Why Facebook is Evil

Some people are accusing Facebook of a "massive" data breach, in which a foreign company took a bunch of data about tens of millions of Americans and used it to influence them to vote for Donald Trump.

Others are saying that Facebook did nothing wrong, that they didn't do anything that wasn't listed in the terms of service. From the Atlantic, here's a brief summary of what happened:

In June 2014, [an England-based Russian] researcher named Aleksandr Kogan developed a personality-quiz app for Facebook. It was heavily influenced by a similar personality-quiz app made by the Psychometrics Centre, a Cambridge University laboratory where Kogan worked. About 270,000 people installed Kogan’s app on their Facebook account. But as with any Facebook developer at the time, Kogan could access data about those users or their friends. And when Kogan’s app asked for that data, it saved that information into a private database instead of immediately deleting it. Kogan provided that private database, containing information about 50 million Facebook users, to the voter-profiling company Cambridge Analytica. Cambridge Analytica used it to make 30 million “psychographic” profiles about voters.

The key thing here is that while only 270,000 people explicitly gave their consent for their personal data, this Russian professor got hold of 50 million people's data because Facebook let "friends" look at personal data.

That data included all kinds of personal information that can be used not only to influence you, but to commit identity theft. This data not only included Facebook posts, personal photos, and Facebook likes, but also birthdates, addresses, phone numbers, educational histories, lists of family and friends, names of pets, what people ate, where people went, what what people did and when they did it, and tons of other sensitive information on whatever people happened to blab about themselves on Facebook.

The reason this enables identity theft is that much of this information is used by various web sites to validate your identity: birthdate, addresses, mother's maiden name, names of your schools, names of your pets, etc.

Facebook thinks it's doing nothing wrong. They claim that apps need to have access to information on your friends so companies can write apps to perform critically important services that we simply could not survive without, like wishing you happy birthday.

If Facebook friends were actually real, close friends and family, this wouldn't be as big a problem -- but it would still pose a serious breach of personal data. Do you really trust your elderly grandmother to understand that taking a pop quiz on Facebook -- and getting paid a dollar! -- can give information on her family and friends to hackers and Russian spies?

What makes it worse is that many people somehow think that the number of Facebook friends is an indicator of social importance. So they accept friend requests from people they barely know. A lot them were phony accounts created by Russians trying to influence American politics.

But the real root of Facebook's evil is that the public image of what it does has nothing to do with its true purpose.

People mistakenly think that they are Facebook's customers and that Facebook's communications service is the product. This is utterly false.

Businesses, advertisers, opinion researchers and political operatives like Cambridge Analytica are Facebook's real customers. The real product is you and your data.

Facebook sells your secrets to anyone who will pay for them, be it advertisers, identity thieves, political operatives, foreign governments, or private investigators working for people looking for dirt on cheating spouses.

The best thing you can do to protect yourself is to destroy your Facebook account, delete all the data and never log in to Facebook again, hoping that your data hasn't already fallen into the wrong hands and that Facebook will actually honor their commitment to delete it.

The second-best thing you can do is unfriend everyone except your family and your closest real friends. Of course, since those people already know all that stuff about you, there's really no reason for Facebook to have that information in the first place.

The third-best thing you can is enter false information in your profile: never use your real birthday, or address or other personal data for social media accounts. The whole idea that companies need your birthday to make sure children don't see "adult" material is preposterous, since kids can just lie anyway.

Deleting your Facebook account will have immediate benefits. You will get back an hour of your time every day.  You will feel less depressed. You will be less angry.

Ditto for Twitter. If Donald Trump deleted his Twitter account, the world's net happiness quotient would increase by 7 billion!

Economist Cost of Living Survey Slanted for the Wealthy

Minnesotans were astonished when the Economist magazine said Minneapolis was the third most expensive American city to live in, after New York and Los Angeles.

"How is this possible?" they wondered.

Housing is one of the biggest expenses in any budget. The median home price in Minneapolis is $244,000, whereas most every city in California's Bay Area has home values in the million dollar range (San Jose: $1,036,000, Sunnyvale: $1,819,000, San Francisco: $1,285,000), and places like San Diego are in the half million dollar range (San Diego: $608,200, Escondido: $479,200, Chula Vista: $514,000).

Average apartment rent in Minneapolis in $1,390 a month, while in San Jose it's $2,616.

Another large expense is fuel costs. According to Gas Buddy, the price of gas is about $2.45-2.50 around Minneapolis. It's between $3.05 and $3.89 in the Bay Area.

The web site Expatistan has a comparison function that shows the difference in the cost of living between any two cities. Using that, we see that San Jose is 21% more expensive than Minneapolis, while Houston is 11% cheaper than Minneapolis (in large part to lower transportation costs -- i.e., cheaper gas, and a large immigrant work force that is paid less than native Americans).

One of the most common things that make Minneapolis more expensive than other cities is entertainment, including alcohol and cigarettes. That is, completely unnecessary expenditures.

So what exactly does the Economist survey measure that other economic surveys ignore that makes a magazine targeted at the wealthy rank Minneapolis as more expensive than dozens of cities in California that are clearly more expensive for the average person to live in?

The survey is compiled using the prices of 160 products and services in each city, including, “food, drink, clothing, household supplies and personal care items, home rents, transport, utility bills, private schools, domestic help and recreational costs.”

The primary flaw in the Economist survey is that it omits house prices, because it's targeted at corporations who ship executives around the world. Those people don't buy houses.

Domestic help is expensive in Minneapolis, because it's mostly performed by Americans, rather than undocumented workers, as it is in California, Texas, Arizona, Florida, etc. I know people who provide maid service in Minnesota and they make significantly more than minimum wage. Because a decent wage is the only way to get average Americans to clean other people's toilets.

Private schools are of concern mostly for the wealthy or the rabid religious right. Public schools in Minnesota are generally good. Teachers are mostly paid a decent wage.

So, yeah, if you're a millionaire executive who needs an army of underpaid chauffeurs, maids, and cooks, send your kids to private schools where non-unionized teachers get paid peanuts, and buy lots of booze and tobacco, you don't want to live in Minneapolis. You want to live in a place where you can lord over those less fortunate than yourself. A place where you don't give a damn about what happens to the people who live there in five, ten or 20 years.

The cost of living has to be balanced with the quality of life. For example, US News' 2018 state rankings list Minnesota second in the nation for citizen outcomes. Minnesota consistently comes out on the high end of surveys that measure income and the health of average citizens.

Which is a far superior measure for society than how much millionaires can flaunt their wealth.

Surprise! A Russian's Behind the Facebook Data Breach!

There's a firestorm in Washington and London now with multiple senators and MPs calling for the CEOs of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica to testify before various committees about the gigantic data breach at Facebook.

Cambridge Analytica worked with Trump campaign operative Steve Bannon to target users on Facebook. There have also been accusations that the data was used by Russian hackers to target users with fake news and to otherwise manipulate American voters.

The Trump campaign denies there was any collusion. But if you dig a tiny bit, you learn that Cambridge Analytica didn't actually write the code that stole the data, it was a company called GSR (great acronym, right?). The guy who runs GSR is Aleksandr Kogan. When I saw that name a red flag immediately went up.

Who is Aleksandr Kogan?

Dr Kogan – who later changed his name to Dr Spectre, but has subsequently changed it back to Dr Kogan – is still a faculty member at Cambridge University, a senior research associate. But what his fellow academics didn’t know until Kogan revealed it in emails to the Observer (although Cambridge University says that Kogan told the head of the psychology department), is that he is also an associate professor at St Petersburg University. Further research revealed that he’s received grants from the Russian government to research “Stress, health and psychological wellbeing in social networks”. The opportunity came about on a trip to the city to visit friends and family, he said.

There are other dramatic documents in Wylie’s stash, including a pitch made by Cambridge Analytica to Lukoil, Russia’s second biggest oil producer. In an email dated 17 July 2014, about the US presidential primaries, Nix wrote to Wylie: “We have been asked to write a memo to Lukoil (the Russian oil and gas company) to explain to them how our services are going to apply to the petroleum business. Nix said that “they understand behavioural microtargeting in the context of elections” but that they were “failing to make the connection between voters and their consumers”. The work, he said, would be “shared with the CEO of the business”, a former Soviet oil minister and associate of Putin, Vagit Alekperov. 

British researchers working for a Russian professor in England were discussing American elections in a sales pitch to a Russian oil company run by a pal of Vladimir Putin. And then those same people worked with the Trump campaign to target American voters.

If it looks like collision, if it quacks like collusion, it is collusion.

But let's fire Andrew McCabe so we can yell about the Clinton Foundation and Hillary's emails instead.

The NRA Hearts Russia

The FEC is now looking in to whether or not the NRA colluded with Russia to tip the election towards Donald Trump's favor. Here's the best part...

Under FEC procedures, the preliminary investigation is likely to require the NRA to turn over closely guarded internal documents and campaign finance records. Depending on what FEC investigators and lawyers find, the agency could launch a full-blown investigation, impose fines or even make criminal referrals to the Justice Department and Special Counsel Robert Mueller, people familiar with the probe said.

Closely guarded internal documents...campaign finance records...this is starting to smell an awful lot like what was the beginning of the end of the tobacco industry.

A Teacher in a Gun Store

Quote of the Day

"Yet this uprising of the young against the ossified, monolithic power of the National Rifle Association has reminded me that the flaws of youth — its ignorance, naïveté and passionate, Manichaean idealism — are also its strengths. Young people have only just learned that the world is an unfair hierarchy of cruelty and greed, and it still shocks and outrages them. They don’t understand how vast and intractable the forces that have shaped this world really are and still think they can change it. Revolutions have always been driven by the young."

---Tim Kreider, from "Go Ahead,Milennials, Destroy Us." 

How Russian Trolls Operate

The above is a very informative video that all of us should use as a benchmark in online discussions. I don't engage in comments with anyone that I don't know personally anymore.

This video also makes me wonder if the former commenters here were actual US citizens are troll farm douchebags. It certainly would make a lot of sense. Even if they weren't, they are still doing the bidding of totalitarians which I find fucking hilarious.

Their hatred of liberals trumps everything else, including being loyal to their country.

"Real" Democrats

Since Pennsylvania's special election for a seat vacated by Tim Murphy -- who resigned after it came to light he demanded his mistress have an abortion -- Republicans have been trying to paint the humiliating loss as a win.

Their claim is that the winner, Conor Lamb, isn't a "real" Democrat because he is pro-life, pro-gun and doesn't like Nancy Pelosi.

Let's take these claims one at a time.

Lamb, a Roman Catholic, considers himself "pro-life" because he personally opposes abortion, but he thinks that women should be able to choose for themselves. I'm basically in that same camp: even though we never wanted kids, if my wife had become pregnant I wouldn't have wanted her to have an abortion. Unless she wanted to, or the fetus tested positive for serious birth defects, or if the pregnancy would harm her health.

Most Republicans who consider themselves "pro-life" are actually just anti-abortion, which is really code for denying women control over their own bodies. As Tim Murphy showed, Republicans are all for abortion when it's convenient for them.

But to say that Republicans are pro-life is a joke. Republicans are all for the death penalty. They think people should be able to buy guns and shoot people on the street. They heartily endorse George Zimmerman's murder of Trayvon Martin. How very pro-life of them.

When Trump was in Pennsylvania ostensibly campaigning for the Rick Saccone, the Republican candidate, he proposed the death penalty for drug dealers. I can't find anything describing Lamb's stance on the death penalty, but the Catholic Church is very much opposed to it, and that's where Lamb takes his cues on moral issues. Trump is now taking his cues from a murderous dictator in the Philippines who has had thousands of people killed without trial. How very fascist of him.

On guns, Lamb says that we don't need new laws, we just need to have better background checks. He also said he's open to other measures, but wants to start on issues that have broad agreement. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the NRA's guns everywhere-all-the-time stance. It sounds like he will vote for reasonable limits on firearms if they are brought before the House, which is exactly what the vast majority of Americans want.

And Nancy Pelosi? You don't have to support Nancy Pelosi, the senior Democrat in the House, to be a real Democrat. She's too old, too easily ridiculed, and not the best spokeswoman for the Democratic Party. I think we would be served better by someone younger, who connects with more Americans and isn't the punch line to every Republican joke.

Saying that Nancy Pelosi's time has passed isn't disloyalty, it's acknowledging reality.

And if you want to talk disloyalty, just look at the behavior of Republicans over the past several years with respect to their House leaders.

How many Republicans wanted the head of fellow Republican House Speaker John on a pike? Boehner was forced out of office by angry conservative Tea Party Republicans for not being a big enough dickhead.

How many Republicans right now, today, want the head of Paul Ryan -- the current speaker of the House -- on a pike? Many of them have never forgiven Ryan for refusing to defend Trump's disgusting behavior during the 2016 election. As recently as last October they were writing political obituaries for Ryan.

Real Democrats represent the people of the districts that elect them. Real Republicans consistently represent the Republican party line, which is dictated by the moneyed interests of corporate America.

Conor Lamb represents a right-of-center district in Pennsylvania, so that's how he rolls. Pelosi represents a liberal district in California, so that's how she rolls. Amy Klobuchar, a Democratic senator, represents the centrist views of most Minnesotans. So that's how she rolls.

Democrats from different parts of the country will have different interests because their constituents do, so it's natural that they won't all agree on everything. But they'll work together to find a solution that won't give everyone exactly what they want, but everyone can live with.

That's how democracy is supposed to work.

Republicans, on the other hand, all back Donald Trump and his mo-money tax cuts for oil barons and Wall Street bankers. They back the dismantling of the EPA, allowing the fossil fuel industry to pump more poisons into our air and water. They want to sell off the national parks to mining interests. They want to eliminate Dodd-Frank so Wall Street can repeat the Great Depression of 2008. They want to take away health care for all Americans and destroy the public school system.

Some of them, like my Republican representative, Eric Paulsen, aren't bombastic in their support for Trump's outrageous policies, but they quietly vote for Trump's agenda every time.

The Democratic Party represents all of America, while the Republican Party represents a tiny sliver of the elites. Republicans seem to be so hung up on the idea of duty to party that they'll blindly follow Donald Trump into an authoritarian nightmare, because for them "loyalty" is more important than doing the right thing.

But, as we've seen, Donald Trump is loyal to no one. He constantly insults and stabs his allies in the back. He is immoral, selfish and narcissistic. He lies constantly, and then brags about lying.

From this we can see that Republican loyalty isn't real loyalty, it's fear. Republicans are just knuckling under to bullies -- Trump, campaign contributors, oil barons, Wall Street bankers -- because they're too cowardly to do the right thing for the people they're supposed to represent.

This Is What Happens When You Put Guns in Schools

One of the keystones in the NRA/Republican reaction to mass shootings is the delusion that more guns make us safer. This is what happens when you put guns in schools:

A teacher who is also a reserve police officer trained in firearm use accidentally discharged a gun Tuesday at Seaside High School in Monterey County, Calif., during a class devoted to public safety. A male student was reported to have sustained non-life-threatening injuries.

Apparently the student was struck in the neck by some kind of shrapnel when the teacher fired the weapon into the ceiling, making sure that the gun wasn't loaded.

What an idiot! If he'd been at home he could have shot his own child sleeping in the bed upstairs.

You never, ever, ever pull the trigger to make sure a gun is unloaded. To do that, you unload the weapon! For a semi-automatic you remove the magazine, pull back the slide and check for a round in the chamber. If you do this wrong you can shoot yourself, like this ATF agent.

For double-action revolvers you swing out the cylinder and push the extractor rod to force the rounds out. Unloading a single-action revolver (a 170-year-old design that requires pulling back the hammer for each shot) is more complicated and more error-prone, and involves pushing each round out separately. To make matters worse, most revolvers don't have safeties.

The teacher did not have clearance to have a weapon on campus. What the hell was this clown thinking?

Exactly why the teacher was displaying the weapon at all was not entirely clear. Police said he was “providing instruction related to public safety.”

The father told KSBW that the teacher was preparing to use the gun to show how to disarm someone.

Why would anyone in their right mind use a real gun loaded with real rounds for a demonstration? A bright orange plastic water pistol would do the job. If more realism is required, an air gun with the same look and heft would be far safer -- though as we all know from The Christmas Story, you can still shoot your eye out. Or use a decommissioned gun with a plugged barrel.

Most guns are seriously defective products with antiquated design flaws.

This incident points out a major design flaw in firearms design: you can't tell when they're loaded. Guns are not only inherently dangerous, they're seriously defective products with antiquated design flaws that magnify that danger.

Pretty much every product -- from cars, to computers, to microwave ovens, to chainsaws -- has some sort of indicator to show that it is turned on. But not guns.

When you pick up a gun, you have no idea whether it'll go off. Many guns have safeties, but if the safety's off, there's generally no way to tell by looking at a gun whether there's a round in the chamber. For this reason, every single day across the country there are dozens if not hundreds of accidental firearms discharges, even among seasoned professionals like cops and firearms instructors.

Most guns were designed more than a century ago (even modern semiautomatic handguns are clones of the Colt 1911). If there are going to be guns in schools, they should be designed with safety first and foremost. Such guns should have an easily visible indicator of a chambered round and a display for the number of shots remaining in the magazine.

Furthermore, guns in schools should be limited to firing only for authorized personnel ("smart guns"). This would prevent students and perpetrators from stealing and using them.

Almost 500 people were killed in accidental shootings in 2015, and thousands more were injured. The exact number of non-fatal injuries isn't really known, because those statistics aren't tracked -- intentionally, by Congressional order. But they result in billions of dollars of lost wages, as well as health care and funeral expenses.

The NRA has resisted the very idea of smart guns for years. I don't know exactly why: their backers, the firearms industry, would stand to profit handsomely if they could get every gun owner to melt down their old weapons and replace them with safer modern firearms.

The people that cry "fake news" are the ones actually putting it out there

This headline was not surprising.

Informant had no evidence Clinton benefited from uranium sale: Democrats

“Mr. Campbell identified no evidence that Secretary Hillary Clinton, President Bill Clinton, or anyone from the Obama Administration took any actions as a result of Russian requests or influence,” the summary says.

It's easy for them to lie because they have so many hate filled assholes that believe them.

How To Buy A Gun In Japan

 Japan 1Take a firearm class and pass a written exam, which is held up to three times a year. 2Get a doctor’s note saying you are mentally fit and do not have a history of drug abuse. 3Apply for a permit to take firing training, which may take up to a month. 4Describe in a police interview why you need a gun. 5Pass a review of your criminal history, gun possession record, employment, involvement with organized crime groups, personal debt and relationships with friends, family and neighbors. 6Apply for a gunpowder permit. 7Take a one-day training class and pass a firing test. 8Obtain a certificate from a gun dealer describing the gun you want. 9If you want a gun for hunting, apply for a hunting license. 10Buy a gun safe and an ammunition locker that meet safety regulations. 11Allow the police to inspect your gun storage. 12Pass an additional background review. 13Buy a gun.

Some countries require buyers to accurately hit a target or demonstrate safe handling procedures.

Trump Tariffs Hurt America, Europe, and South America, Boost Russia

Donald Trumps imposition of global tariffs on steel and aluminum (except for Mexico and Canada) makes no sense.

First off, China is the real villain on metals, and there are already sanctions in place on China for dumping. Trump dismisses this, saying that China is shipping steel through other countries, getting around the existing tariffs. But Trump's own commerce department says only 2% of our steel comes from China.

There's no evidence of any significant transshipping of Chinese steel. And there's no motive for anyone to do it -- there are significant criminal penalties, and competitors are extremely eager to rat you out.

Second, the tariffs will hurt American industry. Wilbur Ross made ridiculous claims about how little steel is used when he said that the price of a $2 can of soup will only go up .6 cents because of the tariffs.

Remember the huge infrastructure projects Trump promised? You know, all the oil pipelines, buildings, roads and bridges Trump will make happen? Those projects literally use tons and tons and tons of steel. They'll all cost a lot more if the price of steel goes up 25%.

Third, it will take a while before American steel producers can ramp up production. And when they do, they'll increase their prices, by probably 20%. Because they can. Giving American producers a monopoly on steel will make everything artificially cost more.

Fourth, other American businesses will take a direct hit from this. Not just from the tariffs that Europe will put on Harley Davidson motorcycles (which will cost more to make because of pricier steel and aluminum), jeans and other signature American products. But because American industry supplies foreign steel producers with raw materials.

For example, Brazil imports metallurgical coal from the United States for use in steel manufacturing. Minnesota exports iron ore and other raw materials used to make steel. Trump's tariffs will hurt all those miners he promised to help during the campaign.

The United States was on track to be a net energy exporter by 2022, but if Trump continues this foolishness for any length of time, that would hurt American natural gas and petroleum exporters, as those industries are natural targets for tariffs in a world that is oversupplied with fossil fuels.

Finally, who really benefits from these tariffs? Russia.

After insulting our European allies for years, Trump is again widening the rifts between the United States and the rest of the world. That inevitably means that Russia gains more power. Europe will drop sanctions against Russia to buy Russian oil and natural gas.

Trump doesn't seem to be colluding with Russia as much as he's a puppet following Putin's orders to hurt America's standing in the world.

The reason that the United States has a trade deficit in the first place is that we are a very rich country. Other countries are able to make steel cheaper than America because their people are poor.

So, yes, Trump's tariffs will eventually eliminate the trade deficit, as American wages drop to the same level as workers in Russia, Brazil, China and Vietnam.

What a lovely vision of the future Trump paints: all the workers in the world making the same dismally low salaries.

If you don't think that's what's on the minds of Trump's cronies in big business, just look at what the stock market does every time the jobs report indicates wage increases (stocks tank) and stagnant wages (stocks soar).

Militia or Not?

Some gun enthusiasts claim that, rather than granting the people of the several States the right to form Armed Militias, the Second Amendment provides an individual an untrammeled right to own and carry guns. They are not, these people claim, members of the Militia.

You may be able legitimately make this argument if you use your guns only within confines of your home and property and never take them outside. But as soon as you arrogate yourself the right to shoot people outside your home, you are performing the function of the militia, which these days is essentially the police.

But the gun nuts of the NRA do not stop at their property line. They demand the right to carry guns anywhere they want, any time they want -- except at NRA conventions and Trump rallies.

They claim they can shoot people outside their homes, like the Louisiana man who killed a Japanese student who knocked on his front door.  They claim they can patrol the streets and don't have to back down when they pull their guns on people minding their own business. They consider George Zimmerman's murder of Trayvon Martin a righteous act. But patrolling the streets is a police function.

They claim they need guns to protect themselves as they drive along traffic-clogged streets and interstates. This frequently results in road rage incidents, like the shooting David Michael Keene was found guilty of in 2008. Keene is the son of David A. Keene, who was a member of the NRA board of directors at the time.

They claim they need guns to protect themselves from muggers while walking down the street, though muggers will nearly always get the drop on you and take your weapon from you. They then pivot to the idea that they will protect others who being accosted by muggers. This is a function of the police.

They claim, as Donald Trump implied during the meeting where he asserted the right to confiscate guns from people without due process, that they need guns to rush into schools and stop shooters. This is a function of the police. Except when they sit outside the school and do nothing.

If individuals are taking it upon themselves to perform the functions of the police, they are claiming the right to deputize themselves as members of the police.

If they are protecting the public, then they are either members of the "Militia" -- the armed citizenry -- or they are lawless vigilantes.

So, if you've got a gun, and consider yourself as a protector of your fellow citizens, then state and federal governments have the right to regulate your use of that gun. They can impose the same kind of licensing, training and storage requirements that they impose on members of the military and the police force.

Otherwise gun owners are just a bunch of lawless vigilantes. The idea that any random moron should be able to wave deadly weapons around on the streets and in churches and bars (!) without any restrictions is, at best, catastrophically naive.

This is why the Heller decision is restricted to guns in the home and nothing more. The justices were angling for a "Castle Doctrine" excuse to prevent the District of Columbia from stopping people from owning handguns.

But this completely ignores the reality of handguns. They can be taken outside the home. DC was trying to prevent carnage in the streets from too many handguns in circulation. The activist conservative justices completely ignored reality to cook up a legal excuse for a political quid pro quo on guns.

They did the same thing when they ruled corporations can contribute unlimited amounts of cash to political campaigns with Citizens United. It is catastrophically naive to assume that wealthy corporations -- which are often owned by foreign interests -- would never buy politicians and spend anyone who opposes them into the ground.

These two decisions were overt political acts, overturning decades and centuries of legal precedents, and have engendered a horrible climate of fear and division in this country.

Nixon's Chief Justice on the Second Amendment

Let's hear what Warren Burger, who was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by Richard Nixon in 1969, has to say about the Second Amendment (via NPR):


In the interview Burger said:

This [the Second Amendment] has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.

Burger goes so far as to say that he would not have included the Second Amendment if the Bill of Rights were being written today, but that is unnecessary: the Constitution clearly grants the Congress and the President the authority to regulate Arms.

In particular, the Second Amendment grants "the people" the right to bear Arms. The people is a collective noun that does not mean all persons. Where the Constitution means an individual person, it says a person. For example:

The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

Don't you just love that "importation of such Persons" and the ten-dollar tariff part?

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State. 

and

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

and

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 

This last paragraph illustrates the difference between the people and a person. The Second Amendment grants the right of the collective people (i.e., the Militia of a State) to bear arms, but persons cannot be denied life, liberty, property and equal protection of the laws.

If the Second Amendment meant every person can own whatever guns they hanker for, it would have been written without any preamble about Militias and States, thusly: "The right of a Person to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." It does not say that.

Congress can pass laws as Congress sees fit to regulate Arms, and all individuals must be treated equally under those laws. The government cannot deprive persons of lawfully owned Arms without due process.

The Second Amendment does not grant an individual the absolute right to own any kind of weapon, including hand guns, AR-15s, hand grenades or nuclear weapons, or the right to carry guns around wherever they feel like it in order to threaten others. It grants the people of the States' Militias the right to bear Arms, as regulated by the Congress.

Congress can pass gun laws. States can pass gun laws. The Heller decision acknowledged that states can regulate guns, it simply ruled that the District of Columbia went too far in banning handgun ownership in the home.

In essence, Heller says that regulating gun ownership is just a matter of degree. The error in Heller is in denying the state's right (remember states' rights?) to decide what that degree is.

The conservative justices who decided Heller were using the Second Amendment as a lame excuse to prevent the District of Columbia from stopping them from keeping guns under their pillows.

I'm not a liberal, wild-eyed gun-confiscating nut: all I'm saying is that federal and state governments have the right to pass laws that regulate gun ownership. Those laws should include those that make sure that the persons who own guns are not criminal or violent, and are mentally stable and competent in firearm use; that weapons in private hands are not overly dangerous; and that weapons are properly stored so that children and unstable people can't steal or otherwise access them.

If you want a wild-eyed, gun-confiscating nut look up this guy named Donald Trump: he thinks that he can seize people's guns without due process.

How To Buy A Gun in Israel

 Israel 1Join a shooting club, or prove that you live or work in a dangerous area authorized for gun ownership, including certain settlements.2Get a doctor’s note saying you have no mental illness or history of drug abuse. 3Install a gun safe. 4Release your criminal and mental health history to the authorities. 5Buy a gun and a limited supply of bullets, usually around 50. 6Demonstrate that you can use your gun or a similar gun at a firing range before taking it home.

Many countries, including Israel, also allow people with certain jobs to more easily obtain guns, including security, research and pest control.

Trump Using Tariffs for Extortion

Donald Trump announced that he's going to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum, annoying pretty much everyone except a small minority of nutjobs. 

The stock market has reacted quite negatively. Most Republicans have reacted negatively. All our allies have reacted negatively. Pretty much every economist has blasted the move. So why is Brain-Dead Donald (his new nickname -- everyone is using it!) imposing tariffs?

Trump plans to use the tariffs to extort campaign contributions from companies:

A top trade adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday a process will be in place for businesses to get exemptions from the White House plan to place steep tariffs on steel and aluminum, offering the first indication a tariff hike could be less broad than first thought.

Peter Navarro, director of the White House National Trade Council, said countries will not be excluded from the tariffs because that would become a slippery slope, but there will be a mechanism for corporate exemptions in some cases. 

What will that mechanism be? They haven't said. But we can only assume, since this is Donald Trump, that it will involve secret contributions to his presidential campaign and patronizing Trump businesses.

And even though Navarro said that countries will not be exempt, Trump has already said that Canada and Mexico will be exempted if they do what he wants on NAFTA. Which is blatant, naked extortion.

Pretty much everything Trump does as president includes a component that allows him to profit personally.

Trump is the poster boy for corruption.

Site Policies

Our site traffic has increased a great deal here at Zombie Politics over the last couple of months so I thought it might be a good time to review our comments policies. Here is the link to my original post on comments and how they will be moderated. Let's review the main points.

Comments that refute points or ideas presented in the posts or by other commenters are just fine. Criticisms about groups of people (liberals are all blah blah blah...conservatives are all blah blah blah) are also acceptable. Criticism about public figures are fine (Barack Obama is a Kenyan Muslim! John Boehner is a corporate shill!) as well. Personal remarks about posters or other commenters that take the form of insults, childish baiting, answering questions with questions or arguments about arguments will not be allowed.

In short, no trolling. This was a recent comment I had to delete.

Nowhere else in The Constitution does "The People" mean anything other than ALL THE PEOPLE. The law has never once been applied in this country to deny people the right to bear arms based on militia membership. Heller simply stated the obvious, de facto reality we've all been living under for the last 200+ years. The tortured mental gymnastics you had to go to try and make your argument are laughable. You don't want to try to repeal the 2nd amendment because you know you can't. You're also not going to neuter it with this militia nonsense. Get fucked.

The first part was fine. The bolded part was not. It was childish, baiting, insulting and made an argument about an argument. Those comments will be deleted.

Any questions or concerns, please use the comment form on the right side of the site. Thanks and welcome new readers!

The Norwegian Oil Company's Floating Wind Farm

When it comes to wind power people come up with the most ridiculous complaints. 

One is that it "wastes" land. This one is a complete crock, as most wind farms are sited on productive farmland in places like Iowa and Minnesota.

Another is that wind kills birds. It does, by the hundreds of thousands. However, glass buildings -- like all the hotels and office buildings that Donald Trump owns -- kill billions of birds every year. Cats kill an additional two or so billion birds in the United States alone.

Another is that wind power is unsightly. What's more unsightly: A) tall, graceful turbines spinning in the wind, B) giant smokestacks spewing thick, black, sulfer-laden coal smoke, or C) nuclear power towers built along rivers and lakes, emitting huge gouts of slightly radioactive steam.

Well, the Norwegian oil company has a solution: offshore floating wind turbines.

The world's first commercial floating offshore wind farm, called Hywind, started sending electricity to the grid last October. Since then, the six-turbine, 30MW installation has been working well. Really well. In fact, Hywind has had a 65-percent capacity factor over the last three months according to Statoil, the Norwegian mega-corporation that built the wind farm off the coast of Scotland. (Capacity factor measures a generation unit's actual output against its theoretical maximum output. A capacity factor of 100 percent means the wind farm would be sending 30MW of power to the grid every minute of every day since it's been in operation.)

That 65% capacity factor is higher than land-based wind and solar, and greater than many hydroelectric facilities, which have an average of 45% capacity. Since the wind is stronger and more consistent during the winter, Hywind's figure will be lower for the full year.

The wind farm is 15 miles offshore, eliminating all the complaints about wasting land, killing birds and being unsightly.

It uses the same technology that oil drilling uses: a floating platform anchored to the seafloor with suction anchors. This allows the platforms to withstand high winds and hurricanes, just as oil platforms do:

In October, the proximity of Hurricane Ophelia exposed Hywind to wind speeds of 125 km/h (80 mph), and later in December, another storm delivered "gusts in excess of 160 km/h (100 mph) and waves in excess of 8.2 m (27 ft)."

If you compare this success story to the abject failure that was the Kemper "clean coal" facility, which has now been abandoned after wasting billions of dollars, it becomes clear that the future of energy is renewables.

Overturn DC vs. Heller, Not the Second Amendment

In the wake of the Parkland shooting, there have been many calls to repeal the Second Amendment. This is completely unnecessary, as the Second Amendment itself reads:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The key phrases are "well regulated Militia," a "free State" and "the people." It's clear from context that "the people" are the Militia of the State, not an individual person. Furthermore, if you scan the Constitution for the word "Militia," you'll find these references that describe the powers that the President and the federal Congress have over the militias:

The Congress shall have the power to ...

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

and

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment. 

and

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. 

From these references it's clear that the Congress is responsible for arming, disciplining and training the Militia, i.e., the people armed by Second Amendment. The President is the Commander in Chief of the Militia of the several States. The Militia in these times is the National Guard.

All this means that the federal government has the right and responsibility to regulate the Arms and discipline the people in the Militia who keep and bear those Arms.

Speculation about what the Founding Fathers "really meant" or what English common law said about owning arms should irrelevant to strict conservative constructionists who claim to abide by the letter of the Constitution.

Even if you don't agree that one needs to be a member of the National Guard to keep Arms (i.e., we're all citizen soldiers), it's clear that the Constitution indicates that the President and Congress have the right to regulate Arms and impose training and discipline on people who keep and bear arms. If you've got a gun, you've got to obey the laws imposed by the Congress and enforced by the President.

Which means Congress can pass laws to regulate or ban dangerous weapons in civilian hands -- AR-15s, silencers, machine guns, hand grenades, and kevlar vests. Congress can discipline those who bear Arms by requiring licensing and training, or barring incompetent or unstable individuals from keeping Arms.

Furthermore, since the Second Amendment is concerned with the security of a free State, the States should be able regulate Arms as they see fit. The Second Amendment is about states' rights, after all. If States want tighter gun laws than the Congress imposes, they should be able to have them, just as they can have tighter laws for automobiles, gambling, pollution regulation, health care and most anything else.

This was the view of Constitutional scholars -- and even the NRA -- for two centuries. And then, some time in the 1970s, the NRA went off their rockers and began clamoring for an unlimited ability to murder and maim. The 2008 DC vs. Heller Supreme Court decision recognizing an individual right to bear Arms was not a Constitutional decision, it was a political act of conservative justices kowtowing to a tiny minority of Americans and the arms industry.

The Second Amendment doesn't need to be repealed: the illegitimate DC vs. Heller decision simply needs to be overturned.

How To Buy A Gun In Australia

 Australia 1Join and regularly attend a hunting or shooting club, or document that you’re a collector. 2Complete a course on firearm safety and operation, and pass a written test and practical assessment. 3Arrange firearm storage that meets safety regulations. 4Pass a review that considers criminal history, domestic violence, restraining orders and arrest history. Authorities may also interview your family and community members. 5Apply for a permit to acquire a specific type of weapon. 6Wait at least 28 days.7Buy the specific type of gun you received a permit for.



In response to a 1996 mass shooting, Australia made guns a privilege, not a right. Gun owners must provide a valid reason for owning a weapon, such as farming or hunting, and gun clubs must inform the authorities of inactive members.