Sep 102015
 

This is… beautiful:

Lockpickers 3-D Print TSA Master Luggage Keys From Leaked Photos

The Washington Post published a photo showing the TSA’s master keys (the ones that can open *any* “TSA approved” lock that you might use to lock up your checked baggage). Some smart fellers figured out how to turn the photos into CAD models; others 3D printed them and have posted videos showing these 3D printed keys successfully opening TSA locks. The key was printed in crappy plastic, not metal, but it worked anyway.

So… your locks are no good no more.

carlton

 Posted by at 3:22 pm
Sep 092015
 

Slate discovers the blindingly obvious:

Student Loans Might Be Driving Up the Cost of College.

In short, it turns out that when the Federal government blindly subsidizes something, that something becomes more expensive. Why? Because those who are getting paid to provide that something now are virtually assured of getting paid whatever they ask for, because the FedGuv will pay it.

Note that there is no good reason to assume that this applies to college, but not, say, to health care.

schools raised tuition by 55 cents for each $1 increase in Pell grants their undergraduates received, and by 60 to 70 cents for each extra dollar of subsidized student loans.

No kiddin’.

Lemme put it this way: I normally charge $4 for a copy of US Bomber Projects, and sell to – if I’m lucky – about 100 people. But if the FedGuv came along and told a whole bunch of folks  – say, a thousand – that they’d subsidize ’em to the tune of $3 to buy a copy of USBP, chances are *real* good that I’d sell the better part of three or four hundred. Good for me! Now, if society told those 1,000 people that if they wanted to get ahead if life they’d better buy USBP, chances are good I’d sell more than 950 of ’em. Yay! But once *I* realized that those people are bound and determined to buy USBP, *and* that they will definitely have the funds to do so… you can bet your ass the next time you check out the webpage, the average issue of USBP will be $5. And then $6. And then $8.

And those 950 buyers will still buy at $8 an issue, and will *demand* that the government give them $7 to do so. So who’d be unhappy here? Not me. Not the subsidized buyers; they get the product they want and don’t care about the cost. Not the government, because who cares who much things cost? You know who cares? Two people. The taxpayers who have to fund this disaster. And anyone who wants to buy a copy of USBP and who *isn’t* being funded by the government.

 

 Posted by at 3:25 pm
Sep 052015
 

Britain pledges to help thousands of refugees – but rich Arab states have taken in NONE

Germany has said they’ll take in hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees this year. It’s a reasonably safe assumption that a large fraction of these refugees will become permanent residents of whatever European nation they end up in. And why not? I’d sure as shootin’ rather bunk down in a European welfare state than in a middle eastern hellhole.

Arab states such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia could easily take in the vast bulk of the Syrian refugees, just as they could have taken in the Palestinians. But they have not done so, nor are they likely to do so. Why is this? Well… the first answer is that refugees are troublesome. They cost money. They burden local services. They might be unpleasant to look at. They might pose political problems for the local government.

But there are also strategic reasons for not taking in refugees. Again look to the Palestinians. The Arab world has spent decades loudly decrying the conditions the Palestinians live in… while doing nothing to help them. Instead, they have only aided those Palestinians who’s crazy actions will bring down further harm onto the Palestinian people. The Arab states have done this for political reasons: it’s handy to be able to keep the people’s attention on the Evil Israelies, rather than on their own local evil government. When the people notice that their own government sucks, you get Egypt and Libya.

But a longer range strategy is very likely also in play. As mentioned, many of those refugees will become permanent residents of their respective European host countries. While Syria might lose some population, it’s not going to change being an almost entirely Muslim nation. But Germany, say, will see an increase of it’s Muslim population by several million over a few years via immigration, and millions more over the following years by births. The end result: colonization.

Now, this is not to suggest that the migrants are in on this, or that there’s some devious scheme to trash Syria specifically to create an invading army. But as famed political philosopher Rahm Emmanuel once opined:

You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.

 

 Posted by at 9:56 am
Aug 182015
 

Gawker recently posted an interview with a politically active feller. It starts off thusly:

Gawker: Your involvement in electoral campaigns is mainly organizing for progressive Democrats?

Interviewee: Yes, mainly progressive Democrats and independents at every level, whether it be city council, state rep, Senate, Presidential. I was really active in both Obama campaigns. Actually I was his precinct captain for his Senate campaign in Illinois.

OK. So who’s being interviewed?

A) Bernie Sanders’ campaign manager

B) A Baltimore Mayoral candidate

C) The national chairman of the Communist Party USA?

I’ll give you a moment to ponder that.

 Posted by at 12:12 pm
Aug 172015
 

For no reason, no reason whatsoever, here are a few bits of US Federal law to read and ponder:

US Code Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 93, 1924:

Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material

Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.

——

US Code Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 73, 1519:

Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy

Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

——-

This is of course all of purely academic interest. No real-world applications whatsoever.

In entirely unrelated news…

Clinton Emails: 305 Messages Need Further Review, Court Documents Say

 

 Posted by at 2:08 pm
Aug 102015
 

Not zygotes, not embryos, not fetal tissue… *children.*

Clinton: Trump is offensive to women but so is Rubio and the rest of the GOP field

 “They brag about slashing health-care funding, they say they would force women who have been raped to carry their rapist’s child…”

Her words.

I recently mentioned that I’m ambivalent on the issue of abortion. But when you have decided that the subject of termination is, indeed, a *child,* and you still think it’s a defensible position to kill it… you creep me right the hell out.

 Posted by at 6:27 pm
Aug 012015
 

Hillary Clinton’s $600 haircut

I have several questions here:

1) Didn’t she claim that she and Bill were broke just a few years ago? If you’ve ever been broke, you learn to try to be a little wise with your money. Or you’re a dumbass.

2) I recently had a haircut myself. Cost me $15, I think. Is a $600 haircut really 40 times better than a $15 haircut?

3) Given the other expenses involved, what was the total outlay for this haircut?

4) Who wants to hand over the key to federal spending to someone who spends $600 on something that can be had for $15 at Supercuts?

 Posted by at 12:26 am
Jul 192015
 

Court delays Texas execution that had been set for Thursday

A decade ago, one Clifton Lamar Williams was convicted for murdering a 93-year-old woman. The execution has been put on hold because it has been determined that the expert testimony on DNA that was apparently pivotal in the conviction turns out to be flawed.

Now, I’m all in favor of accuracy in the legal system. In fact, i’d demand it, and would have little tolerance for deception or other chicanery on the part of prosecutors. After all, many prosecutors have proven to be much more interested in racking up their numbers of successful prosecutions… *not* in actually serving justice. And so, “the DNA testimony was wrong” sure makes me take notice.

But… ummm…

Williams is black, and prosecutors said the probability of another black person with the same DNA profile found in Schneider’s missing car was one in 40 sextillion. Jurors in 2006 were told the probability was one in 43 sextillion. A sextillion is defined as a 1 followed by 21 zeros.

As a poster on Fark noted:

That’s one out of the population of over 5 trillion planet earths.

I have no idea if the probability is *actually* “1 in 40X10^21” or some other very different number, but the difference between 1-in-40 sextillion and 1-in-43 sextillion is so small as to be *beyond* ridiculous. Makes me think something else might be afoot.

 Posted by at 2:57 pm
Jul 162015
 

Here’s an interesting little article, originally published in the September 1934 issue of Soviet Russia Today by Roger Nash Baldwin, founding member and first director of the American Civil Liberties Union. Keep it in mind if you encounter anyone who suggests that it’d be a good idea to elect as president someone who espouses Socialism.

When that power of the working class is once achieved, as it has been only in the Soviet Union, I am for maintaining it by any means whatever. Dictatorship is the obvious means in a world of enemies at home and abroad.

I saw in the Soviet Union many opponents of the regime. I visited a dozen prisons — the political sections among them. I saw considerable of the work of the OGPU. I heard a good many stories of severity, even of brutality, and many of them from the victims. While I sympathized with personal distress I just could not bring myself to get excited over the suppression of opposition when I stacked it up against what I saw of fresh, vigorous expressions of free living by workers and peasants all over the land. And further, no champion of a socialist society could fail to see that some suppression was necessary to achieve it. It could not all be done by persuasion.

It seems in later years Baldwin came to understand that that Soviet system sucked. But for a while, while he was in a position of historic importance, he held the view that dictatorship and suppression of the opinions, property and lives of countless individuals was perfectly acceptable so long as these individuals were being oppressed by socialists.

baldwin

 Posted by at 5:30 pm