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This blog has 837 posts and 2360 comments spanning a range from 05/05/01 to 03/16/09 .The total number of words in all posts is 1,731,697 , and the total number of views for individual posts is 30,418 .

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Snarky blogging on American society and government, from a libertarian perspective. Also with a bit of geekery and crunchy techie goodness thrown in to really make the sparks fly.

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“We are at heart so profoundly anarchistic that the only form of state we can imagine living in is Utopian; and so cynical that the only Utopia we can believe in is authoritarian.” - Lionel Trilling

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Link Blog

  • A warning shot across the bow

    While the rest of the country is trying to figure out how the newly passed health care fiascobill affects their households, the Democrats seem to be getting easy to understand messages on how the health care bill affects THEM.

    "Morelle said someone threw a brick through the double glass doors at the HQ, shattering one of them and spider-webbing the other. The weapon: A brick, to which a piece of paper bearing the message "Extremism is defense of liberty is no vice" was attached with a rubber band."

    The Democrats here are quite fortunate. Even when Americans are very angry, and with good cause, they still exercise uncommon restraint. But that restraint isn't likely to last much longer. Next time, instead of bricks, it will likely be high-velocity rifle bullets. And they won't merely be breaking windows.

    Permalink

  • Angela McGlowan's idiocy is freakishly apparent...

    And she IS actually running for Congress... it looks like she'll fit right in there, if not even set a new low for speaking without a brain engaged. The amount of idiocy she displays in less than 10 minutes is positively astounding.
    "In an August appearance on The Gallo Show she evinced some fairly exotic opinions on gun ownership. Such as: “I think the government has the right to know what guns are in the homes ….”"

    Permalink

  • Save your nickels! Or, Profiting from Gresham's Law

    Start hoarding nickels! I think the cleverest bit, is that since nickels have a face value, you're hedged from downside risk too, since as long as they remain legal tender, you can't lose your initial investment. So basically you can profit from all the upside, while limiting the ways you can lose. Sounds like a win-win.

    Permalink

  • The Cougars Strike Back! Want to Ban the Competition!

    In the event that you don't believe that a society run completely by women would be the ultimate in nanny-state hellholes, we have a little real-world example for your education:

    "Delegate Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio , Vice President of the women’s caucus is leading 35 other delegates (all women) on a campaign for passage of HB 65, that would shockingly require Maryland men to submit their fingerprints and other background information before they can initiate communication with a foreign woman if they use an “International Marriage Broker”."

    Permalink

  • TSA Agent Arrested: Absolute Power Goes Straight to His Head

    A TSA agent was arrested on January 3rd in Terminal One at LAX, a source told NBCLA. He had just gotten off duty and was behaving erratically, saying, "I am god, I’m in charge."

    Haha. Obviously a classic case of absolute power going straight to his head. Practically the entire Homeland Security bureau is made up of this kind of person, and they get extremely inflated egos by being able to boss other people around, and taser anyone not subservient enough. After a long enough period of acting like a big man, with no one willing to slap some sense into them, it's not surprising that they might eventually think that they're the Big Man Himself, or comparable.

    Permalink

  • California - The New Place You Don't Want to Be

    "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today signed into law a bill that requires buyers of handgun ammunition to leave thumbprints and detailed personal information with registered ammo sellers, as well as put restrictions on online bullet sales."

    Well, it's been pretty obvious where California is heading, and it seems that they've only piled on more speed. Since this new law has set a new standard, you can certainly expect more and stronger restrictions to follow. Also, I do find it quite interesting that they've set the effective date out so far into the future. Why delay 'improving public safety' for nearly a year and half? Unless they want to spread out, or even delay, the outcry that will come from this law? Hmm.

    Permalink

  • Support IQ-based Taxation

    "Americans with below average IQ’s should have lower income tax rates than their more intelligent fellow citizens because their diminished natural intelligence (DNI) makes it more difficult for them to earn a living. It’s just not fair to expect them to pay the same tax rate as Americans with IQ’s that are average or above."

    When you start basing everything on what's "fair", you open yourself up to a lot of ridiculous ideas, as this sardonic article helpfully demonstrates.

    Permalink

  • DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show

    "[I]f they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person. “You can just engineer a crime scene,” said Dan Frumkin, ... “Any biology undergraduate could perform this.”"

    Beware the databases! And this is likely to cause headaches for prosecutors in current and future trials. Maybe old-fashioned police work isn't so outdated and useless after all!

    Permalink

  • Congressional IT Is 10 Years Behind on Technology Curve?

    "Amid a boisterous debate on health care reform, people flooded members of Congress on Thursday with so many e-mails that they overloaded the House's primary Web site. ... Ventura said new technology called "load balancing" is in place to try to handle spikes in volume. So far, the House Web site remains available to the public."

    So Congress is just now using "new" load balancing technology? Figures. Everyone else was using it back in 2001, at the latest. A patent search shows that 1998/99 is around when it mostly started. One could possibly be excused for thinking that a major site and network with a fairly heavy consistent load, and coupled with enormous irregular load spikes, would have figured all this out sometime sooner than nearly 10 years later, or even been riding on the crest of the technology wave and been using and developing the technology from the very beginning. Oh, but wait. We're talking about government here. I guess with near unlimited resources, you can get away with the crude, brute-force approach, even though it's terribly inefficient and wasteful.

    Permalink

  • Hey! That's It! You're Free!

    Hah, actually, only for what little remains of the year. And those grasshoppers will be back again next year, and from the looks of things, will probably stay longer too.

    "In 2009, Cost of Government Day falls on August 12. Working people must toil 224 days out of the year just to meet all costs imposed by government - a full 26 days longer than last year. In other words, in 2009 the cost of government consumes 61.34 percent of national income."

    Permalink

  • Crisis of Confidence: America's Government Losing Faith in Out-of-Touch Constituents

    "But we should also realize our system only works when the interests of voters and their government are in harmony. Unfortunately, recent evidence suggests that America's hard-working hometown legislators are feeling the pinch from a fickle and increasingly out-of-touch voter class who no longer serves our needs. ... And we're tired of getting pushed around the town hall by the likes of you, Big Voter."

    To go along with the previous post: Yes, this is really how Nancy "I See Swastikas" Pelosi, and many of her cohorts, see the current town hall situation. So of course their solution is for them to stop holding town hall meetings, and for you to go home and mind your own business affairs while they, the "smart people", fix all the looming problems their own way.

    Permalink

  • ‘You Are Terrifying Us’

    "The passions of the protesters, on the other hand, are not a surprise. They hired a man to represent them in Washington. They give him a big office, a huge staff and the power to tell people what to do. They give him a car and a driver, sometimes a security detail, and a special pin showing he’s a congressman. And all they ask in return is that he see to their interests and not terrify them too much. Really, that’s all people ask. Expectations are very low. What the protesters are saying is, “You are terrifying us.”"

    Hah. So much for 'democracy' in America. But what Nancy "I See Swastikas" Pelosi and the others in power don't realize is that these protests are all quite peaceful for right now. But frustrations have been building for quite a few people now, and if they are still being ignored by their supposed 'representatives', then I see it as quite likely that they will start making their concerns known by more violent means. Still, I doubt the congress critters who will be scurrying about trying to avoid the roving mobs looking to string up every bureaucrat they find will realize this even at that point.

    Permalink

  • Perverse Incentives and Unintended Consequences with "Light bulb Socialism"

    "The staggered phase out of energy-wasting light bulbs begins on Sept. 1 in Germany. The unpopularity of the energy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs that will replace them is leading consumers and retailers to start hoarding the traditional bulbs."

    Are you watching this, California? Your turn is up next.

    Permalink

  • Tase Early, Tase Often

    Is it just me, or does such heavy-handed tyranny, especially for enforcing arbitrary laws primarily for revenue collection, seem like it must eventually result in a blowback, a reaction, that results in police attracting real bullets wherever they go? Of course, on the other hand, the sheep will simply cower more, and jump faster when the officer says "jump".

    Permalink

  • Obama Revises Campaign Promise Of 'Change'

    "WASHINGTON—In a slight shift from his campaign trail promise, President Obama announced Monday that his administration's message of "Change" has been modified to the somewhat more restrained slogan "Relatively Minor Readjustments in Certain Favorable Policy Areas.""

    Indeed.

    Permalink

  • ATF to Montana: 'You will respect our authoritah!'

    "On Friday, we saw the letter ATF sent to FFL dealers in Tennessee telling them the Bureau was overriding the state's Firearms Freedom Act, and would continue to impose federal requirements in disregard of state law. They've done the same thing to Montanans."

    It'll be interesting to see if this continues to be an issue. It seems like an opportunity for some brave citizens to defy and challenge the ATF and their 'interpretation' of the Constitution.

    Permalink

  • Some Ebooks Are More Equal Than Others

    "This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for—thought they owned. But no, apparently the publisher changed its mind about offering an electronic edition, and apparently Amazon, whose business lives and dies by publisher happiness, caved. It electronically deleted all books by this author from people’s Kindles and credited their accounts for the price."

    Will people never learn? This is completely why I will never buy a Kindle, or a Sony Reader, or any other similarly DRM-crippled ebook reader. Unless someone clever figures out how they can be hacked, with open firmware or similar, in which case I'll consider buying a used one if it's cheap enough.

    Permalink

  • When will their heads be rolling?

    Politicians hanging from lampposts, and banker's heads on pikes. Those will be common sights in the near future. A future that keeps getting a lot closer, a lot faster.

    "[Waxman-Markey] represents a worse abuse of the public trust and purse than the stimulus and the bailouts put together. Waxman-Markey creates a permanent new regime in which environmental romanticism and corporate welfare are mixed together to form political poison. From comic bureaucratic power grabs (check out the section of the bill on candelabras) to the creation of new welfare programs for Democratic constituencies to, above all, massive giveaways for every financial, industrial, and political lobby imaginable, this bill would permanently deform American politics and economic life."

    Permalink

  • The Price of Liberty is... Hot Dog Gruel?

    "As you readers may recall from earlier postings, I had jury duty yesterday for King County Superior Court. You may also recall that back in January I emailed them, in good faith, a list of principles (you know, those freedoms us libertarian “terrorists” advocate for, despite government objections) I held that I thought would disqualify me from jury duty."

    I, also, have concerns about potential jurors being asked, and forced to answer, invasive and privacy-destroying questions in open court. I haven't been there though, so I know nothing further, but this guy has the whole experience. I note also that, based on my observations, judges all seem to be petty tyrants who get quite miffed when challenged in their fiefdoms. One gets the impression that, if they could, they would be shouting, "Off with his head!" quite frequently.

    Permalink

  • The new Ministry of Propaganda

    Also known as the "All Barack Channel". "All Barack! All the time!"

    "On the night of June 24, the media and government become one, when ABC turns its programming over to President Obama and White House officials to push government run health care -- a move that has ignited an ethical firestorm!"

    Permalink

  • :: More Linkblog >>

    Archives for: July 2008

    Fascinating Genealogical Tidbits

    So when reading through old books and documents in pursuit of your genealogical data, you can come across some interesting things. For instance, recently, I learned that George Washington had "a prodigious temper", like his mother. (Read back a page for the context). That's just fascinating. And a valuable bit of genealogical information that you don't often find. In genealogy, you can usually find the names, dates, and places. Sometimes you can find stories in old letters and newspaper articles. But you don't really know exactly what kind of man your ancestor was. Was he funny and witty, or loud and boorish, or quiet and bookish? What was important to him and why? Those questions can very rarely be answered for your average, common man ancestors.

    Here's something else I found fascinating... glimpses into a few morbid little sagas in some small towns in Texas during one month in 1904. Even though they are obituaries, you can still get an idea of the lives of the people mentioned.

    Something else interesting that I turned up... The Crash at Crush. Wow. They sure know how to do a spectacle right in Texas! Yee-haw!

    Permalink07/27/08, 04:39:23 pm, by CYNICAL Email , 165 views, Personal, Genealogy Send feedback

    My Windows XP Tweaking and Customization

    Many of you will find this hard to believe, but there was a time – long, long ago – when people would get things and then use those items exactly as they got them! That’s right: no customization, no “tricking out,” no modding, no skinning, no nothing. You just took the thing out of the box and used it the way nature – and the manufacturer – intended.

    Yes, we know: barbaric.

    Today, of course, things are very different. No one would ever dream of using an off-the-shelf item in this day and age; instead, everything needs to be personalized.***

    And as a civilized person, and not one of those Macarbarians, Windows XP needs to be customized and personalized for me, before it's fit to use in my daily life. I had wished that there was a guide, a manual so to speak, that would tell me what changes I would need to make to a vanilla-fresh Windows XP install in order to make it useful to me. This is that guide. Now I need no longer fear the dark and unknown of the reformat and reinstall, the horrible vanillaness of starting from scratch. I have The Guide!!!

    I can still do more work with organizing and formatting this Guide, but Jason wanted to see it sometime before Windows 7 comes out, I expect. So it's a work in progress that I'll keep updating... and I know I missed documenting many little tweaks and changes that I've done. So maybe I can catch those sometime - or maybe they're so minor as not to matter much.

    (Note: Bother. My careful text file formatting and tab-based trees aren't coming through here. Well, eventually I'll format it in HTML)

    Windows Classic Style for All
    You can disable all of XPs visual effects by right-clicking the Desktop and selecting the "Properties" menu item, select the "Appearance" tab. In the dropdown box under "Windows and buttons", choose Windows Classic style.

    Start Menu Properties
    Use Classic Start Menu

    Initial Configurations
    * Under User Accounts, change the way users log on or off, untick use welcome screen
    * Disable HelpAssistant
    * Start Menu Properties
    o Classic Start Menu
    o Display Administrative Tools
    o Scroll Programs Menu
    o Expand Control Panel
    o Untick Hide inactive icons
    o Untick Use Personalized Menus
    * Display Properties
    o Windows Classic Theme
    o Screen Saver - blank
    o Effects - No fade transitions
    o Use ClearType
    o No Shadows under menus
    o Unhide underlined letters
    * Automatic Updates on Notify but don't download or install them

    Install Hardware
    * Install XP SP2
    o Disable Windows Security Center - Turn off All Alert Settings Under "Change the Way That Security Center Alerts Me"
    * Get all remaining windows updates
    * Install all custom DELL drivers

    Additional Configurations
    * Move Windows Update to programs menu, delete Windows Catalog shortcuts
    * On Properties of X: change AutoPlay setting to your prefered settings (click Apply each time)
    * Use Windows classic folders, List Details, show hidden, show extensions, untick Use simple file sharing, Disable Offline Files
    * Change Long Date format to 'ddd, dd MMM yyyy'
    * IE unlock toolbars, hide links toolbar, move toolbars to one, small icons, no text, close browser, open again, lock toolbars again
    * Browser Settings: Use Blank, Check for new every visit, Dont show friendly HTTP errors, Dont show Go button, Use inline AutoComplete, Dont use smooth scrolling
    * Windows Inverted (extra large), disable pointer shadow, put pointer speed to 60%
    * Turn off System Restore from the System Restore Tab in My Computer->Properties
    * Power Options
    o On Battery: Turn off monitor after 15 mins, hard disks after 30mins, standby after 20 mins
    o Enable hibernation
    o Low battery alarm 10%, critical battery alarm 8% and action as Hibernate
    o Prompt for password when resume from standby
    o When close lid Do Nothing, When press button Hibernate
    * Console Window Properties: Buffer Size 500, QuickEdit Mode, Lucida Console, Window Height 55, save to all future windows
    * Sounds Device Volume High, Place volume icon on taskbar, all volume controls to max
    * Laptop stereo speakers, No Sound Scheme
    * Task Manager - Hide when minimized, Select columns - CPU Time
    * TweakUI:
    o no beep on error
    o no menu fading
    o no tooltip fade
    o menu fast
    o no Help or Logoff on startmenu
    o no recent docs
    o no desktop web content
    o no maintain doc history
    o no manipulate connected files as unit
    o use Classic search in Explorer
    o no prefix shortcut to
    o no show my docs
    o no show my pics
    o no tooltip balloons
    o Set special folders
    o no warn on low diskspace
    o Remove all document templates except Text Document
    o Turn off Autoplay for all Drives and Types
    * Add fax, Add PDF printer drivers, remove indexing, disable all performance counters
    * Disable following services (See blackviper.com for info):
    o Alerter
    o Background Intelligent Transfer Service (Change to Manual)
    o Computer Browser
    o Distributed Link Tracking Client
    o Error Reporting Service
    o Fast User Switching Compatibility
    o Help and Support
    o Indexing Service
    o Infrared Monitor
    o IPSEC Services
    o Messenger
    o NTLM Security Support
    o Net Logon
    o Network Location Awareness
    o Performance logs and alerts
    o Portable media serial number
    o QOS RSVP
    o Remote Registry
    o Remote desktop help session manager
    o Security Center
    o SSDP Discovery
    o Secondary Logon
    o Smart Card
    o System Restore Service
    o TCPIP NetBIOS Helper
    o Terminal Services
    o Themes
    o UPS
    o Universal PnP Device Host
    o WMI Performance adapter
    o Web Client
    * Disable Error Reporting
    * Startup and Recovery - Untick time to display list of operating systems
    * Do not allow users to connect remotely
    * Install and use LClock (Longhorn Clock)

    Disable Web Services prompt
    To disable the prompt, navigate to the following folder in RegEdit (create it, if necessary):
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
    Then create a new 32-bit DWORD value, title it "NoInternetOpenWith," and give it a value of 1.

    Search All files (not just text files)
    To do this, set the FilterFilesWithUnknownExtensions DWORD value to 1 in the following registry key:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ContentIndex

    Disable Zip Folders:
    regsvr32 /u %windir%\system32\zipfldr.dll

    Windows Explorer Tweaks
    Windows Explorer --> Tools --> Folder Options --> View
    Uncheck
    Display simple folder view in Explorer's Folders list
    Hide extensions for known files types
    Hide protected operating system files
    Check
    Show Hidden Files and Folders

    Make Windows Explorer start in the C: Drive (add to the Target Properties of your shortcut)
    C:\windows\explorer.exe /n,/e,c:\

    Replace default Notepad with Notepad++
    * Copy notepad.exe which comes with this package into 3 directories (in given order) Backup the old files. :
    1. c:\windows\system32\dllcache
    2. c:\windows\system32
    3. c:\windows
    When you replace notepad.exe in c:\windows\system32 and c:\windows, a "Windows File Protection" message box appears, click Cancel. Then another message box appears, click OK.

    Disable Disk Performance Counters:
    diskperf -n

    To disable all performance counters, run regedit and navigate to this registry key:
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Perflib
    Add a new DWORD Value named DisablePerformanceCounters. Set the value of DisablePerformanceCounters to 1 and either reboot or restart the registry service.

    Disable Last Access Timestamp for NTFS
    FSUTIL behavior set disablelastaccess 1

    Cleartype Tuner
    http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/Step1.aspx
    Use Cleartype Powertoy

    TweakUI Powertoy

    Media Player 9 Powertoy
    (Change Full Screen Settings)

    Copy over my HOSTS file

    Drivers:
    Use Intel Chipset Drivers for 865G Chipset Family

    Delete Windows Media DRM DLLs from Firefox
    npwmsdrm.dll
    npdrmv2.dll

    ***Paragraph shamelessly stolen from Microsoft. No, I don't know where they stole it from originally.

    Permalink07/27/08, 01:54:15 pm, by CYNICAL Email , 191 views, Personal, Business & Work, Computers & Tech Send feedback

    wow.... I don't think I've ever seen a hailstorm as intense as the one we just had here

    We usually see those teeny tiny hailstones, the pea gravel sized, sometimes slightly larger. But they don't do much.

    This time we had nickel sized hailstones, and there were a few bursts of large quarter sized stones and even larger. They beat needles and branches off the trees... all the air is heavily pine and fir scented now because of the beating that the trees just had. It's actually quite pleasant. So many melting hailstones are on the ground (it's been between 65 and 75 through this), that it's rather slippery to walk around outside. Then there was this eerie ground fog rising up everywhere, I suppose because of the volume of frozen hailstones and the fairly warm, moist air.

    I don't think they were quite big enough to damage the truck, and other vehicles, but I haven't checked it out yet... it could have knocked some paint off though.

    UPDATE: Hmm... hailstones up to one and one quarter inches is what they were saying here. That's probably about right, they sure did look big!

    I didn't duck out to grab some when the really big ones were coming down.

    Permalink07/03/08, 06:14:14 pm, by CYNICAL Email , 153 views, Personal Send feedback