Some foolishness never dies. Yet again this year (on MySpace this time), I’m receiving messages from friends saying, “Don’t buy gas on May 15 (or whatever day)! It’ll hurt the oil companies! That’ll show ‘em!”
In April 1997, there was a “gas out” conducted nationwide in protest of gas prices. Gasoline prices dropped 30 cents a gallon overnight.
On May 15th 2007, all myspace members are to not go to a gas station in protest of high gas prices. Gas is now over $3.00 a gallon in most places.
There are 73,000,000+ American members currently on the myspace network, and the average car takes about 20 to 30 dollars to fill up.
If all myspace members did not go to the pump on the 15th, it would take $2,200,000,000.00 (that’s BILLION) out of the oil companys pockets for just one day.
If you agree (which I cant see why you wouldnt) repost this bulletin repost it with Don’t Pump Gas on May 15th
Of course, all the “facts” and “figures” above are easily debunked fictions.
More importantly, it’s not a true boycott. You’re not giving anything up — you’re simply going to buy your gas a couple of days before or a couple of days after. The total amount of gas sold for the month does not change one bit. A real boycott requires real sacrifice. If you really want to make a statement about gas prices, then don’t drive! That’s a real sacrifice. (Let me know what day you won’t be driving, so I can enjoy a nice motorcycle ride free of cagers.)
What happens when a mass killer meets armed resistance? Surprise! The shooting spree ends. Of course, that shouldn’t be a surprise.
Many students heard the shots. Two who did were Mikael Gross and Tracy Bridges. Mikael was outside the school having just returned to campus from lunch when he heard the shots. Tracy was inside attending class. Both immediately ran to their cars. Each had a handgun locked in the vehicle.
Bridges pulled a .357 Magnum pistol and he later said he was prepared to shoot to kill if necessary. He and Gross both approached Odighizuwa at the same time from different directions. Both were pointing their weapons at him. Bridges yelled for Odighizuwa to drop his weapon. When the shooter realized they had the drop on him he threw his weapon down.
Ready for another non-surprise? The press usually leaves out the fact that the heroes were armed:
You wouldn’t know much about that though. Do you wonder why? The media, though it widely reported the attack left out the fact that Bridges and Gross were armed. Most simply reported that the gunman was jumped and subdued by other students. That two of those students were now armed didn’t get a mention.
James Eaves-Johnson wrote about this fact one week later in The Daily Iowan. He wrote: “A Lexus-Nexis search revealed 88 stories on the topic, of which only two mentioned that either Bridges or Gross was armed.” This 2002 article noted “This was a very public shooting with a lot of media coverage.” But the media left out information showing how two students with firearms ended the killing spree.
Of course, that shouldn’t be a surprise either.
Saw MySpace give the following error pukage this morning. Sheesh.
MySpace is truly the worst website on the Internet. I noticed spam bulletins coming from one of my friend’s accounts today. I went to her page to send her a message to let her know, and lo and behold, I got redirected to this page:
http://login.myspace.cfm.fuseaction.splash.mytoken.76701a26.da3e.44a3a17b.794380e6.com/da3e/index.php
See the screenshot. It’s designed to look like a MySpace login page, and it almost fooled me. The giveaway is the url: it’s not http://www.myspace.com/; it’s http://www.myspace.<blah blah blah>.com/. It’s what’s between the http:// and the next / that’s important — that isn’t a MySpace site!
Obviously, my friend’s account has been seriously compromised. Several buttons (send message, view pics, etc) have been changed, and now redirect to the website http://www.6064b195.com/, which then redirects to the fake login page.
This is the fundamental problem with MySpace: it’s so easy to abuse because it allows users — or hijackers — to insert pretty much any code (JavaScript, HTML, CSS, etc) they wish.
Update 4-19-2007: My friend was able to correct the problem by:
- Changing her password;
- Deleting all customizations from her page, since this is where the hijacker/phisher inserted his malicious code.
An excellent op-ed from a student at Virginia Tech, which describes the frustrations gunowners have with “gun-free zones”:
Please realize that I am licensed to carry a concealed handgun in the commonwealth of Virginia, and do so on a regular basis. However, because I am a Virginia Tech student, I am prohibited from carrying at school because of Virginia Tech’s student policy, which makes possession of a handgun an expellable offense, but not a prosecutable crime.
I had entrusted my safety, and the safety of others to the police. In light of this, there are a few things I wish to point out.
First, I never want to have my safety fully in the hands of anyone else, including the police.
Second, I considered bringing my gun with me to campus, but did not due to the obvious risk of losing my graduate career, which is ridiculous because had I been shot and killed, there would have been no graduate career for me anyway.
Read the whole thing.
Update 4-19-2007: see Michelle Malkin’s column this week: Wanted: a culture of self-defense.
I just upgraded this site to Wordpress 2.1.3. (Read about my last major upgrade, to 2.0.1, here.) The visual editor appears much improved, so I’m going to play with that for a while.
I’ve also re-enabled comments for the time being. We’ll see what the spam situation looks like in a few days or weeks.
…yet again. Is anyone surprised that guns are illegal on the Virginia Tech campus? Since guns are illegal there, a mass shooting should never happen, right?
No one should be surprised that mass shootings are most likely to occur in places where law-abiding citizens aren’t allowed to carry weapons — places like post offices, schools, universities, and government buildings. The only way to effectively fight back against a gunman is to shoot back. But if you’re not allowed to defend yourself, you are left helpless and at their mercy.
This shooting will probably prompt calls for more gun control among the Left. That is exactly the wrong reaction. The only way to effectively reduce mass shootings is for citizens to be armed. Period.
Update at Arms and the Law.