Standard Mischief

The Neistat Brothers shoot a short video of themselves “stealing” their own bikes, and the public reactions of the people around them. Amusing, 5:10 minutes well spent.

Update 24-mar-07:Excuse the bump on my RSS feed, I just felt if I was going to link to the video, I ought to link to the creator’s copy on YouTube. Five seconds longer and better quality rip, no other real changes.

Bike Thief 5:10 min.

Click here to view the video in a pop-up, resizable window | Direct link

Bonus points for method number three, the use of municipal outlets (aka “joule thief”, “voltage rustling”, “power rustling”).

I’m just posting this one to check on something. Will the NRA turn off the ability to embed a YouTube video after I post that video in my blog? Inquiring minds want to know.

This is a pretty good video that shows what a huge waste of money any scheme to attempt to “fingerprint” every lawfully owned firearm is. We’ve got this huge waste of cash here in the free state of Maryland. I’m going to have to take a deeper look at it because I’m sure those dollars could be better or more effectively spent elsewhere.

I’ve put “fingerprint” in quotes because the system isn’t anywhere near as precise as real fingerprints. It’s a propaganda term that we’re stuck with, at least for the meanwhile.

NRA: The Truth About Ballistic “Fingerprinting” 8:59 min.
Click here to view the video in a pop-up window | Direct link

Oh, and here’s the RSS feed for the NRA’s YouTube video posts.

Update again 16-mar-07: Embedded video code is working again, courtesy of the NRA, so please go ahead and embed the content in your own blog. Thank you for those who have linked, I’m happy for the traffic, but for me, the message is far more important. As of right now the NRA has had 2,775 views. List and linkback of all known blogs and forums at the bottom of this post.

Update 14-mar-07: Whoops, I just checked my embedding code. it seems that the NRA still doesn’t grok this YouTube stuff yet, as they do not allow embedding. That’s strange as I thought it worked before. You’ll have to go to YouTube to view it. I’ll leave my pop-up embedding code up just in case they change their mind.

Finally, the NRA puts some good video of the Katrina Gun Grab up on YouTube, where we bloggers can link to or embed it in our posts.

A year ago, some non-gun friends brought up the Katrina disaster, and I was amazed that they’ve never heard about the door-to-door gun confiscations. Apparently there was so much going on that they missed that part, even though we pro-freedom gun enthusiasts pricked up our ears at first mention. I want Katrina to be a watershed moment, not a footnote that is ranked somewhere below in importance to the conspiracy-minded video “Loose Change”.

So do me a favor. If you agree that this is a message that we need to have heard outside the circle of pro-freedom gun enthusiasts, then please link to this video in your blog and encourage your readers to watch it. As it moves up the rankings, more and more people outside our regular readers will view it, and that can be nothing but good for our side. Thanks.

NRA: The Untold Story of Gun Confiscation After Katrina 7:48 min.

Click here to view the video in a pop-up window | Direct link

You can hit the “Direct Link” above to go to YouTube’s page and use one of their embedding or linking methods, or you can hit Ctrl-U on this page and borrow mine.

Update: Sorry, I forgot to plug the NRA site http://givethemback.com/

Update, Linkback:

Linked and embedded the video.
FAL files forum
TFS Magnum

Link to video on YouTube
No Looking Backward
Tragic Boating Accident

Embedded the Video
The Real Gun Guys

Linked to me
SayUncle
Random Nuclear Strikes

Thank you everyone.

…almost no pro-freedom blogger seemed to cover this little story:

The FBI evaded limits on, and sometimes illegally issued, orders for phone, email and financial information on American citizens and underreported the use of these self-issued orders to Congress, according to an internal audit by the Justice Department released Friday. The DOJ Inspector General reported that the FBI used self-issued subpoenas, known as National Security Letters, to get information on at least 143,074 targets.

Via 27B Stroke 6

Since this is one government agency reporting on another, I’m wondering if the truth is actually even worse. Is there actually any “teeth” (criminal statues that apply to any lawbreakers) to the perpetual “patriot” act? Ideally, I’d like to see someone go to jail over this, but that’s not very likely.

Thankfully, we have our congress-monkeys to the rescue. There’s going to be the typical congressional mischief of hearings to allow the voters to see there critters are “doing something” about this problem that was largely created by itself. Just another dog and pony show. It’s far too early before the election to expect the (D) people in congress to send the President a sweeping, clearly worded bill that they know he’ll veto and they know they won’t attempt to override. Such bills are merely an attempt to score political points. The perpetual “patriot” act is far too useful to the next Democratic administration to repeal completely.

If you saw some weirdo honking his horn and pumping his fist in the air on the drive home this afternoon, then perhaps that was me.

I was reacting to the Parker v. DC decision.