Don't Panic

Maybe it's because I used to be a professional hacker.
Maybe it's because I understand the truth of data
Actually, it's probably because I'm a paranoid hacker and a anti-government libertarian.

But this is my surprised face that the fedgov has been tracking all phone calls, all facebook/youtube/skype/google/apple interactions, all locations from which you use these services.

If you weren't already operating under this assumption you haven't been paying attention.

But don't worry, here's a few reasons why you're not already in jail for thought crimes!


1. Too much raw data

Good news: My suspicions were somewhat confirmed here that they can't process all the data yet. At the moment, they're just storing it. It's just a numerically indexed amorphous blob of data.

Now if you have an indexing point, such as "Dzhokhar Tsarnaev" then, there's TONS of data you can review, and new branches on the connection tree you can investigate off that one leaf of data. But you need a starting point.

Bad news: Computing power is getting to the point where the amount of data is trivial. They're saving it not because they intend to go through all of it, but because they intend to, one day, have the technology to do so automatically.

2. Too many cooks, no one follows the recipes

Good news: If you go to recipe.com and myrecipe.com and search for wild rice gumbo on each, and your friendly neighborhood Big Brother FISA warrants all the information from those websites, there would not be a way to combine that data to output: "Times searched for wild rice gumbo=2" automatically.

Recipe.com and Myrecipe.com store their data differently, so no matter how similar they are, you won't be able to lock the data together like to lego bricks.

However, if they knew they wanted data on your IP address, and you connected to both sites from home using the same IP address, a person, not a computer, but a PERSON could review the data from both web sites, apply brainpower, and say, "It appears this person searched for wild rice gumbo from both sites."

But what if CableCo refreshed your IP address between the time that you went to recipe.com and myrecipe.com? Well then BB would need a FISA warrant for all of CableCo's data, and then a PERSON would have to review that data, and figure out how to connect a subscriber to a certain IP address for a certain block of time.

This problem becomes exponential because the more data you try to connect, the more complexity you add.

Bad news: There are new heuristics engines that can take a pretty solid guess at what things are, and how they might connect. They're not perfect, and a slight imperfection at the second generation means a HUGE imperfection at the twentieth generation, but they're getting better. Or worse, they might get data wrong and implicate or single you out simply due to a mistake.


3. Analog recognition

Good news: If I upload a video to youtube, youtube would love to be able to scan it automatically and return, "This video is about a cat that appears to be playing the keyboard. However, as this is unlikely, the owner is probably controlling the cat's arms. Additionally, the cat seems disinterested." But to a computer, a video is just a bunch of flickering lights. It can tell you technical things about it, the date it was recorded, the size of the file, the metadata, but it can't interpret the flickering lights.

Similarly, a phone call is a series of electronic modulations. Some are static, some are speech, some are background noise, some are all of those things together. Interpreting those warbles into actual speech can be very difficult.

The other difficulty is the sheer size of the data. Because each frame or millisecond of analog data may be important, you can't skip any of it. A high quality recording of me farting into the air intake of your central air system is a huge file. If BB could wave a magic wand and turn that waste of space and processing effort into "ET farts in vent lol" that's much easier to process and store.

Bad news: Speech to text recognition is pretty darn good, and getting better every day. Each time you use google's voice recognition or chat idly with Siri, you make their systems (and therefore, BB's systems) better at turning analog data into text or metadata that they can store and process at a tiny fraction of the computing/storage cost.

Facial recognition is up and coming, but far from where it needs to be. It still relies on old hardware and requires certain conditions. Sounds good right? Well, if you can control the hardware and conditions, like inside an airport terminal, or at the sidewalk outside a government building, they work just fine for exposed faces.


4. The noise to signal ratio

Good news: What percentage of all the data they're gather do you think they're actually interested in? It's nowhere near as high as 0.0001%

The sheer volume of data is gargantuan... no, monumental... no, unfathomable... no, galactic! Yes, the amount of data is GALACTIC. Think of every fart joke on twitter, every racist youtube comment, every "Lol LeIk YoU KaRe aBot Mi tRbL dAy OMGWTFBBQ" post on the faces book, all screaming in your face while you try to find where John Doeson saved a draft email reading, "These reasons and more are why I will strike back against The West for its crimes against my people."

Noise data is being created every day, it's unstoppable. The more of it there is, the harder it is to sift through. No matter the computing power.

A computer that processes all data instantly using unicorns is still limited by the pipes that feed that computer data.

60 million people processing this data day and night would never catch up to real time, so there MUST be limits on what data is deemed important enough to process, therefore, there are places where (barring some true stupidity) your data will be ignored.

Bad news: ... ? I guess if that unicorn computer existed, we could worry about faster pipes, but that just means more noise, faster. It's hard to get around this, even with quantum computing.

As terrible as it sounds, all the useless data on the internet does actually have a use... Be sure to thank a racist youtube commenter.


5. Data packages not partnership

Good news: All accounts I've read have indicated daily full data exports or individual requests. This is likely a function of legal requirements. BB may be able to subpoena X information between Y and Z date, but it cannot enforce a partnership.

Full data exports are giant blobs of data that must be transmitted, entered, and processed before something can be done with them. This means more overhead, and more difficulty. More importantly, this means BB has to conform and contort to work with THE COMPANY'S systems.

That means this data is not optimized, is subject to the company's limitations, and is affected by the company's data storage processes.

Your gmail notes how much free space you have available. What happens if you have 4 GB available, upload a 3.9 GB file of your manifesto (padded with 1080p recordings of bloggers farting into vents), then delete it, and upload a 3.9 GB file of 1080p recordings of paint drying? Does google "delete" the first 3.9 GB file, but secretly stores it forever? Good question.

Blogger keeps a history of posts I've made and drafts I've saved. If I delete a post, might Blogger keep it considering it's so small? Maybe. Multiply that by the tens of millions of users deleting posts every day, and there starts to be a serious cost to Blogger. But lets assume for a moment that they do.

What if I'm actively writing a post, and it's auto saving as I type, and I write "That's why we should kill the president and enforce sharia law" then erase it, and continue normally? Does blogger save all the iterations of my draft posts as they're automatically saved? Pretty unlikely. Maybe just the changes? But that requires more processing power to compare.

What if I delete my blog? Seems pretty likely that blogger might store the whole of my blog for some time in case I change my mind, or if BB requests the information I'm clearly trying to hide. But what if I overwrite ALL my blog posts with random bits of a book I downloaded from Project Gutenberg, THEN delete my blog?

Now you're thinking laterally!

Bad news: The real danger is data partnerships. This would be BB commanding all the company's data, in real time, be forwarded to them, in their own format, for processing. This is 100% connectivity from the company to BB. It eliminates thousands of man-hours, adds an instant update of all changes (ALL not just what the company keeps at the end of the day), and becomes limited only by processing power (which will become unlimited when they figure out that whole unicorn/CPU interface).

Companies may choose to interface in this way, but it's very unlikely. It is also unlikely BB may compel companies to interface in this way. But lots of things that have already happened were unlikely.


6. Your foe is a 20' foot 10,000lb dullard

Good news: At the end of the day, even backed by magical unicorn technology, the Federal Government just sucks at doing everything.

Categorically.

Bad news: There are individuals so zealous for statism and fascism that they work tirelessly to enforce their will upon you simply for their own personal satisfaction. You may be singled out by the dullard, and if he begins the paperwork to swing his fist at you, and you are in the same place long enough for that fist to hit you, it can destroy you.


So what do I do?

Treat all things that happen on networks you don't control as public information. Don't talk about your drug deal/tax evasion/murder over the phone, near your unused phone while under investigation, or with your onStar device tracking your every move and listening for "car accidents" (who owns GM again?).

Don't post things online that you don't want BB to see. (That includes this blog)

Use PGP for all electronic communications.

Obfuscate your meaning in messages.

Don't get on the radar. (I'm not talking about the "I'm a libertarian, Eff the fedgov" radar, I mean the "Plant the bomb on the first and third load bearing support in the parking garage of the federal building at 2am" kind of radar. The fedgov already knows ornery libertarians exist, and they certainly know they don't much care for the fedgov, but that only makes you one out of tens of millions of people.

Make your online persona fit one of BB's molds. Psychological profiles are excellent things to gather, and easy to extrapolate with "close enough" heuristics. Remember how the signal to noise ratio is so high that there must be things BB doesn't both to look at normally? Well there are certain personalities that BB is just not that interested in. Try to become one of those personalities filed under "loud but gutless" or "mostly harmless."

Poke holes in your online persona, and passingly embrace the stereotypes that others want to believe about you. Show that you are philosophically dishonest, and occasionally abandon your morals when convenient (at least, say you do online). "Yeah, I took that government aid, but it's only because it's my money anyways, I paid into the system, and it's not like it's stealing from someone else because it's my money too!" Become someone who doesn't stand out by fitting a stereotype.

Appear to fall into their trap. After the next attack, have a "Come to Obama" moment, where you realize that these "turrists" are "just too dangerous" for us to continue being "free" anymore because "freedom" doesn't mean anything if you're suicide bombed with anthrax ball bearings pressure cooker box cutter TERRORISTS!!!!11 From then on, let your online persona be that of a statist and government apologist.

But don't change too much too fast. A drastic swing in the content of your online postings is more worrisome that you posting, "Someone otta kill dem gubmint offishils!" every day for years.

WARNING: DO NOT DEVIATE

Remember when I was talking about heuristics? Patterns are something computers are GREAT at figuring out and monitoring. A computer system can definitely detect variations in activity, and flag them for review! The sensitivity must be reduced so it doesn't flag every person who buys their Starbucks five minutes later than normal, so if you must change, gradual changes are the key! It would be better to maintain, if you can, what you were doing previously in conjunction with your new activites.

Don't go dark!

Refusing to use all online services and primary phone carriers may be more of a red flag than doing exactly what you're doing right now. Especially when BB thinks he has a bead on you.

Besides, why out the informant when he's more useful to you delivering counter-intelligence? Use these systems knowing they are specifically for BB.

Don't pull the onStar out of your car, wire it for battery power, and leave it in your garage on your special trip.

Don't stop using your debit card, use it to buy your groceries with your rewards card like normal. Then go back in, and buy what you want with cash and no customer card. Yes, the Jack Bauer 5000 license plate tracking system followed you to the store, and yes, Kroger's customer records show you bought X items for Y dollars, and yes, your debit card shows exactly Y dollars at that place in that time window. Do you think they're going to go through the trouble of pulling the security video tapes (if they're not overwritten!) to confirm that this was ALL you bought when they've already got so much data fitting their expectations?

Don't stop texting/calling your comrades! This is a huge indicator of some other form of communication, and will draw further scrutiny into how you might be communicating beyond BB's vision. Maybe a series of passive aggressive texts followed by a long shouting match over the phone, and some final four letter words exchanged via text? The ruse may fall apart when you buy Chinese food with your debit card at the place across the street from his house once a week.

Create digital alibis for your out of character actions. If you're going to meet someone at a book shop you've never been before, do a google search for a book you want, search for nearby bookstores, call the nearby book stores, do a google search for "book store inventory search online", call a couple more, then call your target book store, map directions to the place, text your wife that you're going to get the book and will be back soon, take your phone along, and buy gas on the way, actually buy the book, but not before going for a walk with your friend (with your phone in the car, and his phone at home so you're not on the same tower).

Provide a natural progression for your searches. Think of the murderers who google searched "How to kill someone" then after various searches searched "Where to buy trimetholpoisonate" and out-clicked to chemistrydirect.com. It wouldn't be much better for them to search, out of the blue, "trimetholpoisonate." But maybe if they were searching "My cat is constipated", then "diuretic", then "diuretic for cats", then "where to buy Shitty Kitty Drops", then "Shitty Kitty coupon", then "Shitty Kitty generic brand", then "Shitty Kitty active ingredient", then "trimetholpoisonate for cats", then "Where to buy trimetholpoisonate" and out-clicked to chemistrydirect.com. This stands out a lot less (assuming you actually have a cat... OR searched on google "craigslist free kittens [local city]", posted about your new cat on facebook, and used your debit card to buy cat food and kitty litter once a month)


Practice privacy

Make one or two everyday tasks completely private, just for practice.

Buy and use a prepaid cell phone or credit card with cash.

Turn on a netflix movie at home, then drive somewhere without your cell phone, and add the spent gas back to your car (with cash) before you get home.

Create an email account that you only access from a Starbucks on the other side of town. (Left your cell at home, and refilled your gas tank before you got back, right?)

Pull the battery out of your cell phone and have a private conversation, or put it in the bathroom with the exhaust fan running loudly, and flush before you pick it back up.

Work out codes with your friend, and text each other with unassuming messages that are actually code for other messages.

Keep track of all the "traffic" cameras at the intersections near you, practice plotting routes that pass few or no cameras (You probably shouldn't do this on Google Maps...)

Don't ever think BB is all knowing.




By the way, listen to Glenn Beck. He's the only one who has been putting these things together in an honest and measured way.

"It's just a shot away... It's just a shot away!"

Big Hat Tip to Wirecutter

Because YOU are reading THIS.

It's not over. Because you are reading this.

Stop apologizing. I don't mean you actually saying you're sorry for what you believe, I mean every time you've ever held your tongue. We've been coddling the softest of us for so long we think they're in charge. They're not. They never were. We were just conditioned to believe it.

This was no small feat. It was in our classrooms, our neighborhoods, our friends, our coworkers, our neighbors, our childrens' stories, our books, our newspapers, our TV shows, our commercials, our movies, our art, our music, our gender-neutrally adjusted history, our billboards, our decoder rings, the backs of our breakfast cereal boxes.

It permeated our society like a biological weapon that coated all media, transmitted from mind to mind by written and spoken word.

It is impossible that you still exist.

That you, through your formative years, felt that one splinter of doubt, deep in the back of your mind, and felt it long enough to locate, extract, and examine it. Only to realize it wasn't a foreign body at all. It was the one bit of truth left, and the rest of your mind was foreign.

Confronted with this reality you chose the hard path. You chose to take that splinter, now a seed, and painfully return it to your mind. Burying it deep where it could grow.

It's amazing you still exist, but you do for one reason. because these backward ideas are aberrant to our natures, and deeply different from what we instinctually know to be true.

Weakness is not strength.

Strength is not weakness.

Are you better than the man who accomplishes nothing, blames everyone and everything, including his peanut allergy, his parents for not hugging him enough, and his gym teacher for not making sure he was picked first at dodgeball?

YES.

Because when reality slapped you in the face, you didn't run or hide or make excuses. You learned, you grew, you changed, you adapted. Or maybe you just dug your heels in that much harder.

And while your cheek still stung, you looked it back in the eye and tried again.

When a hard thing hits a soft thing, the soft thing gets softer.

But not you.

Because when life hit hard it didn't make you softer, it made you harder.

Because when the authority figure repeats that unnatural lie with a wagging finger and disdain in his eye, you know in your heart that he's wrong, and your answer is the most powerful word in the world.


NO.


With that single syllable ejected forcefully from your lips, their world shatters, and so do they.

But how do I know this?

Because somehow, YOU still exist.

Because YOU are reading THIS.

Because you are still free in the only place that matters. The last bastion of reason. The final fortress of right. Your mind.

You preserved it for so long, tucking it away from sight when necessary, feeding it morsels from alternative news sources, alternative literature, and alternative people with alternative ideas.

Because you know that these things still exist.

Common sense. Reality. Truth. Honor. Respect. Integrity. Morals. The dogged refusal to give up.

You know they still exist because they still exist in your mind.

Because that's what this fight is actually about.

Because with these powers on your side, there is nothing on this planet that can stop you.

Except one.

Yourself.

They knew this. They knew their weakness of mind, heart, and spirit never stood a chance against your strength. So to hold you back, they used the strongest person they knew.

You.

When elephants are young they are tethered with heavy chains to stakes driven deep into the ground. They are mighty, but still small, and cannot escape. Eventually, they give up. They learn the FACT that they cannot defeat the tether.

When they grow to full size, and become many times stronger than the deepest stake, they do not struggle against the tether, and are held in captivity by a slender rope and a small stake. The only thing holding them back is themselves.


They ENSLAVED us.


They control us with their facts. But just because something is a fact does not make it the truth.

They would tell Edison the fact that the lightbulb can't be invented.

They would tell the Wright brothers the fact that man cannot fly.

They would tell America the many facts why man cannot set foot on the moon.

But Edison did, the Wright brothers did, America did, and YOU WILL.


Because YOU are reading THIS.


Because your chains don't really exist.
Because your freedom really is absolute.
Because your life is actually yours to live.
Because YOU are a HUMAN BEING, and YOU are FREE.

These aren't facts. These are truths.

And to begin to realize these truths all you have to do is say one thing. One syllable. One sound.

NO.

You say it to their faces, while looking them dead in the eyes, without flinching, blinking, or stuttering.

NO.

"I can't tell them what I really think. NO. That's not true. I can."
"I shouldn't do things differently. NO. I want to, and so, I will."
"I'd better do what he says. NO. I can make my own decisions."
"I can't do that, it's illegal. NO. It doesn't hurt anyone, so I can."
"It's impossible. NO. The impossible HAS been done before."

But be prepared for what will happen after you say that powerful word.

Because there is no fury like a master losing control of his slave.

They will rage and wail and threaten and slander and sneer and deride and spurn and scorn and seethe and burn with brimstone and sting with sulfur!

But you will notice one thing they will never do.

They will not stop you.

Because they can't.

They don't believe their own nonsense, they're too smart for that. This is why the rules don't apply to them. Publicly or privately. They know the game consciously or not, and they smirk when they see you following the rules, and they REVEL in their power over you.

Let me say that again; They REVEL in their POWER over YOU.

Every time they condescend you into changing your mind.
Every time they appeal to your better side to make you do something.
Every time they shame you into backing down.
Every time they threaten you into submission.
Every time they remind you of the rules they made up and never follow.

They get a thrill.

It's the thrill of commanding something much larger and more powerful than yourself. The thrill of tricking the behemoth into believing they cannot escape the tether.


So, as one Titan to another, I ask you to do the impossible.

I ask you to do perform futile.

I ask you to break the facts you've known your whole life.

I ask YOU, because YOU are reading THIS...


Pull on that slender rope.


Almost all stakes will pop free at the slightest tug, some will require struggle and strain, and a dangerous few, may take your whole life.

But once that stake comes free, so will you.

The walls that confined you will melt away. Monuments of fact, impossibility, and futility, built larger and greater, reenforced for decades by the careful architects of your mind will turn to DUST, and vanish into nothingness at the slightest breeze of TRUTH. Those glaciers that surrounded you your entire life will melt away and become puddles beneath your feet.

Then, you will truly be FREE.

Freedom IS a possibility if only we remember that what we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly. Freedom carries heavy costs, but I would pay them gladly because you cannot enslave a free man. You can only kill him.

Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.

There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

It is time for this idea.

Again.

How do I know this?

Because YOU are reading THIS.

Aurora shooting taxpayer funded?

It sure wouldn't be the first mass shooting funded by the feds, but it might be the first executed by a private citizen!



CBS News: James Holmes received thousands from grad-school grants ahead of deadly Aurora shooting

James Holmes was the recipient of a $21,600 grant from the National Institutes of Health, a research agency of the Department of Health and Human Services, according to agency records. The grant lasted from July 2011 through June. Holmes also received a $5,000 stipend from the University of Colorado-Denver, where he was a first-year Ph.D. student in its neuroscience program.

Again, everything points to him being a model student with a bright future, which makes this even more disturbing.

Previously, CBS News reported that Holmes spent $15,000 to stockpile a massive arsenal, which included bullets and ballistic gear bought online and four guns from brick-and-mortar stores...

I was honestly curious how he afforded all the kit he had. All that stuff is far from impossible to buy, but it would certainly be quite difficult to buy on a student's finances. Having a glut of money offered him the opportunity to do something he might have otherwise dismissed as monetarily impossible, though there are still many gaps in his reasoning.

I can't help but wonder at the fact that this money is simply given to him with no or few strings attached. I kept reading the article expecting to find that the money couldn't have been spent in gun shops because there would have been a claims process that required approval or something, but it appears they just handed him cash money to spend on whatever he chose.

Foodstamps may only be spent on approved items, yet we see them being misused constantly. Are there checks in place that were circumvented, or were there no checks at all?

"This was his only known income, so this brings up -- you know, in the most unintended consequence possible -- what you have here is the specter of a federally funded shooting because this appears to be the money he had access to during the time he was planning this," senior correspondent John Miller, a former FBI assistant director, said.

Because I'm not a liberal, I'm not calling for a new Bureau of How People Spend Federal Grant Money, but because I'm not full retard I will ask why the hell this isn't something that we already do. The idea of simply handing students tens of thousands of dollars to spend however they wish seems about as smart giving congress tens of billions of dollars to spend however they wish.

Adding auditors to federal programs is like shining sunlight on a vampire.

Luckily, simple, common sense, "wtf we're not doing this already?!" ideas like auditing grants rings very true with we the people. People on both sides of the aisle want to make sure their tax dollars aren't being spent on either guns, knives, and tactical carbine classes or past life regressions, yoga classes, and free trade gluten free cruelty free soy free ipad cases.

This is a prime opportunity to call for some sunlight to be shined on these grants.

Feds start delivering attack dogs to your doorstep!

Man bitten by census worker's rottweiler.

As if felons weren't enough...

Feds start delivering felons to your doorstep!

The government wouldn't pay dangerous felons to knock on our doors would they?

Brother, you don't know the government!

Quote of the ungovernment

A government is a body of people; usually, notably, ungoverned.
~Joss Whedon

Free speech is free speech when the gov SAYS it's free speech

And art is art when the gov SAYS it's art!

Protesting the government is the most important form of free speech. Why should the government get to say who can and can't protest, and how?

From Uncle

Parody: How a bill really becomes a law

[direct link]

I for one welcome our new Democrat overlords.

First of all, let me say that this "health care" bill was pure genius.

You already knew there were several pitfalls in tax-payer funded abortion, and the single-payer system so you took care of the first with back room deals, and the second by building a situation in which there MUST be a government-backed single payer system! The bit about requiring coverage for pre-existing conditions turns the whole idea of insurance on its head! Who on Earth would think they could crash their car, sign up for insurance, and make them pay for it? But in the context of health insurance, it sounds horrible to suggest otherwise! Inspirational!

The bill was perfectly crafted to destroy insurance company profitability to the point that they would have to cast off droves of people, and those who could stay on their coverage would suffer necessarily increased premiums, and severely degraded coverage. You've created conditions that will prove your originally incorrect point to be true! Staggering!

Of course, all this takes place while acting under the guise of making the insurance companies better. The 80% of people who actually like their insurance coverage right now will flip to 80% who hate their coverage! They'll ask-- no, they'll DEMAND the government be the single payer for health care! The brilliance astounds a humble blogger such as myself!

Because the funding was an issue, you intentionally fed the CBO specific requests so the results would be favorable. Then, you silenced detractors by claiming it will be paid for entirely by the rich! Of course, you already know that the rich are rich for a reason, and that they will find a way to avoid these tax increases, but that was your intention all along! Because the big money is in the middle class! So you promise the rich will fund it, then by the time they figure ways around the taxes, people will have no choice but to accept middle class tax increases!

Only these wise Democrats could have had the foresight to include provisions to add 15,000 new IRS agents to deal with the tax impositions on businesses. It will be your own private army of fund collectors! There's no way businesses can comprehend this expansive bill, but they will surely understand the penalties and costs after your agents get through with them! The added expense will force them to cut wages, and lay off employees, making even MORE uninsured people to prove your point!

When the history books are written, they will be about how the Obama administration fought valiantly against the evil insurance companies to bring health care to the masses! They will write about how the insurance companies fought against the change by viciously dropping coverage for the sick and poor while raising rates dramatically in a desperate bid to twist the arm of the defenseless public to fight on their behalf. But the books will also show your eventual victory over the dastardly insurance companies, and that you were so kind as to create a government option for health care that had such amazing service, all private insurers simply shut their doors. Your benevolent reign will be permanently secure in history.

But it can not end there! Once you control the health and well-being of the people, you can use denial of care to destroy your opponents! Who can rise against you if they are too weak or sickly to fight? Dissidents will be denied coverage, and fruitlessly appeal through a bureaucratic maze of paperwork and judgment committees! All who oppose you will fall in line, or die.

It is because of this that I know that you will be our last elected president. How could minds so bright as to develop this flawless strategy leave such a silly thing as an election to chance?

So now, for the first time, I hail you as you will soon be remembered;

All hail Emperor Obama!

Quote of the health care "reform"

Walk tall.
~PDB

We're from the Government-- *CHA-CHINK* We're here to educate you!

Why does the Department of Education need shotguns?

More specifically... Why does it need 27 shotguns?

27 sounds like either too many (like, 27 too many), or too few (like, several hundred too few).

So, wtfm8?

Hat tip to Alan, via IRC

FEMA instructor says founding fathers were terrorists

Or, so the video says.

Can't find anything else about this, or any indication that this guy is from FEMA, but that's what the video title says.

Don't terrorists need to attack civilian targets to be called terrorists? The point is to terrorize the populus, right? Legitimate military targets do not a terrorist make.

This video shows a severe misunderstanding of the word "terrorist."

But that wouldn't be the first time, would it?

Only Responsible Government Agents

From the almighty Oleg Volk

Innocents Betrayed

What single type of entity murdered 170,000,000 innocent people in the 20th century?

Government.

Different governments of all kinds murdered a total of 170 million innocent people in the 20th century.

There was one thing that happened before each and every instance of government-sponsored genocide.


The disarmament of private citizens.


The video is about an hour long, and was produced by the Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership. It covers almost every instance of state-sponsored genocide in the 20th century.

It is a horrifying video, but it must be watched.

WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES OF GENOCIDE

Source material for the numbers

No one can predict the future of this nation, but what we can do is remember never to give up our only effective means of personal defense.

Many of these genocides didn't happen in 6 months, or 6 years. Some took decades to lead up to the resolution of the plan. Building popular anger for years before beginning the first intentional step toward their ultimate goal of genocide. So don't give up your arms for anyone at any time.
Because it usually happens that right after the time when you need them least, you will need them most.

Also remember that many of these horrifying acts took place with popular support, or out of the public eye. This means if you are one of those targeted, you can expect to either have everyone around you against you, or you can expect to have everyone around you not believe you.

You will be alone. But alone is better than in a crowd on a train car being carted somewhere.

One cannot be paranoid about everything. There just isn't enough time in the day. So try to only worry about the worst case scenarios.

Being a Jew in late 1930s Germany is one of the worst.

Never allow yourself or your family to be in that position.
Never allow someone to tell you it could never happen.
Never allow yourself to be convinced to give up your personal arms, even if tyranny seems impossible.


Never--
Never--
NEVER give up your future ability to fight.

There is one situation, though, where I tell a woman to fight to the death. That's when the man pulls out a pair of handcuffs and says, 'Come on, I promise I won't hurt you, this is just so you won't flail around and hurt either of us by accident. Come on, I just want to talk, get in the van and let me handcuff you to this eyebolt here, and I promise I won't touch you' ... But if she gets in the van and puts her wrists in the handcuffs, she has just given up her future ability to fight, and now it is too late.
~John Ross author of Unintended Consequences

"Who could predict?" Is a question that you ask when it's too late.

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
~George Washington

Constitutionality of permanent imprisonment after prison time served up to supreme court

Read that post title again.

The highest court in the land, the supreme court... is going to hear a case... about whether or not it is constitutional... to permanently imprison criminals... after they have served their prison time.

Is that processing?

Now, what on Earth could possibly possess people to believe it could be a good idea to give the government the power to hold people indefinitely, after they have served their time?

Oh shit...

US News: Supreme Court to Hear Sex Offender Imprisonment Case

I didn't realize we were talking about SEX OFFENDERS! Well, shit, in that case, lets broaden the government's powers to identify sex offenders by putting cameras in everyone's home, and give investigators the power to enter homes without a warrant, copy computer contents for review! Hell, while we're at it, lets get cameras mounted to everyone's heads so we can tell if people are looking at children for too long! Fathers that spend hours looking at their kids? OBVIOUSLY SOON-TO-BE RAPISTS! LOCK THEM ALL UP! And teachers? They look at hundreds of children every day for hours at a time! HOW CAN WE LET THIS STAND?! Doctors claim to be doing "medical exams" on children, but WE KNOW WHAT THEY ARE THINKING! LOCK THEM ALL UP!

WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!


That's right, even capital "L" libertarians will go "full retard" when the subject of sex offenders comes up. So let me make this clear...


If you want to imprison sex offenders for life, you CHANGE THE GODDAMN LAW.

You do NOT grant a series of bureaucrats a new power to imprison people who- by their own definition- are rehabilitated!


I understand that the system we have right now doesn't work. When people who simply possess a standard capacity ammunition magazine go to jail longer than child molesters, you know the system is broken.

The solution is not to add new powers to do something that we have the power to change.

When the blade on your lawnmower is dull, you don't attach a kitchen knife to a motor, hang it in front of your broken mower, and push it around your yard.

Because that would be obtuse, stupid, and dangerous.

Because that's exactly what this law is.

So sharpen the blade. Fix the sentencing limits. If you think child molesters should get life in prison (and, I do) then change the law so those convicted can get life without possibility of parole.


This is unbelievable.


The Golem will turn.

Reason.tv solves that healthcare problem

Healthcare Hoops: Where the ref is also a player

From HotAir

Tremendous Ca. parole failures allow 18 year-long kidnap and rape of 11 year old girl

Criminal.

Absolutely criminal.

What's worst is the knowledge that heads will not roll for this.

The parole system is a giant amorphous blob of buildings, cars, paper, computers, and lastly, people. You'd have better luck trying to nail jello to the wall.

Disgusting.

Absolutely disgusting.

The only lesson we need learn from Swine Flu

If the government cannot provide enough vaccine to save us from a new influenza, how are they going to save us from something really nasty?