On Mass Shootings...

In every instance, we failed the victims long before the madman touched a firearm. One cannot rationally argue that these people descended into madness in a vacuum. Someone, somewhere knew something. And did nothing. The "this is not my problem" attitude condemned the victims to their fate.

In short, we are ALL to blame. People here don't ask anyone else if they're okay (incidentally, a study of suicides makes reference to how many suicide notes stated that had just someone even pretended to care, the person would not have killed themselves). People here don't say something when they see something, especially in northern VA - see a toddler making a beeline for the sliding door to run onto a busy street? Not my problem. Someone's car broken down? Honk and swear - make sure to not offer any help. Guy shot and bleeding out next to your gas pump? Step on over, pay no mind.

At the same time the left has closed mental health institutions in the name of humanity, and the right cut access to mental healthcare because they see it as welfare. This abandons the caretakers as well as the mentally ill.

The social contract broke down into utter selfishness. That's what's killing people.

Of course, it's much easier to make the assault weapons ban and magazine size restrictions in effect in CT at the time of the last shooting national. American Exceptionalism: repeating the same thing the states tried on a national level and expecting different results.

Do you have Dream? That'll be $10, please.

Apparently it still costs $10 to see Dr. Martin Luther King's speech in case you missed it.

Awesome. People will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their bank account and depth of their rolodex.

In other news, the SOPA protest is in full swing. It is definitely an interesting list of supporters, who won't be getting any of my money. Ironically, the right-wing "let freedom ring" people are in full support of this bill, since it purports to stop the Chinese from stealing our stuff. mmkay.

See the money trail at OpenCongress.org (a prime target for a SOPA shutdown when this passes, for sure!).

Companies:

Oh, wait, the bill says I can't. And I can't link there either.

Ironically, "Open Congress" is listed as a supporting corporation - what's up with that?

About 21 MILLION dollars have been donated by supporters of the bill, notably to:

Rep. Eric Cantor [R, VA-7] $668,192
Rep. Howard Berman [D, CA-28] $590,398
Rep. Steny Hoyer [D, MD-5] $557,107
Rep. James Clyburn [D, SC-6] $486,927
Rep. Michael Capuano [D, MA-8] $465,500
Rep. Bruce Braley [D, IA-1] $438,839
Rep. Nancy Pelosi [D, CA-8] $416,100
Rep. Allyson Schwartz [D, PA-13] $409,019
Rep. John Boehner [R, OH-8] $403,800
Rep. Gary Peters [D, MI-9] $395,798

Sen. Harry Reid [D, NV] $3,502,624
Sen. Charles Schumer [D, NY] $2,648,770
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand [D, NY] $2,080,651
Sen. Barbara Boxer [D, CA] $1,431,843
Sen. Scott Brown [R, MA] $1,364,872
Sen. Robert Portman [R, OH] $1,363,009
Sen. Patrick Toomey [R, PA] $1,291,744
Sen. Michael Bennet [D, CO] $1,019,172
Sen. Mark Kirk [R, IL] $911,296
Sen. Patrick Leahy [D, VT] $905,310

Of course, none of this is fishy, one bit.

How Long Must One Study to be This Idiotic?

In its infinite wisdom, VANOC included bits of Leni Riefenstahl (yes, that Leni Riefenstahl) in its promotional videos. Awesome - now all we need is bits of 1984 in there, and we'd have the perfect video track to what's turning out to be the largest military presence in western Canada since World War II. Fifteen minutes of hate, anyone?

In other news, almost 1000 new CCTV cameras now go live in the "Olympic Zone," and are supposedly to be turned off again after they're over. Mmmmkay. Can we at least rename call the Games the 2010 Oppression Games? 2010 Police and Military Games?

Another opinion, nicely summed up is on the Guardian.

At least we can look forward to "Olympic Oppression Done Right" in London in 2012 - they don't need to add any more cameras.

How Google was Cracked by the Chinese

Microsoft contends on its security blog that a heretofore unknown vulnerability is responsible for the EPIC breaches at Google. Logic would let one surmise that this is likely the same attack vector used to breach DoD contractors' systems too, to get to the supposedly unclassified specificatons of the F-22 Raptor as well as some submarine technology.

Affected are IE 6, 7, and 8, most revisions, according to their security advisory. Apparently a dangling pointer is to blame - these are hard to find unless they cause stability issues.

Food for thought: anyone with the resources to rip apart binary code to craft one of these exploits has significant funding, and significant backing. The only other option is a source code leak at Microsoft.

Everyone else who "trusted their vendor" really needs to rethink it. And anyone who still thinks closed source is more secure, well, there is some cheap swampland someone will sell you...

How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Vancouver 2010 Olympics

Just in: Vancouver Olympics Committee embarrassed to ask Vancouver Symphony to "Milli Vanilli" their music.

It's true, I read it all on the CBC (credit them for the pic on the right too).

First comes the article:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/12/19/symphony-olympics.html


And then their hasty apology:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/12/20/bc-vanoc-apology-symphony-orchestra.html

In VANOC's defense:

It is usually recommended that the performances for live television events be recorded in the event of technical difficulties. Fine - but asking a while orchestra to pull a Milli Vanilli?

You got caught, then backpedaled because you realized this was retarded.

VANOC, why stop there?

Apologize to the taxpayer who will be stuck paying for your boondoggle - in 2006 you were already 110 million over budget. How much is it now?

The apologize to the protesters, whom you want to keep in "free speech areas." Less willing to taze and pepper-spray their way to notoriety (as if they needed more), Vancouver police shoves this chief into the limelight trying to backpedal. Nobody buys this, since it'll be the RCMP doing the tazing and pepper spraying anyways.

Then apologize to the radicalized protesters, to whom RCMP have said "we're watching you!"
CBC Story 1
CBC Story 2 (6000 km away in Nova Scotia...)
CBC Story 3


Then apologize to the people that lampoon you in protest, and the copyright law abuse you attempted to have passed in Vancouver city council. (Backpedaling here)


Apologize to the future generations of British Columbians for not being able to see the pristine "wilderness preserve" blasted and bulldozed for your demanded highway improvements. Never mind the luxury homes along the route as part of the package.

And the Olympics should apologize for having become an institution in whose name human rights are suppressed worldwide. Remember the people who applied for protest permits in 2008...

Dare I say that the Olympics, as noble as their claimed intentions are, are now a world leader in causing oppression?

Cash for Clunkers: Punish Responsible People

I am getting sick of hearing "cash for clunkers is out of money" between dealership car ads.

So let me get this straight - anyone dumb enough to buy a car that didn't even get 20 mpg, bitched about it, gets a reward of up to $4500 for my stupidity.

Got it, thanks - the rest of us responsible proles subsidize the stupid and self-centered once again.

Yikes - more rumblings from the (gun) control crowd

From her AP soapbox, Deborah Hastings once again makes her point for gun control, stating that since the murderers responsible for the latest shootings had permits (to possess, not carry), we're all guilty by association.

She knows so little about the reality of firearms legislation that she confuses the license to possess (required in New York state, for instance) and a license to carry (called a CHP or CCW license). That right there says this is not her brain talking.

She acknowledges the other side of the argument with one sentence and one fragment:

Gun enthusiasts say there is no way to prevent human beings from committing insane acts. Whether they have a gun permit or not. (sic)

That's right. That is the main argument here. People are still getting shot in Britain, SE DC, Canada, Mexico, New York City, and Detroit, and in far greater numbers than anywhere you accuse of weak gun laws. Whether proof of "need" is necessary, as in Canada, or an outright ban like DC, Mexico and Britain, it does not work. Kids are still getting shot, and violent crime decreased at lower rates after the law changes than it did in the USA during the same period, in terms of number per 100,000 of population.

And don't give me that "90% of guns are traced to the USA from Mexico" line.

Since you don't want to read Fox news, I'll quote them too:

In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced -- and of those, 90 percent -- 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover -- were found to have come from the U.S.

But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.

Do the math.

So what's the solution? Banning guns did not work. More guns do invite more accidents, just like more cars do. Maybe licensing people to exercise their first amendment would be a start.

Man with Gun spotted on Google Street View

Awesome. Gun, yep. Liquor, yep.

It's nice to live somewhere where you can do that, and not cause a panic in the sheeple.

Hang up on Yoomba

Thanks to AT, who reminded me of this snippet.

Rumor has it that Yoomba, the contact-list-spamming VoIP service was shut down this week.

www.yoomba.com is down, FWIW. Sad to see that at best, highly impolite business practices survived this long.

November 4: We all lose.

Voter apathy abounds once more, as people get tired of the hyping for the big election. But no matter who wins, the real winner is big government. You have two candidates promising to expand government to do this and do that, and insisting the USA can support its debt load to pay for it. While that may be true, I remain unconvinced that more government is the cure to the ills that ail us.

Let's see:

The War:

It's a war on ideology, not a nation. Can't win a war against an idea. Big Brother rings with "War is Peace. Ignorance is Strength." You have one candidate stating that telling the enemy affected by the idea how long they have to lie low before they leave, and the other telling everyone that the mess made by the USA needs to be fixed as best as possible. I agree with the latter, because while the USA plays world policeman, other countries are tired of cleaning up afterward, especially when a lot of vitriol flowed their way too.

Trade:

One candidate blames all ills of the economy on globalization, and has made NAFTA his sworn enemy. This shows his absolute ignorance about how NAFTA actually works to the benefit of the USA. Let's see - the USA gets access to Canadian labor, and can send its professionals freely to Mexico and Canada to build their own businesses.

In return Mexico gets the "hope" of jobs by those businesses, and gets to sell its oil at cut rate prices. Canada gets to "hope" that US companies buy its products while having to compete for professionals with US companies able to pay more and benefitting from a much lower tax structure. Plus Canada is given the good grace to be able to sell its natural resources at 1980's prices.

The USA gets to ignore rulings from the WTO against duties in contravention of WTO rules. The USA also gets to ignore rulings by the NAFTA panel for duties that violate the trade agreement. And it clogs the same panels trying to eliminate the sanctioned counter-veiling duties.

So in short, the USA wins. It gets cheap Canadian electricity, saving California from Enron. It gets to tax the piss out of Canadian roofing products that should have no tax. It gets cheap Canadian oil, natural gas, and special treatment for environmental regulations in Canada.

So Obama thinks that Canada will decide to be nice, and negotiate an even better deal for the USA?

Try this:

• The USA gets to pay for natural resources at Canadian market prices, in Canadian Dollars.
• Making the NAFTA trade commission rulings binding.

What does this do for US "Joes"?

• Double the price of natural gas.
• 20% increase in the price of lubricants
• 50+% increase in water prices for the western USA (which will be reflected in vegetable prices!)
• Car prices in the USA would increase 10% or more - remember that Canada makes almost half of the parts for cars built in the USA.
  

Should the USA decide to "strong-arm" negotiations (like canceling TN visas):

• Every Canadian NAFTA professional enables the employment of 2 American workers, average.
• Departure of the estimated 20,000 NAFTA professionals would cost the USA another 40,000 jobs at the minimum.
  

A great start to "fixing the economy", Obama. What's next, "Arbeit macht Frei"?

Personal Responsibility:

The clamor for Obama also underlines the willingness of people, in times of uncertainty, to demand they "be taken care of" by government. This is not startling, but certainly eye opening to see how impoverished the "American Spirit of Independence" really is. Under Obama, especially under a Democratic super majority, expect your right to fail to be severely curtailed, and if you do succeed, to be penalized harshly to "spread the wealth around."

If my business makes more than 250,000 per year, it pays more corporate tax. Great - why should I grow beyond this and employ more Americans then? The average 7-11 makes more money than this. Proprietors get doubly screwed.

If I am "rich", and depending on which debate you listen to the Democrat's definition ranges from "over $40,000 per year" to "over 150,000 per year depending on their audience, you get to pay more tax too. In reality this amounts to little more than what the Bush tax cut took out, but you're approaching Canada's rate, and Canada gets cheap health care.

At least Obama can get away with mentioning that there is a problem in some minority communities of motherhood out of wedlock feeding the cycle of crime. I applaud at least that shred of remaining personal responsibility. It beats "lebensborn" camps any day.

Conclusion:

We're screwed on the NAFTA issue alone. And don't get me started on baseless measures like gun control - it's really helped keep the murder rate in Chicago, DC, LA, and Oakland down, hasn't it? "Common Sense" is about as malleable as the term "rich." If you know nothing but are asked to opine on something, what makes sense to you won't make much sense to someone who knows anything about the subject.

The return of the "fairness doctrine" translates to "we don't appreciate the fact that people enjoy listening to foaming-at-the-mouth neocons ranting on air" so we'll make stations carrying them put on stuff that advertisers won't pay for because nobody wants to hear it if they want to make money. Great. Real fair, that is.

McCain isn't much better, but at least electing him would keep the American tradition of a divided government keeping insanity and change in check.

News of the "Death of American Capitalism" grossly exaggerated

As there is further evidence of the bills on the unsustainable becoming due, let me remind you, humbly, of this:

Eight billion in farm subsidies. (Federal budget, 2006)
One trillion in oil company subsidies. (est.)
One trillion in nuclear energy subsidies. (est.)

Now, please explain to me where the capitalism part comes from.

For all of the blaming of the "free market's" role in the economic correction (say "meltdown" like you're out of breath or something), let me remind you that there isn't one, at least in America.

Much of the subsidies are returned to Washington in the form of fees paid to lobbying firms, probably a quarter in all.

Things to be said to consumers:

Nobody made you sign the leases, loans, and mortgages at variable interest rates.

Nobody told you that signing the leases, loans and mortgages absolved you of following a sound financial course.

So why did you?

Why make the rest of us pay?

Handout/bailout passes, markets plunge even more

Bound to happen. Why you ask?

Because the markets weren't afraid of the correction. They were afraid of government's reaction to a healthy correction.

It just goes to show you that Congress is really run by CNN hype-mongers.

Edit:

Washington Post's Howard Kurtz looks at this, and comments on how journalists are told that "well, you don't have an MBA. Trust us." Had I been there I would have shot back and stated "well, you people seem to think that leveraging synergies in the enterprise is always a good idea."

The point is, this crisis is MBA and press-made. While the mortgage and investment derivatives markets were deregulated during Clinton's first term, there is blame for both parties here, and just as much blame on consumers for signing mortgage contracts that they either didn't read, didn't understand, or being so desperate that they'd bet their dream on a bubble. But you can't blame the consumer. Unless you don't want to win the election.

Think of this way. 50 years ago, it took a working family (that would be one bread winner) about 10-20 years to pay off a single family home. Today, it takes two bread winners 40 to 60 years, and was rising ever faster. Measuring costs and prices in working family years or average income years does put the prices of things into a clearer perspective.

Alas, this does not fit the view of neo-classical economics, nor does it fit the hype-and-hype strategies of the press or the MBA corps.

Message from Creative: Stop making our products work!

Well, I posted this on Slashdot, as I am sure there were other submissions as well.

Here is the story - a user named "Daniel_K" "modded" (I hate that term) the driver suite that Creative distributes for their sound cards to re-enable some features their driver disables in Windows Vista. Notably, these features work just fine in Windows XP, and Creative seems to be pushing this as a way to make customers upgrade to a new card, the same as the old, but with a driver that works (for now).

Sound fishy? You bet.

To quote their VP (original thread archived here):

Daniel_K:

We are aware that you have been assisting owners of our Creative sound cards for some time now, by providing unofficial driver packages for Vista that deliver more of the original functionality that was found in the equivalent XP packages for those sound cards. In principle we don't have a problem with you helping users in this way, so long as they understand that any driver packages you supply are not supported by Creative. Where we do have a problem is when technology and IP owned by Creative or other companies that Creative has licensed from, are made to run on other products for which they are not intended. We took action to remove your thread because, like you, Creative and its technology partners think it is only fair to be compensated for goods and services. The difference in this case is that we own the rights to the materials that you are distributing. By enabling our technology and IP to run on sound cards for which it was not originally offered or intended, you are in effect, stealing our goods. When you solicit donations for providing packages like this, you are profiting from something that you do not own. If we choose to develop and provide host-based processing features with certain sound cards and not others, that is a business decision that only we have the right to make.

Although you say you have discontinued your practice of distributing unauthorized software packages for Creative sound cards we have seen evidence of them elsewhere along with donation requests from you. We also note in a recent post of yours on these forums, that you appear to be contemplating the release of further packages. To be clear, we are asking you to respect our legal rights in this matter and cease all further unauthorized distribution of our technology and IP. In addition we request that you observe our forum rules and respect our right to enforce those rules. If you are in any doubt as to what we would consider unacceptable then please request clarification through one of our forum moderators before posting.

Phil O'Shaughnessy
VP Corporate Communications
Creative Labs Inc.

Mr. O'Shaugnessy, do the right thing and resign, because you know nothing about how software developers or the market work. You clearly fell off the cluetrain. Go crawl back under the rock you crawled out under from, or maybe some dying music label that sells crappy music but wants to blame the Internet will hire you.

Creative's damage control folks have now deleted this post on their forum, and replaced it with this:

We have read the strong feedback about Creative's forum post regarding driver development by Daniel_k and other outside parties. Creative's message posted on our behalf by our Company spokesperson tried to address our concern about the improper distribution of certain software which is the property of other companies. However, we did not make it as clear as we would have liked that we do support driver development by independent third parties. The huge task of developing driver updates to accommodate the many changes in the Vista operating system and the extensive testing required, including the lengthy Vista certification requirements for audio, makes it very difficult for Creative to develop updates for all past products. Outside developers have been very helpful to Creative and our customers by developing updates for many of our Sound Blaster products, and we do support and appreciate these efforts. This however does not extend to the unauthorized distribution of other companies' property. We hope to work out a mutually agreeable method for working with Daniel_k in supporting his efforts in driver development. Going forward, we are committed to doing a better job of working more closely with third parties to support their development for our products and our customers.

Message Edited by Dale-CL on 04-01-2008 03:49 PM

Sounds like that reverse gear grinding away. In short, Creative's position is:

• The technology daniel_k re-enabled for Vista was only licensed from the original creators for use under Windows XP.
• Daniel_k was wrong to accept money to support is "illegal" habit. (If you're claiming that I only have a license to my hardware, you guys need to get your heads examined. It's like Ford telling you you don't have a license to put Yokohama tires on that car.)
• They're really mad that he made their kind-of-crappy audio processing suite work with cards other than ones made by Creative. Boo-hoo.

Tough cookies, Creative. Makes me glad I passed your products by the last couple of years.

Daniel_k got responded on Wired - good for him to do this in more mainstream press.

The Saturday Funnies #1: noreply.com apparently gets your mail

Funny for a couple of reasons. Or sad.

So this guy registered donotreply.com (Washington Post, warning, reg req'd sometimes) as a joke in the 90's, and gets confidential emails from all sorts of places - Halliburton's now-famous KBR in Iraq, some banks, and with them all sorts of legal threats from technical luddites who seem to think he's wrong for opening or reviewing emails sent to his address. Sweet.

I guess the really cool thing is he keeps it all on a good natured blog, and if he's mailed a copy of a donation to an animal charity he'll take down the ostensibly offensive post.

It's not like he's posting SSNs, account numbers, or classified information here, although stuff does end up in his inbox, I am sure.

And, instead of hassling the guy, the DHS should give the guy a medal - otherwise their misconfigured emails would end up in the hands of the Russian mob.

Newsflash: Terrorists use "low tech tricks" to foil authorities

Oh no!

The Washington Post reports here that terrorists are using low tech, simple codeword transliteration to foil attempts to monitor them. No kidding. Dough becomes explosives, the hospital becomes jail, and ... you should get the picture.

Scared?

You should be. According to the article, in 2005 Andrew Rowe was sent to prison for 15 years because authorities felt they found a code book mapping Nokia phone model numbers to other "things." Presumably they had to do with terrorism, but nobody could figure out a specific plot, meaning his crime, other than a transliteration booklet, is unspecified.

Wait! If I say, I'd like a Nokia 6610, and that the Nokia N80 sucks, I can go to jail for 15 years?

Awesome!

So you didn't have the dough to help your cousin with the hospital bill? Guilty you are!

I guess it's high time sacrifice more freedoms for security, don't you think?

More of Turks, Kurds, and other stuff

(Explicit Language, you have been warned)

Well, since the Turks are knocking the terrorists (wait, WP says "rebels" so they must be the good guys, right?) about in northern Iraq, I have had a number of email exchanges with concerned friends. As an outside observer, but having had the pleasure of standing in the same spot in Ankara a couple of days after a suicide bomber (also a "rebel" - shame on you, Washington Post!) blew himself to pieces next to the Atatürk statue, I suppose I could be allowed to offer an opinion on the matter.

Now, many in the US, as seems to be the pattern, choose to only remember the bad stuff - like Turkey saying no to the 4th Infantry Division's invasion route. Rummy and Cheney declared it to be so, and when the Turks did not heel up, they were to blame for the Iraq debacle.

Primarily Kurdish northern Iraq has been a poster child for US propaganda on the surface; construction is working, police are knocking out Arab terrorists, rather than using military might. Never mind the ethnic cleansing of non-Kurds in the cities, that would be bad press. But in Turkey's east, the ethnic Kurds are near destitute, since the PKK kills enough teachers to make the rest leave, as well as doctors. Without education, people stay stupid, and believe what the smarter ones tell them. Before you say once more that my GF makes me pro-Turkish, I have actually been amenable to Turks ever since getting into a fight for talking to a Turk in my elementary school playground in Germany. You know I generally don't take sides, and prefer to highlight other perspectives when it comes to what's now an academic discussion more than one of belief.

With the 4ID and Turkey, it's not as if US gear, other than that was used for normal NATO operations, was landed already; Rummy and Cheney falsely assumed that the Turks would take their billion dollar bribe and were caught flat footed when they didn't. Rummy certainly blames Turkey, but the lost ordnance came primarily from south of Baghdad, which US troops had reached in a week. Who fucked whom first will obviously be a matter of contention, with the Turks position being that the way it was announced, and then the billion dollar carrot made the ruling party lose the elections, and the new government wasn't about to throw themselves in front of the bus for Bush with the IMF/WB's fucking of Turkey, and the Gulf War One Fuck so fresh on everyone's mind.

I'll beg to differ with the securing the armories bit anyways since that's Rummy's big copout - it was never a part of the battle plan as announced, and while the 4ID's heavy equipment was delayed, the soldiers fly on commercial jets, and could have easily secured the armories would that have been in the plan in the first place. You don't need tanks in that case, especially with air support less than 10 minutes away.

The reason that the US "assists" the Turks is to stop them from rolling into the north wholesale, and wrecking the only part of Iraq that's even remotely functional. The Turkish military has lobbied hard for clearance from parliament to do so. What the Kurds want is for US-Turkish relations to break down - since something like 70% of US war materiel is trucked in from Turkish ports and comes through the US Airbase in Turkey, the Turks cutting this off would almost eliminate US presence in northern Iraq.

Pelosi's motioning of the Armenian Genocide was another stick in the eye for Turkey; I think they should get over it, but considering the time that has passed it would do more harm that good to Turkish-Armenian relations to order additional restitution. Akin to Germany paying to Israel for over 50 years, for the sins of its grand fathers - I am sure this has nothing to do with the antisemitism on the rise there now.

The other reason is that while Cheney and Bush see fit to piss on 50 years of cooperation with Turkey, the militaries are more closely intertwined that anyone wants to admit; remember the missile crisis, remember 9/11, remember Gulf War One, Lebanon, Libya and a number of other times where they stepped up to the plate and more than what a NATO ally would. The US military may be able to project might worldwide without help, but it sure is easier with convenient ports of call.

Happy New Year!

World AIDS Day

Well, I guess it's that day of the year again where we should all feel bad about not having done enough to ... well, have done something.

Everyone agrees that what's been done is not enough. The profit-oriented pharma industry has developed hideously expensive drugs of dubious value, and denied them to those unable to pay. Those with insurance have found their benefits limited, and bump into the "lifetime benefits limit" or "annual benefits limit" two thirds of the way through treatment for cancer, or something less serious.

So, all I ask, righteously cloaking myself in the names of the nameless victims in Africa: Billions of dollars were given. Where did they go?

Corrupt governments. UN palm-greasing, and hand-wringing trips for good PR. Funding conversion to Christianity (hey, look at what the evil Afghans did to our proselytizers ... err... missionaries - special at 11. Skipping the (no) good they did).

I'll make a bet that less than 10 cents of every dollar sent actually do "something" to help. Make that five cents of every dollar.

Oh, wait, that would appeal to reason, not emotion. Right on, CNN. Way to make me feel bad, but only about the three little children in that mud hut in Africa.

Blackwater and the Reality of War

As I am sure everyone has heard by now, Blackwater is in the midst of a scandal because of the shooting of "unarmed civilians" in Nisoor Square. Pundits fell all over themselves to leap to conclusions, and as is normally the case, the first casualty is the truth, and the second is critical thinking.

I am sorry that people died. I am sorry for them and their families. But I won't let emotions cloud my judgment.

It's funny how quickly simple-stupid police work that even the press can do gets forgotten in the name of a political agenda.

So, let's review the facts, based on pictures in the news and what the reports have in common:

• People died from bullet wounds at Nisoor Square
• Blackwater vehicles have bullet holes in them

Now, the Iraqis state that all killed were civilians, and perhaps a cop or two. What is the problem with this?

• An insurgent becomes a civilian when his AK is taken away
• Nobody has pictures of where the bodies fell - are there shell casings there? What caliber were they?
• What caliber bullets killed the civilians?
  
• Were any of the bodies tested for powder residue?

I doubt points two and three, above. Once again, the press should be ashamed of themselves.

To make this clear: Insurgents tend to use AK rifles, using either 7.62x39mm or 5.45x39mm ammunition. Incidentally the majority of this stuff is in a steel laquered case of a greenish color.

Blackwater is one of the few PMCs in Iraq that equips their people with AR or M-16 type rifles. These fire 5.56x45mm cartridges, almost all of which leave brass casings. Shiny, easy to tell.

The wound ballistics between the three calibers are well documented, and could certainly be determined by a skilled coroner, with the rudimentary investigation being quite cheap.

To back Blackwater's statement that IED was involved, there are some questions that bear asking as well:

• Why shoot when there is an explosion? It goes boom. If you're still there, drive away, or wait for the army or your response team to secure the scene. Your choice.
• There has been, to date, no clear sequence of events. Now, this may be the fault of the press, but I'll call all of it conjecture until the BBC, Fox, and CNN agree.

Nobody is asking the obvious questions here, and this is sad indeed.

Should wrong have been done, then fine, charge the people involved. Immunity by administrator's order is a bit much, I agree.

EDIT: I read today's story on the Washington Post, about the victims that to them, clearly were innocent. Yes, it's very sad and heart-wrenching. What about the others?

Press Dingbats and SunRocket

I have to say I am still amazed how poor the state of journalism in the country is. I thought Geraldo pioneered drive-by journalism, but it's clear the folks and Washington Post are quick studies. Here is how to do it right.

Errors seen in the Press:

• AP, Washington Post, Forbes: SunRocket was founded in 1994? It's 2004.
• SunRocket offered monthly service for $24.95, and annual service for $199.00. The two-year specials were not on all the time. And they're not "contracts" - if customers cancelled policy was to refund the pro-rated amount. Try that from your contract cell provider.
  

Downright Falsehoods:

• Washington Post's Rob Pegoraro: I'm not a developer, and I'm not recently fired. Read before you pollute the world's search indices. Wait - 11 months ago may be "recent" to you. Oh, and I love the ViaTalk affiliate spammer at the bottom.
  

And for some reason, I thought the Terms of Service made it clear that SunRocket was not intended for business use. Why are businesses then complaining? One news org is so brazen they actually post an article online - I guess they can't read either.

No wonder the press says guns kill.

Selective Truth in the Press

As the pundits continue their shrill noises about the VA Tech Massacre, other people are also starting to dig through some archive material. Checking up on this I found some interesting tidbits about how the nature of self defense is approached by some press outlets.

Case in point: The Appalachian Law School Shooting in 2002.

Failing law student Peter Odighizuwa shot the dean of the school and two others on January 17, 2002.

Depending on the coverage, some news outlets chose to either state that two students who owned firearms retrieved them, confronted the shooter, the shooter dropped the weapon, and was then tackled by a third student. Other outlets leave this out entirely.

The Washington Post article leaves this out.

The article at law.com states that there is some confusion as to whether the armed students actually did confront the shooter.

The Roanoke Times, normally a stalwart anti-firearms news organization (recall, they had published the list of everyone who had a concealed carry permit in Virginia online, comparing the public's right to know about permit holders to the right to know about sex offenders), mentions during the reporting on the April 16, 2005 incident where a VT student with a concealed carry permit was disciplined for carrying a firearm. The date is sadly ironic.

The tip-off for this article is this blog post.

In other news, it turns out the shooter was remanded to custody (Roanoke Times, Washington Post) for a mental health evaluation in 2005. This should have shown up on the background check when the firearm was purchased.