Anonymous Strikes Back.

Apparently in response to the Feds taking down Megauploads, the groups known as 'anonymous" has struck at the federal government and several commercial sites.

Anonymous has sure been quiet lately, but today's federal bust of Megaupload riled 'em up good: a retaliatory strike against DoJ.gov (and plenty of other foes) leaving them completely dead.

Read the rest here

It didn't take any great genius to see this coming. Did the admins of the dot-gov sites being really think there would be no retaliation? Even a minimally competent admin could prepare for this if he knew it might be coming. It is possible the Justice Department didn't just didn't bother to tell the admins to be ready. Maybe the memo got lost along with the tracking data on the Fast and Furious guns.

Watch a Whale -- Go to Jail.

The Economist reports on the case of Nancy Black who is accused of violating the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act. Her crime was video recording a pod of orcas feeding on a grey whale calf they had just killed. Also because she gave the investigators a copy of the commercial video of the event, she is accused of tampering with the evidence.

You can read the artice at Another one in the net.

The saddest part of this and similar escapades is that there is no conspiracy. If there were one, then there would be an articulable evil to be angry at. However, these cases are just the consilience of a poorly written law (passed by lawmakers who probably never bothered to read it) giving broad powers to ambitious bureaucrats anxious to impress their higher ups. Lazy lawmakers and ambitious agents of the state combine to create even more misery than nature intended.

Republican Politics in a Nutshell

Atlantea the Beautiful

Diplomatic Carry

On page nine, Alan Korwin has an unusual take on the right to self defense in the alternate universe inhabited by government officials. He calls it Diplomatic Carry

Officials travel armed. When a contingent of our officials visits any other country, they bring armed personnel in classic right-to-bear-arms manner. Life is dangerous and the ability to protect yourself is a reasonable and prudent thing, a fundamental human right of existence, a moral imperative. So they go armed. It's only rational. Hillary and similar bring along enough firepower that if some of their group go one way while some head off in another, they're both covered.

The same is true in reverse. When an ambassador from Trashcanistan comes to the United States, discreetly armed bodyguards accompany the party at all times, "laws to the contrary notwithstanding." That's lawyer-speak for "their right to carry supersedes any other rules," or in plainer English, "We're above those laws." The ambassador might decide to personally carry too. I'm guessing Hillary does not.

There's this whole "second system" of gun possession and carry here domestically, another layer of rules on top of the common ones you must follow, operating quietly with people in the know cooperating.

Read the rest here.

H/T to The War on Guns.

Photo ID needed to Buy Drano in Illinois.

Just when I think that the politicians have plumbed the depth of their collective stupidity, they bounce back and prove me too optimistic again.

New Law Requires Photo ID To Buy Drain Cleaner

CHICAGO (CBS) – A new state law requires those who buy drain cleaners and other caustic substances to provide photo identification and sign a log.

Read the rest here.

I'll bet the State of Illinois won't require an ID to vote in the next election. If it did, half the voters in Chicago would be disqualified.

Debating a Determinist

Or more accurately, the futility of debating a determinist.

Jerry A. Coyne has an article in USA Today entitled "Why you don't really have free will"

The above article is not an exhaustive defense of hard determinism but it covers some of the high points. In essence, the determinist denies that you can actually make a choice between alternatives. The basic argument usually goes something like this:

1. For any event there are antecedent causes that ensure the occurrence of the event in accordance with impersonal, mechanical causal laws.
2. If an event must occur then it is not free.
3. Therefore, no action is free.

If no action is free then every thought I have and every conclusion I reach was determined when the first hydrogen atom bumped into the second. There is no reasoning required. In fact no reasoning or thought is even involved. It is simply computation. One plus one equals two. Determinism means that the ability to reason is nothing more than an illusion. This leaves me with the curious problem of how to reason with someone who effectively denies the possibility of reason.

Imagine I conduct an experiment demonstrating that determinism is probably false. Because determinism requires that both the determinist and the non-determinist have no choice in what they do, the determinist can simply claim that my evidence is the result of a long chain of causal events and was itself determined. Within the constraints imposed by determinism, no rational argument can be made that determinism is false because reason cannot happen in a determined universe. Only computation is possible. In short, determinism cannot be falsified making it more akin to a religious belief -- or a conspiracy -- than anything else.

Cupcakes are a Security Risk!

MSNBC reports

Frightening frosting? TSA confiscates cupcake

PEABODY, Mass. -- An airport security officer confiscated a frosted cupcake amid fears its icing could be a security risk, according to reports.

Rebecca Hains said the Transportation Security Administration agent at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas took her cupcake Wednesday. According to Hains, he told her its frosting was enough like a gel to violate TSA restrictions on allowing liquids and gels onto flights to prevent them from being used as explosives.

"I just thought this was terrible logic," Hains said Friday.

Hains said the agent didn't seem concerned that the red velvet cupcake, which was packaged in an 8-ounce mason jar, could actually be explosive, just that it fit some bureaucratic definition about what was prohibited.

Read the rest here

I admit that I wonder what Blogger Bob or one of his accomplices will have to say about it but for entertainment purposes only. And from a distance. In a regime of security theater managed by delusional fools, the TSA may be piss in the wind but it is toxic piss.

Jesus Save Me From Your Followers.

The Mad Orge has a rant about "Super Mormons" making a stink over his wife's producion of the school Christmas play.

In one number, children sang while holding hands. That was offensive. Third grade boys and girls shouldn’t hold hands. They shouldn’t sing “I saw Mommy kissing Santa Clause.” Even though its a family song about Mom and Dad having a tender moment together… But they think its about adultry. How thick do you have to be? And then their was the hanukkah song that was to immoral for their kids. It was nothing in the song, but because it was Jewish. Don’t get me started about everything wrong with that…

From: My Mormonism is better than yours

There are people out there who look for excuses to be offended. It is no suprise to me that a significant number of them latch onto religion as an excuse for their neurotic failings. In truth, most of the few Mormons I've met and whom I knew were Mormons were pretty decent people. However, they may have been good peoel but that does not necessarily make them good Mormons.

So what makes for a good Mormon?

Beats the hell put of me. I can no more answer than I can tell you what makes a good Catholic, Jew or Baptist.

I am fortunate that I was born with a hollow spot where my bump of reverence should be so all the talk of gods, goddesses, god-neuters, demigods, avatars, etc. leaves me yawning. I think I can recognize a good person but a good follower of whatever religion? I suspect it is like recursive, self modifying code. A religion is what its followers make of it so, if they make it into crap, then crap becomes the new salvation.

That might explain why so many of them act like think their shit don't stink.

Public Education and Epic Fail

Jerry Pournelle, writing on the subject of Roman Warm, Dark Age Cool, Viking Warm, and I’m taking the day off has this to say about a "Dark Age" and Public Education:

What is certain is that something horrible happened in 535 which ushered in a long period of cooling, shorter growing seasons, plagues, tribal wanderings, and the real Dark Ages, if you define a Dark Age not as a time when you have forgotten how to do something, but have forgotten that anyone ever was able to do it. As with the US in education, where we have forgotten what we used to accomplish with the public schools, and now strive to achieve goals that would have been considered failure by most teachers over most of the period of the public schools.

When future historians write about the history of the United States, the idea of government controlled, tax supported education will rank among the worst ideas ever.

Assuming the looming Endarkenment leaves mankind a future that can afford historians.

The 1911 and the Glock (Humor)

I don't have a dog in this fight -- I personally don't care much for either the 1911 or the Glock -- but this video really is funny