CmdrFenix.org

Well, my living out of boxes will soon be over. I’m going to be scarce through Wed of this week for my move. These past two weeks have been pretty busy for me. Put in a new network for a client that was pretty large and complicated. Now that the bulk of that work is done, I’m going to concentrate on moving and then life can resume. Catch everyone soon!

I will warn you all right now. The video I am linking at the bottom of this article isn’t easy to watch for anyone who likes dogs or animals, but here is what I’ve found so far. Police exercised a drug enforcement raid on a family in Missouri. Upon arriving around 8p, SWAT forced their way in (call it trying to exercise the element of surprise or whatever, but they forced their way in way harder than was needed), and almost immediately fired 5 shots killing one of the family dogs and severely wounding another. Only a very small amount of Marijuana was even found in the house, but they still saw fit to charge the parents with not only drug possession, but also child endangerment. I’m sorry, but their actions on the family endangered the children more than anything those parents did. All officers and investigators involved need to be reprimanded and perhaps find themselves brought up on such charges.

Stories like this really get my blood boiling because you have to wonder what the state will do you when you REALLY do something that pisses them off. In those cases you simply end up like the Branch Davidians or perhaps Randy Weaver. In this case, it’s another example of the failed war on drugs and a total overreaction of the system.

Where was the burden of proof for the police in obtaining that warrant in the first place? Have they gotten that easy to obtain that the privacy we thought to have in our homes is merely an illusion?

Well been suffering a bit of writers block. I have read the stories of Obama’s “mistress”. I’m just watching that to see what happens with that before I throw my $0.02 in.

One interesting thing that I did come across this interesting article yesterday. Most fisherman are pretty much out of business right now due to the oil slick in the Gulf. BP has been putting them to work in the cleanup operation in order to help them out. Now such a kind act on its part had to have a catch right? There is always a catch… (pun intended) They were making the fisherman (some of which can’t read) sign waivers that prevent them from suing BP in a future date.

No one wanted to waive the right to sue BP, but some fishermen, desperate for cash, signed the waiver anyway.

It took a large amount of public outcry, but as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis stated once, “Sunlight Is the Best Disinfectant”. Once this story got out, it was so unpopular, BP voided all of the waivers and apologized. Have to wonder what they would have done if it hadn’t gone out. We need corporations and businesses to drive the economy, but this level of corporate greed completely turns my stomach.

Come on people! Back to work now!

When I first obtained my CCW permit, I made it a point to research all aspects of firearms laws that I could find. First, I was stunned with how many there were and second I was stunned by how many people had been jailed or arrested for making a simple mistakes. I came across this article yesterday, and thought it struck several cords that I wanted to bring up. We all have seen crimes such as this in the news and every time we shake our head, and usually do nothing.

In the 21st century American legal system, things are no longer so clear. Consider Lindsay Brown, a high-school senior jailed for having a butter knife in her car.

Or Cortez Curtis, a 13-year-old arrested for bringing a calculator that contained tools (including a tiny knife blade) to school. Or 12-year-old Ansche Hedgepeth, handcuffed and detained for eating one French fry on the D.C. subway. Or 61-year-old Kay Leibrand, booked for allowing her hedges to grow too tall.

In some ways, it feels as though our society has forgotten about the spirit of the law. Prisons are overpopulated. The courts are overwhelmed, and even still we have the time to try a high school student for something so silly. I have come across numerous articles about like the story of Lindsay Brown (see above quote) who had no criminal intent on causing anyone harm. There is simply no way to know every law, but there should be some provision for determination of intent. Did that person intent on causing harm, or did they even know it was illegal? That would involved thinking though and it seems that too is something many of our elected officials
(DA’s included) have stopped doing.

“A sound reform strategy will rest on three pillars,” writes legal scholar Brian Walsh. “Restoring traditional criminal law concepts, reinvigorating constitutional rights and reforming Congress.” Each of these steps could be enacted by lawmakers.

Lawmakers reform themselves? I’m sorry, but until we vote them out of office that will NEVER happen. Everybody needs to wake up and STOP re-electing this scum to Washington. You need to research the person you put your vote on, before you go to the polls. Do NOT just do it on a party line vote. Stop falling for speeches that fill you with hope about change. Look at their record. Look at everything they have done. Then decide if you want them representing you.

“The citizens of the U.S. are responsible for the greatest trust ever confided to a political society. We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government.” – James Madison

… and that is exactly what they did. I heard about this a few days ago. I wasn’t completely shocked by the absurdity of this (it was after all coming out of the ATF), but I was worried with how this investigation was handled.

Customs and Border Protection officers have seized a shipment of 30 guns that arrived by ocean container in Tacoma in a shipment described only as “toys and parts.”
…
ATF agents determined that the rifles as shipped from Taiwan were tooled to shoot plastic balls. However ATF says a relatively quick retooling could allow them to fire live ammunition.

I have done airsoft. It’s a fun way to spend a Sun afternoon, and I have a pair of fully automatic airsoft replicas of G36ks. Does this mean with some “retooling” I could turn those into the real thing!? Is my basic level of gunsmithing enough to do this? How much would this “conversion” cost me? I would love to find out what they mean by “readily…converted.”, but none of us will see that for a while as they’ve said the owner needs to file a Freedom of Information Request to get the report. I find it VERY unlikely, knowing as much as do about firearms and airsoft guns, and if I hadn’t confirmed this was true, I’d probably be laughing right now. The ATF just reminds me of a bunch of thugs that are in need of a serious amount of reform. The swamp waters in that organization are pretty deep and slimy.

I also love the media sensationalism of this by not even mentioning the fact they were airsoft guns. They make it sound like they stopped a major shipment from Taiwan of actual machine guns. The media LOVE stories that portray guns in a negative light. They almost NEVER tell about stories where firearms have saved lives and when they do you can usually see this spin on the evens. I hardly watch main stream media anyhow as a result of this. Most of my news and information comes online. At least then I can make my own determinations.

That was the title from the drugereport.com and I think it pretty much hits the nail on the head. Well, if you hadn’t already guessed, the “turkey” that is the Health Insurance Reform bill has passed the House and is on its way to the president to be signed.

On the cusp of succeeding where numerous past congresses and administrations have failed, jubilant House Democrats voted 219-212 late Sunday to send legislation to Obama that would extend coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans, reduce deficits and ban insurance company practices such as denying coverage to people with preexisting medical conditions.

This particular topic is very electrifying to many, but here are my feelings on it. Disagree with them if you want, I don’t care, but this is how *I* feel about it and I think Dr. Earl Sunderhaus says it best and many Americans agree with me.

Sunderhaus said he feels it is his responsibility as a physician to tell his patients to live healthier lives and that obesity and diabetes are costing the country millions of dollars.
…
“Telling this lady that she is fat is the truth, and it’s for her own good health,” Sunderhaus said. “She should be taking better care of herself, and it will be cheaper for us as a society.”
…
Because millions of Americans are secretly thinking the exact same thing as Dr. Sunderhaus and I: Why should we be forced to pay for the costs of other people’s irresponsibility?

Before I dive into the parts of the bill that I think are complete bullshit, I think the last line above speaks for me as to why I despise the concept of universal health care system. Why should I pay for other people’s indiscretions? I’m talking about things like (as shown in the link above):

• Obesity
• Cigarette smoking
• Alcohol abuse
• Reckless behavior
• Criminal activity
• Unprotected promiscuous sex
• Use of illicit drugs
• Cultural traditions
• Bad diets

All of these items are preventable by the person involved. Now I personally don’t really care if you do all these things. I don’t care if you decide to have unprotected promiscuous sex with hundreds of other partners and give yourself AIDS, but why do I need pay for it? If you want to smoke two dozen packs of cigarettes a day, have at it! Just don’t ask me to pay when you develop lung cancer. You can sit there and call me selfish, and that is fine, but the moment you start to force something like health care on people, then everyone gets turned into yentas on other people’s behavior. If Joe Blows kid is drag racing and hits a telephone pole, why should all of us pay for that? I know I’m not the only one who’s pissed off about that.

Getting off the personal beliefs about it, the CBO has shown that is does *NOT* reduce the deficit, and any person that can sit there and say we need to spend money to get ourselves out of debt is whacked. If you are short on your rent or your cable TV, you have to cut spending to pay for it, and not spend more money.

CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 3961 [the "doc fix"], by itself, would cost $210 billion over the 2010–2019 period. CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation have separately estimated that enacting H.R. 3962 [the health care bill] would reduce federal budget deficits by $109 billion over that same period.

CBO estimates that enacting both bills would add $89 billion to budget deficits over the 2010–2019 period, somewhat less than the sum of the effects of enacting the bills separately because of interactions between their provisions. The agency estimates that the two bills together would increase the budget deficit in 2019 by $23 billion relative to current law, an increment that would grow in subsequent years.

So we’re going to spend 940 billion dollars to save 109 billion? You have to be kidding me, and before I put anyone’s boxers in a twist, that last line makes my point, “…an increment that would grow in subsequent years”. Once you force everyone to have health insurance, you now have to pay for it and if you take MA (which has universal health care) as an example, the cost of universal health care in MA is grown every year to the point the State is horribly in debt. The CBO has also shown that 500 billion in savings from Medicare is going to be spent elsewhere, which means… guess what? It’s not a savings!

Also, premiums *will* continue to rise as they have in MA. According to the CBO premiums could increase 10 to 13 percent. Look, I am not saying there isn’t problems within our health care system (our premium increases have been obnoxious and the whole concept of preexisting condition exclusion pisses me off), but this is NOT how I feel the situation should be fixed.

Not much going on this week. Been rather tied up with work, but I did manage to upgrade my Gallery install and update the main site here. The Gallery now has a “Star Trek Online” album that has been requested. I’ll be uploading new screen captures into there in the coming days. Stay Tuned!

Finished OS/Server upgrade. Site should be faster and better with that new car smell!

Now that it’s done… I’m going to play some STO!

-Jon

I hate to say “I told you so”, but I can’t resist here. Let me be brutally clear about my feelings on this. I do NOT trust anything the TSA is saying about this scanning technology. I do not trust the TSA at all. What about my friend’s 7 yr old kid? IMHO the TSA officers on duty and their supervisors should be brought up on charges of child porn for even introducing this technology.

Claims on behalf of authorities that naked body scanner images are immediately destroyed after passengers pass through new x-ray backscatter devices have been proven fraudulent after it was revealed that naked images of Indian film star Shahrukh Khan were printed out and circulated by airport staff at Heathrow in London.

This is a flagrant violation of the 4th amendment of the US Constitution, which protects us from unreasonable search and seizure. Metal detectors? OK. Chemical sniffing machines? OK. Dogs? OK. I am not saying we need to eliminate all security measures, but I’m sorry a strip search to fly every time? Where does the line get crossed between protecting ourselves and doing the work of the terrorists ourselves? Seriously? You can’t protect this country by destroying our freedoms and rights. When nobody can be safe on their own person, we’ve lost and they win.

If this ever came down as a mandate in the US like it is abroad I will totally boycott air travel and I would hope others would join me. If it did come down about mandating this, it would be a VERY sad day indeed.

I have to wonder how long until this gets mandated by our friends at TSA here in the states.

Some passengers at Heathrow and Manchester airports will have to go through full body scanners before boarding their flights under new rules.

It is now compulsory for people selected for a scan to take part, or they will not be allowed to fly.

I’m sorry, but this is effectively “strip or no fly”. Am I the only person creeped out by this? Here are some questions that I have about this. If you were mandated to strip or no fly, what would do? How much safer does this truly make us for cost? Does this violate the 4th amendment of our constitution?

I will only say this. Looking all all the attacks that have happened in the last 10 yrs, would this very expensive technology really have stopped it? It is established that once you implement something like this, it is fairly rare for these types of security measures to be removed.