Kennon’s Space

“If things are being done on the Mexican border, they should also be done on the Canadian border,” she said. “This is one NAFTA, it’s one area, it’s one continent and there should be some parity there.”

The above quote is from a news source I rarely read and almost never reference because I really hate Fox News for the way they stood by all those Bush years and rarely if ever called him to task on his crushing of our rights in the name of the “War on Terra”, but this article really jumped out at me and I need to make a comment on it.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is a buffoon. The above comments are the kind of unthinking idiotic statements that get made by other non-thinking government functionaries like some public school officials when they institute stuff like “Zero Tolerance” for drugs or violence on campus. Treating our border with Canada the same as we treat our border with Mexico in regards to “Homeland” Security (I still hate that phrase it makes me think I should Heil Hitler after saying it)  is just plain asinine. After the bogus memos coming out of her office about returning vets being potential terrorists and the complete BS about the 9/11 attackers coming into the country from Canada I think Miss Napolitano should step down and let someone with a little more geo-political sense fill the seat she is taking up in the administration.

“It was on my fifth birthday that Papa put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Remember, my son, if you ever need a helping hand, you’ll find one at the end of your arm.’”
- Sam Levenson

So a real quick note here about news reporting with an agenda. Here is a story from CNN about the little boy in Florida who accidentally shot himself in the head with an improperly stored weapon. It never ceases to amaze me how some folks will jump on any opportunity to push their agenda capitalizing on an accident like this.  So I read the story and the first half of Rich Phillips’ piece is news, somewhat factual and informative, and mostly impartial. But then, 3/4’s of the way through the author sticks this little tidbit in:

The CDC says three children per day, on average, died in accidental incidents in the United States from 2000 to 2005, the last year data are available.

Now on it’s own like I have posted it here this reads fine. About three children per day die from accidents in the US per day. But when it is embedded in the middle of a news story that is focusing on how a family improperly stored their firearm and surrounded on both sides with pieces of information directly pertaining to guns suddenly the casual reader could easily assume this statistic meant that three children per day die from accidental shootings. Maybe I am just reading too much into this but read the article for yourself and see. So then two statements later the author says:

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence says that 34 percent of children in the United States live in homes with at least one firearm, so people have to be aware.

…so people have to be aware…Here is a link to the actual CDC statistics this article is referring to. So from looking through all of those links on the left there you will probably notice what I did…accidental shootings didn’t even get listed as a cause of accidental death of children 0-19 from 2000-2005. The incidence of accidental shootings is so low is doesn’t even merit it’s own category.

So not to add any further pain to the parents whose son is now in critical condition but, at 12 years old that boy is old enough to have been taught proper gun safety. In a home where children are taught how to respect and handle firearms safely even a weapon stowed improperly is of little danger to anyone living in the home. So the moral of this story is two-fold, store your weapons and ammo properly instead of hiding them, and teach your children gun safety early and review it often. With the right to keep arms granted to us by the US Constitution also comes responsibility.

Warning…it looks like the federal government is now going to be regulating CO2 emissions…you know that gas that we all expel (some more than others) when we exhale. This could mean dire consequences for porn theaters, sporting events and gyms alike!

Ms Jackson concluded that these impacts would fall disproportionately on people who were poor or in ill health, and on indigenous groups.

Well that makes sense since most of the people in the US are poor and getting poorer due to Obama’s whiz-bang budget and his policy of crushing the value of our currency.

The EPA’s next step will probably be to grant the ‘California waiver’

Whew…I guess I am safe for now…but what about all those poor souls who live in the other 49 states? I hope they don’t all move here so that they can breath.

The agency says it will “conduct an appropriate process and consider stakeholder input”

Hmm I wonder if that means they are going to ask us how often we feel like we need to breath? Maybe we can avoid some of this unpleasantness through self-regulation. I personally would agree to decreasing my own physical excersion but I am not sure if that is possible without passing into some kind of catatonic state.

The endangerment finding also empowers the EPA to regulate the other five greenhouse gases included in the Kyoto Protocol – methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride

I guess this means that we will be banning beans soon too?

So while you are reading this try not to laugh too much when you check out the headline on this article. After all, laughing expends more oxygen thus increasing your personal CO2 emissions…

This is just a note mainly to myself but if anyone else is having a problem with consoleone or other java apps in opensuse 11.1 or sled11 with compiz effects enabled not drawing the contents of a window (blank grey box) add this to your .bashrc
export AWT_TOOLKIT=”MToolkit”
Seems to work great for me.

One of the managers in my office told me that today’s Dilbert reminded him of me…He said something about me being a highly technical asshole…it’s a good thing I am so damn good looking…

Excerpt from an email from Campaign for Liberty President John Tate:

“Campaign for Liberty’s very own Steve Bierfeldt has become an unexpected Internet sensation — and the latest target of over-reaching federal government agents.

You see, Steve was detained by Airport Police and TSA officials shortly after the Campaign for Liberty regional conference in St. Louis.

The officials rudely berated and harassed Steve for 30 minutes in a secluded room at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.   Fortunately, Steve was able to record nearly all of the interrogation with his cell phone.

Steve’s alleged “crime”?  Carrying $4,700 in checks and cash from Campaign for Liberty, along with various other materials from our conference.

The local and Federal agents harassed Steve.  They were belligerent, cursing and using insulting language.  They threatened to turn Steve over to the DEA and the FBI, all the while refusing to inform him of his legal rights or explain how cash and checks threatened airplane or airport security.

Throughout the interrogation, Steve remained polite but resolute and declined to answer the invasive questions without an adequate explanation from these federal and local agents as to why they needed to be answered.  Without telling Steve what law he was accused of breaking, they continued their harassment.

Although they grew increasingly frustrated that he remained committed to exercising his rights, intervention from another officer eventually led the police to reluctantly release Steve.

Last Wednesday, Steve appeared on Judge Napolitano’s Freedom Watch to discuss the flagrant violation of his rights and to promote the importance of each of us defending our civil liberties.”

Here is a link to the Washington Times write up.

Here is the coverage on Fox News.