What those cameras really need are some of those special filters that can see through lightweight fabric! To see criminals carrying knives, of course ;-)

If the hat is a trademark then the dumbass McD character almost certainly infringes that trademark. I didn't think clothing could be copyright, but if the character is made to have the appearance of a Devo member then that is an infringement of their celebrity image.

I think this is a horrible idea. It will encourage cops to escalate a situation and to draw on someone when they wouldn't otherwise have done so, in order to obtain video should they -perhaps- need to shot.

Also, I can't imagine that the blue wall won't protect cops; in a bad shoot any LEO who examines a camera will happily "certify" that the camera unfortunately failed to function properly.

Another goose-step in the march towards a New World Order.

Soon, no doubt, Australia will also be collecting the kiddies DNA- to protect them, of course. Its already passed and been funded in the US, parents may opt-out but are given no notice, nor are they asked for their consent.

Noen, sorry I got your name wrong, no slight was intended.

I suppose, however, that your civics teacher knew more about the founding of this nation- and of revolution, than Thomas Jefferson?

Also, a few percent of the population of this once great nation, armed with rifles, would never be defeated by smart bombs. Not only have the Iraqi's, Viet-Cong, and Afghani's proven that a nation of men armed with rifles CAN wage an effective guerrilla war against a technologically superior army; But also, I do not believe that the average enlisted man in our military would wage a war against their fellow Americans... I can see it of F-20 pilots and officers, but the average infantry-man would be as likely to frag his CO as obey orders to napalm his grandmother's hometown.

The true danger of endless tyranny will come if and when we have a one-world government. A Chinese soldier would probably torch a US town, and vise-versa. This is a technique Stalin used to put down rebellion during the darkness of his reign.

Neon- NO, we don't call them elections here. Our founding fathers gave us the 2nd Amendment believing that it was possible, or even likely, that the Federal government they were founding would one day no longer be a government by, of and for the people.

Jefferson himself said:
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ...
And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as
to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

A (s)election where we choose between two pre-vetted statists does not even fall close to being a revolution. I mean, OMFG, I get to choose 100 kinds of toothpaste at Mall-Wart, but only 2 possible courses for the nation governed more by ABCNBCFOX-n-C BS than by the will of the people.

Maybe if the Y axis of the graph started off at 0 instead of 310 it would look a little less biased?

Surely I am concerned about the sharp increase in CO2 in our atmosphere. It would seem to give plants an advantage over mammals, and as a mammal that bothers me. Genetically engineered super trees just add to that bother, btw.

This added CO2 is only a very tiny portion of our atmosphere, but it might also be responsible for some of this warming we had in the late 90's which was so worrisome. Now, though, that seems to have slowed or it might even be now cooling... hard to say without properly located and surveyed sensors (rather than ones next to blacktop parking lots and a/c discharge vents).

When I think HOUSE I normally think of things like, uhm, insulation??? These are nothing more than pretty shacks, they won't hold up, they will be hot in the sun and will cool off very rapidly anyplace where it gets uncomfortably cool.

Seriously, a shipping container with windows and some foam on the walls would be vastly preferable (I have seen a couple). Where I live the really poor people build better shacks for cheaper- though I suppose it takes more than just a screw driver and four men a day to do it. I've seen better "houses" built with some old pallets, plastic sheeting and assorted refuse... seriously.

And in other news there has been a zombie uprising in West Virginia...

Right here, PROOF of zombies I tell you. Surprised the media didn't bury the story.

This sort of thing is exactly the reason I recommend that every American own a capable rifle. Its not possible to round up 8 million armed dissidents for "the camps". Not unless they willing hand over their arms first.

WOW, this explains a few things to me. I am allergic to corn syrup, its derivatives and items naturally containing it- like corn and corn meal, unless they have been heated so much that the sugar breaks down.

Occasionally I have hived out when having items containing fructose or maltodextrin, and I never knew that these were (sometimes) corn syrup derived.

It really ticks me off though, I never had this problem until corn syrup and round-up ready corn were so pervasive in the US. Now I can't eat 80% of the packaged foods at the grocery store... even most bread has corn syrup now.

Not only rice, but wheat and corn are also in short supply right now in the US. Bread prices are rising as bakeries face supply problems. Welcome to the New American Century...

Just last year I used my hot engine regularly to heat my lunch. While working on a remote construction project I would bring foil wrapped burritos and such, then set them on the hotest parts of my engine once I got to the construction site. I'd come back an hour later and have warm (not hot) burritos. No wiring of anything involved, not cooking, just warm lunch.

"How do you know she is a witch?"

"Because she looks like one"

"Burn the witch, burn the witch!"

We need to end this bogus War on (some) Drugs before its the end of our Republic.

Why is the US paying for their internet?
I don't get it.

In no particular order

Could it be because we stole their land, stole their coal, stole their water, killed their sheep, sterilized their women, and marched them off to death camps?

Yippie for obscenity charges.

I mean, if we can't have random prosecutions for people speaking freely to others who want to hear; how will we ever be able to have the mass detentions and purges which Dear Leader so desperately craves?

We recently covered this in our podcast. This overly broad application without so much as a court hearing is particularly disturbing in light of Bush's decree (executive order) of July 17th, 2007 "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq". This decree directs the Treasury Dept to seize the assets of those who interfere with the US backed govt of Iraq. A similar executive order was issued on behalf of the White House's foreign policy interests in Lebanon as well.

At the time, this order received relatively little press. The White House said it was necessary to stop "perpetrators of violence in Iraq ..."

However, this decree was criticized by some as so broad that it could potentially apply to any activism or dissent which undermines the US backed government of Iraq.

In light of the Treasury's actions on these domains I now worry that political activists and dissidents could face seizure of their own domains under Bush's executive order.

This story clearly illustrates what is wrong with the recently touted ideal that "Only the police should be able to have guns"

Timed to coincide with the launch of the Iranian Oil Borse on the 11th, and with the anniversary of their revolution...

This would appear to be an act of covert war-fare by either the US or Israel.

I believe, the hope by the perpetrator, is that Iran will retaliate. This would be labeled an "unprovoked attack" and result in full scale war. I doubt Iran will take the bait.

BTW, while there might be some connectivity to Iran, there are other servers there down as well, it is not just the ITR server failing to respond.

And, wtf would North Korea or "al Qaeda" want to cut mid-east internet access? While leaving Israel and US occupied Iraq relatively unharmed?

Also, 4-7 cables severed all in one area of the world. That is not events clustering togather, it is not coincidence or a "sea-monster". It is very clearly an intentional act of sabotage by someone.

will have the guts to put the whole gun control question to a real vote

Uhm... RIGHTS don't get voted on. They are something the founders of this nation believed were inherent to all mankind, even if some nations denied them to their subjects. That our Founding Fathers believed "the people" (notice it does not say "the states") had a right to keep and bear arms is not surprising, given that they used their own arms to raise up in revolution against England. They wished to insure we, the people, had the same ability should their new government ever get power hungry.

A bit of trivia to ponder for gun-grabbers. What started the revolutionary war? The British coming to seize the arms of the colonists! Want to guess what those of us who believe we MUST keep our arms to ensure a free society will to if our rulers try to seize them? I hope that never happens, it would be very very ugly.

If we want to reduce crime, perhaps we should stop paroling violent felons. We would quickly cut the crime rate in half. Make room for them by releasing all those from prison who have never actually harmed another with their "crimes", even with the violent felons all locked up, overcrowded jails will be a thing of the past.

Banning law abiding citizens (armed people are citizens, unarmed are subjects), works for the criminals who are then sure that their victims are unarmed. A well armed populace deters crime. Studies have shown the only thing effective against mass shootings is an armed populace, the police are always too far away to stop it, but look at what happened in Colorado Springs when a civilian had a gun- a massacre was stopped.

Live Free or Die.

Is that the best they could do? I'm sorry but I doubt they will find a casino or anything to buy that one. It looks more like Whistler's Mother to me

And in other news, police chiefs acrossed the nation are blaming a rise in LEO's killed in the line of duty on the expiration of the Assault Weapons Ban (which actually banned very little, just upped the prices).

Go figure... no... there couldn't be a correlation between cops acting like thugs and cops getting shot, could there?

[/sarcasm]

Beautiful engraving job, I love how the grips were done. At last an MP5 I could actually see spending $15K+ on (price of a pre-86 civilian ownable full-auto MP5 in the USA)! Unfortunately, unless its in the US and on the right kind of form, it couldn't be privately owned for us mere citizens at any price.

Anyone know the story about this specific gun, ie the engraved piece shown? Most fancied up machineguns end up in nasty gold-plate or worse.

So, what was the guy charged with? It seems that its a charge by the state, not the feds, but no mention of what the actual law is...

As a side note, that video is horrible. I watched a copy which I thankfully did not purchase. It actually tells people to let cops search their car if they have dope in it! Pretty much every respected legal authority would advise to never consent to a search.

Furthermore, at least some copies of it were sent out with labeling indicating what was inside. Oh, and to fuel the paranoid, it is not possible to buy it in a private fashion (like with a money order), you must use a credit card (as of when I checked it out).

Of course this is rather ironic, and frankly I hope the thieves get a nice long jail sentence for stealing some poor sap's vehicle. I don't care much about the dope though... laws against plants are about as dumb as these crooks.

ICKY200 said
"The same rules apply in which an officer is trained to only pull the gun when in a situation that appears to be dangerous or has historically proven to be dangerous."

ROFLMAO!!!!

I have personally observed the local sheriff's dept pointing 3 AR-15 or M16 (couldn't see da switch with my binoculars) for no reason at all. Someone walked the main road there over 100 yards from them. That person was a 60-some-year old woman who posed no danger in anyone's imagination. They did this to several people throughout the day while crawling on top of a building, trying to look through holes, and waiting for the pot related warrant.

I guess all cops follow their training? Around here they sometimes enter dwellings without a warrant or p/c saying things like "I am the LAW you hippie!" (heard that one myself too)

I know quite a bit about firearms and I think these are a horrible idea. They would encourage officers to draw and point their weapons to capture video of a situation which does not warrant deadly force. People will be accidentally shot due to them.

Also, I am sure they won't often capture what they should have when it matters, both because they weren't pointing at it (officer is exhibiting safe use of firearm) and because they are.... uhmm... damaged sometimes when it suits a dirty cops ends.

My understanding here is that the guy paid for a hard drive, after sucessfully returning the tiles he had been given. Right? Then the store manager STOLE his just purchased hard drive.

I'm not sure about NY, but in New Mexico I can lawfully strike a thief, if needed, to prevent him from stealing from me. Fortunately, I can also press criminal charges, myself, regardless of what the DA thinks.

Anyone here who thinks the store manager did the right thing clearly isn't thinking at all. Once the return was processed and the new drive purchased, it was the customer's property. Anyone taking it, even if they believed the customer had committed fraud, committed a CRIME of theft. I wonder what the legal implications are for Best Buy to reward that sort of theft (conspiracy?, RICO?)

I used to shop at Best Buy all the time. I have bought three new laptops from them, and thousands of dollars in other electronics. I will never do business with those thugs again, this is far from an isolated incident.

Good for her. Not that I want to advocate criminal behavior.

This reminds me of our local Motor Vehicle Department in Taos, NM.

For years the wait was measured in hours, with people frequently arriving early-afternoon and not being helped before closing. People would line up over an hour before it opened, because this ensured the shortest wait.

The manager was a cruel woman, who enjoyed making people miserable... this is not an exageration. I once saw her make an 80-year-old woman cry. The manager smiled and made sure everyone waiting saw her smile. It was obvious she made that little old lady cry on purpose.

About six months after that the office was burnt down in the middle of the night. They never caught the arsonist, and frankly I doubt they tried very hard. I doubt the person would have been convicted... I don't encourage criminal behavior, but I wouldn't have voted to convict them if I were on the jury.

Amazingly, after rebuilding, the customer service is now polite and quick. The wait is never more than 15 minutes, and then there is an appology that it took so long. They now go out of their way to be helpful.

Again, I don't approve of criminal behaviour, but its nice to know that at least a few people still maintain a spirit of resistance.