Monthly Archives: February 2011

We cannot go back

Posted on by

Co-worker Chet stops by my office and chats every once in a while. We both grew up on a farm, we share similar views on the world, and have similar concerns about the current economic situation. One of the concerns is the potential for world wide economic collapse. This has lead us to ponder how we might deal with the collapse of technology. How would or could we survive in a world with greatly diminished supplies of various natural resources such as oil, metals, fuels, and even water (electricity is needed to move it for irrigations as well as direct human consumption). As a consequence of those reduced supplies the food supply would be dramatically reduced. Our total population as well as the distribution of that population would make “going back” even to the time of our childhood (the 50’s and 60’s for Chet and I) nearly impossible without dramatic and extremely painful consequences.

Some of the concerns are that food production today is heavily dependent on oil based fuels, fertilizers, and pesticides. The yields (bushels/pounds per acre) on the farm today about almost 50% greater than what they were when I was a small child yet our food surplus is smaller than what it was then. If we were to attempt to go back to horse powered farm production it would take something like 20 years to increase the horse population adequately and it requires about 1/3 of the farm capacity to feed them.

The food distribution problems are just as bad. The populations of major cities require food (and frequently water) be brought in from at least 100 miles away if not 300 miles away simply because the land within a smaller radius is not capable of supporting a population that size. How do you transport the food with greatly reduced oil supplies? We can’t produce enough fuel on our farms.

Shall we talk about heating? Coal, natural gas, and oil either directly or indirectly via electricity produce much of the heat for our buildings. How are those supplies going to hold up in an economic collapse? The metals to distribute electricity are already being stolen and sold for scrap (H/T to Roberta). Read Doctor Zhivago or watch the movie. It’s a novel but it was based on events from the Russian revolution and civil war of the early 20th century. People will burn their furniture and even their own houses to keep warm. In todays world I expect even pieces of streets and road (asphalt) will disappear in the night to be burned as heating fuel.

Apparently these concerns are far from new. Yesterday Chet sent me an email (bold added):

As we have discussed several times we cannot easily go back to our parents or grandparent’s way of life if we lose today’s technology.

It looks like this idea has been known for some time. I found this quote in ELEMENTS OF TECHNOLOGY published in 1831 (second edition).

“The augmented means of public comfort and of individual luxury, the expense abridged and the labor superseded, have been such, that we could not return to the state of knowledge which existed even fifty or sixty years ago, without suffering both intellectual and physical degradation.”

Full book at: http://www.archive.org/details/elementsoftechno00bige

That is from 1831!

The civil unrest in the Mid-East is not just something that happens someplace far away. Wisconsin may be the first sign of stress in the U.S. but other states are very close behind and things are going to get far worse before they get better. The attitudes of the people protesting economic belt tightening and demanding revolution will guarantee it. A lot more people need to do a reality check to avoid disaster.

A brief family discussion about these concerns late last year resulted in daughter Kimberly taking it upon herself to read up on how to make your own simple medicines, grow various foods, and we made plans to plant fruit trees on some of our land. Kimberly now has avocados trees about two feet tall and pumpkins blooming in our living room:

KimsPumpkin

We might not be able to go back without suffering intellectual and physical degradation but some people will survive. Will it be you? Or should anyone even be concerned? I am concerned. Far, far from everyone has sufficient land or a Kimberly in their family.

If you don’t choose to fight you are choosing death

Posted on by

American Mercenary took the quotes I gathered from the Brady Campaign and explains why they are wrong from an armed tactics viewpoint. And since he has the military officer training to back up his claims I’m strongly inclined to believe his take on the topic.

He lectures us:

Pistols and shotguns actually do a great deal of good against tanks and machine guns.  Because Tanks and Machine Guns can only be pointed in ONE direction at a time (although if count a pintle mounted MG on a tank then a tank could fire in two directions).

If four people have nothing but pistols, and they work together, they can swarm a machine gun nest.  Then they might be three people with pistols and a machine gun.  Then they get two more freedom minded individuals and use the machine gun to set up a base of fire to drive a squad of government goons into taking shelter where the guys with pistols shoot them in the head.  Now they are four people with rifles, pistols, and a machine guns, and likely a few grenades thrown in.

He corrects the Brady’s:

Gun control advocates seem to believe that it is better to live as a slave than die as a warrior.  Unfortunately history has made it clear that such a choice doesn’t exist.  The real choice is DIE as a slave or FIGHT as a warrior.  And yes, sometimes warriors die.  And sometimes warriors are forgotten.  And sometimes we fail to secure the God given freedoms innate in every human.

But if you don’t choose to fight you are choosing death.  How cowardly.

And he concludes:

The Brady Bunch and their ilk seem to be so afraid of “violence” that they prefer unarmed people to be crushed to death by tanks than armed people dying for the cause of freedom.

Quote of the day—michaelchron1

Posted on by

EXCELLENT! Now maybe we can start getting rid of the teachers that create young Republicans right at the source. With a little luck, maybe these young Republicans will also start killing each other.


GO TEXAS!


michaelkchron1
February 20, 2011
Comment to Texas poised to pass bill allowing guns on campus.
[H/T to AntiCitizenOne in the comments here who asks, “Why are antigunners so violent? I answered that question a few months ago so I won’t get into it again other than to point out that in general anti-gun people are a subset of liberals and that this is just another data point which supports my claim that it is inherent to their philosophy.—Joe]

A work of satire

Posted on by

I was scanning my Bing and Google alerts and found a long discussion on a forum about a “New Study Links Guns, Sexual Dysfunction”. So I clicked on the link to the article/”study”. I didn’t record it with a stopwatch but I have a pretty darned good sense of time from all the shooting I do with a timer. I’m certain it took me less than a second to notice the article said, in bold print, “Notice: A work of Satire”. Even without that notice it should have been blindingly obvious after reading things like:



Some of the gun nuts are simply ‘wet noodles’ but many of them have a double-whammy, their private parts are so small we can’t even use the tongue depressors on them, we keep a supply of popsicle sticks on hand, and now we’re even having to resort to using those little tiny collar stays from men’s dress shirts. It’s like an inverse proportion: The smaller these guys are, the bigger the handguns they buy to compensate. It’s really weird.


Yet this forum went on and on about it. I didn’t read all the posts but I did a search for “satire” on all the pages without getting a hit. Read the “study” before you criticize it guys. It’s was just another confirmation of Markley’s Law.

Leupold Custom Shop

Posted on by

I just discovered Leupold’s Custom Shop. If I were in the market for a new scope this would be the first and probably only place I would look. I’ve always been annoyed that the features I want in a long range scope were almost impossible to find. The one scope I really like which I put on my Spud Gun (see also this post) required sending it off to put the mil-dot reticle in it. Here I can interactively put those features on the scope before it leaves the factory. Awesome!

Quote of the day—Suzanne Verge

Posted on by

People buy guns in a moment of passion. I think if you’re going to kill someone, you’d better make sure you take the time and make sure you’re prepared to take someone’s life.


Suzanne Verge
December 7, 2009
Sister takes a stand against gun violence
[I’m willing to entertain the proposition that the reporter messed this quote up because most of it just doesn’t make any sense to me. But the main point I wanted to make is about “People buy guns in a moment of passion.” I have never bought a gun in that manner and I don’t know of anyone that has done that. Guns are expensive and it involves budgeting for them and a lot of time selecting the best value for the intended purpose. It is carefully considered decision and has nothing to do with “a moment of passion.”


This is just another data point that demonstrates the anti-gun people make a lot of false assumptions about gun owners. Whether they confirm Markley’s Law, call us uneducated (false), or think us as vigilantes they are just demonstrating their bigotry.—Joe]

Channeling the Jews from Nazi-Occupied Eastern Europe

Posted on by

I have been reading some of the anti-gun people’s thoughts on the events in Egypt recently and a particular theme appeared.

From Colin and Andy Goddard:

If instead of staging peaceful demonstrations, Egyptian protesters been armed with guns, it is highly likely that the Egyptian military, equipped with billions of dollars worth of weapons supplied free of charge by our own government, would have retaliated. That would have produced massive casualties among both the armed and unarmed Egyptians.

From Brady Campaign board member Joan Peterson:

If things had gone otherwise and the military had decided to side with President Mubarek instead of the people, what good would pistols and shotguns have done against tanks and machine guns? I say, not much. It would likely have elevated the violence and increased the potential for deaths and injuries.

This theme bothered me but I didn’t quite have the words to express my discomfort. Then I found them here. This is from Reuben Ainsztein’s book Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Eastern Europe page 585:

The Jewish leaders, however, rejected the offer, arguing that if they behaved quietly the Germans might deport and murder 20,000 or 30,000, perhaps even 60,000 of them, but it was inconceivable that they should destroy the lot; while if they resisted, the Germans would certainly do so.

I fully agree that going to the street in a massive, anticipated to be peaceful, protest while being openly armed is generally not a good idea. I agree that making every reasonable effort to avoid violence is a good idea. It does not follow that the general population is better off without owning firearms the government is unaware of. It does not follow that once the government begins killing innocent people that non-violence is the best response.

The anti-gun people may be channeling the thoughts of the Jews prior to the Final Solution but the Jews hindsight is surely superior and it is those thoughts you should attempt to channel.

Quote of the day—Violence Policy Center

Posted on by

The Lady Laser 25 caliber pistol from Sundance Industries of Valencia, California. The Lady Laser is a Saturday Night Special pistol that comes equipped with a laser sight mounted on its trigger guard. Laser sights offer the user point-and-shoot killing capability. Based on the unique characteristics of the weapon price, size, and lethality the Lady Laser appears to be an attempt by Sundance to break into the criminal pistol market that so far has been dominated by fellow California Saturday Night Special manufacturers Lorcin, Davis, and Bryco.


Violence Policy Center
January 20, 1995
Gun Industry, Pro Gun Lobbying Organizations Meet At Las Vegas S.H.O.T. Show To Preview New Products And Hone Marketing And Press Strategies
[Are affordable cars an attempt by the automobile industry to get into the criminal getaway car market? How about a printer for your computer that is within the price range of single mothers? Would that be an attempt to sell to those who would use it for libel?


Those were the dark days of gun ownership and the forces of evil were constantly hammering on us as if we were the scourge of the earth. They came very close to extinguishing the last spark of resistance. But I think they overplayed their hand just a little bit and the public began to see the absurdity of their actions and their rhetoric. We fought back and now if we play our hand right over the next generation or two we should be able to politically extinguish them.—Joe]

Reality check

Posted on by

I haven’t followed the happenings in the Mid-East all that closely but my co-worker Chet frequently comes into my office to update me with the latest news.

According to Chet, in the Mid-East at least some of the protesters are demanding the government give them a house and a job. From my viewpoint that is just Moon-bat crazy talk. Government is force. Except for sale and leases of natural resources owned by the government (I’m thinking of oil, trees, mining rights, etc. on government owned lands) the government obtains its money via taking it from someone else at the point of a gun. If you are demanding money from the government you are demanding they take it from someone else and give it to you. This can work as long as the parasites don’t overwhelm the hosts. Once the host can no longer provide for both itself and the parasite both die. Many people don’t seem to understand this.

As Lyle pointed out in his post earlier today Chomsky compares protesters in Wisconsin to the protesters in the Mid-East. What is it these people expect to happen? The money simply does not exist. In the case of our domestic governments they have been borrowing money for years and the “credit card” is nearly maxed out. The governments are attempt to reduce the hemorrhaging by a small amount. They aren’t even actually stopping the bleeding yet there are those advocating “revolution” if “the people” don’t get what the government can’t physically give them. The taxpayers (the hosts) have almost been bled dry and are dying (both businesses and individuals are going bankrupt). The parasites are being told they have to stop sucking so hard and they respond by demanding they be given blood that does not exist or else they will destroy the infrastructure that feeds everyone.

There are a lot of people that are in dire need of reality check. The sad part is I’m pretty sure the only way reality is going to penetrate their thick skulls is after a lot of parasites and a fair number of hosts have died.

Another Brady Campaign job opening

Posted on by

In addition to the Associate Director of Communications they are looking for:

Director, Development

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and its sister organization, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, are the nation’s largest, non-partisan, grassroots organizations leading the fight to prevent gun violence. For additional information and a full job description, please visit www.bradycenter.org. We are searching for a talented Director, Development.

The Director, Development leads the development activities of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.  The Director is responsible for planning and implementing all fund raising for the organizations, with specific emphasis on direct mail campaigns and online giving.  The Director, Development, works with Deputy to the President to set and execute the organizations’ development strategy.  The Director manages and develops the development department’s professional staff.

The Director, Development maintains and expands successful existing programs while designing and implementing new initiatives. The Director, Development manages direct mail, membership services, and new member development, with emphasis on member retention, and online giving.  The Director, Development is accountable for individual annual fund donor programs, fund raising events, foundation grants, solicitor training, and planned giving and endowment gifts.

In coordination with the Deputy to the President, the Director, Development serves as principal staff to the development/fund raising committee of the Board and provides appropriate budget and income analyses.  The Director, Development is responsible for researching, proposing, and executing additional fund raising strategies and opportunities, including but not limited to the use of audio, print and video materials.

Qualifications for this role include:

·        Bachelor’s degree or equivalent. Masters degree desirable.
·        At least 7-10 years of progressively responsible experience in a related nonprofit fund raising position, preferably at the Director level, with experience using traditional and online strategies. Experience with specific emphasis on direct mail campaigns and online giving required.
·        At least three years of experience managing and developing a development staff.
·        Experience planning and implementing all types of fund raising campaigns, including marketing, social networking, foundations and major gifts. 
·        Ability to plan, execute and evaluate major events.
·        Demonstrated skills and experience in budget development and management, strategic thinking and tactical application of an organization’s finite resources for successful development programs.
·        Demonstrated ability to facilitate relationships and work successfully with other organizational units to achieve common objectives.
·        Excellent interpersonal and communication skills (both oral and written).
·        Demonstrated success in managing a staff to achieve results while developing and motivating employees through positive management techniques.
·        Proficiency in fundraising software applications, use of social media and Internet tools.

Please submit your resume and letter of interest to Expand HR Consulting, the organization’s Human Resources Consulting Firm, at jobs@expandhr.com. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.

NOTES:
Local Residents Preferred (No Relo)

Requirements

·        Bachelor’s degree or equivalent. Masters degree desirable.
·        At least 7-10 years of progressively responsible experience in a related nonprofit fund raising position, preferably at the Director level, with experience using traditional and online strategies. Experience with specific emphasis on direct mail campaigns and online giving required.
·        At least three years of experience managing and developing a development staff.
·        Experience planning and implementing all types of fund raising campaigns, including marketing, social networking, foundations and major gifts. 
·        Ability to plan, execute and evaluate major events.
·        Demonstrated skills and experience in budget development and management, strategic thinking and tactical application of an organization’s finite resources for successful development programs.
·        Demonstrated ability to facilitate relationships and work successfully with other organizational units to achieve common objectives.
·        Excellent interpersonal and communication skills (both oral and written).
·        Demonstrated success in managing a staff to achieve results while developing and motivating employees through positive management techniques.
·        Proficiency in fundraising software applications, use of social media and Internet tools

I have to wonder if the rats are jumping ship. And furthermore isn’t taking a job with them a lot like going to work for a buggy whip or slide-rule manufacture?

Democracy

Posted on by

de·MOC·ra·cy – Noun – 1. The takeover of a state government by a state employee’s union, often resulting in ever increasing tax rates, and the eventual bankruptcy of the state.


They’re actually shouting, “Freedom!  Democracy!  Unions!” as though the three were compatible, while the democrats refuse to allow a vote.  All this over a proposal that might get their 3.6 billion dollar budget deficit down to 3.3 billion.  In two years.


Via theblaze.com we find Noam Chomsky (yeah, that Noam Chomsky) wants what happened in Egypt to happen in Wisconsin, stating that the governor has “eviscerated” democracy in the state;



The blatant rejection of all reason is on parade.

Quote of the day—Lawrence Johnston

Posted on by

To the people of Japan, from my friends in China.

Lawrence Johnston
August 5, 1945
Message written in black marker on the atomic bomb soon to be dropped on Hiroshima Japan.
From his Los Alamos presentation given August 9, 2006.
[For those of you who are unfamiliar with the reference to China do a little reading on Nanking. Johnston had spent some time in China before the war.—Joe]

Public Servants

Posted on by

The term has often been one that garners respect, as though the public servant is someone donating his or her time out of a sense of duty and purpose.  “Serving” the public and milking the public are somewhat different concepts though.  Someone who makes over $100K in a small town public school, for example, with a nice medical insurance policy and a nice pension is a “servant” while someone doing much the same thing in the private sector for half the pay and no pension, supporting himself while paying the taxes to support the Public Servant, is not a servant at all.  The private entrepreneur is “greedy”.  Right?  Greed and the profit motive are one in the same thing, right?  That’s what you’ve been taught, I bet.


What do you call a group of public servants, coercively funded, that has been organized, has huge political influence, and is currently helping to bankrupt several states?  Is that public service, or is it something else?


Some state governments are starting to realize that the gravy train for the selfless public servants is running dry– that something major needs to change.  The response from the selfless servants is that they’re taking to the streets.


I’ve been saying for years that public education, by its very nature and structure, was destined to become a de facto political party (which of course it is) with one of its goals being the indoctrination of the students to a certain political and world view amenable to the desires of the government/education complex.  It’s a given.  It’s an inevitability.  A guarantee.  A system based on coercive funding, that would teach and promote the principles of liberty, and the protection of property rights that are fundamental to liberty, would be in a perpetual conflict of interest.  That cannot last.  I did not last.


That has been considered an ultra-extremist point of view by many.  You just don’t say those things in mixed company.  I’ve also pointed out that the fastest way to lose a friend who’s complaining about his “small budget” or “low pay” in a public position, is to tell him he can always quit, get a job in the private sector and find out exactly what he’s worth.  You’d better step back before you say something like that, because violence will be on his mind.  Who’s more “extreme”; the person stating a simple truth, which is obvious to anyone who’s operated a business, or the person who wants to punch you in the face for saying it?  If a simple truth is now to be considered extreme, what does that say about the current state of our culture?


So it has came to pass, that the teachers have taken to the streets, bringing their students with them (and you said public education was never about indoctrination.  No; couldn’t be.  That would be bad, and we all know that teachers are saints) to demand more goodies from a state that they helped bankrupt.  To hell with the state government.  To hell with the governor who’s trying to keep the state out of bankruptcy.  To hell with everything and everyone; we want more goodies!  To hell with the public!  (Look at the signs they’re carrying)


These are our sefess “servants” who care about nothing in the world but the common good, and we’re going to be seeing a lot more of this sort of thing from them.  It is an inevitability, where ever and when ever we have the arrogance to believe that WE can get away with having a coercion-based system, because WE can afford it, because WE are so very, very smart and compassionate.  This is going to keep happening as sure as you are reading this, and it is going to escalate.  This is the result of our “Compassion“.

Nice of you to admit that

Posted on by

Colin and Andy Goddard posting on the Brady Campaign blog admit something I have been saying for a long time:

The laws on the books aren’t working…

Yup. And the CDC agrees with us.

Then they should have no problem agreeing that we should repeal those laws and try something different, correct? Let’s look at what does work. For example what happened to the murder rate in Washington D.C. when the gun ban was declared unconstitutional? Oh, yeah! Within one year it dropped to the lowest level since 1985 – a 24 year low. What about forcible rape? That turned out different. Within one year it dropped to the lowest level since 1967—a 42 year low. Just maybe strict gun laws are not the solution to increasing public safety.

But then we know that the Brady Campaign has no real interest in public safety so don’t expect them to agree with me anytime soon.

Lawrence Johnston

Posted on by

A few years ago a friend of mine and I were talking about nuclear bombs and he said something about all the scientists involved with the development of “The Bomb” were now dead. I told him, “No. Johnston is still alive.” “Who is Johnston?” Johnston, I told him, was the guy that invented the detonators. After the war he was a physics professor at the University of Idaho and still lives in Moscow. I’m not sure my friend really believed me. Why would someone with a background like that end up in a backwater college like the U of I? I disputed this. The U of I has done quite well for itself and has nothing to be ashamed of—well, except for perhaps Larry “Wide Stance” Craig. Other famous graduates or professors include Sarah Palin in the class of 1987, Dan O’Brien (class of ’93), and Margrit Von Braun (daughter of Wernher von Braun).


Back to Johnston—I got my undergraduate degree at the U of I and took several physics classes there. But none of them were with Johnston even though he was there at the time (’67 –> ’88). But I would occasionally see mention of him in the news and I was proud to have him in my home town.


Last week wife and physical therapist Barbara called me up and excitedly asked me, “Do you know who I have as my patient?” “No. You don’t tell me that information unless you get permission from the patient and you haven’t done that for several weeks now.” My taking her literally somehow didn’t damping her spirits as it usually does and she went on to tell me that it was one of the scientist who worked on the first atomic bomb. “Johnston?”, I asked. “Yes. How did you know?”, her spirits finally dampened a tad. “Because he is the only one left and he lives in Moscow”, I explained.


She went on to tell me he gave her permission to talk to me about him, he was a really nice guy, is 92 years old, is the only person to have witnessed all three of the first atomic bomb explosions (he was in the observation planes over Hiroshima and Nagasaki), and he would be interested to exchange email with me. “Uhhh…. WOW!” was about all I could say.


I did exchange email with him and he sent me a presentation he made at Los Alamos a few years ago about his experiences developing and deploying the first nuclear bombs. I found it fascinating. My QOTD tomorrow will come from that presentation. And despite the detailed info in the presentation about the explosives and detonators used and the requests for “upgrading” beyond chemical explosives at Boomershoot I have no plans to pursue that particular line of experiments at this time.


Thank you Barbara and Professor Johnston.


MildredLawrenceJohnston
Mildred and Lawrence Johnston

Quote of the day—David Heller

Posted on by

In the recent assassination attempt on congresswoman Giffords, the gunman employed a weapon of mass destruction he could buy over the counter as easily as a pack of cigarettes: an extended magazine for his 9 mm Glock.

David Heller
January 29, 2011
Shootings reinforce need for gun control
[It turns out Nutter was not the first to call a standard capacity magazine a WMD. The first reference I have been able to find was published on January 27th and was by Freshman Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans. David Heller, above, then showed up two days later.

All this WMD talk has me hearing voices. I have this voice of Paul Hogan telling me “That’s not a knife. That’s a knife.” After reading my next post this will make more sense.

Update: Joel has more instances of the WMD meme. Robb has the graphic and the t-shirt.—Joe]