RANT: Civil was between NY and TN?

Monday, January 23, 2012

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/states-fights-tn-vows-payback-on-new-yorkers-after-911-memorial-gun-arrest/

States Fight? TN Vows Payback on New Yorkers After 9/11 Memorial Gun Arrest
Posted on January 20, 2012 at 4:18pm by Buck Sexton

*** begin quote ***

Tennesseans have circled the wagons to protect one of their own arrested in the Big Apple for gun possession, and now New York motorists may want to keep a closer eye on their speedometers.Tennessee Vows Payback on New Yorkers After 9/11 Memorial Gun Arrest of Meredith Graves

In response to the arrest of 39-year old Meredith Graves for unlawful gun possession while visiting the newly opened 9/11 memorial, the Tennessee state legislature has taken action.

According to the New York Post, Tennessee’s state legislature has “declared civil war on New Yorkers“— at least when it comes to speeders in their state. State officials claim they may retaliate for the prosecution of a woman who was carrying an illegal pistol at the 9/11 Memorial.

*** end quote ***

As a gun owner, I support Meredith Graves and all others caught up in the “New York State” unconstitutional stupidity.

Honest mistakes can’t be a crime.

But, by the same token, “increased enhanced enforcement” by “The State ofTennessee” is unfair as well.

Just as stupid!

Argh!

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RANT: Joe Pa should have been deposed; now he’ll be the fall guy

Monday, January 23, 2012

http://www.keywestlou.com/2012/01/joe-paterno-passed-away-this-weekend.html

Monday, January 23, 2012

*** begin quote ***

Joe Paterno passed away this weekend. Good and bad things are being said about him. Most of the bad seems to be coming from a younger generation that reflects a lack of tolerance on their part.

His failings, if any, in the the Penn State scandal were ordinary and minimal. He waited 24 hours to report to higher authority. He failed to notify the police after his Penn State superiors did not do so.

A great man whose life is now besmirched. Shakespeare said it best. Through Marc Antony. Marc Antony’s words in eulogizing Julius Caesar.” The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones…”

A shame.

*** end quote ***

I was a fan of Joe Pa before all of this. BUT, (and there is always a BIG butt), how can you not have outrage at the whole issue? You were very gentle with his legacy. Football is supposed to teach character. Struggle, honor, courage, bravery, all the manly virtues.

A number of people were shown to be cowards. From the quarterback who has to ask his Dad if he should have rescued the child. To the Head Coach who meekly “reported it to his superiors”. To the University honchos who buried it.

I’m no youngster, but I too look on Penn State askance now. This pervert had to be common knowledge on the campus. Why else didn’t this famous well-respected coach not get one job offer after Penn State? This had to be common knowledge around the football community. If it was, still no one took actions. What cowards!

I would have like Joe Pa to stick around to be deposed. To get to the truth. Now that he’s dead, everyone’s going to make him the fall guy. Maybe he should be. Certainly seems like there is more than enough blame to go around.

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RANT: Paterno RIP, but we lose his testimony

Sunday, January 22, 2012

WSJ.com Editors access@interactive.wsj.com 10:37 AM
News Alert
from The Wall Street Journal

Joe Paterno, who racked up more wins than anyone else in major college football but was fired from Penn State amid a child sex-abuse scandal, has died. He was 85.

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Now we won’t have his testimony about what happened. Was he deposed? What about statements that he made to investigators?

Will we ever know?

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RANT: Comic book hosts ‘gay’ wedding; seriously?

Sunday, January 15, 2012

http://www.wnd.com/2012/01/all-american-comic-book-hosts-gay-wedding/

QUEERLY BELOVED
All-American comic book hosts ‘gay’ wedding
ACLU among groups celebrating soldier ‘marrying’ his therapist
by Drew Zahn

*** begin quote ***

“It’s unfortunate that a comic book series usually seen as depicting innocent, all-American life is now being used to advance the sexual revolution,” Peter Spriggs of the Family Research Council told Fox News. “I think whatever boost in sales might come from the novelty or curiosity factors will be more than offset by the number of both kids and parents who will be turned off by this storyline and its obvious social and political agenda.”

*** end quote ***

Sorry, but comic books have become “propaganda”.

Maybe they always were?

I’ve never felt so far from “American culture” as when I read this.

As little L libertarian, I don’t want the Gooferment telling folks anything. Neither do I want Big Media propagandizing children.

Marriage is the province of the Church. Not the comic book makers. This just continues the illusion that the Gooferment has a role in it.

Argh!

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RANT: Rage at the dying of the light

Saturday, January 14, 2012

http://www.vtcommons.org/blog/piss-war

Piss on War
Juliet Buck

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Do you know what is worse than having your dead body urinated upon? Being killed. Being shot. Being bombed. Having your limbs blown off. Having your house incinerated by a drone-fired missile that you don’t see until it explodes. Having your children blown up in their beds. Having your spouse killed. Having your hometown destroyed. Being displaced. Becoming a refugee. Having your entire life destroyed as a consequence of political forces far, far beyond your control.

War is horrible. War is sickening. Wars started for supremely righteous causes are just as horrible an sickening in their consequences as wars started for less than righteous causes. Politicians who sit in office chairs and start wars and wave flags as young men and women go off to kill and die and be psychologically and emotionally damaged for life are the most sickening of all. Politicians start wars and are rewarded with an appearance on weekend talk shows and Very Respectable Discussions with Very Respectable media figures and jokes at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner and appearances on Leno and ghostwritten self-glorifying memoirs and lavishly catered fundraising parties with corporate executives. They should be rewarded with outrage. They should be rewarded with scorn. Starting a war is a monstrous, monstrous crime against humanity, as we know when it begins that no matter how cleanly it is conducted it will result in thousands upon thousands of bullets smashing men’s skulls and arms and legs blown off by shrapnel and mothers and children incinerated by high explosives. And every extra day that a war is perpetuated unnecessarily is a crime anew.

*** end quote ***

Absolutely catches the outrage we should ALL be feeling.

Chicken Hawk leaders allow “our” girls and boys to be put in harm’s way for no good reason.

The problem is not the conduct of some Marines. It is that they are there in the first place.

We haven’t had a legitimate war since 1812.

Ron Paul is the ONLY peace candidate.

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RANT: A conversation about a past war and future ones

Saturday, January 14, 2012

I was having an conversation on one of the Yahoo Groups I administrate with a fellow I went to high school with, and wrote this. I thought I’d share my frustration with the Universe.

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No, John (my best friend in high school) was an “evader”; he didn’t go to Canada. Just went underground, and was killed in a traffic accident on the 495 around DC in 1972. I’d lost track of him in early 1971. I didn’t find out about it until the 80’s when I by chance met his sister.

My thinking is that this was a national disaster. Some served like you; some went to Canada; others just went underground. A terrible mess. A lot of “casualties” that don’t get recorded anywhere. As a little L libertarian, I just shake my head at the hidden costs of that war, and the others. And, lives disrupted. John DuBois, my cousin Pete, yours, mine, … … all changed by … Johnson, McNamara, other politicians, and bureaucrats. As disasters go, terrible. And, what’s even more puzzling, maddening, frustrating … we didn’t learn squat from the bloody lesson. I read somewhere that the USA has been in 25 “wars” of various sizes since Viet Nam.

I’m sorry I didn’t know you were a WIA. I was just a rear echelon paper pusher. “Defending Maryland” at NSA. I think I did good work, but it wasn’t in the same league with you and the folks under fire. I’m glad you got out of the meat grinder alive. Well done.

I’m conflicted because, while the individuals and their stories are awesome, the strategic blunder that they all were sacrificed in is such … frustrated that I can’t find the right words for it … “wasteful” is the best I can come up with.

I hear the current set of commercials for Wounded Warrior. I combine that with the unfunded liabilities and with the national debt. And I know that once again the vets are pawns in today’s politics. That makes me mad.

Maybe the evaders and “Canadians” were right?

I don’t know.

But, back to the point, I was hoping that “we” could identify Prepsters on The Virtual Wall and make sure their story is recorded somewhere.

Argh,

 

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Can’t express the outrage I feel with all the politicians and bureaucrats that put “The Republic” and all those young girls and boys in harms way. “Chicken Hawks” are about the politest epithet I can level at them. If they’re so anxious to get in a shooting war with say Iran, then why aren’t they on the front lines. Or Shut The <synonym for the act of procreation> Up!

Argh!

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RANT: Capitalism needs someone to “take out the dead”

Thursday, January 12, 2012

http://libertyslifeline.com/2012/01/11/most-people-like-to-fire-the-same-people-romney-does/

Most People Like to Fire the Same People Romney Does
by Bill O’Connell on January 11, 2012

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To turn these remarks into Rick Perry’s “vulture capitalism,” and Newt Gingrich’s “predatory capitalism,” is shameful. It’s about ObamaCare, stupid. I want to fire Obama and I would like to do so as soon as possible. If I could recall him along with the Chevy Volt he supported with our tax dollars and he was filmed driving, I would gladly do so.

*** end quote ***

Argh! I agree. I can’t understand the disgust with an “undertaker”. Maybe they don’t like funeral directors either?

If you’re going to take the benefit of the process we call “capitalism”, then you have to accept the aspect of “creative destruction” subprocess. Someone has to deliver the BAD news! Someone has to take out “the dead”. Someone has to recycle the assets from unproductive uses to productive ones.

And, they are making the “recycler” the bad guy?

Argh!

How about making the previous leaders of the failing company the bad press?

And, there might not even be a “villain” in this “morality play” about capitalism!

If you assume that capitalism is the economic process by which human beings are induced to cooperate with one another to satisfy the needs, wants, and desires of other human beings.

(Read “I, Pencil” to understand how complex that process is.)

We can either use “greed” (a pejorative label for the perfectly human emotion about satisfying ones perceived needs) to induce cooperation voluntarily or we can use various levels of force (i.e., taxation; “company store”, indentured servitude, slavery) to compel cooperation. I vote for “greed”.

Sad as it is to say, failing enterprises must be “put down”. We must allow labor to be reassigned to “better” uses. It’s not “your” job EVER. A “job” only exists as it satisfies someone else. Those “certificates of appreciation” that get passed around tell you how well those needs are satisfied.

It’s all part of that complex real time calculus we call the free market.

Money is NOT the root of all evil. It IS the essence of human wisdom about what is important.

Ants leave chemical trails to communicate; humans use money.

Argh!

Politicians are really dumb!

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RANT: More copyright diktats

Thursday, January 12, 2012

http://web.resourceshelf.com/go/resourceblog/65869

U.S. Copyright Office Issues Recommendations on Sound Recordings
December 31, 2011 02:49
From District Dispatch:

*** begin quote ***

The United States Copyright Office has recommended that pre-1972 sound recordings should be protected by federal copyright law in its Report on Federal Copyright Protection for Pre-1972 Sound Recordings.

The Copyright Office ultimately decided that benefits of federalization of pre-1972 sound recordings outweighed the problems and said that federalization conformed with the intent of Congress to unify all works under one federal law.

*** end quote ***

Clearly, when a Gooferment bureaucrat studies something, the answer is ALWAYS more regulation that will require more bureaucrats!

The consumers and the taxpayers are being <synonym for the act of procreation, past tense> by the expansion of “copyright” diktats. Could it be a payoff to Hollywood and the Administration’s allies in Big Media? The “copyright” and “patent” systems are to encourage creation and (rather quickly) have it go to the public domain for everyone’s benefit. Congress has shifted the balance way over to the creators and away from the Public. It wasn’t intended to be a lifetime paycheck for the copyright and patent holders. Note, that’s not necessarily the creators.

Look at the film “It’s a wonderful life” that escaped copyright by an error and has become a classic enriching everyone’s holidays. The Beatle’s tunes, the classic movies, and great modern literature should all be available to us.

A decade should be the absolute max.

My example is the copyright on some 60’s Beatles tunes just sold for 200M$. How is the “public good” being advanced?

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RANT: Got nuked at Jury Duty

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

OK! I went to Jury Duty. Armed with my principles and ready to do battle with Leviathan!

Forget the Fourteenth Amendment (no slavery) and the Fifth Amendment (no self-incrimination).

Forget that the Gooferment is an illusion with flags, men in uniform with guns, and men in funny dresses pretending to have authority over other human beings.

I answered their questions truthfully.

Even told the “judge”, when he asked “do you think the justice system is fair?”, “no; but it might be the best we can get.”

He skipped asking me the standard follow up question he asked others. Maybe it was that he feared the result.

(It’s not fair as evidenced by the Project Innocence finding innocents convicted in capital cases and the disparate impact on minorities in prison populations.)

I was feeling that I had made the cut when four other prospective jurors were preemptively challenged off.

Then, after the break, the Defense challenged me off. I was surprised. I thought I’d be challenged by the Prosecution.

Oh well, we’ll see how it comes out. If it gets in the news.

Argh!

Maybe next time I’ll bring my FIJA literature.

See if I still have First Amendment rights?

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RANT: Ron Paul is not a progressive; that’s a good thing

Saturday, January 7, 2012

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2012/01/ron-paul-is-not-progressive.html

Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Ron Paul is not a progressive

*** begin quote ***

Paul was right on both wars, on the bailout of the banks and continues to be right about the need for transparency at the fed. He is right about gay marriage and he is right on most civil liberties issues and the drug war.

But Ron Paul is not a progressive. Ron Paul is not anti-corporate. He believes that empowering business is the best way to accomplish all good things and that government has no role to play in ensuring a level playing field. It was Paul’s dismissal of a government role in health care that elicited the shout of “let him die” during the Republican debates.

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AND A COMMENT

*** begin quote ***

Anonymous Anonymous said…

Excellent points by Hank K.    Ron Paul would destroy Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and any social program that helps ordinary folks. He would probably be for assisting the privatization of our public schools. Libertarianism is filth, a despicable bunch of garbage that’s great for the greedy millionaires and greedy billionaires (as opposed to the responsible and altruistic millionaires and billionaires) who don’t want to pay their fair share in taxes. Under libertarianism, if you become disabled and can no longer work, then tough luck or go out in the street and beg for charity. Libertarians say, let the charities take care of the millions who are disabled, elderly or too poor. It’s an idiotic notion to think that charities are even close to being able to help the 50 millions uninsured. Dialysis costs about $150,000 per year and there are many thousands of people in this country with kidney disease or kidney failure. Medications cost thousands per year, there aren’t enough charities on earth to deal with these numbers. I would not vote for Ron Paul even if you put a gun to my head.

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And, everything today is just working perfectly and at costs we can afford?

Ron Paul hasn’t said anything about destroying everything. He has said that we need real cuts in Gooferment spending. Do you dsagree?

For example, he says the Federal Gooferment should have no role in education. Let the States do it. So we send money to Federal Gooferment to send back to the state Gooferment. There’s a swag that says ½ of any money passing through a Gooferment entity loses ½ its value due to the cost og handling. Sending a dollar to the Feds gets maybe 25¢s back! Eliminate the overhead.

Of course that will totally destroy the education establishment. And, maybe we can have a national and state discusion on “education”. Personally, I authored a paper for Hands Across New Jersey on how to transition “education” from Gooferment to parents over 40 years. (Under the theory that parents are in a better position to educate their children. And cheaper and better. They made the decision to have them; they should provide for them.) I’m frustrated because if HANJ wasn’t subverted by the duopoly, we’d almost be out of the problem.

You bring up charity, charity care, and the cost of medicine. But you ignore the role of Gooferment in driving up the cost of healthcare. Just like it drives up the cost of “education”.

Argh!

I think that Ron Paul represents the essence of the Taft Republicans. It’s been lost for decades and we have a 15T$ debt, deficits for as far as the eyes can see, unfunded liabilities somewhere between 50T$ and 150T$ depending upon who counts what, and a dismal economic future.
Perhaps, you might consider that Socialism doesn’t work. Didn’t for the Soviet Union. And, won’t for the USA.

Argh!

“everything is fine. move along citizen. nothing to see here.”

Argh!

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