One can help but wonder what might have been?
Requiescat In Pacem
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EVLYNN: This day six years ago, my life changed
Sunday, February 26, 2017
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INSPIRATIONAL: You Can’t Return to Eden
Saturday, February 25, 2017http://www.artofmanliness.com/2017/02/20/cant-return-eden/
Brett and Kate McKay | February 20, 2017
A Man’s Life
You Can’t Return to Eden
*** begin quote ***
Unlike in the traditional Christian interpretation of the story in which God wishes to keep Adam and Eve from the tree of knowledge indefinitely, however, in looking at it as a metaphor for maturation, the father knows that his children will eventually partake of its fruit, and he both dreads that day, and yet understands its necessity in their future happiness.
Like all parents, he wrestles with dueling impulses: on the one hand, he wants his kids to stay innocent, safe, and close to him forever; but on the other, he knows that they can’t grow or progress unless they separate from him, gain knowledge, and learn to exercise moral agency on their own. Hence his conflicting commandments: he tells Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil…but he also tells them to multiply. Some readers have felt that this latter commandment could not have been fulfilled by Adam and Eve without their first breaking the former, and thus becoming awakened to their nakedness, their sexuality — their desire for each other. Here then is a father who doesn’t want his kids to get older, but knows they must to fulfill their potential, and to follow his pattern in having children themselves. It’s a fractured feeling every parent has experienced: “Don’t grow up!” “Please grow up!”
*** end quote ***
Nor should you want to … …
Honestly, I had never heard or read about this interpretation before today.
It makes perfect sense.
Now first you have to believe in “God”, “a God”, or such. But bear in mind the early humans were seeking “Eden”.
Even the Dead Old White Guys were some form of Deists.
Not sure that I share the same starting point. But us fat old white guy injineers have to leave that to the Physicists and the Theologians.
Even Mortimer Adler, Great Books of the Western World https://prodigalnomore.wordpress.com/great-books-of-the-western-world-as-free-ebooks/, couldn’t make the “leap of faith”.
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WSJ: Noticed an increase in drivers using their smartphones?
Friday, February 24, 2017FROM 2017-Feb-21 WSJ’s daily briefing is named “The 10-Point”
*** begin quote ***
TODAY’S QUESTION
Have you noticed an increase in drivers using their smartphones? Send your comments, which we may edit before publication, to 10point@wsj.com. Please include your name and location.
*** end quote ***
Yes I see it. Sometimes I don’t believe it. Like on an interstate at 80 mphs. Other times, who cares like at a red light. Hopefully, the auto will catch up and allow more of us to interact with the phone like we do with the radio — eyes on the road. Personally, I put the phone on the passenger side floor so that even if tempted I can’t peek. I do enjoy listening to Tom Woods or Jason Stapleton podcasts and those keep me focused on the road. And not be lulled into boredom.
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ECONOMICS: Consider “systematic externalisations of cost” by Gooferment
Thursday, February 23, 2017http://ncc-1776.org/tle2017/tle910-20170219-03.html
Traditionalism and Free Trade: An Exercise in Libertarian Outreach
by Sean Gabb sean@libertarian.co.uk
Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise
*** begin quote ***
What is true of national distribution networks is also true at the level of international trade. British and then American control of the seas has made shipping safe from piracy. British and American control of the Middle East has externalised many of the costs of oil drilling and movement. British and American armed interventions stabilised less powerful countries for the sale of our industrial output, and then for the development of manufacturing industry in places where the local ruling classes could be bribed and assisted into making labour both cheap and docile.
These facts go far to explaining why Chinese apples undercut Kentish apples in Kent, and why it is worth concentrating the manufacture of virtually all electronic goods in a few coastal regions of China, and why most of the clothes we buy are put together in Turkish and Bangladeshi sweatshops. It goes far to explaining why, when I drive home every summer from the family trip to Slovakia, I share fabulously expensive motorways with lorries that pay a pittance per mile, and burn diesel at prices—even allowing for taxes—far below the real cost of extraction and transport, and that are carrying goods to places like Manchester and Leeds where once whole armies were employed in their manufacture.
In short, the manufacturing side of the globalisation that traditionalists denounce proceeds from a pattern of comparative advantage that makes sense only on the basis of systematic externalisations of cost.
*** end quote ***
I read this and was literally stunned.
He makes an excellent point that the USA Rust Belt was cause by Gooferment subsidies and interference in free trade.
While no one likes pirates — except when Johnny Depp is one in the movies — the control of them to enable long distance free trade is a cost that should be absorbed in the competitive marketplace. When Gooferment steals wealth from the USA’s taxpayers to “protect freedom of navigation”, then they are subsidizing imports and exports.
Like the gas tax is impossible to “see” in the price of a can of beans, so to this “protection of sea traffic” is NOT reflect in the market price of imported goods.
That’s a STUNNING realization to me.
So to the Gooferment subsidization of ports, airports, and highways. You can’t see that in competitive purchase decision down at Walmart. If there was a “Made in America” TV, of course it would be at an absurd cost disadvantage because all the “costs” are not in the price tag.
That’s the realization this article brought to me.
Argh!
Another case of Gooferment causes the problem and then causes more problems “fixing” the original problem.
Argh!
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RANT: Gates would tax robots? Stupid!
Wednesday, February 22, 2017https://qz.com/911968/bill-gates-the-robot-that-takes-your-job-should-pay-taxes/
DROID DUTIES
The robot that takes your job should pay taxes, says Bill Gates
Why Bill Gates would tax robots
WRITTEN BY Kevin J. Delaney
February 17, 2017
*** begin quote ***
Robots are taking human jobs. But Bill Gates believes that governments should tax companies’ use of them, as a way to at least temporarily slow the spread of automation and to fund other types of employment.
It’s a striking position from the world’s richest man and a self-described techno-optimist who co-founded Microsoft, one of the leading players in artificial-intelligence technology.
In a recent interview with Quartz, Gates said that a robot tax could finance jobs taking care of elderly people or working with kids in schools, for which needs are unmet and to which humans are particularly well suited. He argues that governments must oversee such programs rather than relying on businesses, in order to redirect the jobs to help people with lower incomes. The idea is not totally theoretical: EU lawmakers considered a proposal to tax robot owners to pay for training for workers who lose their jobs, though on Feb. 16 the legislators ultimately rejected it.
*** and ***
Question: And you’re more on the side that government should play an active role rather than rely on businesses to figure this out?
Well, business can’t. If you want to do [something about] inequity, a lot of the excess labor is going to need to go help the people who have lower incomes. And so it means that you can amp up social services for old people and handicapped people and you can take the education sector and put more labor in there. Yes, some of it will go to, “Hey, we’ll be richer and people will buy more things.” But the inequity-solving part, absolutely government’s got a big role to play there. The nice thing about taxation though, is that it really separates the issue: “OK, so that gives you the resources, now how do you want to deploy it?”
*** end quote ***
So there we have it. Bill Gates is a Big Gooferment socialist or worse.
Ignoring the fact that taxation is theft and there isn’t a SINGLE Gooferment program that meets its goals in an effective and / or efficient manner, how is giving the Leviathan more wealth a good thing?
Bill should stick to retirement and stop trying to save the world. He’s not very good at it.
I just shake my head at the colossal arrogance of left liberal pontificators.
“Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.” — Robert A. Heinlein
All can say is repeat a great movie line:
Kaffee: [interrupts with game-show buzzer sound] eeehhhhh! I’m sorry, your time’s run out! What do we have for the losers, judge? Well, for our defendants, it’s a life time at exotic Fort Leavenworth! And, for defense counsel Kaffee, that’s right, it’s a court martial! Yes, Johnny! After falsely accusing a highly decorated Marine officer of conspiracy and perjury, Lieutenant Kaffee will have a long and prosperous career teaching… typewriter maintenance at the Rocco Globbo School for Women! Thank you for playing “Should we or should we not follow the advice of the galactically stupid!” — Lt. Daniel Kaffee in A Few Good Men played by Tom Cruise
Argh!
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SAD: Missing Maura Murray
Tuesday, February 21, 2017Maura Murray: Still missing after 13 long years
James Wilson @IrishCentral
February 18, 2017 07:02 AM
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Thirteen long winters have elapsed since Irish American Maura Murray – a straight “A” nursing student – crashed her car outside a small New Hampshire town, waved away a stranger offering help, and then vanished off the face of the earth.
*** and ***
She has never been seen since. Was she abducted? Did she leave to start a new life? Did she die from exposure in the mountains ? Was it a suicide? No one knows.
*** end quote ***
I don’t know about you but I don’t like unsolved mysteries.
Perhaps, some day we will know the truth, but I suspect foul play in some way.
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VETERANS: Team Red, White, and Blue — getting vets and civilians together
Monday, February 20, 2017
Sounds like a great idea. Have to see if Planet Fitness Keene wants to participate.
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Podcast #279: Why Exercising in a Group Is the Best Medicine For Vets (and Civilians)
By Brett on Feb 16, 2017 01:35 pm
In recent years, several new veterans organizations have popped up to help our men and women in uniform transition from the service to civilian life. Instead of providing a place where veterans can get together to drink, these new organizations are looking to offer vets a sense of meaning and mission that they often lose after they hang up their uniform. My guest today is head of one of these new organizations. His name is J.J. Pinter and he’s the Deputy Director of Team Red, White, and Blue (Team RWB for short) — a veterans organization with the goal of getting vets and civilians together to work out.
Today on the show, J.J. and I discuss the issues facing vets that Team RWB is trying resolve, such as getting them reintegrated back into their community and staving off feelings of depression. We then discuss why Team RWB decided to make fitness their primary focus and why exercising with other people is one of the best remedies for melancholy and malaise. Finally, J.J. and I talk about why it’s so important for civilians to interact and connect with our vets and how they can do so through Team RWB.
Show Highlights
- What is Team RWB? What sets it apart from other veterans organizations?
- How Team RWB got its start
- Why organized fitness is filling a need that veterans aren’t getting from other organizations
- How exercising together helps curb some of the negative effects of PTSD, depression, and other issues that plague veteran’s upon returning home
- Why so few vets return to their hometown upon returning from service
- The kind of fitness programs that Team RWB chapters are engaging in
- Why it’s important to get civilians involved in a veterans organization
- The benefits that civilians realize when joining a vets organization
- The community service projects that Team RWB undertakes
- The importance of community service to a returning veteran
- Why the original model and vision for Team RWB didn’t work
- The dearth of good leadership in America, and how veteran’s can help fill that gap
- The approach that Team RWB takes to leadership development and training
- How civilians and vets alike can get involved with Team RWB
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SURVIVAL: Don’t wait to be told; use your own common sense
Sunday, February 19, 2017https://survivalblog.com/observations-and-lessons-from-the-oroville-dam-evacuation/
Observations and Lessons from the Oroville Dam Evacuation
By SurvivalBlog Contributor | February 14, 2017
*** begin quote ***
At this point in the evening (now about 10:40), the Department of Water Resources is reporting that the water level is now below 901 feet, the level of the emergency spillway, and water is no longer spilling. Now, they are working on a plan to address the failed concrete in the main spillway and get a plan of action together before the next storms begin arriving next Thursday on the 16th of February. North bound highway 99 has now been reopened to traffic. Marysville remains shut down to access at this time. At after 11:00 pm, we are finally getting some comprehensive reports from the various emergency services agencies. I am sure that there will be some questions about why the initial damage to the main spillway that initiated this event was not addressed by the Department of Water Resources when it was first documented about three years ago, when we were in official drought status. Go figure. No doubt a custodian someplace will be the one to lose their job over it; there is always a scapegoat.
Blessings to all. Stay safe, and be prepared. You never know what might happen. – Behind Enemy Lines in the People’s Republik of Kalifornia
*** end quote ***
I have read reports that say there were competent authorities warning about the dam 12 years ago? TWELVE years ago!
Maybe I’m a real tin foil hat but when it comes to the Gooferment, its politicians and bureaucrats, or “spokespersons”, “I wouldn’t believe you, if your tongue came notarized.” … attributed to Judge Marilyn Milian, but may have an earlier history.
Bottom line: Don’t wait for some “official” to tell you what to do. Do it NOW!
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POLITICAL: Peaceful “Secession” — an idea who’s time has come
Saturday, February 18, 2017http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2017/02/13/california-secession/
California Secession? How it Could Happen in Practice
*** begin quote ***
The following article was written by James R. Rogers and originally published on the Library of Law and Liberty website.
Rumblings of secession talk in California, as in Texas a few years back, raises the question of how, if ever, a state might secede from the Union without war.
The legal issue surrounding secession in the Civil War era concerned whether states might unilaterally secede from the Union under the Constitution. The answer, underscored by force of arms and the U.S. Supreme Court, was a definitive “no.”
That states may not unilaterally secede from the Union, however, does not mean there is no route by which a state might secede peacefully, and even legally. Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court has said there is, albeit, saying it in dictum. In holding in Texas v. White (1869) that Texas did not truly secede from the Union, Chief Justice Chase, writing for the majority, nonetheless identified two routes by which U.S. states could peacefully secede: “There was no place for reconsideration or revocation [of Texas’s entry in the Union], except through revolution or through consent of the States.”
*** and ***
Much of the commentary related to California’s budding secession movement suggests that a constitutional amendment would be necessary for the peaceful, lawful secession of a state from the union. I don’t think so. Chase’s dictum regarding the “consent of the states” does not suggest the need for constitutional amendment to authorize a state’s secession.
Rather, to implement this route for the legal secession of a state, Congress would need only to adopt enabling legislation spelling out the process by which consent of the states would be obtained. Congress could stipulate the states’ consent would be provided by some proportion of state legislatures – half of them, or two-thirds – adopting a “secession consent” resolution or something. Or Congress could authorize states to consent to a state’s request to secede through special state-level conventions or by direct vote in state-level referenda. Or perhaps Congress could provide state consent through a vote of the Senate, or a vote of the Senate and the House, or some combination of the above.
Whatever process Congress might adopt for secession need not be as onerous as the process required to adopt constitutional amendments: Adoption of enabling legislation need not require a supermajority vote in Congress (as constitutional amendments require). And, at congressional determination, the proportion of states sufficient to provide the “consent of the states” could be fewer than the three-fourths majority required to ratify constitutional amendments.
*** end quote ***
Very interesting.
Now that the Liberal Left in California has learned what “executive power” in the “wrong hands” means, they have become interested in secession.
I’m reminded of a quote: “Would you tell me please, Mr. Howard, why should I trade one tyrant three thousand miles away for three thousand tyrants one mile away? An elected legislature can trample a man’s rights as easily as a king can.” Mel Gibson as the character Benjamin Martin in the movie The Patriot http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0187393/quotes
We’ve seen that the Congress has become corrupt and doesn’t faithfully execute its duties by creating the new Fourth Branch of Gooferment — the REGULATORS!
So perhaps, like the old Soviet Union it’s time to dissolve the Union and let partisans go their own way in peace. If the “blue states” want reform around welfare for all — fine. If the “red states” want to reform around “traditional values”— fine. California should be allowed to go its own way in peace.
Hopefully, it would NOT be like what happened in India and Pakistan initially, but things seem peaceful now.
So too, can the RED USA and the BLUE USA live in peace together … … finally.
Dona Nobis Pacem
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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Bryan Lowman got screwed by the Army
Friday, February 17, 2017In this link <broken link>, American Legion National Commander Schmidt has made me aware of the plight of Bryan Lowman.
This is unacceptable to me as a vet and an AL member.
I’ve asked my two US Senators and my Congresswomen—
Jeanne Shaheen @SenatorShaheen
Margaret “Maggie” Hassan @senatorhassan
Ann McLane Kuster @RepAnnieKuster
——
— to respond: “Please advise what you plan to do to correct this inequity. FYI I am a registered NH voter and vote religiously. I will be posting this and any response from you on my blog and at any post I visit.”
I’d urge everyone to do the same and let’s see if “We, The Sheeple”can protect this vet.
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