to something, anything, to further weaken our ability to protect our society. But if you win or lose, you have done something to harm our society by creating case law that those who would oppress us can use in the future.

We need to start being smart, people. Honest and smart. No more ranting at everything. We need to pick rational fights. Back our arguments with facts. Tell the truth about our goals and why we think they are are good and noble and worthy of our blood. We need to ensure that our government knows we are not reactionary, misguided, lackwits. It needs to fear us as educated, rational, polite members of a community. A community that KNOWS the Constitution. A community that realizes the use of force is a precise science and isn’t to be randomly spread into the aether, dissipating before it can do any good. A bullet needs a target to worth anything. Constant laying down of suppression fire eventually uses up all your ammo.

The map is a picture: the territory is knowing which plants are poisonous.

The FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database of people’s physical characteristics, all part of an effort the bureau says to better identify criminals and terrorists.

Oh noes!! We’re all going to be *gasp* indexed!

Kimberly Del Greco, the FBI’s Biometric Services section chief, said adding to the database is “important to protect the borders to keep the terrorists out, protect our citizens, our neighbors, our children so they can have good jobs, and have a safe country to live in.”

B-b-buuut, I don’t want to be indexed!

In addition, the FBI could soon start comparing people’s eyes — specifically the iris, or the colored part of an eye — as part of its new biometrics program called Next Generation Identification.

Just where are they going to get all this data on us?

The FBI says it will protect all this personal data and only collect information on criminals and those seeking sensitive jobs.

Oooh, so it’s just the bad guys they’re indexing. And people up for clearances, who get microscoped anyway. Well, why didn’t you SAY that, Kelli Arena and Carol Cratty of CNN.com, before the very end of the article?

The ACLU’s Steinhardt doesn’t believe it will stop there.

“This had started out being a program to track or identify criminals,” he said. “Now we’re talking about large swaths of the population — workers, volunteers in youth programs. Eventually, it’s going to be everybody.”

Oh yes, clearly it will be everybody. Where does that assumption come from, you reactionary idiots? Can anyone tell me, really, when was the last time the ACLU accomplished anything beneficial?

Probably about the same time CNN last practiced responsible journalism.

A town petition making President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney subject to arrest for crimes against the Constitution has triggered a barrage of criticism from people who say residents are “wackjobs” and “nuts.”

The petition reads:

“Shall the Selectboard instruct the Town Attorney to draft indictments against President Bush and Vice President Cheney for crimes against our Constitution, and publish said indictments for consideration by other authorities and shall it be the law of the Town of Brattleboro that the Brattleboro Police, pursuant to the above-mentioned indictments, arrest and detain George Bush and Richard Cheney in Brattleboro if they are not duly impeached, and prosecute or extradite them to other authorities that may reasonably contend to prosecute them?”

Of course, once the intarwebs got hold of this, the inevitable backlash started:

In e-mail messages, voicemail messages and telephone calls, outraged people are calling the measure the equivalent of treason and vowing never to visit Vermont.

“Has everyone up there been out in the cold too long?” said one.

“I would like to know how I could get some water from your town,” said another. “It’s obvious that there is something special in it.”

Personally, I think if you’re going to arrest two politicians then you’re going to have to arrest all of them.

Ted says:

Cheney ought to load up the family, take a nice long drive to colder climes, step out of the car in Brattleboro town square, and like Zorro, the Gay Blade, announce, “Heeeere, I yaaaaamm!”

*I’d* pay to see that.

*Also a ZtGB quote

Yesterday CNN posted an utterly ridiculous piece regarding black women voters in South Carolina, and how they had an awful dilemma on their hands: vote for the person whose skin color matches theirs, or whose sexual equipment (presumably) matches theirs?

Yes, that’s just as offensive as it sounds, because there’s clearly no way any of them could have an actual mind of their own, and decide to support a candidate based on ISSUES rather than birth characteristics.

An embarrassingly short time later, CNN posted another story: CNN readers respond angrily to ‘race or gender’ story.

To quote basically everyone on Fark, “O rly?”

A reader named Tiffany gave it to them quite efficiently:

“Duh, I’m a black woman and here I am at the voting booth. Duh, since I’m illiterate I’ll pull down the lever for someone. Hm… Well, he black so I may vote for him… oh wait she a woman I may vote for her… What Ise gon’ do? Oh lordy!”

Both articles use the same photos/layout, and, best of all, appear to have been posted within minutes of each other.

“Hey, chief, I have an idea for an article that’s so offensive it’s guaranteed to get us lots of email!”

“Ok, Randi, but be sure to have a followup piece ready, then we can recursively link them to each other, trapping readers on our site forever! Muwahahahaha!”

You know, Print Media, you don’t get to whinge about blogs perpetrating “journalism” when you yourselves are falling down on the task.