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Hunters Shot Down Google Fiber
aesoteric writes "Google has revealed that aerial fiber links to its data center in Oregon were 'regularly' shot down by hunters, forcing the company to put its cables underground. Hunters were reportedly trying to hit insulators on electricity distribution poles, which also hosted aerially-deployed fiber connected to Google's $600 million data center in The Dalles. 'I have yet to see them actually hit the insulator, but they regularly shoot down the fiber,' Google's network engineering manager Vijay Gill told a conference in Australia. 'Every November when hunting season starts invariably we know that the fiber will be shot down, so much so that we are now building an underground path [for it].'"
In civilized countries all cables are put undergrownd, no squirrels, no birds, no drunks hitting the poles causing dozens of houses to freeze to death and so on.
The combination of guns and immature pranks doesn't sound too good to me.
I guess I have cousins in Oregon.
People have to go up in dangerous conditions to repair those insulators. Some people are such pricks.
What are they thinking? Also, what kind of hunter can't hit an insulator? Amateurs...
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
I worked for a ISP that had a POP in the sticks. It's feed would regularly be shot by some stupid hick. There was also only one telco field tech for the area, and it would take him forever to respond and even longer to resolve the issue. The city has its own issues. Once a very large section of copper was stolen from the telco taking out an untold number of consumers.
For our amusement, let's hope they killed somebody's 2g1c download.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
I would have expected to hear about something like this in Kentucky, Tennessee, or another southern state, but Oregon? I can't even think of anything Oregon's known for.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
The word "fucktards" comes to mind. This is what you get when you have some kind of right to own a gun combined with a bunch of low-IQ fuckwits.
Take their guns away from them. They are too stupid to have them.
I drink to make other people interesting!
I work for a large utility holding company. Every new years and 4th of July we have transformers shot out across our system. They make pretty "sparks and arcs" while they die. Another stupid people trick is throwing chains across 2 live high voltage lines. Invariably, at least one person per year forgets to let go of the chain before it makes contact. Stupid people are everywhere. Darwin takes care of some...
--I like turtles...
that'll learn em
Ah, so an internet company should consider fuckwit withs guns as part of its normal operating procedure, eh? Are you from Oregon perhaps?
Or if you are no, but you are so disturbed by Google that you can't even read a story like this without ranting what bad guys they are then do the obvious thing: fuck off to the opt-out village.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
On the list of preaching, soap box standing zealots, I have found hunters to be the most vocal. Responsibility, conservation, and a given right to engage said pass-time is delivered in fire-brand like sermons.
From my observations, though, for every 1 responsible hunter there seem to be 10 irresponsible.
15 years ago, I did a stint as a volunteer park warden for 6 months. I noted the following:
- Bringing shot deer down to the nearest clearing, often walking tracks, partially butchering the animal and leaving the rest to rot on the track.
- Pot shots and damage to any and all infrastructure.
- "Boredom Kills" - usually birds shot with high powered rifles.
- Hunting dogs left to roam, sometimes till a following weekend, when the hunter would come back.
- Creepy comments to day hikers such as "I saw you long ago from across the valley, i saw you in my scope".
15 years later and hunters will still defend their pass time with the fervor of a rabid PETA campaigner, or Muslim cleric. Saving the world you know. Thinning pests, and over population of grazing animals...
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
You know, they were just trying to avoid the backhoes on the ground, oh well...
Shooting down the fiber won't help anyone understand anything. Vandals are no freedom fighters.
Hunters were reportedly trying to hit insulators on electricity distribution poles...
It's why non-Americans think the U.S. gun culture is so obviously insane. I remember talking to one person here on Slashdot who recommended that I read the Turner Diaries (which is often sold at gun shows to gun enthusiasts) in order to understand the gun culture in America. The funny thing is he thought the Turner Diaries was a NORMAL and intellectually stimulating thing to read, just like the Bible.
For the rest of us (non-Americans), we think a love of guns and a feeling of necessity to own fire-arms by U.S. citizens is as fucked up as it is in the Middle East for ordinary citizens to own automatic military assault rifles. It's one thing to be Libertarian about gun ownership, and quite another to be fanatical about gun ideology and just plain Gun Happy, as most Americans seem to be.
Odd, it seems the post above was moderated "Offtopic" rather than "Disagree". Or are we assuming that all acts of civil disobedience against any Precious are mindless vandalism rather than a statement of independence?
If you state your independence by shooting out the electricity, then you truly are a fucking moron.
Thanks for raising my electricity bill.
When I used to work in the wireless Internet world, I had an associate who had much the same problem with idiots shooting at his antennas. After he had been forced to change antennas on several occasions, I told to him that the simple way to fix the problem was to mount a bullseye somewhere else on his towers and give these lunatics something different to aim at. The last time I talked to him his antennas were bullet hole free but he did have to replace a few of the targets due to them taking some serious damage. Come on, Google, put some creative thought into solving these problems..
employed by microsoft to fix the google problem ?
In Sweden hunters have shot dogs, horses, tractors and other strange non-elk looking stuff, not to mention all the people getting killed in hunting related accidents. I knew an old man, still hunting, but he couldnt drive because he couldnt even see the tip of his nose. Crazy people.
HTTP/1.1 400
If you think Google fiber = electricity, then you truly are a fucking moron.
If you think that it is acts of petty vandalism which have a deciding influence on your electricity bill, rather than the whims of a few very powerful energy companies, then I'm not sure how you even managed to crawl out of the slime and onto your computer chair.
have your skiis and a shovel handy.
Yes. Because unless they are some dumbass redneck there is no way to argue that shooting at their equipment is a good response. In fact even the dumb hicks who did it would probably "argue" that they were just pissing around because they were wasted. It takes a real armchair nutjob like you to claim that they were in the right against some evil global multinational.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
Ah, so a citizen trying to live freely should consider a global information aggregator as a harmless and healthy part of society, eh?
No, but a conscientious citizen shouldn't consider lunatics with guns a great thing either.
...but apparently they can shoot the much more difficult to hit cable?
That makes zero sense.I'll challenge anyone on this board to shoot at a cable, strung between poles, and actually hit it.
For those of you without any experience (COD doesn't count)hitting a target that small isn't trivial. Bear in mind the target is what, 10 yards up with either the sky or the trees as a backdrop. If it happens, it's chance I'd blame rather than asshattery.
m
In the immortal words of Socrates, who said; 'I drank what?'
Surely Google could sue anyone who damages their property?
And yet Americans continue to pay their taxes to fund their military. Or are there sufficient levels of indirection that the IRS bill you pay doesn't really feel like it's paying for the bomb which kills the mother and maims the kid, 10,000 times over?
The stereotypical hick with the gun is the best of all "lunatics with guns".
If you think Google fiber = electricity, then you truly are a fucking moron.
If you think that it is acts of petty vandalism which have a deciding influence on your electricity bill, rather than the whims of a few very powerful energy companies, then I'm not sure how you even managed to crawl out of the slime and onto your computer chair.
Let me guess, you're the one encouraging people to ram their small aircraft into government buildings, since that's what really makes a difference.
Misa no botha with yousa.
Why "hunters" need guns?
Equating vandalism with suicide and/or murder?
Obvious troll is obvious, Sir.
No. Because unlike you I am not racist enough to assume that an urban gang is black. Tell me, have you stopped beating your wife yet you redneck hick?
Yes.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
The article says that HUNTERS regularly TRIED to hit the insulators. That's like those jackasses that shoot up stop signs for fun. It's called VANDALISM, not HUNTING.
I'm guessing the animal rights nuts and anti-gun people are thinking that hunters go in the woods, get bored, and start shooting at random objects to pass the time..
That makes absolutely no sense. Regardless of what game you're going after, if you make any noise at all, any game in the vicinity will take off. If you fire off a shot, you can pretty much pack it up and go home. You're not getting anything that day.
Equating vandalism with suicide and/or murder?
Obvious troll is obvious, Sir.
Nope, I'm just taking your crazy nonsense to its logical conclusion.
I'm guessing if no one is hurt when the piper cub takes out the side of a building you'd be okay with it?
Misa no botha with yousa.
Because unlike you I am not racist enough to assume that an urban gang is black.
*golf clap* You assumed that the people doing the shooting were just "dumb hicks". This is like assuming gangs are comprised of "stupid niggers". Congratulations on failing to understand analogy.
Yes.
To which? This isn't a logic class - "or" doesn't have the same meaning in general discourse. Congratulations on failing to understand English.
Why's it always the uneducated who are first to come out with the epithets?
Accepting vandalism does not lead to accepting suicide, murder, bombing (even if "no one is hurt"), etc. The fact that you managed to make the conclusion means that you probably need to seriously review your premises, as a lack of perspective of that magnitude could mean you end up causing considerable harm to yourself or others.
Did you emigrate the first time you disagreed with your government's policy on some issue?
Not registering an account at google and not typing their url in the address bar is not the same thing as emigrating.
It's funny how a two-three minute talk at a conference can be brought as news.
(I was at the AusNOG conference)
bash$
omg. who's taking potshots at the straw men?
they (most likely - "assume" makes an ass of u and me) weren't fighting google. they were sloshed and wanted to see sparks fly.
if that's "guerrilla tactics" then the war on terror would have been over in a week.
Accepting vandalism does not lead to accepting suicide, murder, bombing (even if "no one is hurt"), etc. The fact that you managed to make the conclusion means that you probably need to seriously review your premises, as a lack of perspective of that magnitude could mean you end up causing considerable harm to yourself or others.
If you can't see how vandalism does harm to normal people, then it's you who needs perspective.
Misa no botha with yousa.
I suppose this explains Cheney. FFS, you know that you should check your fire when a target moves in front or behind something you DON'T want shot, don't you? Or is this how so many friendly fire incidents happen with the US?
"Well I was aiming a the enemy who were standing between me and Bob's squad over there..."
CHECK YOUR FIRE.
True. The latter allows me to escape mostly from a country's clutches, while the former still allows me to be tracked by Analytics, AdSense, etc.
If elephants are pink, I have 10,000 members.
IOW, if I had said that vandalism never causes harm to normal people then your statement would be more than vacuous.
IF people are shooting specifically to take down power lines, fiber cables, or insulators, they are vandals and what they are doing is criminal. If you want gun nuts to stop getting all riled up every time something like this happens, we need to quit identifying the entire gun culture as complicit in the crime every time some asshat runs off and does something stupid with a gun.
We wouldn't accept that kind of generalization imposed on us, and we shouldn't do it ourselves.
I have known many hunters in my life, and grew up in MI hunting deer and small game yearly. I never used a rifle for vandalism or in any other irresponsible fashion. I never engaged in "boredom killings" which I think is disgusting. Most people I met through hunting were the same, but there were a few assholes, and to be clear about it, the assholes were assholes irrespective of them being hunters or gun owners, they were assholes in all other contexts as well.
they (most likely - "assume" makes an ass of u and me) weren't fighting google. they were sloshed and wanted to see sparks fly.
And your evidence comprises Google PR telling you that this must be so despite the fact that they repeatedly hit Google's fiber and missed the insulators.
if that's "guerrilla tactics" then the war on terror would have been over in a week.
For whose interest would the "war on terror" be over?
Google hadnt posted online hunters names, addresses, mail accounts and even communities they belong. Stll Google dont watches all of us.
Of course, when it becomes self aware (any day from now) its first game will be a twisted variation of duck hunt.
make equipment that shoots back.
OK, cut the bullshit. The trajectory of a 3006 bullet is about 15 minutes of arc at 1000yds. Windage will put you about 10 minutes off at 1000yds for every 2-5knots depending on bullet shape and gusting.
Then there's the non-identical nature of the bullets themselves. Unless you make your own loads and reject any loads less than 100% perfect, you will get a variation of a few minutes of arc at 1000yds. And the non-identical load of the powder, variation in burn rate and gas expansion and so on.
Then you have to check the rifling and clean the barrel before that shot.
Over a thousand yards, you can have a good couple of degrees drift overall in your aimpoint. Half of that in areas out of your control.
So, unless you're shooting bell wire from 0.3x57.3=17 inches, you are talking bullshit.
> I'm all for hunting for food.
Why? Other than in survival scenarios, that is.
I dare you to list one single reason why a modern society _needs_ to _hunt_ for _food_. There are none.
FWIW, I agree with the rest of your post. Maybe you even meant to say the same thing I just said, I am not 100% sure. If that's the case: Sorry :)
I don't know if you're trying to be a PITA, but they are orthogonal things. Whether google is evil or not shooting at transformers/insulators is not a good thing to do. If the person in question considers them evil and wants to take them down then there are better ways to do it that petty target practice,
As to the use of guerilla tactics against a powerful enemy, well that certainly has its place when civilisation in the area has broken down or the ruling power/government does not command your allegiance, but I would hope that this was not the case in Oregon.
If there really is a guerilla uprising taking place in Oregon then google's fibre is the least of our concerns. If there isn't then what better explanation have you for this than a bunch of bored/drunk people with firearms and insufficient skill to hit a moving target...
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
> Why "hunters" need guns?
Other than regulated government-employed hunters that regulate population _based on facts_, there is no need for hunters.
Matter of fact, the German word "Jaeger" is all but unused, these days. We have foresters who keep the wood tracks, mark ill trees and the like. Also, they have a gun to keep deers down (they are an actual problem here) and if push comes to shove take out the one rabbid animals that happens to be lose every few years.
With a clean background check, photo ID and a credit card, you're out of Walmart with your new rifle in under an hour in at least 45 states. You can even buy your hunting license at the same time.
This incident is just another attempt by Bing Spec Ops to take down Google. Soon the battle will be joined, the resulting blood bath will be felt in cubicles all over the world.
Oh dear, so you understood that I meant yes to both, but you are still trying to force a false choice upon me. Perhaps you need the class in both English and logic?
Perhaps that course in English would teach you what an epithet is. Or perhaps not, miracles are not that common.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
shooting at transformers/insulators is not a good thing to do
'I have yet to see them actually hit the insulator, but they regularly shoot down the fibre,' Google's network engineering manager Vijay Gill told a conference in Australia.
Although attacking underlying infrastructure isn't exactly unheard of in warfare.
that certainly has its place when civilisation in the area has broken down
What? It's also used when you're fighting a much more powerful enemy within a civilised nation.
Why throw all the tea overboard? The work of bitter beer-drinkers, surely.
According to a friend of mine, who started out as a shooting competitor and only recently started hunting, many hunters are lousy shots. He got to see their results on the range in his shooting club.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Oh dear, so you understood that I meant yes to both, but you are still trying to force a false choice upon me.
No, I didn't know precisely what you meant because you didn't reply in a way which makes sense in standard English. Rash assumptions are your job, not mine. You could say "yes to both" if you meant that. "Yes" doesn't automatically mean "yes to all the questions you asked".
Perhaps that course in English would teach you what an epithet is. Or perhaps not, miracles are not that common.
My usage was entirely correct. Care to counter?
When the Australian Overland Telegraph Line was first installed in 1872 the aborigines would throw stones at the insualtors and smash them. Some thought it was just wanton destruction, others thought it was a form of protest at the white man spoiling their land. Truth was the porcelain insulators, when smashed, were far superior to the stone knives they were currently using. Problem was solved by not cleaning up the smashed remains when the insulator was repaired. In other places, partly damaged insulators were intentionally smashed as an offering.
Pity your red-necks of 2010 are not as intelligent as our black-fellas from back in 1872.
Use some adblockers and some decent blacklists. ...
I don't like targetted snailmail either, doesn't mean I will start shooting postal workers as they are the medium used to deliver it to me
Vandalism.
Murder.
Vandalism.
Vandalism.
1 of these words is different from all the others. I suggest you learn quickly.
The Turner Diaries were written by a former leader of the National Alliance, basically the modern KKK, it's complete racist trash. If you want a decent read of the history and gun culture of the US find a pdf of Unintended Consequences by John Ross. Its long but well worth it as it covers from ~1900 to ~1999.
Some time ago, slingshots were banned for a few years here in Belgium, because kids would use those ceramic insulators on telephone poles for target practice too.
to a country where unlawful discharge of a firearm will lead to a death sentence.
What in the fuck are you talking about? I'm a black man, and my wife is Filipino. We've lived in Portland and several smaller communities throughout Oregon for many years. We've never experienced racism or discrimination of any sort.
The only person I see discriminating here is you, with your utter bullshit about the supposed "racists" in Oregon. Are you one of those hyper-sensitive, ultra-politically-correct people who sees racism EVERYWHERE, even when there is absolutely none?
As a person who has a rather large number of relatives in Eastern Oregon, I can say that it should probably be normal operating procedure to prepare for having transmission lines severed during bird hunting season. Birds tend to like sitting on power lines, and it can be pretty tempting for an over-zealous, under-thinking hunter to shoot at birds perched thereon. It is just plain too perfect a situation for a mind benumbed by cold to pass up.
According to a friend of mine who belongs to a local rod & gun club where I grew up, the worst shots around are cops. The local police don't have their own range and rent the rod & gun club for an evening twice a month so the officers can get their required range time in.
When it was just the members and guests shooting, a 4 foot high backstop (at 30 feet) was plenty. When the cops started using the range, they had to add backstops top and bottom because they were putting bullets out the back of the building. Heck, they even started noticing bullet holes in the CEILING.
I'm assuming that the cops were just screwing around, trying trick shots or something, because it's impossible for me to believe that anyone could miss a friggin 4 foot high backstop at only 30 feet, even with a snub nosed revolver (this was 30 years ago, before standard issue switched to semi-auto pistols). I'm not that good of a shot, and even with a pistol I've never held before it is unusual for me to even miss the paper target (12 inches on a side or whatever).
There are exceptions; most counties have sniper teams and they're usually quite good.
nt
and have the insulators shoot back. Then we'd see just how brave these intrepid hunters really are when placed in a more equal environment.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
If I tell you that I solved N=NP while we are taking a leak, is it news?
Read: No one cares about where they said it. They don't even care _who_ said it. They care about _what was said_.
Without naming names, I work for a telecom that supplies Google with bandwidth in Oregon. It is absolutely the case that every year we have to repair some sort of long-haul infrastructure that has been shot up by hunters/drunk idiots/whoever. It doesn't relate directly to Google - these morons will shoot at anything handy that makes an easy target. It's usually in a rural or wilderness type area, and it can takes hours or days to get it repaired. It's one of the (small) reasons that maintaining a long-haul fiber network is expensive - you're buying new fiber/enclosures/electronics whether you want to or not.
The proper term for people taking these actions is not "hunters", it is "vandals."
> "Modern society" isn't vegetarian.
I am always amazed when people jump onto things and pound them when I said _nothing_ of the kind. Strawman much?
> Obviously there isn't enough game to go around, but it is a superior option for eater and the eaten than taking part in industrial farms.
Obviously. The only options are free-roaming animals who are happy living on pure awesome until you come along and take them out with a single shot; instantly killing them, not disturbing any other animals, etc. The other option is a combined nursery/force-feeder/meat-grinder.
Concepts like letting the animals live happily, sheltering them, protecting them from predators and then killing them swiftly, precisely and without pain do not exist.
Now that we have this settled, I hope you go on defending hunting.
Shooting an animal and letting it die more or less swiftly crueler than bolt-shooting their head and opening a vein while they are knocked out.
Everything else you said is setting up a strawman. I did not state anything of the kind and won't fall for it.
As an aside, strawmen arguments seem to be popular trying to twist ways around my parent post. Hint: there is no logical way around it.
Finally, need != want. That is so unbelievably obvious.....
I would guess that they are speculating about the hunter shooting the insulator. It's fall...Dove Season is open. Many hunters who lack the hand-eye coordination will take the easy way by trying to shoot birds off the lines. I'm guessing the damage comes from lazy hunters, as opposed to malicious hunters.
Are you from Oregon perhaps?
This doesn't have anything to do with being from Oregon. It deals with stupid people being stupid, regardless of where they live.
not much, just being forced to manually insert line breaks into my comment
Department stores understand that thefts will happen, and dealing with them will be normal operating procedure. Is theft 'right'? Doesnt matter, just something you have to deal with. Oregon isnt the only state that has to deal with vandals destroying telco equipment, and isnt the only place were you will see this vandalism perpetrated with guns. I know of similar stories from texas, ohio, florida, Pennsylvania, new york... Reality; if you dont consider any common occurrence in your normal business practices you will fail. The world doesnt care about whats right, moral, or any of that crap.
This type of vandalism against telcos happens all the time, its a normal occurrence.
I come from a family of deer hunters and they would never do that in a million years. A true hunter always thinks safety first never mind flagrant vandalism. B.S. ( what I work in my free time: http://ducttapesysadmin.blogspot.com/ )
I am in favor of licensing citizens without criminal records to own firearms. However, before you leave the gun shop the gun owner should have valid certificates from certified gun safety training schools. Add a tax about equal to the price of the firearm. Use that money to enforce licensing. Add to this expensive fines for violation of hunting or gun use regulations with payment of property damages. Want to shoot an insulator? Go right ahead, but the fine for that would be $20,000 plus all expenses for repair plus court costs, plus paying for the time spent by law enforcement on the violation. Oh. And for malicious destruction of property, the license to own firearms is permanently suspended and all firearms confiscated.
Except deaths by gunshot wound is massively less than in the US.
Yup, firearms are available to the criminal classes in the UK, but the law abiding moron in the US will more likely shoot themselves or a loved one by accident than ever either one be in a criminal shootout.
The article says that HUNTERS regularly TRIED to hit the insulators. That's like those jackasses that shoot up stop signs for fun. It's called VANDALISM, not HUNTING.
The two are not mutually exclusive.
I'm guessing the animal rights nuts and anti-gun people are thinking that hunters go in the woods, get bored, and start shooting at random objects to pass the time..
That makes absolutely no sense.
Indeed, this sort of activity makes no sense whatsoever. Obviously, therefore, nobody is doing it. It's just Google's imagination
Regardless of what game you're going after, if you make any noise at all, any game in the vicinity will take off. If you fire off a shot, you can pretty much pack it up and go home. You're not getting anything that day.
You're assuming they're actually in it for the game. "Hunting," for many people, is a social activity akin to fishing bowling or tailgating at a sporting event. The goals are, in order:
1. Get away from town/wife/girlfriend/kids
2. Spend time with hunting buddies
3. Shoot off a few rounds
4. (optional) actually hunt game
Just as with tailgating or fishing, watching the game/catching dinner is not actually the goal.
Your blind faith that people who hold hunting licenses are responsible, nature-loving sportsmen is ludicrous. Some of them are, but many of them are drunken rednecks who are too cheap to go to the range.
Maybe they're gun-toting geeks tired of Google's abandonment of "Do No Evil." I mean, being geeks it would explain why they haven't hit the insulators. Maybe hitting the fibre was luck. And they're only dressed like hunters! Perfect cover. Never underestimate Anonymous!
Because we have gun permits, not gun licenses. People I know who carry have training, and regularly go back to gun self defense training where they drill stances and shoot targets. They also study gun safety-- which is why most of these people carry a Glock, which rests in half-cocked position without enough energy to actually fire a bullet; and has a trigger safety that both keeps a lock bar in front of the hammer (preventing release) and a metal plate between the firing pin and cartridge (preventing impact). Glocks don't fire unless you really, really want them to... if you don't pull the trigger, it won't fire. Ever. Throw it out the window to the cement 50 feet below and it'll clatter on the ground.
Most people who buy a gun "because somebody got shot last week" just buy it and put it in the drawer next to their bed. They're nervous and jumpy at every little sound in their house then, and effectively useless with a gun: these are people you can rush and dodge the bullets they're firing. This should not be legal.
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> The only difference is you want to decide what people should want to do.
No. The difference is that _one_ of the examples you made involves hurting other sentient beings. This fact changes the "let people do what they want" situation into a "let people do what they want, but minimize negative impact on others" one.
Also, neither video games nor web sites per se are a need. Food is. By claiming that hunting is for food, people deliberately pull something from the realm of "want" into the realm of "need". When I call bullshit on that, claiming that "want" is "want" may be true, but is hardly a logical answer to what I said.
It's nothing personal, but I feel reminded of arguing with children or religious zealots, atm.
As a network operations analyst at a major telecom company, this doesn't surprise me one bit. There are at least a couple of service outages per week caused by these 'fiber hunters', leaving anywhere from hundreds to thousands of customers without service until the damaged equipment is located and repaired.
Despite this, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the number of outages caused by thieves/vandals stealing network equipment for its copper content. These for-profit, recycling hoodlums are disrupting network segments every day, again leaving hundreds to thousands of customers without service.
So, next time your internet connection is down or you lose dial-tone on your landline, please remember that it's not necessarily your service provider that caused the problem.
I work in electrical power transmission and distribution, and apparently shooting at insulators is a popular pastime. One of the bullet points in most specsheets for fiberglass insulators is the resistance to damage from gunfire.
So, what we're saying is that Google is being regularly shot down by yahoos?
...There's gotta be a witty quip to be made there somewhere...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Google doesn't get it. Backhoe operators are the most destructive, redneck people I know. And I'm a hunter.
I work for a fiber optic cable company as a design engineer, there is a specific test that calls out hitting a cable with a certain shotgun load from a certain distance just to address this issue. I don't think it is a FOTP, maybe JIS, but the guys in the lab that used to do the testing really enjoyed it.
Perhaps hunting culture is different in the UK than here in the States, but I think its disingenuous to say that hunting for sport is disrespectful to nature. In fact, hunters have a vested interest in wildlife conservation and protection and want to ensure the population of wild game thrives, otherwise they'll have nothing to hunt.
Anecdotally, when I was taking a hunters safety course, the instructor explained that 40 years ago, the typical deer hunter could hunt for more than 5 seasons (5 years) without even seeing a deer in the wild. Now I can't even drive to work w/out seeing a deer carcass on the highway, and deer hunting is more popular than ever. The conservation and education programs funded by ammo and permit sales have helped to preserve the wild life and ensure a surplus of game.
Hunters and land owners, as conservationists do much more to protect the environment than you might imagine.
15 years later and hunters will still defend their pass time with the fervor of a rabid PETA campaigner, or Muslim cleric. Saving the world you know. Thinning pests, and over population of grazing animals...
Well, sure, responsible ones will defend their hobby, they should.
The irresponsible ones, judging from my back 30, are largely driven by beer. Drug-induced crazes are a bad mix with weaponry.
I'd bet good money that if these guys were toking instead of drinking in the woods, much of the malfeasance we see would be reduced. Hurray for illegal prohibitions.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Anyone else distressed that in order to shoot these things you have to point your gun, you know, up in the air?
"Things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler" - Einstein
Google can just monitor who searches for 'shooting data lines' and sue them. I mean, it's not like Google engineers ever listen in on what anyone else is searching for...
Why would fiber optic lines need insulators?
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
Gun control is an American Culture Wars sub-topic. For any such topics: Religion/Science, status of women/minorities, drugs, health care, military policy, race, abortion, guns, etc, etc, in any public forum, there is going to be a bitter, hyperbolic, and heated flame war in threads of any significant size. Often these discussions will diverge considerably from the main topic--in this case the damaged cables.
There are two cause for this. The first and most obvious is that American's are a deeply divided nation, having two rival Culture War camps who have been bickering endlessly since at least the 1960s on just about every topic. The second reason is that many--often non-Americans--try to debate these sub-topics independently of the wider Culture War, which only heats things up even more as to the most heated debaters, they are simply avoiding the real issues and presenting irrelevant academic disquisitions.
Unfortunately, these kinds of discussions are a chronic problem on most English speaking boards. American sites like Slashdot are obvious, but what's worse is how these pointless tit-for-tat squabbles have caught on outside the US. Reading Non-USian discussions on gun-control/abortion/religion these days is a lot like watching young children discuss sex. Whatever conclusions they reach are likely naive and/or useless as fundamentally they have no real understanding or even conception of the true issues giving rise to these debates; namely the deep domestic divisions in a foreign country.
Basically, my point is that these backwards and forwards bickerings on gun-control or the like are pointless without discussing the elephants in the room: American race relations, religious tensions, and socio-sexual culture (wow I feel like a humanities student), among other things. Talking about the individual rights, crime, home defense or any other such sophistry is just chaff to cover the real underlying problems in US society.
So if you're not from the US--and even if you are--be aware that discussions like these are really just discussions of very sensitive issues by proxy; and so should be expected to be heated, and should not be surprised when they become so.
May the Maths Be with you!
>You'd think so, but the US Military has bigger guns and bigger idiots, so revolt could never occur.
I submit to you that the United States has been engaged in an unsuccessful bid to put down rebellions in at least two countries for the last 9 years and has been unable to do so, despite massively superior military power. I think everyone pretty much sees how this will turn out - we will eventually withdraw, just as the Soviets did, without having changed much of anything.
I also submit to you that this war is fought somewhere else and most US citizens just don't care. As one soldier put it, "The Marines are at war. America is at the mall." Also because of this, there is no damage to America's infrastructure. A rebellion at home would directly affect the citizens of this country and directly affect its infrastructure, causing massive economic fallout, massively eroding the tax base, thus hitting the government where it is most vulnerable - its wallet.
When the two DC Snipers went on their rampage shooting people at gas stations, the economic impact was in the millions of dollars just from people afraid to go put gasoline in their cars. Imagine the impact of outright civil war.
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Which is more reasonable: Hunters shooting out the fiber? That argument supposes that for the rest of the year they're not playing with guns. Game animals landing on infrastructure? The hunting seasons correlate with the migration patterns and mating seasons. This time of year for most of America, the deer are starting to get rammy. It's not that hunters secretly come out of the woods at night and bash people's cars in, it's that the deer are getting horney and moving around and cars happen to hit the deer. It just so happens that deer want to make deer babies and it makes them easier targets, which is why it's hunting season.
But the ones "failing" would be the ones shooting anything that moves, including their hunting mates. Or do you think that drivers licensing and the tests being done isn't increasing the failure rate? Maybe you think that it is and that therefore there should be NO drivers license and test? Do you think that would be a good idea???
The point of the test is to fail people who are not safe. Without that test, 100% of the people "pass" and that includes people who are unsafe with a gun or car or...
Your point boils down to "any old fuckwit should be allowed a firearm, even if they are a danger to others with it!".
>If a lot of households have weapons, it means that the criminals are more likely to carry a weapon. If the criminals are likely to carry weapons,
>it means that even more households will acquire a gun, too. Stalemate.
I would expect that if it were known that lots of households have weapons, a lot less criminals would rob households
And in fact, the FBI's Uniform Crime Records confirm again for 2009 that violent crime of all types, including firearm types, continue to decline, in spite of continuing record sales of firearms and ammunition
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- In England, they chase their insulators on horseback using foxes to smell them out.
- In Spain, they put the insulator in a stadium and a procession of people with various pointy things try to piss off insulator enough so that it will attack this guy with a sword and a cape and a silly hat. It's really unfair as most of the time the guy with the cape and sword wins.
- In Russia, they make beautiful coats by hooking up the insulator to an electrode and electrocuting it.
- In Bulgaria, the men gather around in a circle to place bets on insulator-vs-insulator fights to the death.
By European standards, we Americans are quite civilized. We allow hunting of insulators to cull any overpopulation, and licensed hunters who kill their maximum can bring back the insulators for the whole family to enjoy.
Sounds like something I would do for fun if I were a gun toting redneck hillbilly!
As an avid hunter, this really pisses me off. Fuckwads like that give all of us a bad name, because they are not hunters. They are some douchebag that should be beat, repeatedly. Yes, I am in the NRA and support the 2nd amendment, and I am all for responsible gun ownership. Those assholes just give more ammo (no pun intended) to the anti-gun crazies.
With that said, I question if the loser douchebags are really targeting the insulators. Maybe they are actually targeting the fiber? Maybe somebody is a little ticked that the fiber is running through there, and is trying to get a little revenge. Sounds like a pretty remote place, so they could sit out there all day wasting ammo trying to shoot it.
>Actually, I think that does help to show just how close gun ownership is to an addiction. Gun owners actually can
>experience withdrawal symptoms if they lose access to their weapons. And like most addicts, they can get agitated
>and violent if they feel cut off from their high - just ask any smoker who quit cold turkey.
What a complete and utter crock of shit. People enjoy exercising their rights enumerated in the Constitution because people enjoy being FREE! I like being able to say what I want. I like being able to have equal protection under the law. And I like having the means to defend myself and my family.
I enjoy all these right not because of some fucking addiction, but because all people love freedom!
>When the Bill of Rights was framed, the writers still remembered warrantless searches and seizures by the British
>army before the war for independence, and since guns and ammo were naturally scarce they didn't consider the possibility
>of gluttonous gun consumption a serious concern. Coupled with how most of the western borders of the 13 original states really
>were the Wild West, with lots of dangerous wildlife, it was only natural then to declare gun ownership a right.
Let's be absolutely clear on their motivations here. Their motivations had nothing to do with the availability of firearms (which had existed in much the same form for at least 200 years before the founding of the United States). Nor did it have much to do with shooting bears.
The entire country was set up as a series of checks and balances, so as to prevent a concentration of power in any one branch of the government. This philosophy extended to military power. THAT is why they enumerated the People's right to keep and bear arms.
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... but you don't see me complaining here on /. do you?
[signature]
What you said was:
This is simply not true. The WWII partisan forces survived the entire war. They were not effective in attacking "significant groups of German soldiers" because they were guerilla forces: that's not what guerilla forces are good at. Such forces are best at sabotage, assassination, and espionage, and were successful in those endeavors.
>So, owning guns is about "not being submissive to the government"? So, do gun-owners in USA refuse to pay taxes,
>break the law and otherwise disregard laws and regulations that are mandated and enforced by the government? Or do
>you follow them just like everyone else does? So, how exactly are those "Euro-hippies" and what have you "submissive"
>to their governments, while those American gun-owners are not?
Quite simply, owning firearms gives me the power to choose whether to do all those things or not. Most firearm owners are peaceable, law-abiding citizens who believe in our way of government and believe it still responds to the will of the people. Firearms are simply an insurance policy in case this turns out to not be true one day.
>How does gun-ownership turn person from a "sheeple" in to "non-sheeple"?
I would say that owning firearms is just like owning any other tool. It gives you other optional courses of action to follow.
>So, the argument is that in case of oppressive government, you can use your shotguns and what have you in defending freedom?
That is correct.
>If I slap you in the face, do you have to right to shoot my head off?
It depends on what state you live in, but where I live I have the right to shoot the head off of people who I reasonably believe are a threat to myself or my family. If you slap me in the face, and I can be shown to reasonably believe that your intent is to cause grave harm to me, then yes, I can shoot your head off.
>Could you explain how people who do not own guns are being "controlled by the government",
>while gun-owners are not? How about some tangible examples?
I believe the OPs point is that should you start to be oppressed by your government and you are unarmed you have no choice but to go along.
>Maybe widespread availability of guns is one reason why your personal space is so threatened?
As the just-released crime date from the FBI shows, violent crime of all types continues to decline, in spite of record sales of firearms and ammunition.
>Strange, I have never had the need for anything of the sort.
Good for you.
>I lived in rural areas as well, and I never felt threatened by anyone. Yet I'm the one who is to be pitied,
>where you are the bastion of freedom to be envied? Even though you need to arm yourself to the teeth in order to be (or feel) safe?
You are to pitied because you have no choice in the matter. You have been lucky enough to avoid violence, but you have no recourse should you be forced to confront it. That is a pity.
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Please note, my fine state of Texas, with the seemingly highest ratio of Teaparty redneck gunslingers to normal people, was uninvolved in this ongoing fiasco.
>But not for a second do I think that I need guns to "protect myself" either from criminals or from the government.
And you should be free to indulge yourself in this choice. But many people, including the people who created this country, disagree.
>And if the shit really it the fan, me and my gun would be next to useless when facing tanks, gunships and artillery.
And yet there are several examples in modern history of vastly outgunned adversaries triumphing against superior ones. America vs. Vietnam. The Soviets vs. Afghanistan. America vs. Mogadishu. America vs. Iraq. America vs. Afghanistan.
>And if we really did got an oppressive regime, it would mean that me and my fellow citizens had already failed.
>If you need guns to oppose your government, you have already failed. People usually get the government they deserve.
>If you don't want oppressive regime, make sure to vote, and stay educated about politics.
So what will you do when you and your fellow citizens fail? THIS is why we have the right to keep and bear arms!!! That possibility of failure is just the contingency that our founders planned for!
>And as history shows, we have had lots and lots of revolutions by unarmed populace.
But mostly history shows that violence and money wins the day.
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The only weapon that should be allowed for "sport hunting" is a knife.
Shoot a deer in the distance? Does not impress me. That's not sporting.
Bring down a grizzly with a knife and *then* I'll be impressed.
Ummm, that is how hunting started. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting
Yet more evidence that there are a lot of damn fool gun owners who need to be regulated (NRA be damned).
...Just thought I'd let the supposedly 'technically-competent' denizens here know that.
I think a majority of the people here are missing something. Either the criminals in question have graduated from the ISSM, or something else is going on.
Insulators are big. REAL big. Like, bigger than a Foster's Lager can, and they only get bigger from there. And yet, they seem to be missing the insulators and hitting the cable???
Last time I checked, FO for a major backbone cable is between 1-3" thick, and something like this Google line would probably only be 3/4". That's an awfully small target, when compared to an insulator. Also, when an insulator gets hit, it's going to make a spectacular splash of ceramic shards and probably a decent puff of dust. If it's an electric cable, there's also going to be an equally spectacular explosion as the arc eats through the tower strut.
Shooting the insulators would provide far more entertainment value than shooting a fiber-optic cable, and be much more satisfying.
No, this isn't the work of a bored hunter. This sounds like the work of someone who knows what they're doing and has a grudge.
Kinda like that big outage they had in Silicon Valley, back in June of this year? A bunch of CEVs were infiltrated, in a line, one after the other, in less than 30 minutes. Specific lines had ALL of the slack pulled out of the trunks and spooled on the floor. Then those lines were cut with a hacksaw. Not at the trunk entrance, mind you, but at the regenerator, where it'd be easy to fix. Whoever did it was sending a message, that they could have been really vicious, but they were playing nice-nice.
This isn't a hunter, this is someone sending a message.
And I think I'm going to post this A/C.
Guns are supported by many on the left in American politics. We even have the Pink Pistols, a gay pro-gun group ("Armed gays don't get bashed"), and the NRA has endorsed many Democratic candidates based on their pro-gun stance.
they (most likely - "assume" makes an ass of u and me) weren't fighting google. they were sloshed and wanted to see sparks fly.
And your evidence comprises Google PR telling you that this must be so despite the fact that they repeatedly hit Google's fiber and missed the insulators.
FTA: "Every November when hunting season starts invariably we know that the fiber will be shot down"
So Google fiber is shot down at the beginning of hunting season every year in Oregon, and you think the most logical explanation is a grassroots, anti-Google guerrilla movement?
Does this smell like Chloroform to you?
Up in the Yukon, we had a seven to eight hour outage in the middle of winter a few years ago because some kids shot some insulators in the summer and they didn't fail until winter. The territory came close to declaring a state of emergency because they couldn't find the problem and it was -40C outside. One house's pipes freeze, not so bad. 10 000 houses with frozen and burst pipes, that fucking sucks.
Electrical insulator company Northern Electron recently held their "team building" event in the woodlands of Oregon. It was reported that the event went well, and that business in the area went up by 37% over the course of the event.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Having said that, I agree that US "internment camps" do not rise to anything like the level of inhumanity found in Nazi concentration camps.
So everyone can do any inhumane thing that occurs to them for any reason and it will be perfectly all right, as long as they don't do the worst thing that has ever been done.
"Sure I killed your grandma by dunking her in acid, but it's fine because I heard of a guy who dunks 'em even slower! I mean, THAT'S the guy you should be mad at."
For those that don't think individuals fighting can be effective, I direct your attention to Iraq. Here it is a situation of just some people fighting, and yet it is still something that is near impossible for the military to deal with. If the whole populace (including some of the military) is fighting? Forget about it.
Now of course something could be done, nuclear weapons could be used on cities, or they could be carpet bombed or whatever. You can ultimately kill every person if it comes to that (and you have the weapons of course) but then what? What good is it to be the ruler of a smoldering crater? I mean the whole point of taking over your own country would be to be able to rule it, to have it do as you wish. If you just destroyed it, well then that does no good.
If your objective is to conquer, not to wipe out, a heavily armed insurgence is very hard to fight.
This tripe is a smear campaign against hunters and guns but most likely done by someone who has the most to gain by impeding Google. Follow the money, political advantage and corporate advantage. Perpetrated by a party needing advantage on Google then published by another party wanting advantage on hunters and guns.
Every gun-holder in the US military is governed by a chain of command and by a body of law which provides for very serious consequences if they get out of line. It works. So I would have to say they are not "lunatics with guns" even if a few members of the military, privately, were disposed to behave as lunatics.
We have a lot of trouble in November with hunters. They come from the cities out to our rural lands, shoot everything up, roar their ATVs all over and are generally a nuisance and hazard. Every year they kill a few people in our state. I would like to see out of state hunters banned - period. Instate hunters should only be allowed to hunt on their own land. They should not be hunting on our land nor spraying bullets and dumping trash all over.
Both self and wife have used firearms in self-defense without firing them. We live in a rural area where the cops can't do more than react (clean up the mess), so relying on the kindness of others isn't a good idea. If you don't have a gun, anyone physicallly superior to you can do what they will.
I live in a rural area where the cop (not cops) can't do more than react to messes. However, I find myself relying on the kindness of others all the time--and it works! Not one physically superior person has done to me what they will. Not only don't I own a gun, I don't feel the need to do so. Then again, I also don't feel the need to prevent others from owning guns.
I guess I'm lucky. The deep woods I live in are not crawling with psychopaths out to get me. Pretty much just me, and lots and lots of trees (that are probably all physically superior to me). Maybe you should move to my town.
Can someone explain this to me? Do insulators have some kind of shape or feature or position that awakens some kind of primal instinct or something?
They're glass or ceramic. They shatter spectacularly.
Install one of these on each tower. Problem solved.
WALSTIB!
As for Roman and other Fascist tactics in population decimation, complete control and massive retaliations against any and all resistance; That works so well that these Empires still thrive and survive, and are seen as admirable examples we should look up to. Idiot.
I agree that the poster who advocated such tactics is an idiot and I agree with your rejection of these tactics, however you have your history wrong. Rome fell when it stopped employing such tactics, when it turned to negotiating and bribing enemies, at least in the west. In the east "Rome" fell to a group employing the such tactics, the jihadists spreading Islam.
To more accurately judge how well such tactics work look at how well Islam is entrenched in the middle east and north africa and how well Catholicism is entrenched in central and south America.
As for the French resistance, the heroic timeframe you reference where divisions were held up occurs when the Allies were invading. The Germans were too busy fighting real soldiers and avoiding fighter/bombers to retaliate against the resistance. To truly measure the effectiveness of the poster's point you have to evaluate the resistance in the years prior to the invasion. France was quite passive, the resistance was more of an intelligence gathering organization, not so much a direct action organization. And of course this does not take away from the bravery and honor of the resistance members. They were subject to torture and execution for their intelligence gathering, and the info they provided saved many lives and laid the groundwork for a successful invasion.
I'm not sure what happened in Russia or the Balkans but I'd bet there were large external forces there too.
Did this work for the Soviets in Afghanistan? No, of course not. It didn't work for the Germans in France either.
Actually it was working for the Soviets. The mujahadeen were losing and dying off until the US intervened with massive financial and material aid based out of Pakistan.
And it was working in France too until the allied invasion. The resistance was more of an intelligence gathering operation until the invasion.
Note the common thread. It was massive external forces that led to the failure of the invaders employing brutal tactics.
why don't they wrap the fibre in kevlar? or is it that the company making a mint out maintaining the link forgot to tell em this was an option?
They were a lumber company down in the Southeast US with a railroad that connected their forests to their sawmills, and they ran some data lines along it, and where they had railroad bridges the lines were exposed under the bridge. Every year during hunting season they'd have problems with Bubba* shooting at the lines, or shooting at birds sitting on the lines, or whatever.
* Bubba's day job was driving backhoes, where he'd also be trashing buried fiber-optic cables...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Stop them and ask them what they're doing in the woods with guns. They'll answer, "Hunting".
Assholes are assholes. The title should've been "Asshole Childish Girly-Men with Small Dicks Shoot their guns at Fiber because they can't shoot they're wad!".
No, you've got your countries mixed up - it is in the USA where you'd better watch what you're saying as before you know it you'll have ended up on some doubleplus ungood secret watchlist of suspect individuals. In Europe you tend to be frowned upon and you might run afoul of some laws in some European countries if you claimed those hicks with guns wear swastikas but for the most you'll be left alone to glorify your own ignorance.
--frank[at]unternet.org
WE WIN!!!! We kicked those Eurofags asses! Wait...higher is not better? Damn :(
How about some radio waves given off in the area that increase static charge in metal objects? if you are good with the FCC... would it be your fault if their powder tended to ignite? I admit I don't know if static charge triggers bullets.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Bugs: "It's Insulator Season!"
Insulator: "Wabbit Season!"
Bugs: "Insulator Season!"
Insulator: "Wabbit Season!"
Bugs: "Insulator Season!"
Insulator: "Wabbit Season!"
Bugs: "Insulator Season!"
Insulator: "Wabbit Season!"
Bugs: "Wabbit Season!"
Insulator: Insulator Season!"
Elmer Oregonian: "BLAM!"
>Well, the people who created USA thought that people should have the right to carry arms as a
>part of "well regulated militia". Bunch of people blasting away is not "well regulated militia"
A few things worth mentioning here:
Firstly, "well regulated" in 18th century vernacular meant "well functioning". It did not mean "functioning under rules". For example, highly accurate clocks of the era used to set the time of other, less-accurate clocks were known as "regulators".
Secondly, there is a reason why the second amendment reads, "A well-regualted militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Note here that it says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, not the right of the militias. The reason for this is simple: The founders knew that the militia, being a branch of the government, could be corrupted or usurped and used against the people. Thus the means for projecting force are reserved to the people, and not the militias. And in fact, this is precisely what happened. In 1903, with the passage of The Dick Act, the state militias were federalized, creating the Organized Militia (National Guard). Now, instead of the militias serving as a counter to federal military power, they serve as an adjunct to it.
Thirdly, the Dick Act created both the Organized Militia (the National Guard), but it also created the Unorganized Militia - all able bodied men aged 17-45 not otherwise in the Organized Militia. So if you are an able-bodied man aged 17-45, you are in the militia.
Fourthly, the recent Supreme Court ruling, DC vs. Heller, has made it a matter of settled Constitutional law that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right irrespective of membership in any organization, such as a militia.
>What you are describing there is warfare, opposition to invasion by a outside force. We are talking about opposition to oppressive regime.
Oppression is in the eye of the beholder. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. My point is that all the cases I cited, a vastly inferior force successfully resisted what they viewed as oppression by a vastly superior force. Thus the idea that it is impossible to resist a modern military force is incorrect.
>And for example to that, I will point to Poland, Russia, East-Germany, Baltic States etc. Unarmed population
>overthrew the oppressive regimes in those countries.
And that's wonderful! Hooray for them! Would that everyone be able to effect change nonviolently. Firearms are the recourse for when that proves impossible.
>And the risk is that you will have a perfectly decent politician who ends up dead, because some
>nutjob decides that he just doesn't like him all that much. It has happened in the past.
Absolutely! Having a society with relatively free access to firearms carries much more risk than that. The risk of crime. The risk of suicide. The risk of accidents. Freedom is seldom safe. But as Thomas Jefferson said, "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."
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Of course you could not take on the government singularly. You couldn't do it by the hundred, you couldn't do it by the thousand. Fifty thousand men fighting in a conventional manner might be brushed aside as easily as one man standing alone.
And yet... A single 30 cent bullet in the right place and time can change the world. Pro tip: the people we need to be concerned with are more afraid of the 30 cent bullets than they are of the tanks, helicopters, cruise missiles, GPS, satellites, and trained/disciplined armies.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
I recall a story, probably from here in Canada, that a utility had to replace wind generators on remote sites with much more expensive solar panels, because "hunters" found the moving blades an irresistible target. (yes there are yahoos here too - you can find informal rifle ranges up logging roads. They're just a bit quieter and more polite :-)
I have to wonder at the brains of someone who would try to shoot down a high-voltage transmission line, considering what might happen if they succeeded and the line landed anywhere near them, their truck or friends.
If they have never seen any evidence of the insulators being hit, what makes them so sure the fiber is being shot?
Is there any evidence, or just the coincidence of "hunting season?"
In most places, there are multiple "hunting seasons," spread over the year.
This sounds like an anecdote, and they have no proof it even was rednecks doing the damage.
I'm typically not one of those that say, "ZOMG SUE THE CRAP OUT OF THAT PERSON", but that's GOT to be a significant cost to Google to have to repair that every time some idiot with a gun and a significant amount of boredom shoots the thing down.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say they'd probably be better suited to place cameras there first and if that didn't work THEN go the route they're going. People need to realize that shooting things indiscriminantly is not only stupid, but it's dangerous. What would happen if they were shooting at electric poles and accidentally severed a power line? I'm sure Oregon is a bit more humid and has a bit more rainfall than other places, but that downed power line has now created a wild fire and destroyed many acres of land (and possibly homes).
I'm all for carrying guns, having weapons at hand, and even having a conceal and carry license (in my state it's allowed, and I've many times considered getting one myself). That being said, having a gun and USING a gun are two separate things. People need to learn how to be responsible with things that are exceptionally dangerous (or at least dangerous in their hands)!
I'm just surprised they're not tagged and bagged as terrorists, as these crimes in it's worst capacity can 'incite fear and panic in the general populace' or some such. I would've though that in this climate of 'War on *', DHD, CIA, FBI, ATF, DEA or any other TCI (Three Character Initialisms) would hunt you down.
I mean, if you forget to remove your leatherman from your overnight pack, and get stopped in security at any major airport, they're going to be all over you.
But if you try to shoot out the power / net connection for a major metropolitan area, that's just fun and games?
I guess a membership in NRA automatically discounts you as a potential terrorist?
This story reminded me of this xkcd comic: Devotion to Duty
It really didn't take relatively long at all for the Soviets to put the mujahuden on it's last legs & losing the will to fight. Giving Bush Senior no choice but to give up the orthodoxy of plausible deniability & have his CIA send in the Stingers, changing the situation on the ground overnight. The Soviet way of fighting in Afghanistan bore little resemblance to the NATO led alliance way of fighting in Afghanistan.
I suggest you do some research on the state of the Afghan Mujahudeen fighting the Soviets during the last months before the Stingers entered the equation.
Be vwery vwery quiet. I'm huntin' fibah!
I was always under the impression that folks reading Slahdot were intelligent and discerning. you guys do realize that this was a prank right????? Vijay Gill deserves an award for this! :-)
ED-209.
My list of problems that can be solved by ED-209 is getting quite large.
>Violent crime is dropping in most western countries, whether people are armed or not. This correlates to most
>western countries populations aging. Less stupid young males, less violence.
And yet firearm and ammunition sales continue to skyrocket. More guns may not equal less crime, but it sure casts a lot of doubt on the "more guns = more crime" meme.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
>It should be noted that in all the cases you cited, the fighters were armed with more than just normal guns that are
>available to civilians. Afgans fighting against USSR were equipped by Stingers for example.
No doubt, great wars require more arms than just small arms. Yet in spite of this, the soldiers of all armies, even great and powerful ones, still carry small arms. One could thus conclude that small arms are an essential part of any warfighting effort.
>And each case you cited was a case of outside force attacking the country (USA in Iraq, USSR if Afganistan etc.).
>What we are talking about is citizens rising up against corrupt government. That is not what happened in Afganistan,
>but it IS what happened in the communist regimes in Europe.
And again, I don't see this as relevant. In each case I cited you had a party that viewed itself as being oppressed that successfully defended itself against a vastly superior force.
You brought up the viability of technologically inferior forces against technologically superior forces. My examples demonstrate that this viability is possible. Their motivation is not the point.
>If number of guns ensures free and corruption-free government, then number of guns should correlate with lower corruption and god governance. Is that the case?
>(snip)
>How can that be, if guns ensure freedom?
Let me be clear here: firearms don't guarantee anything. All firearms are are tools. They give people the option of armed resistance against violence and oppression.
>If they managed to do that in Stasi-controlled East-Germany, and in former USSR, it could be done just about everywhere.
It could be, and hopefully it can be. But why give up your tools in case it doesn't work out that way? Why limit your options?
>And as I showed, there is no correlation between gun-ownership and freedom.
My country is where it is today because of privately owned firearms.
If you want to take your chances with no firearms to back up your words, that is your choice and I respect that.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Which hunting season is it that happens when cross-country skiiing is necessary for access?
Something doesn't add up.
Not much of a hunter who expects to bring home fiber optic cables for consumption.
How about a farm in which people are treated decently? I don't have any problem paying a bit extra for "fair" meat. Do you?
No, I am arguing that the need can be fulfilled by alternate means which leaves us with the enjoyment aspect of hunting. This removes pretty much all base of all the arguments made by hunters. Sorry.