Ken's Weblog

People should not fear their governments; governments should fear their people.

Month: February 2016

  • Crimethink must be punished

    Child Faces Criminal Charges After Using Weapon Emojis on Instagram. A Virginia 12-year-old faces criminal harassment charges after posting an Instagram message that said “meet me in the library Tuesday” followed by gun, knife, and bomb emojis. [Hit & Run]

    The charges are a smokescreen. What this girl is really being persecuted for is thoughtcrime, for using an emoji of a gun. They don’t have to actually get a conviction, just send a message to show the other peasants what will happen to them. If they didn’t, people might escalate to more serious thoughctrimes like drawing pictures of guns with their crayons, or even something truly unforgivable like pointing their fingers and saying “bang.” By going after one girl, no matter the outcome, they’ve given the other inmates of their government school a powerful lesson on why they should “exercise [themselves] in crimestop.”

  • More hypocrisy by the Evil Empire

    US condemns China lawyer ‘confession’. The US says a purported confession from a prominent Chinese lawyer on state television runs counter to the rule of law. [BBC News]

    Since the Evil Empire coerces confessions from people hundreds if not thousands of times per day, perhaps they meant that doing it rarely enough that it’s a newsworthy event is counter to the rule of their law?

  • Quote of the Day

    Much of what passes for political argument is not merely fallacious and unconvincing, but not even intended to be convincing. It’s only a fig leaf so people can pretend to have a reason other than their real reason for voting as they do. It’s not intend to be analyzed, it’s merely to be pointed at.

    Joe Shipman

  • Your tax dollars at work

    Radar blimp went rogue because auto-deflation system had no batteries.Last October, a Defense Department tethered radar blimp broke loose of its moorings near Baltimore and drifted across two states—taking out power lines as it dragged its tether cable behind it in a 13-hour, unguided flight.

    […]

    The JLENS program, which uses two high-flying aerostats with radar domes (one a search radar system and the other a targeting radar to lock onto low-flying cruise missiles and other potential threats), has cost over $2.7 billion since the program began in 1998.

    […]

    When it finally came down 160 miles north in Moreland Township, Pennsylvania, the Army had state police bring it down the rest of the way with approximately 100 shotgun blasts. [Ars Technica]

    So, the cost of this foolishness is $2.7 billion dollars, plus the cost to repair various power lines and buy 100 shotgun shells. The number of cruise missiles that were fired at the US since 1998 (or, for that matter, that could have been fired) is zero. Still, this absurd boondoggle isn’t the worst use of stolen money. At least they didn’t use it to torture or murder anyone.

  • Amusing service terms

    Somebody who actually reads the terms of use on websites spotted this one, from Amazon:

    57.10 Acceptable Use; Safety-Critical Systems. Your use of the Lumberyard Materials must comply with the AWS Acceptable Use Policy. The Lumberyard Materials are not intended for use with life-critical or safety-critical systems, such as use in operation of medical equipment, automated transportation systems, autonomous vehicles, aircraft or air traffic control, nuclear facilities, manned spacecraft, or military use in connection with live combat. However, this restriction will not apply in the event of the occurrence (certified by the United States Centers for Disease Control or successor body) of a widespread viral infection transmitted via bites or contact with bodily fluids that causes human corpses to reanimate and seek to consume living human flesh, blood, brain or nerve tissue and is likely to result in the fall of organized civilization.

  • Another good cop

    The one thing that will get a cop fired. So Park knew the law. His supervisor didn’t. But Park’s supervisor ordered him to make an illegal arrest. Park refused. You can probably guess who got fired.

    […]

    I guess the lesson for Georgia police officers here is that you can shoot unarmed suspects in the back. You can gun down an innocent pastor. You can kill an innocent man in his own home during a botched drug raid. You can blow a hole in a baby’s chest during another botched drug raid. You can repeatedly abuse inmates after strapping them into a restraint chair. You can go to the wrong house, then shoot an innocent man and kill his dog.

    But never, ever embarrass your fellow police officers. [The Washington Post]

    Occasionally I find a story about a good cop. Sadly, those stories invariably include the fact that the good cop is no longer a cop, precisely because he or she was a good cop.