I Really Don't Understand Hillary and the E-mail Thing

Is Hillary Clinton the dumbest person in the world?

Maybe one of y'all can explain this to me.

"Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act."

I don't understand this on any level. Even if you can say that this wasn't illegal, which it clearly appears to be, what's the point of having an unofficial e-mail? I'll tell you: the only reason that you would not use an official e-mail is to hide something. And guess what, campers? That shows a bad intent. In the legal world we call that mens rea. But even if you don't even address the legal issues, from a political perspective this looks like a disaster.

The other thing is that it's not even really hiding something. Even a rookie con-man knows that if you want to keep a secret, you have a false front. Why not have an official government e-mail for the official stuff that is day-to-day, and then have your super-secret, black-site e-mail address for all your nefarious work that you don't want to disclose?

How about don't e-mail at all? Don Corleone managed to run a pretty sizable group of folks and he didn't have to send out family-wide e-mails all the time. But this just having an off-the-book email is such a flagrant disregard for everything, I don't even know where to start.

It seems like Hillary is either really dumb or she doesn't think that the rules apply to her and no one will care if she's found out. I don't think she's dumb.

New Jersey Man Arrested for Possession of a Flintlock Pistol

I think this might have been used by Aaron Burr

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Bryan, I'd like for you to come up with something extraordinarily stupid. Something the pushes the limits of human dumbness.

Here you go.

Simone reported that Gordon was arrested last November while heading home after lunch. A Cumberland County Sheriff’s Deputy pulled over Gordon for a traffic violation, but wanted to search his car. Upon discovering a flintlock pistol in the glove compartment, VanGilder said that another deputy wanted to let him go since he knew the firearm was an antique. The Sheriff disagreed. VanGilder was arrested the following morning, and faces up to ten years in prison; three and a half to five years of that sentence must be served before parole can be considered.

To make things more absurd, the prosecutor in the case told VanGilder’s lawyer­–Evan Nappen–who’s in the video; that ballistics test will be run on the firearm.

Ok, I'm not a scientist, but how exactly do you run ballistics on a smoothbore firearm? And even if you could, what's the point? Are they going to match it against all the musket balls pulled from unsolved crimes?

Good luck tracking this pistol via serial number, too.

Washington Post Runs Stupid Opinion on Smart Guns

The Washington Post wants you to buy this. Too bad it sucks. But hey, it's got a little American flag on the slide.

The common sense people are obviously not running the show at The Washington Post.

How do I know this? The leftists who run the opinion page decided to run an opinion from the lead designer of the top Smart Gun designer touting how great his product is. It might as well be a commercial.

If you haven't heard about this new smart-gun, it has an internal computer that pairs with a special watch you wear to ensure that the gun will not fire unless in close proximity to the watch. Oh, and you enter a little code on the watch if you actually want to shoot the gun.

What's not to like, unless you're a Luddite, right?

Wrong. Let's look at a few facts that don't appear in the WaPo's column infomercial. 

1. The Armatix is chambered in .22LR. That's it. That's the only option. When I first saw that, I thought it had to be a mistake. No one in their right mind would regularly use a handgun chambered in .22LR for self-defense. It's not a viable self-defense round for about a dozen reasons, chief of which is that rimfire ammo is not as reliable as centerfire ammo. So right there, that's a bad start. You're basically taking the smallest possible caliber out there, and arming yourself with it. If you're ever attacked by an animal smaller than a Pomeranian, you'll be fine.

So why is it only chambered for .22LR? The technology used in the pistol is so fragile that chambering anything more a low-recoiling .22LR would shake the gun’s electronic brains apart in short order.

2. It has a 10% Failure Rate. But hey, let's assume that your rimfire .22 ammo never fails. And let's assume that you're such a great shot you're going to hit the bad guy's heart or brain every time. How about this Aratix wireless pairing thing? How often does that fail? Oh, nothing to be concerned about folks, per Armatix, it only fails about 10% of the time. Doing some quick math, in a 10-round magazine that's....oh yeah, once every magazine! So basically 100% of the time that you go through your magazine, you'll have a pairing failure that results in the gun not firing. Where do I sign up for this wonder weapon?

Still want one? 

3. Price. Well, this is the best part. It's expensive. The gun sells for $1,399.00. Oh, and did you want the gun to actually fire, too? Well, you'll need to by the little watch, as well. Did I mention the watch isn't included in that price and sells for $399? So we're at a grant total of $1,800, which is also the price of three Glocks. Let me repeat that. YOU COULD HAVE THREE GLOCKS AND EXTRA AMMO FOR THIS PRICE. Three Glocks. Plus ammo. Are you kidding me?

Ok, so we can rule out anyone who wants this gun for actual, legitimate self-defense, and anyone who doesn't have money to burn. But to be fair, that's not the only market of gun-buyers out there. What about folks who just like to target shoot, and don't care about self-defense or money? Would this be a good pistol for the responsible, competitive target shooter?

No. Because target shooters buy really expensive target pistols with match-grade barrels, and all other kind of bells and whistles that make the gun extremely accurate - which this little Armatix doesn't have.

So, we'e basically got a gun that has no market. There is literally no one out there in the universe of gun-buyers who would be drawn to this gun. However, we do have a political market for this gun. You know, politics, where the rules of common-sense land don't apply?

If you hear any politician advocating for this gun, ask them what their security detail uses. If it's good enough for their constituents, it should be good enough for them, right?

Is There a "Twitter Gap"?

"Democrats are supposed to be the party that all the young, hip people are crazy about. But when it comes to Twitter, Democrats have actually fallen behind Republicans in several important metrics."

Maybe it's because 140 characters limits your ability to BS.

[via Insty]

Kids React to a Walkman

Here's a reminder of how old I am. They gave young kids a walkman and gauged their reactions:

I was old enough to start getting into exploring my own tastes in music right about the time that cassettes were being replaced by CDs, so I had both. However, the only way to make your own "mix" was to make a "mix-tape" by recording songs off the radio onto a cassette. Mix-tapes were really big. It was the prehistoric ancestor of having your own playlist on an iPod.

Besides arranging the songs, the real trick was to make sure that you timed the start of the recording and the ending of the recording properly. If you started to early, you would get the DJ talking or the previous song - stop too late, and you get the same problem at the end. Also, you had to be really quick on starting the recording when the song you wanted came on the radio. Usually, I would miss the first couple seconds of the song unless I was just hovering over the tapedeck.

One of the first songs that I put onto a good mix-tape was Two Princes from the Spin Doctors. I still like that one.

I need to dig up some of my old mix-tapes. I'm sure I have them around somewhere.

Smart Guns are Kind of Stupid

This technology was developed in 1911.

The other day, Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress that he wished to "explore" the idea of smart-guns.

I think that one of the things that we learned when we were trying to get passed those common sense reforms last year, Vice President Biden and I had a meeting with a group of technology people and we talked about how guns can be made more safe. 

By making them either through fingerprint identification, the gun talks to a bracelet or something that you might wear, how guns can be used only by the person who is lawfully in possession of the weapon. 

It’s those kinds of things that I think we want to try to explore so that we can make sure that people have the ability to enjoy their Second Amendment rights, but at the same time decreasing the misuse of weapons that lead to the kinds of things that we see on a daily basis.

As an initial matter, smart guns are a stupid idea. You're starting with a firearm that is pretty basic and introducing another layer of complexity that carries additional points where the firearm can fail. The batteries could die, electronics aren't water-friendly, bio-metric scanners require a good scan, and probably wouldn't work at all with gloves. Radio signals can be jammed, and electronics just don't work 100% of the time like we want them to. If you can't trust your iTunes 100% of the time, do you really want to wait for your self-defense tool to sync up?

Aside from the fact that it's just a stupid idea, Holder's attitude really annoys me. His tone is dripping with the implication that the federal government will indulge us citizens our adorable little rights, on the condition that he can make our firearms safe enough for him.

Our basic liberties and rights aren't something that we "enjoy" like building model airplanes or cooking. The second amendment is serious stuff. It's the last stop check and balance against the state. Honestly, the nature of the firearms that a citizen owns isn't any of the government's darn business. Regulate some interstate commerce, and otherwise get out of the way.

If there are citizens out there who want to introduce another layer of modern technology into their firearms, and have some sort of Wi-Fi connection for their handguns, they're free to do so. There isn't a demand for a smart gun, so as always, this leftist idea is so good, they'll have to force people to comply.

As for me, I'll stick with the technology developed circa 1911.

Taking Notes By Hand Is Better than Using a Laptop

According to a new study.

Basically, the idea is that when you take notes with a laptop, you can almost take down verbatim notes without really having to process the information, whereas taking notes with a pen and paper requires you to distill the information into more concise bits.

There's definitely something to this. In law school there were students with laptops who took down such detailed notes in class, the notes probably resembled a transcript of the lecture. Looking back, that's not the best way to learn.

I had a laptop in law school, and I would have probably done better if I had ditched it for a pen and pad.

What Was Your First Tweet? Here's Mine

I joined Twitter in March of 2011, and since then I've generated 7,143 Tweets. To celebrate it's 8th birthday, Twitter has now com up with a site that allows you to see your very first Tweet. It's called First Tweet.

In the three years that I've been on Twitter, it has really grown on me. I love the fact that it's whatever you make of it. I honestly couldn't remember my first tweet, but here it is:

I think it holds up to the test of time quite well. A solid cheer for my favorite college team.

And the best part is that you aren't limited to finding just your own first tweet. You can type in anyone's username and find their first tweet. It's a neat little way to show you that the internet is forever.

What was your first tweet?

Laser Keyboard

Anybody use one of these before? This looks freakin' cool.

Friday Morning Coffee Thread

I didn't watch Obama's speech last night, but I heard the guy can give a heck of a speech. If you're interested in how it went, Ann Althouse live-blogged it.

In more important local news, if you're like me, you've been frustrated with the lack of coverage at Williams-Brice Stadium when 80,000 plus people all try to make telephone calls and text at the same time. However, Verizon will be upping the capacity with a mobile cell site. This is great. Now, you can read my blog and follow me on twitter while you're at the game.

See y'all on the other side of the weekend. 

This post is brought to you by Daytona Beach, 1906.

Who Do Your Twitter Followers Belong To?

There is a Federal District Court case pending here in South Carolina between a former employee and his former employer over his Twitter followers.

The Mount Pleasant company reviews mobile devices like phones and tablets. PhoneDog sued Kravitz in July, saying for the former writer owes them $340,000 for taking 17,000 Twitter followers with him when he left in 2010.

The company says that, when Kravitz resigned, he changed his Twitter name from PhoneDog_Noah to noahkravitz and kept his 17,000 followers. The company says the followers should be treated like a customer list, and therefore PhoneDog's property.

I don't know any of the details involving this, but if the Twitter account he had (PhoneDog_Noah) was something he did for the company, as part of his employment, I think the Plaintiff has a solid case. If the Twitter account was simply something he did on his own time, then I think it's a shakier case.

All in all, I'm really surprised that 17k followers is worth $340k. Maybe I should work on upping my Twitter following some.