Category: Unintended Consequences

Seen online:

Two groups of people (call them A and B) both see themselves as victims and have grievances they feel aren’t being heard.

Both resort to violence.

Dem reactions to group A:
“People will do what they do”
“Tell me where it says protests have to be peaceful”
“Don’t judge a whole group by the actions of a few”
“America is racist”

Dem reactions to group B:
“They are traitors”
“Violence is never acceptable”
“Arrest any people who agree with them in Congress”

This doesn’t go unnoticed.

Woman Shot Climbing Through Doorway inside Capitol Dies From Gunshot Wound

A young woman was shot while climbing through a doorway window in Washington DC today. It appears from the video, a woman attempted to climb through a side-door window; she was shot from inside the hallway and fell back into a small group behind her.

In the image below she is wearing a red and white backpack, climbing through a broken window next to a doorway when a shot is heard. She falls directly backward as people, including two uniformed police officers, attempt to render aid.

There were two uniformed police officers directly behind her who seemed surprised at the gunfire. [Twitter Video Here] Reports are now surfacing that the young lady died in the hospital following a single gunshot to the neck.

It’s the Word on Everyone’s Lips Today
Secession.

I agree with Ace – WE didn’t start saying it, THEY did.

We liked our country, just fine, the way it was. We really weren’t all that anxious to leave when Obama was around. We just started ordering guns, to have them available, just in case he wasn’t a-funning with that ‘gun grab’ thing.

But, now?

It’s not JUST the election theft, although that is a part. It’s happened before, but never like this – incredibly obvious, and completely denied. That it came after we agreed to a re-do for the NC seat, after shenanigans surfaced with the vote, is just more proof that we play by the rules – even when it hurts us.

But, they don’t. Didn’t. And never will.

So, yeah, I think It’s ON. Or, very close to that point. Continue reading “”

I don’t think the city council understands that if there is no Police ‘interaction’ , the citizenry will handle whatever problems arise, and it won’t be pretty. Then again, maybe they do……………

NYC Seeks To Bar Police From Any Interaction With Homeless.

Having already slashed the budget for the NYPD, the City Council in the Big Apple is looking to enact even more restrictions on the actions of the police department. Multiple members of the Council have drafted a bill that would bar the police from any interaction with homeless individuals on the streets. That would include both responding to complaints about possible criminal behavior and outreach efforts where officers attempt to get the homeless into shelters. To say this is going too far is an understatement. Even the notoriously liberal Mayor is opposed to the measure. (NY Post)

The NYPD would be prohibited from conducting any outreach to New York’s homeless under a new bill before the City Council, handcuffing cops from protecting municipal workers on the frontlines of the crisis — a move opposed by police unions and Mayor Bill de Blasio.

“Experiencing homelessness on the street or on the subway is not a crime,” insisted Councilman Stephen Levin (D-Brooklyn) during a Monday hearing of the council’s general welfare committee. “I hope that this bill will ensure that there is less harm done by limiting the involvement of police in these interactions.”

Levin, who reps areas including Downtown Brooklyn and Williamsburg, is co-sponsoring the bill along with Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal, a Democrat representing Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

The insinuation in this bill is obvious. The liberals on the Council who have been pushing to defund, if not entirely abolish the police are suggesting that the cops can’t be trusted to deal with the homeless or are somehow looking to abuse them. This flies in the face of the reality on the streets, where the city’s Department of Homeless Services has routinely partnered with the NYPD and relied on them to provide officers to accompany workers when engaging the homeless. This is done not only to ensure that help is provided to the homeless but to protect the workers in case any of the people they are trying to help become violent, as often happens when they are engaging with people having mental health issues.
Continue reading “”

This is goobermint at its finest. I almost want to call it intended consequences because anyone in their right mind would and should expect this.

The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office has declined to file charges in 70% of the protest-related cases that have been referred to them since May, although District Attorney Mike Schmidt has said he would pursue cases that involve “deliberate” property damage, theft or force against another person or threats of force. [but guess what. He Has’nt]

Insurers balk at covering Portland businesses; brokers say downtown upheaval has made carriers wary

Eric Murfitt watched helplessly from a live security feed as looters trashed his downtown clothing store, Mercantile, during a riot on May 30. Murfitt said the business suffered $1 million in losses due to the break-in and had to file an insurance claim to stay afloat.

But in November, Murfitt was informed that his insurance carrier would not be renewing the store’s policy. Nearly a dozen other insurance companies declined to even offer Mercantile a quote.

So earlier this month, Murfitt settled for a policy that nearly quadrupled his premium, had a significantly higher deductible, included a much smaller cap on coverage related to robbery and excluded any property damage related to civil unrest.

Commercial insurance premiums were rising even before the coronavirus, while coverage was decreasing. The pandemic exacerbated those trends. Premiums for commercial property and casualty insurance increased by an average of almost 11% in the second quarter of 2020 , according to the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers.

But brokers say insurance companies have become particularly wary about covering Portland businesses, especially those downtown, as ongoing protests have given the city a reputation for upheaval and led to a spike in vandalism and destruction, often committed by a small group of people. Brokers say this trend could be transitory and better coverage opportunities might resume quickly if the level of risk perceived by insurance companies changes. Continue reading “”

I think you’ll find many ‘intellectuals’ have crap-for-brains when it comes to real thinking.

Melinda Gates Admits “We Hadn’t Really Thought Through the Economic Impacts”

In a wide-ranging interview in the New York Times, Melinda Gates made the following remarkable statement:

“What did surprise us is we hadn’t really thought through the economic impacts.”

A cynic might observe that one is disinclined to think much about matters than do not affect one personally.

It’s a maddening statement, to be sure, as if “economics” is somehow a peripheral concern to the rest of human life and public health. The larger context of the interview reveals the statement to be even more confused. She is somehow under the impression that it is the pandemic and not the lockdowns that are the cause of the economic devastation that includes perhaps 30% of restaurants going under, among many other terrible effects. Continue reading “”

Man Tries to Grab Trump Flag From His Car, But Then Instant Karma Strikes

I wrote an earlier feel good story that CNN might be sold, because AT&T was in financial trouble, and posited what a great idea it would be if President Donald Trump were to buy it and completely change the network, if he did not prevail ultimately in the election.

But we have another feel good story that just says so much about what Trump Derangement Syndrome can lead Biden supporters to do and how karma can bite back.

Trump supporters were out in force this weekend, supporting Trump and supporting the concerns being raised about the election.

But one man driving by in a car didn’t take kindly to one man who was holding a Trump banner. He allegedly tried to grab the banner and then spit on the man holding it. But talk about instant karma when he tried to speed away.

Modern high technology strikes again

This Hacked Coffee Maker Demands Ransom and Demonstrates a Terrifying Implication About the IoT (Internet of Things)

It’s no secret that the Internet of Things is full of insecure gadgets. All you need is one high profile incident to be flooded with terrifying headlines about how everything from robotic vacuum cleaners to smart sex toys can be hacked to spy on you. However, apparently some devices like Smarter’s IoT coffee machine can also be reprogrammed to go haywire and demand ransom from unsuspecting users.

This week, Martin Hron, a researcher with the security firm Avast, reverse engineered a $250 Smarter coffee maker as part of a thought experiment to potentially uncover an important flaw in the infrastructure of smart devices.

“I was asked to prove a myth, call it a suspicion, that the threat to IoT devices is not just to access them via a weak router or exposure to the internet, but that an IoT device itself is vulnerable and can be easily owned without owning the network or the router,” he wrote in a blog post detailing his methods.

His experiment was a success: After a week of tinkering, he effectively turned the coffee maker into a ransomware machine. When the user tries to connect it to their home network, it triggers the machine to turn on the burner, spew hot water, endlessly spin the bean grinder, and display a pre-programmed ransom message while beeping incessantly……..

Yes. That’s black residents telling BLM to take a hike.

Chicago Neighborhood Ejects BLM Protesters At Police Station

Englewood may set the tone for dealing with rioters for the rest of the summer. After the organized pillaging this weekend on the Magnificent Mile, the city of Chicago toughened up their security stance. Black Lives Matter protesters and others set their sights on the Englewood neighborhood’s police precinct, but residents there pushed them out — literally.

“Those people were opportunist[s],” one leader of the neighborhood pushback told reporters:

Continue reading “”

Trump is using the Rules for Radicals that Saul Alinsky wrote to help leftists.
1,  Rule 4 – Make the enemy live up to its own set of rules
2, Rule 5 – Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon
3, Rule 6 -A good tactic is one your people enjoy

It is enjoyable to see their own tactics used against them.

Trump defends gathering at Bedminster golf club as ‘peaceful protest.’

President Trump defended a gathering of members of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club as a “peaceful protest” against the media.

“To me they pretty much look like they all have, pretty much all have masks on,” Trump said, who said the Friday gathering was not in violation of Garden State social distancing regulations.

“You know you have an exclusion in the law. It says peaceful protest or political activity, right?” he added.

“I call it peaceful protest because they heard you were coming up and they know the news is fake, they know it better than anybody,” Trump continued.

For privacy-minded people who are skeptical of public health arguments in favor of face masks, the pandemic may prove to be less of a reason to wear face coverings than an excuse to do just that. And we may as well throw in sunglasses and a hat, just to be sure………

Face Masks Confuse Facial Recognition Technology

Americans can’t agree on whether face masks are a good way to reduce the threat of transmitting COVID-19. We’ve even turned mask-donning into a symbol of partisan affiliation; those who would make them compulsory everywhere face off against those who refuse them under all circumstances. But we should at least be able to agree that face coverings are a great way to defeat the surveillance state—especially now that the U.S. government has conceded that masks confuse the hell out of facial recognition technology.

“Using unmasked images, the most accurate algorithms fail to authenticate a person about 0.3% of the time,” the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a federal agency, reported last week. “Masked images raised even these top algorithms’ failure rate to about 5%, while many otherwise competent algorithms failed between 20% to 50% of the time.”

Notably, the NIST test focused on one-to-one matching of a face against a single photo, as you might do to unlock a cellphone or at a passport checkpoint. One-to-one systems are carried out under conditions of near-ideal lighting and camera placement, and so are more reliable than one-to-many matches of faces against databases that are conducted during surveillance of public places. Masks should be expected to be even more effective at increasing failure rates of one-to-many facial recognition systems.

“The more of the nose a mask covers, the lower the algorithm’s accuracy,” the NIST report adds of the digitally simulated coverings used in the study. “The study explored three levels of nose coverage—low, medium and high—finding that accuracy degrades with greater nose coverage.” Continue reading “”

Today is the 12th World Chocolate Day

Invented by the Aztecs, they believed Quetzacoatal gave them the cacao plant they made Xocolātl from. The Spanish conquistadors took the seeds back with them and cooks came up with a confection they called Chocolate.

All 57 Members of Buffalo Police Department’s Emergency Response Team Resign

Every member of the Buffalo Police Departments Emergency Response Team, tasked with responding to riots and other peace keeping situations, resigned Friday. Ever.single.member.

According to The Buffalo News, the law enforcement officers have not resigned from the police force, only the special tactical unit responsible for crowd control.

The mass resignation comes after two officers were suspended without pay after video captured a 75-year-old man being pushed to the crowd after he confronted officers attempting to clear an area. The man approached officers and appeared to swat at one, who then pushed him out of the way. After the two officers were suspended, the union notified “rank and file members Friday that the union would no longer pay for legal fees to defend police officers related to the protests which began Saturday in downtown Buffalo and have continued on and off, according to one source.”

The notification upset the union, ultimately promptly the mass resignation.

More from The Buffalo News:

The union representing Buffalo police officers told its rank and file members Friday that the union would no longer pay for legal fees to defend police officers related to the protests which began Saturday in downtown Buffalo and have continued on and off, according to one source. The union is upset with the treatment of the two officers who were suspended Thursday.

“Our position is these officers were simply following orders from Deputy Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia to clear the square,” said Buffalo Police Benevolent Association President John Evans. “It doesn’t specify clear the square of men, 50 and under or 15 to 40. They were simply doing their job. I don’t know how much contact was made. He did slip in my estimation. He fell backwards.”

A video posted by WBFO late Thursday night showed the officers pushing the man before he fell backward and hit his head on the sidewalk. He was taken to Erie County Medical Center, where he was in stable but serious condition early Friday morning.

It was not clear how the Buffalo Police Department will deal with the manpower issue. State police, Erie County Sheriff’s Office, as well as other local law enforcement agencies have been helping with the response to protests and unrest.

“I don’t know what the city is going to do,” Evans said. “They have not called me.”

Mayor Byron Brown said in a statement: “The City of Buffalo is aware of developments related to the work assignments of certain members of the Buffalo police force.  At this time, we can confirm that contingency plans are in place to maintain police services and ensure public safety within our community. The Buffalo police continue  to actively work with the New York State Police and other cooperating agencies.”

Evans said: “We stand behind those officers 100%.”

The PBA will pay for any defense costs for the two officers, Evans said, but not for any members of the Emergency Response Team or SWAT in regards to the protesting.

Evans said the two officers, whose names have circulated widely social media, have been harassed.

The actions of the officers drew swift condemnation from people across the nation, including Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

“It’s just fundamentally offensive and frightening,” Cuomo said Friday morning.

Watch the video here. WARNING: Graphic content.

Chinese Consulate Asks Wisconsin State Senator For Praise In Resolution. He Gives Them A Resolution They Won’t Forget.

After receiving emails from the Chinese consulate asking him to pass a resolution praising China for its fight against the coronavirus, which originated in China, Wisconsin Senate President Roger Roth (R-Appleton) wrote a resolution slamming China for lying about the coronavirus.

“When [Roth] received the first one dated Feb. 26, he saw it was from a hotmail account and disregarded it as a prank,” the Wisconsin Examiner reported. “Then on March 10, 2020, he received a follow up, and Roth says he had his staff start digging, reaching out through government channels. They were able to confirm that the email requests were legitimate — and they were told Chinese diplomats routinely use private email accounts because they are faster.”

The Chinese sent Roth a draft of the resolution that they wanted him to use which was full of communist propaganda and said, “there is no need to overreact.”

The main section of the communist propaganda resolution stated:

Whereas China’s action has been critical to the global fight against the epidemic, and China has adopted unprecedented and rigorous measures for disease control and prevention, including locking down Wuhan, a metropolis of 11 million people, house-to-house temperature checks, postponing the return to work after the Lunar New Year break of hundreds of millions of travelers, construction of hospitals of more than two thousand beds on green fields within days, bringing in medical teams from across the country to Hubei Province. These measures have been effective in curbing the virus from spreading to other parts of China and the world. As a result, the daily number of newly confirmed cases in China has dropped sharply to double digits, over 60,000 (to be updated) people have been cured and discharged from hospital, and the case fatality rate has remained lower than SARS, EBOLA and MERS; and

Whereas China has been transparent and quick in sharing key information of the virus with the WHO and the international community, thus creating a window of opportunity for other countries to make timely response

“Then I got mad, because that’s when [COVID-19] cases started cropping up here and you saw the problem exacerbated as we started to learn the truth,” Roth told the Wisconsin Examiner. “I just sent them back a one-word response. I said ‘nuts.’”

“Then a couple of days later I said that we are going to introduce a resolution, it’s just not the one that the Chinese government wants,” Roth continued. “We’re going to introduce one that speaks the truth to the lies that I believe are being told around the world, so that’s how we ended up with the resolution as it was introduced.”

Roth put together the following resolution, in response to the request from the Chinese consulate, condemning China for its actions during the pandemic and for other acts of tyranny [emphasis original]:

Relating to: acknowledging that the Communist Party of China deliberately and
intentionally misled the world on the Wuhan Coronavirus and standing in
solidarity with the Chinese people to condemn the actions of the Communist
Party of China.

Whereas, the State of Wisconsin is currently in a state of emergency due to the
rising spread of the Coronavirus that originated in the Wuhan Province of China, as
the number of infected individuals in Wisconsin rose to over 700 and also consisted
of 8 deaths as of March 26, 2020; and

Whereas, the Chinese people are a great people, and heirs to one of the greatest
civilizations in human history, held hostage by a brutal and oppressive regime these
past 70 years; and

Whereas, the Communist Party of China has engaged in a continued pattern
of human and natural rights abuses perpetrated by the country’s communist
administration, including the Communist Party’s treatment of Tibet, the internment
and “reeducation” of 1.5 million Muslim Uyghurs in concentration camps, the
enactment of a one-child policy responsible for aborting hundreds of millions of
children, the majority of them female, a record of organ harvesting and forced
sterilization, crackdown on the Tiananmen protests, and restrictions on individual
expression and religious practice; and

Whereas, the Communist Party of China has repeatedly demonstrated a lack
of interest in respecting international norms, including a history of currency
manipulation, intellectual property theft, and restricting Chinese market access,
while receiving the condemnation of numerous American Presidents and Legislators
from both political parties for these practices; and

Whereas, the Communist Party of China, led by President Xi Jinping, has
moved to consolidate power, scrapping term limits to create a de facto life term for
the President of China and continually squashing democratic-based initiatives in
and outside of mainland China; and

Whereas, the Chinese government is currently engaging in a barrage of
misinformation throughout all corners of the globe, attempting to pass off the
responsibility of their negligent and reckless response to the virus; and

Whereas, the Chinese government has imprisoned their own citizens who
dared disseminate accurate information on the Coronavirus, destroyed early
samples of the virus, refused to release timely and accurate information on the virus,
and continued to allow infected individuals to leave the Wuhan Province after
reasonable evidence of person-to-person contamination was present; and

Whereas, reports have indicated that had the Chinese Government acted in a
more efficient, transparent, and responsible way, cases worldwide of the virus may
have been limited by 95 percent; and

Whereas, on February 5, 2020, the first confirmed case of Coronavirus was
identified in Wisconsin; and

Whereas, on February 26, 2020, and again on March 10, 2020, the Chinese
Consulate reached out to the Wisconsin Senate President requesting that the Senate
pass a resolution — written by the Chinese Consulate — including propaganda
and falsehoods such as:

“China has been transparent and quick in sharing key information of the virus with the WHO and the international community, thus creating a window of opportunity for other countries to make timely response”

Whereas, the Wisconsin State Senate deems it necessary and prudent to
combat the spread of misinformation propagated by the Communist Party of China
and the need to push back on the claims that the virus originated anywhere but
China; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the senate, That the Wisconsin Senate acknowledges that the
Communist Party of China has deliberately and intentionally misled the world,
suppressed vital information on the statistics and spread of the Wuhan Coronavirus
both domestically and abroad, allowed millions of individuals to travel outside of the
province and country despite clear warnings that the virus could be transmitted
person-to-person, and engaged in active suppression and persecution of individuals
looking to truthfully discuss information related to the Coronavirus, which has led
to a global pandemic the likes of which has not been seen for generations; and, be it
further

Resolved, That the Wisconsin Senate hereby stands in solidarity with the
Chinese people, condemning the actions of the Communist Party of China in the
strongest possible terms, and acknowledges that millions, both in China and around
the world, are at risk of illness and death due to the negligence and hostile actions
of the Chinese Communist Party.

Not all that long ago these types were having conniptions about people who were using the wrong ‘gender pronoun’.
A real crisis apparently brings things into a clearer perspective, and from the überproggie New Yorker magazine, no less.

Choose Your Weapon

As shoppers stock up for a potential Armageddon, an Oregon gun store has sold out of ARs and .308 rifles, many of which went to first-time liberal buyers.

There was no complimentary hand sanitizer for the concerned customers of Gorge Guns, in Hood River, Oregon, on a recent Friday. Erika Bales, the shop’s twenty-nine-year-old owner, wasn’t worried about the virus. “I figure, just let nature take its course,” she said. Her customers were less nonchalant. Bales, who had a neat manicure and a number of tattoos, said that, days earlier, people had begun realizing that “everyone’s buying things and everything’s gonna be gone.” The resulting rush was, for her, unprecedented. She was out of ARs and .308 rifles. A few shotguns remained, and she told shoppers that they could saw them off, to a legal length. “Obama didn’t even bring in these numbers,” Bales said.

At noon, a woman in her sixties came in. She wore plastic gloves and had a scarf wrapped around her face, and she traced a wide arc around the only other non-employee in the store. “I’ve been doing this since the beginning of March,” she said, referring to her protective gear. “I don’t feel sick at all. I’m self-quarantining.” She left her house only for essential activities. This was one. “I’m buying a gun,” she said. “I can’t believe it.”

She went on, “My son was a little upset about it.” (He preferred his bow and arrow.) “I’m old and I live alone, and we don’t know if there’s going to be civil unrest. The world is not the same.” She added, “It didn’t have to be this way.” Unlike many of the shop’s regulars, she was no fan of Trump: “He’s a divider all the way. First he said, ‘Five people have died, big deal.’ Now he’s saying, ‘I always knew it’d be dangerous.’ ” Talk turned to Portland. “It’s a ghost town,” a young woman said. Her name was Rosemary, and she was helping Bales out, since the restaurant where she waited tables had closed.

“I don’t like to go in cities anymore, anyway,” the customer said.

“But these rumors about them putting this country in full lockdown are inaccurate,” Rosemary said. “It’s a scare tactic. It’s not like all of a sudden we’re gonna wake up one day and everyone is sick and the whole world is ending.”

“I don’t know,” the customer said. “The exponential growth is happening.”

“If anything, we’re definitely repopulating, if nobody is at work,” Rosemary said cheerily. “We won’t have a shortage of humans, that’s for sure.”

Bales helped her customer choose a weapon. (“Pick three,” the customer told her.) As Bales rummaged around, the customer said, “I’m going to have a soldier train me. A friend of my son’s.” Bales returned with the first option. “A .22 Mag,” she said. “Holds thirty rounds.”

The customer peered at the gun.

“It’s a Kel-Tec PMR-30,” Bales said.

“I like the color of it,” the customer said. “It’s not black.” She picked it up. “It feels good. And it’s got a safety. I’m going to take this one. You’ve got ammo for it, right?” Bales nodded and noted a few of the gun’s features. “As long as you’re accurate, it’ll do damage,” she said.

“This is just going to be for close range,” the customer said. “In my house. If it happens.” (Asked what “it” was, she said, “In two months, if the cities are starving, they’re gonna come out. And I understand that.”) Bales piled boxes of ammunition on the counter. “I’ll take them all,” the customer said. She ducked outside to get her wallet from the car.

“I think she’s a liberal,” Bales said, once the door closed. “There’s so many coming in. First-time-gun-owner liberals. I’ve probably seen ten this week. It’s so funny, because I hope it just turns them on to liking the Second Amendment. I mean, the Constitution was created for a reason. To protect us.”

The customer returned. The bill was nearly seven hundred dollars, including electronic ear protection and sixteen boxes of bullets. She could come back and pick up the gun once her digital background check cleared. The customer asked, “If I don’t get approved, what happens?”

“You already got approved,” Bales said, glancing at a computer, with some surprise.

“O.K.! Can I take it?”

“Yeah. Some people go through fast.”

The new gun owner asked if there was a shooting range nearby. She asked if she needed a concealed-carry permit. She asked how to carry the gun out. “I can’t believe this!” she said, stepping into the world with her brand-new gun.