Monthly Archives: August 2011

Planting seeds in Canada

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About 1996 I was working as a contractor for Microsoft on DirectX video drivers. Some guys came from ATI (later purchased by AMD) in Toronto to learn how to write drivers for themselves. I was the guy they were assigned to.

In my office I had an USPSA and other targets with bullet holes in them. DeVerne expressed an interest in the targets and I offered to take him to the range. He quickly agreed and he shot my Ruger P-89 and a rented .22 pistol. I don’t remember a whole lot about it except I remember that as we were leaving he said something to the effect of, “That is the most fun I have ever had.” I was a little surprised and suppressed a snide remark about a guy as smart him having not discovered sex yet.

He checked into things and reported back that he could get a pistol if he went through some paperwork hoops. Hmmm… he might actually be serious about this.

I hadn’t thought much about it in a long time but then I got an email from him about a month ago:

Hey, Joe.

Set the Wayback Machine for 1996/97. Remember that dude DeVerne from ATI who was stuck in your cube at Microsoft “’cause Canadians don’t like guns”, but turned out to be OK with guns, and actually worked?

I see from your blog you are still enjoying the shootin’ sports. And you seem to spend part of your time in Seattle. I am going to be in Redmond for a (no doubt) enjoyable and illuminating conference/meeting on Windows 8, and I thought if you found it convenient, we could have a coffee and shoot a deadly paper target or two.

And then I’d ask you all about good area gun stores, since I have become a ISSF pistol shooter in the past 8 years.

DeVerne

In the following emails I discovered:

Went to the Canadian National Handgun Championships, got 1 gold, 2 silver and 3 bronze. Did not make the Paralympic team  🙁

http://www.aha.abshooters.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70&Itemid=155

Uhhh…. Wow!

Paralympic? Hmmm… I wondered what that was about.

We got together last Thursday and went off to the range. He put a few magazines full through my STI. He said mostly he wanted to show me that he was a better shot than he was the first time we went to the range:

WP_000157

He was. And that was when he shot nothing but one handed Bull’s-eye style. But what impressed me more than his shooting was that he now owns about 40 guns! His collection includes rifles and handguns both very old and very new.

I asked about the prosthetic foot. He told me it was new since I had seen him last but the story was far less interesting than he would have liked it to have been for the price paid. It turns out the foot has an unexpected advantage to his shooting sports. It puts him in a different class of shooters and instead of being a middle of the road ordinary shooter he is a very good handicapped shooter. Hence the metals in the National Championship match.

I said would give him a link to Breda, the only other shooter I know with a detachable appendage.

I planted the seeds of a monster and now he is corrupting Canada from the inside. In Toronto even! Smile

Splash

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In case you ever wondered why, when shooting steel plates, bullet jackets sometimes come back but not the core of the bullet. Here, at 1,000,000 frames per second, is an explanation. Awesome video:

Via email from Erick P. at work.

Quote of the day—Solomon Friedman

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Those that voluntarily submit themselves to licensing and training requirements, register their firearms, store them legally, are in fact subject to, in some ways, to more strict regulation than individuals that are convicted of violent firearms offenses.

Solomon Friedman
August 12, 2011
Collector, Not Criminal
[This is in Canada, not the U.S., but some of the things he says apply to people who hold a Federal Firearms License. Is it too much to ask that firearms owners exercising their natural right to keep and bear arms be treated no worse than violent criminals and pedophiles?

If I have the time later today I have some interesting info to report about my efforts to defeat the anti-gun people in Canada.—Joe]

Security theater numbers

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Why do they even try to fool us? The numbers are overwhelming in support of the claim that TSA stands for A Security Theater:

More than 10 percent of the TSA’s identification badges have errors that could compromise airport security, a new audit has found.

Omissions and inaccuracies ranging from birthdates and birthplaces to incorrect assessments of security threats abound in identification badges assigned to the approximately 900,000 people who have unescorted access to secure areas of airports, according to a report from the Department of Homeland Security inspector general.

…

Each year, the Transportation Security Authority oversees the vetting of approximately 550,000 badge applications.

There are nearly 1,000,000 people with unescorted access to secure areas of airports. Once inside the secure area they can travel to the secure area any other public airport in the country without having their credentials checked. Is anyone going to seriously try to convince me that not one in a million people is susceptible to black-mail, extortion, and/or threats against themselves or their family such that people will ill intent could not use them to gain access?

How much time can background investigators spend to vet those 550,000 applications? As the report says, they aren’t doing a very good job and it’s not surprising.

TSA—It is A Security Theater.

Quote of the day—Rick Perry

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We don’t see the role of government as guaranteeing outcomes, but allowing free men and women to flourish based on their own vision, their hard work and their personal responsibility.

Rick Perry
Texas Governor
August 13, 2011
Texas Gov. Perry jumps into 2012 Republican race
[Those are the right words to get my vote. But I have a feeling those same words absolutely inflame some people. The same sentence that included the quote above completed with, “said Perry, who has never held a private sector job…”

How does what Perry said relate to a “private sector job”? It appears to me the reporter was just looking for some way to draw some blood from Perry. And, of course, like most people on the left the truth is of little importance if a falsehood serves their purpose better. It appears Perry was in the cotton farming business from 1977 until 1984.—Joe]

The War Got Us Out of the Depression?

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That’s the claim.  World War Two got us out of the Great Depression.  It’s become an almost Pavlovian response.  Mention the end of the Great Depression, and the pre-programmed, rapid-fire response is “The-War-got-us-out-of-it!”  Ring the bell and the socialist dogs drool.  No thought about how such a thing could be– Just blind faith that it was so.

I heard one of the talk shows hosts (I think it was Limbaugh) bring this up recently.  The very same people who claim that W.W. II “got-us-out-of-the-Depression” are now the ones claiming that the current “Bush Lied, People Died/Inside Job” wars are dragging down the economy.  I don’t think the socialists can have it both ways.  We have troops in active fighting in what, four countries now?  I lost count, and it’s not “fighting” anymore, but “Kinetic Somethingorother” anyway.  We should be doing great about now if their Keynesian economic theories are correct.

Sure.  Just try this experiment with your own business or family; apply all your best efforts, using all your best resources, to build all your best products, for four years, go deeply into debt doing it, and then package up all of that best stuff, along with all your best workers, and send them overseas to be expended with no compensation.  Then build new houses for a German family and a Japanese family, going further into debt to do that, while you engage in years of litigation and appeals with a Russian family with no clear outcome.  See how rich you are at the end of it.

You can’t advocate two opposite ideologies at the same time.  One negates the other.  Either Keynesian theory is spot on, or it’s crazy.  Your perpetual motion machine either works or it doesn’t work.  Don’t claim both or you’ll look even more blitheringly stupid than you looked when you only said your perpetual motion machine generated a net energy output (oops; I’m assuming you know what “net energy output” means, which, if you believe in Keynesian economics, you don’t. Sorry).

PS.  I read several years ago that we don’t have “Infantry” anymore.  Oh no.  That would be much too.. “yesterday”.  Now we have a “Soldier-centric Force Structure” so it’s all new and shiny, you see.  Makes all the difference in the world.  To a moron.

Since having a “War Department” to fight real enemies sounded too unfriendly, and we now have the “Defense Department” and “Peace-Keeping Forces” instead, I figure it won’t be long before we have the “Department of Peace” that will bomb the shit out of you if you advocate liberty.  You’d better hope that the Peace Squad never shows up in your neighborhood.  It’ll be a bunch of government hippies shooting up your private flower pots.  Or something.

Of academic interest only

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This is of no practical use to me but it might be of interest to a few of my readers:

Penis length cannot be determined by how big his hands or feet are — those and other supposed indicators have been widely discredited for years. But now a team of Korean researchers has produced what may be a more reliable guide: the ratio of the length of his index finger to that of his ring finger. The lower that ratio, the longer the penis may be, the researchers wrote Monday in the Asian Journal of Andrology.

That is the shorter the index finger in relation to the ring finger the more likely the man’s penis will be longer.

There is something else that ratio supposedly indicates:

The ratio of length between a man’s second and fourth fingers (2D:4D) is thought to be linked to the amount of testosterone he received in the womb. According to new research, it also shows something else: How attractive a man’s face will be to women.

The research looked at the relationship between the 2D:4D ratio, how attractive women thought the face was, and other signs associated with attraction and testosterone production: body smell and voice.

Men with a lower 2D:4D ratio (shorter pointer and longer ring fingers) were thought by the subjects to be more attractive, have more “masculine” features, and have more symmetrical faces.

Posted in Sex

Quote of the day—Henry Mencken

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Every government is a scoundrel.

Henry Mencken
[Of course. What do you expect when people exercise the power to collect money at the point of a gun instead of earning it? Who but a scoundrel is attracted to a job like that?

Government is a necessary evil and as Jefferson (perhaps mistakenly—note 1), Thoreau, and Baker have said that government is best which governs less.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Violence Policy Center

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Although the majority of Americans favor stricter handgun controls, and a consistent 40 percent of Americans favor banning the private sale and possession of handguns, many Americans do believe that handguns are effective weapons for home self-defense and the majority of Americans mistakenly believe that the Second Amendment of the Constitution guarantees the individual right to keep and bear arms.

Violence Policy Center
1988
Conclusion to Assault Weapons & Accessories in America
[It wasn’t a majority of Americans that were mistaken in their beliefs about the Second Amendment. It was the bigoted minority—like those that supported the VPC and the Brady Campaign and would not believe us no matter how many times we told them and explained it to them.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Diane S. Sykes

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Both Heller and McDonald suggest that First Amendment analogues are more appropriate, see Heller, 554 U.S. at 582, 595, 635; McDonald, 130 S. Ct. at 3045, and on the strength of that suggestion, we and other circuits have already begun to adapt First Amendment doctrine to the Second Amendment context.

Diane S. Sykes
July 6, 2011
Circuit Judge
United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit
RHONDA EZELL, et al., v. CITY OF CHICAGO
[This occurred over a month ago but the taste is still incredibly sweet. The Second Amendment is to be treated like the First Amendment. Learn to use that analogy when you have discussion with the anti-gun people. If we learn to use it correctly I’ll bet it will have a great effect on them.

And to give yourself a nice warm glow read up on “chilling effect” and ponder those implications.—Joe]

Second Amendment Infringements in a Nutshell

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This one, possibly from Daniel Nauenburg, together with this classic from the Half Hour News Hour, tell you just about everything you’ll ever need to know about the subject of gun restrictions.  Add one more, illustrating what governments have done to their disarmed populations, and you’d have all the bases covered in just a few minutes.

The moral depravity and intellectual bankruptcy of the anti-rights movement would be laughable so long as it never gained any traction.  As it is, there remains justice to be done, wrongs to be righted where possible, thousands of laws to be repealed, and government agencies to be disbanded.  When can the healing begin?

Casting for New TV Show about Disaster Survival

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I can sort of figure out why this email was sent to me. But I’m not the person they are looking for:

Hello,

I’m currently casting for a pilot television show about preppers/survivalists. I think you may be a great resource for finding well prepared people, who would be open to appearing on camera. I’m wondering if you would be willing to post this info on your blog or website, or just pass this info along to anyone you think would be interested.

The gist:
It’s a 30 minute show, and we will feature two stories. We are mostly interested in seeing what the person has prepared or prepped, and right now we’re specifically looking for someone with a stocked bunker or extensive prep. The idea is to meet the person and see what they’ve prepared, then bring in a survivalist expert to evaluate how long you could actually live for if a catastrophe were to happen.

The purpose of the show is not to exploit beliefs, we actually want to cast people who the viewers will be able to relate to. We also want to feature someone who has prepped extensively, either in the home, or in a bunker. We really want something visually stunning.

This has been extremely hard to cast because of the secretive nature of the people who are preparing–which is completely understandable. I am contacting you because I think it’s important to get the word out about survivalists/preppers–that they aren’t all crazy people, that most of them are smart, well-informed people who we could take a lesson from. And I am hoping you will be able to pass this info along if you know someone who may be interested in participating.

We can provide full anonymity, and compensation is $1000 for the person who is chosen.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you for your time!

Michelle Reindal | producer | screaming flea productions |  mreindal AT sfpseattle.com

It’s not that I can’t keep the crazy away long enough or that I couldn’t pass for smart and or well-informed if I really wanted to. It’s that I finished my prep when I left the farm 35 years ago and then I moved out of my bunker and took up residence in the Clock Tower just last month.

A riot story from long ago

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This came from the gun email list at work from Brennan B. Published with permission:

I had just moved to the U.S. and was attending U.C. Riverside at the time of the L.A. riots.  An RPD cruiser got flipped and burned in the shopping center across the street from my apt.  Roommate worked in an auto parts store over in Rubidoux (the closest thing Riverside’s got to Compton) but he wasn’t on shift those days.  We acquired plenty of beer before the stores closed and spent much of that time in lawn chairs on the roof drinking, listening to a portable radio, and watching the city burn.  It was nothing if not picturesque, especially after sunset.  I don’t have much to tell first-hand, but his work’s monthly staff meetings involved meeting up at our place, talking plenty of smack and drinking plenty of beer, so I heard all that they had to say on the subject.

Prior to this, the auto parts store where my roommate worked had been getting robbed pretty regularly every 3~6 months.  Less than a year before the riots one of the employees got beaten because the robbers didn’t believe that he couldn’t open the safe or get more than $20 out of it at a time.  Shortly thereafter the store manager and assistant manager, Carlos and some Korean guy whose name I forget, both got handguns and started carrying them regularly.  Everything was completely black-market, no paper trail, no permits, no nothing.  Like most folks in that neighborhood, honorable intentions or otherwise, I presume they saw little point in applying for a concealed carry permit since they would of course get denied anyway… and if they were ignoring that one particular asinine gun law, why bother with the rest of them?  Hard logic to argue against in a neighborhood where following the law very likely meant compromising one’s life, and apparently no beat cop in his right mind was interested in driving around demanding to see people’s CCW permits anyway.

Anyway, some guy tried to rob the store shortly thereafter on a day when both managers were on shift, and one was crouched down stocking behind some shelves.  In no time the robber got bum-rushed, disarmed, pistol-whipped, dragged out back at gunpoint, beaten like a piñata and left in the dumpster to sleep it off and reconsider the poor decision-making process that had brought him to that unhappy point in his life.

Then when the riots hit a mob came into the parking lot with Molotov cocktails in hand screaming that they were gonna burn it all to the ground.  Carlos and whassisname came out to discuss the issue with their pistols tucked Mexican-carry into the front of their waistbands in plain view, and asked who wanted to light up first.  The mob abruptly decided they had something more important to burn down elsewhere and went on their way.

Though I never asked, I was completely confuddled as to why these guys risked their lives like that for an employer that didn’t treat them particularly well in the first place and, had the regional office ever caught word of such goings-on, would certainly have fired them all in a nanosecond, done everything possible to sell them out to the police for maximum jail time, and anything else that might make an appropriate example of such vigilantism.  I also wondered if the regional manager ever pondered the question of why those few stores in that mini-shopping center were the only ones for blocks around that didn’t at the very least have some broken windows.  …in fact I remember hearing that something like 80% of the [national chain] Auto Parts in Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties got torched, and this one was in one of the worst neighborhoods of any of them.

It was only much later that I realized it had nothing to do with loyalty to their employer.  Rather, it was for themselves and the workers for which they felt genuinely responsible.  I think they simply recognized that they spent a large portion of their waking lives there, and that no one was going to take care of the chronic crime for them, so they finally decided to let the neighbors know not to bring trouble around their doorstep anymore because they were sick of dealing civilly with uncivil individuals.

Objectively speaking, their revised approach to the problem seemed to work out pretty well.  My roommate transferred to another store but kept in touch.  We even still occasionally hosted some staff meetings from the old store, and word was that work life had become blessedly boring following those two confrontations.

There really is no socially acceptable moral to this story.  Actually in retrospect I have to say this saga planted one of the many seeds of cognitive dissonance in my mind that [much] later blossomed into a full-fledged rejection of the “guns are bad, m’kay?” stereotypes that inform us as to what sort of people carry guns (especially illegally), and how tragically this was all supposed to have turned out both times.  Though I’m still not inclined to press my luck with the black-market guns and unlicensed carry.

I think the moral to the story is that morality and the law only have a slight positive correlation and there is sufficient data to support the hypothesis that willfully breaking the law is sometimes the correct thing to do.

Quote of the day—Rush Limbaugh

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Obamageddon. Barackalypse Now. The only silver lining I can find is that as far as 2012 goes, Obama’s a Debt Man Walking. Anybody want to tell me he’s not landslidable now?

Rush Limbaugh
August 8, 2011
Quoted in a Tea Party newsletter.
[Maybe. The election is a 15 months from now. 15 days is a long attention span for many voters.

And silver lining? Nope. With the current price of silver that is way too optimistic of an outlook. I could believe a lead lining. That would have sort of a tarnished silver look to it. I mean really–will there be a replacement available that is any better?

If I could vote for anything right now it would be for the Feds to just go away. Or maybe to throw about 90% of the Federal politicians into a tar pit and dump a few truck loads of chicken feathers on top. Flaming cow dung on top that is optional.

The states can take care of themselves. If some of the states go bankrupt they can sell off their assets. Why not put city, county, and maybe even state governments up for auction? Who would disagree with the claim that Apple, Google, and Microsoft could do a better job of running there own cities than the bozos that try to do it now.

Forget elections for the government entities that went broke. Sell them off to whoever wants to have them. Let people run them however they want as long as people can move out with their property if they want.

What do you want to bet that states of BillGatesand SteveJobs will be much better places to do business, live, raise your kids than the People Republic of GeorgeSoros? And the village of RonJeremyVille will have a night life and adult entertainment which will make sin city Las Vegas look like the city of angels. It would be the most densely populated patch of land on the planet that no one claims to have ever visited.

I’m more than a little cynical right now.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Lyle @ UltiMAK

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The disease is socialism. Every little bit of it, and the perpetrators aren’t on the front lines. They use the poor for their dirty work. So regardless of the system to be used, the perpetrators, who tend to work from cover and often hold official positions, are the ones who need “schooled”. Go after the queen bee and you get the whole hive.

Lyle @ UltiMAK
August 10, 2011
Comment to What caliber for riots?
[In essence I agree and have a big blog post in mind about this. My disagreement with the above is that removing the “queen bee” will not be of any use if there isn’t an appropriate replacement for “her”. In the case of Europe and probably several states in the U.S. the great majority of the population cannot comprehend a free society.

I remember having a conversation with one person who insisted that “someone or something” had to be “on top”. It was either government or God that must rule the people. He didn’t trust government, governments were corruptible and had a strong tendency toward evil. Therefore it had to be God that ruled. Our government must be subservient to (his, of course) God.

I explained that is not how our government was set up and it didn’t have to be that way. Our government was found by the people and for the people with only certain enumerated powers that were granted to it by the people. Any involvement by god(s) was merely as an observer. The “one on top” is the people that granted the powers to the government.

The concepts presented yield a confused look and a mild protestation that “the people” couldn’t exercise power sufficiently wisely for that to actually work. The discussion was dropped after that because I think the light bulbs were starting to come on with the realization that god(s) and governments always communicate through people anyway so the situation wasn’t any better with his view of the world.

I think the same mindset exists in the socialists/progressives/leftists. They think of it as their people or their opponents ruling over the losers rather than a free society with government defending the rights of everyone.—Joe]

Capitalism: A Necessity

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My 17 year old wrote this essay for his English class this summer.  While the Brits are rioting over what kind of socialism they want, and American public employees have taken to the streets for more of our money, calling for revolution if they don’t get 100% of the coerced funds they think they want, this is a timely piece.  Advocating freedom is always timely though.  I didn’t help him a whit (other than to try to raise him right) and here I left in the parts with which I had minor gripes over syntax, or over a word or two;

Capitalism: A Necessity

We live in a world full of criminals, fools, rapists, murderers, and countless other evil-doers. Many of us are left to deal with the ramifications of these burdensome people. However, evil-doers are not the only issue; many well-intentioned people make mistakes that affect millions. In considering these seemingly never-ending problems of the world, one is left with quite a dismal picture. The subsequent thought is, how can these problems be solved? Is it possible? How can we make society better? There are many ideas about how to best deal with society, some of them promising to perfect it and eradicate crime and evil. In all reality, there will always be evil and evildoers. However, a condition can be imposed which makes life better for all of us, protecting us, and allowing us the freedom to think, create, and trade with others. This condition is Capitalism.

Capitalism is the only system of government which allows individuals the most possible freedom while, at the same time, protecting them from the potential harm of others. This is because its main function is the government recognition [of] individual rights. Individual rights are “conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival” (Rand, Man’s Rights). Among them are:  that a person has the right to their  own life, that a person has the right to liberty (or the freedom to think and act), and that a person is free to “pursue happiness,” or to do what they please. A person assumes these rights with the caveat that they may not violate any other person’s rights. A system such as this protects individuals, while still allowing them freedoms proper for their survival.

All rights are actually corollaries of the right to life. Man is a living creature; naturally, he must have the freedom to perform all actions necessary to stay alive. Also, Man is a thinking creature; he relies on his creative faculty to produce the tools necessary to live. Therefore, in order to have the right to his own life, he must have the freedom not only to create, but to own what he creates. Otherwise, he is a slave, subject to the whim of a master (Rand, Man’s Rights 322) and has no right to his own life. Essentially, all other rights ensure Man’s right to life which, in itself, is a basic condition for his survival.

Capitalism holds that government’s only enterprise is the protection of these basic rights. It was also the form of government originally intended for the United States by its founders. As stated in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…” (Declaration of Independence). It is clear in this excerpt that the founders of the United States thought of government as a protector of the people rather than a controller or a regulator.

A well known  aspect of Capitalism is the absence of economic regulation, or a free market system. No economic regulation can exist in a capitalistic system because it inherently inhibits people’s right to free trade – therefore violating their right to life. A common argument against Capitalism is that a lack of regulation would allow business to grow exorbitantly, take advantage of society, cause poverty and contribute to a general degradation of people’s lifestyle. However, in a free market, if a business is not practicing in a manner that is beneficial to the public, a niche is created for another business to enter, and the public is free to boycott the business in support of an emerging one. As long as a business does not violate another’s rights, they are free to act as they wish. However, in the situation where a business is violating other’s rights, judicial action would be appropriate, just as with any other criminal.

Capitalism is the only system of government that does not require, and in fact prevents, control by force. It ensures that no force may ever be initiated and that the only appropriate force is self-defense. The only method by which any trade may occur is by mutual consent – a transaction in which both parties involved must agree. In this system, it is inherent that both parties benefit; both consensually walk away with something they consider more valuable than what they traded. Other systems of government such as Socialism and Fascism are based on the notion that each individual in society is less valuable than a “public good” and that force may be initiated on society for the sake of this “public good.” In reality, this translates to an ever-growing government control of the citizens. These systems, unlike Capitalism, fail to recognize that society is actually a group of individuals rather than a single entity. In a capitalistic system, individuals are free to act in their best interest and are barred from violating another’s right to do so, creating an optimal situation for the success of society.

An argument made against Capitalism is that it inherently results in people unable to take care of themselves being left to starve because of the lack of redistribution programs such as welfare. However, in a Capitalist system, people are free to help other people as they wish. If an individual believes another person or group should receive help, then that individual can provide monetary support or bolster more widespread support. Additionally, charity organizations can flourish and help millions worldwide. By no means does Capitalism prevent needy people from receiving help. It actually works more efficiently than a welfare system; Capitalism does not support people who, entirely capable of caring for themselves, decide instead to take advantage of a government redistribution system unless other people willfully decide to support them. In a Capitalistic system, force upon any party is forbidden because it violates people’s rights, so redistribution is impossible.

Capitalism is the system that best allows man to produce wealth – anything of value which helps improve his survivability. It does this by giving man the freedom to think, discover, and act on his own volition without oppression from any entity (government, criminals, etc.). Man did not evolve as a highly specialized community species such as bees or ants. By nature, man works best if he is allowed to make his own choices. The early caveman did not create the spear because his only motive was to work for a “public good” – to improve the lives of other cavemen – he created the spear out of his self-interest in his own survival. Even so, the result was an improvement in mankind as a whole; because they saw the first, other cavemen’s lives were improved by using his idea for themselves. Capitalism does not ensure a perfect society. Rather, it ensures the conditions which best allow society to function. It does this by protecting Man’s rights.

 

Works Cited

Decaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson (1776). Print.

Rand, Ayn. “Appendix: Man’s Rights.” Capitalism the Unknown Ideal. New York: Signet, 1967. Print. This chapter specifically outlines the nature of man’s rights and their necessary existence.

The public college teacher gave him a “B”.  I’m a little bit suprised she didn’t lose composure and start breaking things.  Maybe she’s been in contact with her higher-ups, trying to find ways to deal with this problem “under the radar”.

What caliber for riots?

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Like a lot of other people I’ve been thinking about what would be the best defense against the riots like are being experience in the U.K. and the flash mobs in some U.S. cities.

Recently someplace, which I can’t find right now, I proposed a couple of fully loaded USPSA Grandmasters could rapidly educate a crowd on the downside of violence against innocent people.

Yesterday Phil advocated 9mm because of the greater capacity.

While I think those ideas have potential the rioters in the U.K. have been dispersing at the first sign of law enforcement then regrouping at another location (apparently many of these “poor” people have cellphones). Plus no matter how many rounds in whatever caliber you have when you are facing off against hundreds of people the odds of getting hurt yourself is significantly greater than zero. This calls for a different weapons platform.

I think the right caliber for the task is a couple of AC-130s.

Quote of the day—Chas

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Their extremist rhetoric against the Tea Party is outrageous. People who peacefully participate in the political process are not terrorists. Let me say that again, since important things are worth repeating: Peaceful participation is not terrorism.

This is an administration that won’t call terrorists, terrorists, but they have no problem slapping that label on the American middle class, which kinda lets ya know who they really regard as being the enemy.

Hint: It’s not the jihadis, with whom they share an anti-American agenda. It’s the people who want America to succeed with whom they have a problem and with whom they do not share an agenda.

If we’re terrorists, then shoot us, or shut up and stop making fools of yourselves!

Chas
August 8, 2011
Comment to You’re all a big bunch of meanies!
[As son James pointed out after I showed this comment to him last night, “Well… we are their enemies—ideologically.” Yup. And as Lyle (and here) and history frequently points outs, when the left starts loosing they do crazy, scary, violent stuff. We may be headed for those times where they do treat us as terrorists. The rhetoric is ramping up for it.—Joe]

Violent Socialists

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But I repeat myself.  Spending most of the article sarching in vain for a coherent thought, the author eventually slips in her take on the UK riots;

The failure of the markets goes hand in hand with human blight. Meanwhile, the view is gaining ground that social democracy, with its safety nets, its costly education and health care for all, is unsustainable in the bleak times ahead. The reality is that it is the only solution. After the Great Crash, Britain recalibrated, for a time. Income differentials fell, the welfare state was born and skills and growth increased.

Damn those pesky income differentials– they did it!  She had to hide her editorial in ~1,000 words of mish-mash.  That one paragraph would have sufficed.  See; that their socialist democracy failed to crush productivity overnight in the first half of the 20th century is proof that it is good and that we need much more.

This demonstrates a couple of my old catch phrases;
The socialists are angry because the socialists in power aren’t socialist enough.
When socialism fails, freedom is to blame, and the answer is more socialism.

When the Teaparty holds a peaceful rally, advocating liberty and denouncing tyranny, leaving the rally site cleaner than they found it, they are guilty of inciting violence.  When socialists riot, loot and burn, calling for revolution, it is because of the income differential– we should listen to them because they represent our future.

Meanwhile in the U.S., our Republican Party leaders, thinking themselves the oh-so-much-more-clever-than-thou pragmatists, are busy trying to figure out what it is they should pretend to believe during the upcoming election season, figuring out how to please this group, gingerly, without overly offending that group, taking polls, doing market analysis, organizing think tanks and hiring image consultants (in other words; there isn’t a shred of seriousness or principle amongst the whole lot of them).

State Sponsored Media?

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Speaking of the tools and mechanisms of oppression, have any of you noticed how many government or Ad Council ads there are on AM radio lately?  We’re being told where to find out how to raise our kids, fasten their car seats, talk to kids about drugs, notice the signs of a stroke (call 911) quit smoking, and ZOMG– be afraid of your food!  In the 20 minutes or so I listened to KMAX this morning, there were two or three government ads to one commercial ad.

Now; I haven’t looked into who runs the Ad Council or where its funding comes from, and I don’t know how many of the government ads are actually paid for as opposed to being forced as “public service announcements” but it’s looking more and more like there is already a mechanism in place to further control radio stations– threaten to their pull ads, which are becoming a majority of the ads on the air.

I thought y’all might want to look into this, as there has been “chatter” for years about how to clamp down on talk radio and yet no one is talking about the recent uptick in Big Brother ads.  I smell “Hope and Change” in this.