Under a Gibbous Moon

Detective Rod Tauson of the East Palo Palo Alto (California) Police Department doesn’t like it when other people carry firearms. On his Facebook page, he made threats to shoot those he saw do it, despite the fact that it is legal in his jurisdiction.

I have run into this attitude (not quite this extreme) semi-regularly for the police. That is that they are the only ones who should be given the right to carry a weapon. I have found this odd that, as I have discussed in an earlier post, the police are merely a reactive agency who are not required nor are capable of defending any given individual.

What makes this most repugnant is, in essence, it means that police officers like this consider themselves to be a special class of citizens who are therefore entitled to rights and privileges greater than those given to the rest of us.

This is a dangerous attitude when carried out as part of a larger policing strategy. It leads to a situation where the police stop being protectors and move into the position of keepers, where they define what is and is not allowed and deal with those who disagree with them in any way they feel (look up pretty much anything with the words “Police” and “Brutality”).

This video is of a prototype collapsible PDW:

Looks interesting, it apparently makes use of a Glock upper reciever with their own custom, collapsible lower.

I picked this up from BoingBoing. I highly recommend checking it out because it is always entertaining to watch people who know nothing about firearms discuss them.

This is not a SMG, unless they use the Glock 18 for the upper. This would be impractical due to the fact that, with the collapsible grip, you would be limited to standard magazines which would leave you with a very limited ammunition capacity.

Also, this is not a SBR (short barreled rifle). It is a pistol with a stock. No special permits needed.

All that said, it would be a rather interesting product if they decided to market it. It would give you greater stability (granted by the stock) in a very compact package.

This kind of shit really pisses me off

Hi,

I’m spending my time here for the children of Haiti.

I’m doing my part for a non-profit group that gives their time to
creating oppurtunities for the kids in haiti. If anyone wants to donate then do so here:

Donate to Haiti or Help Haiti

They provide children in Haiti a positive outlook through education.

Please check them out, they’re legitimate.

I greatly appreciate anyone’s help

This showed up in my spam comment box earlier today. I know it’s not the first or the last time this has happened since the earthquake (or any disaster) but this is the first one that’s come my way.

There were links in the comment, but I took them out so no one tries to click on them (look shiny!).

It’s someplace called universallearningcentre.org. Despite being registered in Arizona, centre is spelled British style. It is not listed in any charity database or even with the Better Business Bureau. It was registered by a Jacques Jean, who uses learninguniversal@yahoo.com as the email address, very professional.

The guy does (or did) lives in a very nice house though. Apparently the spam business is paying off for him.

Randall Munroe (in case you didn’t know) is the author and illustrator of the hilariously funny xkcd. He has assembled a list of Android bugs that have effected him. Though only two (4 and 12) have effected me personally, the list is funny to read.

So go read it.

Now.

From our file of Inappropriately Titled Articles, comes this piece by Charlie Sorrel. He calls it Gates On iPad: Needs Pen, Keyboard, Voice. What it really is is just a rant on how people don’t get the iPad. You would think that it was a personal affront to him. My favorite part is this:

Like the iPhone before, people are missing the point. If you don’t want one, don’t buy one. Buy a netbook instead, or a MacBook, or an iPod Touch. Just quit whining, because as soon as the iPad goes on sale, I predict that Apple will sell a gazillion.

I wish I got paid to write that people who don’t agree with me are whiny bitches, I mean I do, I just don’t get paid for it.