I’ve always been puzzled by how many abandoned and buried cities there are. What happened to entire civilizations?
Now we are watching human population collapse in a number of countries.
Makes me wonder if all human civilizations fail for the same reasons. What would those reasons be?
My guess is that pockets of humans develop belief systems that drive success, but success creates space for diverse opinions, and then the winning mindset is destroyed.
That’s what is happening in America. Traditional American values — with all its flaws — created a strong country. Now we have the luxury of entertaining less productive mindsets that are destroying the foundation.
Maybe that happens to every civilization.
Scott Adams @ScottAdamsSays Tweeted on March 29, 2023
Interesting hypothesis. I don’t see any obvious flaws. In our particular case, the ever increasing debt spent on unproductive things is a strong datapoint in support of this hypothesis.
If I was one of the ten thousand people running for Mayor of Denver, my platform would center around signing an executive order to ban guns along with a gun buy-back plan.
There is literally nothing more important.
And in Denver, you’d win on this platform.
saira rao (@sairasameerarao) Tweeted March 01, 2023
Note that they would do this by executive order. No need of it going through the City Council. Either they need to retake their high school government class or this is another indicator they are delusional.
Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns. Even if the sky is a different color in their universe.
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendant Attorney General Robert Bonta, and his officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys, and those persons in active concert or participation with him, and those duly sworn state peace officers and federal law enforcement officers who gain knowledge of this injunction order or know the existence of this injunction order, ARE HEREBY PRELIMINARILY RESTRAINED AND ENJOINED from implementing or enforcing California Penal Code sections 31910(b)(4)–(6), or from otherwise preventing the retail sale of handguns that do not have a chamber load indicator, a magazine disconnect mechanism, or microstamping capability but that meet the other requirements of the Unsafe Handgun Act.
This injunction does not go into effect until April 3, 2023. And California Attorney General Bonta may appeal the decision. And, of course, the actual trial will probably take months or even years to resolve. And even if these three points are litigated successfully the “Roster of Certified Handguns” still has teeth in it which can and will be used against sales of firearms to the oppressed residents of California.
These items are just three bricks falling from a wall of unconstitutional gun laws in California.
Instead of addressing whether the banned items are “dangerous and unusual,” Bevis changes the criterion to say that “Assault-weapons and high-capacity magazines regulations are not ‘unusual,’” because eight states ban them. Since 42 states don’t, that sounds kind of unusual.
If it’s always been your dream to have the ability to live forever, you may be in luck as scientists believe we are just seven years away from achieving immortality.
Kurzweil has also said he believes we will be able to “advance human life expectancy” by “more than a year every year and I think we can get there by the end of this decade”.
In an earlier book, IIRC, Kurzweil claimed we would reach this point by 2024. I hope the goalpost isn’t moved too much further. It is a very tough problem but there are some very promising results in rats and other lower life forms.
As uplifting as this is in a global sort of way, I always think of Eric when this comes up and I get a bit sad.
ATF has been known for its institutional abuse of power throughout history. Now, more than ever, the agency is being weaponized as a means to punish peaceable gun owners and drive small businesses out of the marketplace by inventing creative statutory interpretations surpassing the agency’s authority and scrutinizing federal firearms licensees every actions in a ‘gotcha’ manner.
With the directives from the Biden Administration a simple mistake such as transposing a digit or placing required information in the wrong field results in license revocation, rather than a warning, under the guise of a ‘willful violation’ of the Gun Control Act. This overbearing approach does nothing to support the government’s interest in compliance and destroys livelihoods over innocent mistakes.
A government regulatory agency for firearms is directly constitutionally prohibited. Alcohol and tobacco regulations is prohibited indirectly because there is no enumerated power which allow it. It will take a lot more litigation but that is a possible, and the correct, outcome of the Buren decision. With the current demonstrations of institutional abuse of power they should be moved to the top of the list of people who should be prosecuted.
If I had my way, ATF would be the name of a convenience store or a church.
No. This dimwit has things “completely upside down”.The courts are implementing gun law reform. What part of “shall not be infringed” doesn’t he understand? Granted, he still thinks the 2nd Amendment protects the right of states to have a militia. But in the Heller decision all nine SCOTUS justices agreed (only five agreed with the entire decision) that it protects an individual right.
If he were an actual “legal scholar” he would have read and understood the Heller decision.
I would like to suggest he wear a head mounted GoPro when he “forcefully takes away everyone’s firearms”. Then we could enjoy some popcorn while watching the video. It would be a very small bowl of popcorn, but the video would be entertaining.
No matter how frequently they demonstrate Markley’s Law I still marvel at their ability to see an ordinary gun and think “penis”. Their brains really have some messed up wiring. I wonder if shock therapy or a lobotomy would help. Or was it something like that which caused the damage to begin with?–Joe]
What percentage of stories on politics or public figures is NOT misleading. I’ll give you the answer in the comments.
…
Close to zero. We don’t have a press that does news, just narrative. Zero newspapers talked to me before canceling me. No curiosity about context. When you meet the subjects of stories they laugh about how wrong the news is. Almost every time.
Scott Adams @ScottAdamsSays Tweeted on March 4, 2023
I fully agree. I could tell you supporting stories for an hour. See also this category of blog posts.
According to Gallop, 38% of Americans have no trust at all in the mass media.
But that does not tell the entire story. It would not be much of stretch to say 100% of Americans has zero trust in the mass media. Those with some trust in the media are not Americans. They are useful idiots and/or communists.
Joe Biden is spending the country into oblivion. He is bailing out wealthy depositors at these banks. Under Biden, our once-private banking industry has essentially been nationalized, too. With each year this man remains in office, a little bit more of America you and I knew will be chipped away. Eventually, we will look much like the European Union: a boon for crony capitalists and a nightmare for innovators.
Last year’s Supreme Court case that expanded Second Amendment rights has wreaked havoc on the nation’s gun control laws, witnesses told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday.
We have been telling them for decades those 10s of thousands of laws were unconstitutional. And they ignored and mocked us. They should not expect any sympathy from us as we will not give them any. The schadenfreude is sweet.
Just wait until we have machine gun sporting events in the high schools and the prosecutions start.
There are all sorts of different ways to fight for the Second Amendment. It’s not all butting heads with jerks and heated arguments on the internet. It’s not all donating money or calling politicians and telling them that if they vote for this latest nonsense, you’re going to make it your mission in life to kick them out of office. Though all that stuff helps, it’s the little things. It’s being that good example. That helping hand. It’s teaching and passing on knowledge.
The greatest warrior for the Second Amendment is the grandpa who takes the grandkids out and shows them how to knock cans off a fence with a pellet gun,
It’s the patient spouse who tries to gently persuade his or her significant other that Moms Demand Action is lying to them, and that allowing a gun in their home isn’t the end of the world.
It’s the manager who tells the HR department to shut up, and then tears down all those gun-free zone signs.
It’s you every time you take some new people to the range, show them how to use your guns safely, and then help them have fun.
Gun culture, this is on us. The future of our country depends on us holding the line.
But you’ve got this because you’re awesome. I’ve got faith in you.
Larry Correia 2023
In Defense of the Second Amendment page 189
This is a good book. It wasn’t quite what I expected. I expected a creative and humorous rant, based on clear and convincing evidence, of how stupid and evil the anti-gun people are. This was considerable muted on the humor and rant with moderate muting of the stupid and evil claims. This makes it a better handout to your grandmother and the gentle person next door as well as a work colleague.
That Bruen ruling is going to hurt us for decades to come. It’s going to be the excuse of every conservative Democrat who doesn’t want to pass common-sense gun laws.
“Gun control” cultists have misogynistic dick jokes. We have Supreme Court rulings.
I would also like to point out that “gun control” cultists frequently, as in this case, believe they can read minds and/or know the character of people with little or no information about them. This is an indicator of a personality disorder.
Last month, at the City University of New York, I lectured about how evolutions in data-led policing strategies helped New York City reduce annual murder numbers from 2,245 in 1990 to just 292 in 2017 — and from 93 annual fatal police shootings in 1971 to just six a half-century later. At the same time, city jail and New York State prison populations have also seen their numbers more than halved.
The “war on data” made its biggest inroads during the administration of former NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, who prioritized feelings and emotions over cold, hard facts during debates about his landmark prison reform initiatives.
My presentation was layered with both data and descriptions of the tensions inherent in researching neighborhood crime dynamics. Following my talk, I invited students to discuss these notable statistical shifts. What I heard from those bold enough to actually speak floored me: They told me it was racist to use data to discuss policing. All the more so, because I’m a white woman.
