Tabs are getting pretty crowded, so I thought I’d go through some of the articles I’ve been collection. Late start on posting today, since I was up until 5AM doing an after-hours migration that took a lot longer than I anticipated, and I had already burned the bridge to get back:
E-bay is now allowing limited sales of gun parts. Disappointed about the 10+ round magazine restriction, but that’s probably rooted in them not wanting to monitor every sale, and train their staff on every state’s gun laws. Though, there are only, IIRC, 5 or six states that have magazine restrictions.
Knife rights are advancing in Georgia, with a state law to preempt local knife ordinances. Hey, knives are arms too. I think you can look to the folks at Knife Rights pushing this kind of preemption in other states as well. If you’re not a member of Knife Rights, you should join. I’ve talked to the folks behind this organization, and they really are trying to make things happen. It’s not just a fundraising setup. But they need members and funds badly, nonetheless.
The FBI wants internet companies to force every website to have a mandatory back door for wiretapping purposes. The FBI can go fsck themselves, as far as I’m concerned. This is an idea that is so monumentally stupid, it defies belief. Joe Huffman, also a tech guy, agrees. This would seriously compromise our national security. Why? Because backdoors are only a good idea until someone else gets the key, which makes them a stupid idea. Apparently the organization, founded by that great, honorable scoundrel, J. Edgar, hasn’t changed a bit. They don’t like that wiretapping on the Internet is difficult if not impossible. That’s a feature, guys, no a bug. My only worry is this is the kind of really stupid ass stuff that Republican’s eat up. The FBI is just more big government. F**k the FBI.
Extrano’s Alley look at whether Japan still has a low crime rate.
UPDATE: Forgot about Thirdpower, who is skeptical of the rumors of a Big Sis takeover by DHS, noting that it would be rough fighting a revolution only with .40S&W. I think it’s also wise to recall that the US Coast Guard is part of DHS, and they would be expected to go through a lot of ammo, and they do deploy .40S&W pistols.
I’ve read that the FBI in general, while of course having specialists who don’t fit the rule, as an organization is incredibly limited in its ability to understand and use computer technology. Apparently it wasn’t until the early 00s that the various field offices were even linked by email. So many of these problems have to do with policy makers–and directors–not understanding “new” technology they are supposed to be setting policy for.
Maybe it’s time to move my hosting to Canada or Sweden.
Agreed.
I just purchased a year of VPN service to circumvent surveilance and maybe download a few things here and there, but just about every page load hangs up. I can’t even access Pirate Bay. It either takes 5 minutes for a single page to load or it just never loads at all. This website hangs up and never loads because it’s “waiting for twitter” endlessly. And my Android phone has a bug that “times out” every time I try to connect.
Sorry for the rant….
Drill down to the original article and you’ll find that it very clearly states in the subtitle that the DHS-ATK .40 S&W deal is a “Five-Year, Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity Contract”. While I assume there’s a minimum purchase for the first year, ID/IQ contracts allow the government wide latitude in when and how much they buy. The cited 450 million rounds that too many are getting bent out of shape about is only the maximum that can be purchased, and I’m sure only if the contract is extended for the full 5 years (each additional year is an option).
Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if the contract has Lake City style provisions where orders can be canceled without extreme penalty and ATK can then sell the ammo to us. That deal works very, very well for ATK, the DoD, and us (with as far as I know the government providing all the capital equipment). I certainly appreciated the DoD’s cancellation in mid-2008 or so of a 120 million round order for M193 ammo, it came on the market at time when we really, really wanted it.
You want conspiracy theories? The planned re-election of Obama, revolutionary style