GUNS: Why can honest citizens defend themselves?

Thursday, December 15, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsVCHE7ayPE&feature=colike

*** begin quote ***

Somebody picked the Wrong Diner! See what happens when the dumbest dirt bag tries to rob the wrong diner!

*** end quote ***

Why does it have to full of kops?

Why can’t it be full of honest citizens prepared to defend themselves, their families, and their neighbors.

Plus if they were citizens, motivated by civic virtue, we know that the “dirt bag” would be really at risk of injury or death. (Police have terrible results with respect to marksmanship.) Citizens are well-regulated. (In the vocabulary of the Dead Old White Guys, meaning they hit what they aim at.)

RKBA!

“Victim disarmament is the view that it is somehow better to see a woman raped in an alley and strangled with her own pantyhose, than see her with a gun in her hand.” — T.D. Melrose

# – # – # – # – #   


POLITICAL: Updating my “worst” list

Thursday, December 15, 2011

http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo106.html

Adding Teddy to #7 ahead of the “also-rans”!

(7) Teddy (Crazy, “world’s policeman”, “master race”, “trust buster” of the unfavored business, “food safety crisis”, “conservation”, and worst reviving the income tax.

# – # – # – # – # 2011-Dec-14 @ 12:15


POLITICAL: The Draft as a mechanism for peace

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

http://www.keywestlou.com/

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

*** begin quote ***

The World War II draft issue brings to mind some thoughts I wish to share.

We no longer have a draft in the United States. It was done away with many years ago. We have a volunteer military service.

We are also in three wars at this time. Some of which, if not all of which, may have been unnecessary. Many lives lost and bodies maimed participating in unwarranted encounters.

*** and ***

First, I believe if there were a draft, there would be fewer wars. Congressman would be reluctant to support wars with a constituency back home telling them that they were not in favor of the war. Unless a World War II situation, no parent wants a child to fight in a war. The President and Congress would both be subject to heavier political constraints regarding war if the people of the nation had a greater influence in whether war should be declared.

It is easy to sit in Washington and say we have to go to this country or that country or we need boots on the ground in this country. Not so if those who are doing the actual fighting are generally from a draft program. There would be a severe reluctance on the part of elected officials to engage in wars.

I say bring back the draft.

Second, I am distrustful of a professional military. I have been so for many years. I primarily do not trust the generals.

*** end quote ***

Suggest that your fears about Congress and wars is understated if anything.

I remember when politicians always had to have a military record to get elected. Preferable having had to have been somewhere getting shot at. The theory was that they’d be less likely to risk our girls and boys. Heinlein was right; only vets should be able to vote. (ref Starship Troopers. The book; not the movie.)

Unfortunately, in addition to not requiring our politicians to be anything but “handsome” (i.e., BHO44 as an example), we’ve allowed a whole class of “chicken hawks” into the political arena. Tough talk but it’s not their [[plural synonym for donkeys]] going out to fight.

As a little L libertarian, I don’t want “wars”. I won’t back away from a fight, but I won’t start them either. Who in the current debates, other than Ron Paul, is the “peace candidate”?

With Respect To a military takeover, I’m, more afraid of the civilians who run the current mess in DC. Warfare / welfare state with a dumb “We, The Sheeple” electorate who are too stupid to see we are getting in so many ways we can’t keep track of them.

The Dead Old White Guys made some mistakes: (1) should have made it tougher to change the Constitution; (2) should have had the death penalty for malfeasance or infringing rights; (3) should have outlawed Gooferment Skrules; (4) should have had the President have to be Governor and (5) should have made money a commodity — not paper.

… Oh yeah, they did that last one. But the cockroaches in DC got around that WITHOUT amending the Constitution. (The Federal Reserve System, faith-based money [[it’s money because of legal tender laws]] is the ROOT of all our problems. Allows “print and spend” and its cousin “borrow and spend” for warfare AND welfare. The inflation tax!)

But, then they couldn’t have imagined how stupid “We, The Sheeple” could become.

# – # – # – # – #   


TINFOILHAT: Dark Complected Man maybe stopping JFK at the precise spot

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

http://lewrockwell.com/orig11/baker-r8.1.1.html

201112061835.jpg

JFK Umbrella Man – More Doubts
by Russ Baker
WhoWhatWhy.com

*** begin quote ***

Dark Complected Man (DCM), like Umbrella Man, was on the Grassy Knoll, and, like Umbrella Man, appears to reasonable observers to have been signaling. At the precise moment that JFK’s car passed, as Umbrella Man opened and pumped his umbrella repeatedly, Dark Complected Man shot his fist up into the air. To some, DCM seemed to be calling for a halt to the presidential limo, which did in fact either come to a complete halt or slowed down to a crawl.

It’s not just their actions at the moment that Kennedy’s head is blown apart. It’s how they behave afterwards.

Instead of reacting with horror and springing into action, these two purported strangers sit down together, on the curb, and calmly survey the chaos. In their icy nonchalance, they exhibit an almost professional detachment.

*** end quote ***

Shooting is precision. Hitting a moving target is infinitely harder that a stationary one. Stopping the convoy in the correct spot where the range is precisely known would be critical.

Still think it was one guy with a junky gun on an angle with an unknown distance and weather?

I don’t.

# – # – # – # – #   


RANT: Billion dollar “light” attack aircraft

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

http://dumpdc.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/flash-editorials-december-10-2011/

*** begin quote ***

Business: The US Air Force quietly announced that they have excluded American aircraft builder Hawker Beechcraft in Wichita, Kansas from competition for a $1 billion contract to build a light attack aircraft. The company said that they had already invested $100 million to comply with what the Air Force wanted in a plane. They also said that 1,400 highly paid technical employees in 20 states will lose their jobs. But here is the outrage. It looks like the $1 Billion contract will go to Embraer…A BRAZILIAN COMPANY. Want even more outrage? Embraer sold 40 light fighters to Iran in 1989, and Iran used the planes as their primary close support aircraft. The Obama Administration is flipping you the bird, America. Learn how to say, “Want fries with that?”

*** end quote ***

Why do we ned a billion dollar “light” attack aircraft?

# – # – # – # – #   


RANT: Doing “charity” badly is dangerous

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/woman-denied-food-stamps-kills-self-shoots-children-181629410.html

Woman denied food stamps kills self, shoots children
By Jim Forsyth | Reuters
2011-DEC-06

*** begin quote ***

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) – A woman in the border city of Laredo, Texas who was angry because she had been denied food stamps killed herself and shot and critically wounded her two children late on Monday, authorities said on Tuesday.

*** end quote ***

Remember this. I waited until the details came out.

This is all the Gooferment’s fault.

Either of two tracks:

(1) The Gooferment shouldn’t be doing “charity”. Churches and Associations are better suited and more efficient.

(2) The Gooferment dumped all the mentally ill on the streets without support. Families, Churches and Associations are better suited and more efficient.

Get a sense of what the sock answer is: “Gooferment bad; individuals are kings.”

# – # – # – # – #   


INTERESTING: Are “food drives” a symptom of the problem?

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/12/food_drives_charities_need_your_money_not_your_random_old_food_.html?wpisrc=twitter_socialflow

Can the Cans
Why food drives are a terrible idea.
By Matthew Yglesias
Posted Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2011, at 12:29 PM ET

*** begin quote ***

But a fundamental issue is that many organizations feel that asking for money—like requesting cash as a gift—seems somewhat gauche. So, let me be rude on their behalf: Find well-managed charities in your community and trust them to know how to do their job. They have access to food at a fraction of the price. They know their clients, and they have better things to do than to sort through your canned goods. And from your perspective, it’s much easier to document a monetary donation for tax purposes. Good intentions are lovely, but particularly in hard times it’s more important to make sure your charitable dollars go as far as possible. Can the cans. Hand over some cash.

*** end quote ***

Of course, this IGNORES the fundamental problem of Gooferment “food banks”!

Private charities do a far more effective and efficient job.

When you feed stray cats, you get more of them.

We should be helping people enable themselves to take of themselves. Families should be helping. Churches and Associations should be helping.

Everybody, but the Gooferment. They are structurally unable to help!

# – # – # – # – # 2011-Dec-07 @ 19:29


EVLYNN: Got a lesson from the Universe today

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

In feeling blue about Frau Reinke’s passing …

… today, the Universe delivered a lesson. I saw a man feeding his wife a hot dog. She was confined to a wheelchair and shook uncontrollably. Obviously in the late stages of Parkinson’s. She was obviously totally dependent on him for her care. And, he was lovingly and diligently feeding her. (Give him a lot of credit.)

So that was my lesson!

Frau Reinke would have been crazed to be like that. And, it would have been infinitely harder work for me to do that for her. (I would have but it would have been a lot harder and emotional for both of us.

So the Universe said today, “It could have been a lot worse for both of you.”

And showed me.

I’m glad she didn’t have to suffer like that.

And, I’m “fine as silk”. :-(

# – # – # – # – #   


INTERESTING: “Bertrand Russell’s teapot” (BRT); the award for …

Monday, December 12, 2011

http://tinybuddha.com/blog/this-too-shall-pass-and-other-reminders

This Too Shall Pass and Other Reminders
by J.C. Lundberg

*** begin quote ***

Bertrand Russell was a Twentieth Century philosopher in the fields of philosophy of language and metaphysics. When he would debate people, some of them would argue “You cannot disprove such and such a supposition so you must admit that it is possible that I’m right.”

Russell would agree that of course it was possible that they were right, but that does not mean their idea is worthy of respect.

His counterargument was by way of a thought experiment. “Imagine,” he would say, “that I posit that orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars is a small ceramic teapot. Imagine further that I posit that the teapot is small enough and far enough away and has a low enough albedo and therefore our instruments cannot detect it. You would then have to agree that you cannot disprove my teapot.”

Even though we cannot disprove Russell’s teapot it’s not bloody likely that to be out there. “Not bloody likely” are my words, not Professor Russell’s.

The existence of that teapot is not equiprobable, it is not equally likely to be true as to be false.

*** end quote ***

“Bertrand Russell’s teapot” (BRT) is going into my shorthands!

Not sure if it’s just for use with wacky ideas. Or maybe with wacky people? Or maybe unprovable <synonym for excrement>? Or people who keep presenting non-facts?

I think I’ll award BRTs to folks that annoy me.

Have to think about the criteria, but I have someone in mind. :-)

# – # – # – # – #   


MONEY: Commodity and Faith-based money

Monday, December 12, 2011

http://www.etsy.com/listing/87887353/silver-dime-trading-cards-police-state

201112050126.jpg

Understanding “value”. What is “wealth”? What is a “dollar”?

“We, The Sheeple” have been fooled into thinking that a “dollar” can be used to measure “wealth”.

“Money is a matter of functions four, a medium, a measure, a standard, a store.” He repeated that four times like poetry. “Six Characters in Money: Portable – Durable – Divisible – Uniformity – Limited Supply – Acceptability.” — CHURCH 10●19●62 (Vol 1) 978-0-557-08387-9 page 110

While a “dollar” is STILL a medium of exchange — at least until OPEC demands to be paid for its oil in gold — that what tripped up old Saddam and “Colonel” Gaddafi — it fails a measure or standard. And, it acts very badly as a store of value or wealth.

Imagine a bunch of “dollars” in a storehouse or a pirate’s chest. The Gooferment, more specifically the Federal Reserve System. also mistakenly called the Federal Reserve Bank, can, by silently quietly sneakily PRINTING more “dollars”, can erode the value, aka purchasing power, of all the “dollars” in circulation. In fact, it’s even gotten easier nowdays. All they do now is go into their computer system and add some zeros. And, poof, they’ve “virtually” printed more dollars. It’s just that easy. Like a Ponzi scheme without all the fuss and muss.

Need an better metaphor, go get a monopoly game. There are a fixed number of houses in a real game. Make yourself “the banker”. Then. give yourself a bunch of house and hotels from a different game set. Place them on your properties as soon as you can slip them in. Call it “Quantitative Easing” or “Buying Bonds by the Open Market Committee”. If the other players say you’re cheating, send in your army and compel them to shut up and play. Kinda hard not to “win”.

Eventually, the marketplace discovers the fraud. All those “new” “dollars” eventually cause prices to rise as more “dollars” chase the same amount of goods.

If you were interested, we could probably come up with a funny example on “Robinson Crusoe’s island”. On Robinson’s island, besides Robinson and Friday, we need to add a banker like the FED and a few people. Let’s say, Robinson catches fish and Friday collects coconuts. At first the island population exchanges things, fish for coconuts. In fact, eventually something becomes the medium of exchange. The “firewood guy, as well as the butcher, the baker. and the candlestick maker, all have to exchange for coconuts. The candlestick maker, if he wants bread but the baker doesn’t want a candlestick, has to go to Friday and exchage a candlestick for some coconuts that the baker does want. Cumbersome. The banker has printed paper receipts that he give out when folks deposit their coconuts with him for safekeeping. A paper receipt for ten coconuts is easier to carry. All well and good. The marketplace establishes prices as eventually Robinson’s fishes are bid for by the villages. Eventually in every bidding war, some one says “thanks, but no thanks”. One fish equals two coconuts; one candlestick is 10 coconuts. And so on and so on. Now our banker prints up more paper receipts. The result is that there are more receipts chasing the same amount of goods, prices rise. And, until everyone wants their coconuts from the banker, the scam works. In the USA, when the scam is discovered, and folks lie up to get their gold for their greenback, FDR says “You can own gold and only foreign governments can exchange dollars for gold”. Up until, DeGaule or France says “I don’t want paper dollars” and Nixon says “Gold window is closed”. And, “We, The Sheeple” and the rest of the world just go along with the joke.

It’s like playing Monopoly where the player / Banker has an extra stash of Monopoly money in their hands that they “printed up”. Hard to “win”.

Argh!

That’s why “hard money” (i.e., money based on a commodity that can’t be printed like gold) is so much better for real people that “faith based money” (i.e., it’s money because someone says it is)!

# # # # #