It’s hopeless to expect the government to cut down on deficit spending or money printing anytime soon. It’s all they know how to do.
Jim Rickards
November 9, 2021
First Down Payment on a Boondoggle
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Author Archives: Joe
Quote of the day—Clif High
Let’s say the ultimate paranoid understanding is this is a collapse of civilization to some degree. In order to understand this, we should extract ourselves from as many of these failing systems as possible. If you can extract yourself from the money system as much as possible, the school system and any of these systems because they are all going to fail, and you don’t want to be dragged down by them. Here’s how bad it’s going to get…
Members of Congress will be rushing out of meetings, heaving their guts out and vomiting all over the hallways because of the emotional shock because of the death of the dollar. The death of the dollar is not going to be a slow thing. It will come to the point, probably fairly rapidly, and it might even be in just a couple of weeks because we have this drop dead date on December 3rd. Anyway … This is the thing to imagine, and that is we are coming to the end of a civilization.
Clif High
November 16, 2021
Collapse of Civilization Coming
[Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.
While I can believe there is a very good chance of economic collapse of the U.S. within the next few years, and I can believe it will be “rapid”, my best guess is that “rapid” will be on the scale of months or possibly weeks.
My “prediction” is based on the time scales seen in other hyper inflation situations.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Ryan Chittum
On balance, the press has been a destructive force on this story, from its beginnings in the coverage of the Jacob Blake shooting that set the whole thing off and which we know was justified, to the downplaying of the $50 million in destruction done by rioters in Kenosha, to the libelous portrayal of Rittenhouse and the particulars of what happened. There have been innumerable journalistic disasters in the Trump era, but this is the most blatantly reckless one of them all.
Ryan Chittum
Media critic with the Columbia Journalism Review,
November 21, 2021
Misinformation About Kyle Rittenhouse Case Floods Social Media, TV Networks
[I think Chittum is giving the media too much credit with the claim of “reckless”. With the videos so easily available, with the jury verdict known to everyone, with the claims they make so absurd, I don’t believe they are “reckless”. They are malicious liars.—Joe]
Erwin Chemerinsky of the LA Times is a liar
The verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial sends a chilling message
Rittenhouse, then age 17, went to Kenosha, Wis., where protests were expected after police officers shot and seriously injured Jacob Blake. Rittenhouse had an AR-15-style rifle, which he was too young to legally possess. A teenager carrying an assault-style weapon in a tense situation is a recipe for disaster, and that is exactly what happened. Rittenhouse shot and killed two people and seriously wounded a third.
Rittenhouse testified at the trial that he went to the city on Aug. 25, 2020, to provide protection for local businesses and patrol as civil unrest developed. There is so much that is disturbing about that: a teenager deciding that he needed to provide law enforcement, when he lacked training or experience, and illegally arming himself with a semiautomatic rifle.
Not surprisingly, Rittenhouse’s presence with a big weapon provoked a reaction. Joseph Rosenbaum, a person with a history of mental illness who had been released from the hospital that day, allegedly grabbed at Rittenhouse’s gun and then was shot four times and killed. Anthony Huber apparently struck Rittenhouse with a skateboard. Huber then was shot and killed when Rittenhouse thought Huber was reaching for his weapon. Gaige Grosskreutz felt his life was in danger when he saw Huber killed. Grosskreutz reached for a weapon and then was shot and wounded by Rittenhouse.
Rittenhouse was not too young to legally posses the rifle.
Rittenhouse did not decide to be there on his own. He was asked to help defend private property after the police watched it burn the previous night.
Not surprisingly, Rittenhouse’s presence with a big weapon provoked a reaction.
The reaction of normal people is to be polite and not commit crimes such as igniting a dumpster on fire and pushing it into a gas station. That Rosenbaum chased and grabbed (not allegedly, the coroner confirmed muzzle blast marks on his hand) at Rittenhouse’s rifle. Perhaps that his usually victims were young boys caused him to generalize that no serious resistance is to be expected. Regardless, this shows a catastrophic failure of his victim section process and does not reflect poorly on Rittenhouse.
“Huber apparently struck Rittenhouse with a skateboard”? The video and stills are very clear that it happened.
“Grosskreutz reached for a weapon and then was shot..” Lying by omission. Sure, he had to “reach for his gun” before he could use it. But the video shows, and he testified under oath, that he was not shot until he actually pointed his gun at Rittenhouse.
Quote of the day—Colin Wright @SwipeWright
The Left-wing media narrative on the Rittenhouse case is extreme, malicious, and untethered to reality. It is well beyond insane. It would be laughable if it weren’t so utterly frightening.
Colin Wright @SwipeWright
Tweeted on November 20, 2021
[It was my independent conclusion of this (although not articulated nearly as well) that led me to create a new blog category dedicated to exposing their lies.—Joe]
KYLE TRIAL ENDS IN JUSTICE
Even clean self defense puts you in dire jeopardy—
KYLE TRIAL ENDS IN JUSTICE
The only reasons for tension were outright lies by woke left
Acquitted on all counts—so he gets vilified by leftists and “news” media
Too much happened for just another news release. How about a list:
- The court system worked, video-obvious self-defense was exonerated properly
- Leftist-led jury intimidation should be prosecuted, including “officials”
- NOTE: Even with clear evidence of self-defense, you are very much on the line
- If not for multiple dispositive videos Kyle likely would have been railroaded
- Leftist reactions for months, and afterwards, exhibit derangement syndrome
- Mass media has again proven itself a biased, prejudicial propaganda source
- Reporting shows media hates guns, gun owners and even righteous defense of life
- No one expects corrections for countless egregious mass-media errors
- Everyone who cried guilt before the unanimous trial verdict should be ashamed
- We the People got to see just how bad prosecutors can be, reprehensible
- City riots were already on, leftists ran them, not Kyle, this is now clear
- Claims of vigilantism, mass shooting, proven false—borne of media-fueled hysteria
- A convicted felony child molester, out of jail, shot just before committing murder, is now hailed as hero and victim by media and leftists, this is crazythink.
- If Kyle had not acted he’d be dead, no show trial, that must count for something
- Judge advised court not to call the perps and rioters victims, a very good call
- Gunfire in self defense is vindicated once again (14 cases OK’d by U.S. Supreme Court)
- A dead criminal, shot in self defense by an innocent person, is not a victim, despite numerous almost uniform reporting otherwise by media in most cases
- The left are still calling racism, with no ethnic element involved, that’s deranged
- So-called “news” stations keep spinning out of control, immune to reality, justice
- Biden labeled this young man a white supremacist, clear slander, can he be sued?
- Lawsuits should fall like rain against the slanderers, libelers, character assassins
- Lawsuits needed to help tame the movement to destroy reputations shamelessly
#####
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Never give up your guns
Via Rolf.
Australia: Army Forcibly Throws Covid-Exposed Citizens in Quarantine Camps
Two Northern Territory communities in Australia, Binjari and Rockhole, have imposed strict lockdowns after nine new positive coronavirus cases were registered. The military has been called in to bring positive cases and close contacts to a quarantine center.
We live in interesting times.
The USA Today editorial board are liars
The USA Today editorial board is incoherent and/or has a reading comprehension problem and/or is lying. And they tell the lie that they believe an inanimate object can be guilty:
He said the weapon was a key reason he shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum during the mayhem. “If I would have let Mr. Rosenbaum take my firearm from me, he would have used it and killed me with it,” Rittenhouse testified during the trial.
Demonstrators saw the shooting and chased after Rittenhouse in an apparent effort to disarm him. One of them was Anthony Huber armed only with a skateboard. Huber grabbed the barrel of the AR-15, and Rittenhouse shot him to death.
“The irony of the case is that Mr. Rittenhouse has become a cause célèbre among gun-rights advocates, even though, according to his own defense, it was his carrying of the rifle that put him in danger in the first place,” the Economist noted.
Rittenhouse said no such thing. And they quoted the testimony which refutes their claim! The key reason for all legal use of lethal force is the reasonable fear of imminent severe injury or death. Rittenhouse articulated this well, repeatedly, and the video supports his claims. Without the rifle Rosenbaum would still have been outraged at his dumpster fire, being pushed into a gas station, being put out with the fire extinguisher. And that outrage led to Rittenhouse being chased by Rosenbaum and others. And when they cornered him without the rifle they almost certainly would have caused him severe injury or death. Hence, the rifle cannot be the “key reason” justifying the use of deadly force.
They are also liars:
Such weapons were expressly designed for the battlefield, and that may be a good part of their appeal.
Wrong. Such weapons are expressly designed to be easy to shoot, maintain, carry, economical, and accurate. They are the most common rifle sold in the United States and no AR-15 style rifle has ever been issued to a military for battlefield use (the AR-15 is semi-auto, militaries all use select fire rifles).
The primacy of assault-style rifles in American society is not a Second Amendment issue. When the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia authored a Supreme Court ruling in 2008 underscoring the Second Amendment’s right to possess firearms, he said the freedom is “not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever.”
This must be a deliberate lie. Here is the complete quote from the 2008 Heller decision (emphasis added):
Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. See, e.g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152–153; Abbott333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. See, e.g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489–490; Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students’ Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884). Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment , nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.26
We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time.”
I cannot imagine having read to middle of page 54 to pluck the “not unlimited” quote they did not read to the top of page 55 and see the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time.”
Being the most popular rifle style sold in the United States the AR-15 qualifies as “in common use”. Hence, the AR-15 is protected by the Second Amendment.
Quote of the day—єℓ αѕнα’мαη∂σ @sporrendo
Every single gun owner has a mini mushroom for a dick.
єℓ αѕнα’мαη∂σ @sporrendo
Tweeted on November 16, 2021
[It’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday it’s another science denier!
Via a Tweet from In Chains @InChainsInJail.—Joe]
David S. Cohen of Rolling Stone is a liar
The mention of Rolling Stone and anything to do with guns and then bring up lies is probably being entirely redundant, but it doesn’t hurt to make it explicitly clear.
While patrolling the streets, there was gunfire that resulted in some of the Black Lives Matter protesters thinking Rittenhouse was attacking them. They charged Rittenhouse, and he opened fire, killing Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and injuring Gaige Grosskreutz.
That’s not how it happened. You can watch the video of every shot fired and see for yourself. The gunfire was as the “protestors” had boxed Rittenhouse in between some cars and were closing in on him. One of those attackers fired the gun into the air a few dozen feet from Rittenhouse. The shooting of Huber and Grosskreutz were a minute or so later as Rittenhouse was attempting to reach the safety of the police and the attackers caught up to him after he fell. They struck him with a skateboard, kicked him in the head, and pointed a gun at him. Each person shot was an imminent threat of permanent injury or death to Rittenhouse.
Pilar Melendez of The Daily Beast is a liar
Deception and lying by omission:
During the already-chaotic protest over the Blake’s shooting last August, a video played in court showed Rittenhouse, then 17, shooting Rosenbaum after the unarmed man tossed a plastic bag his way. As Rittenhouse ran away from the scene, still holding his AR-15, the teen is seen in another video running down the street with several protesters in tow.
Technically true. But Rittenhouse did not shoot Rosenbaum because of the plastic bag. A few seconds later, and unmentioned by Melendez, Rosenbaum had Rittenhouse boxed in between several cars and another guy who had just fired a handgun in the air and Rosenbaum was reaching for the rifle. Any competent firearms instructor will tell you that when your attacker is attempting to disarm you it’s almost certainly time to start shooting.
New blog post category
When Brother Doug and I get together we frequently have long talks about our country’s political state. The illegal gun laws, the U.S. debt, the out of control printing of money, etc..
One of the things Doug frequently points out is that the average person doesn’t get outraged because the legacy media gives the political left cover through, at best, selective reporting of the facts and implications of things that are not true. And frequently outright lies.
So how do we combat these lies? Doug and I get frustrated at this point. Politely pointing out their errors doesn’t work. After all, as Lyle frequently points out a good case can be made they actually pride themselves on there ability to lie and get away with it.
I finally came up with decent response. I have created a new blog post category, Legacy Media Liars. This category will be used to call out individuals (when available) as liars. I don’t know that my blog has enough Google Page Rank to bring searches for the liars names into the top ten on Google but it’s better than doing nothing.
I have gone back to a few previous posts and categorized them as well to kind of jump start the category. This is as if I actually will be short on material. The Rittenhouse verdict probably gave me 100 articles to blog about in the first 12 hours after the verdict was announced.
This is going to be a busy category.
Boomershoot 2022 registration opens soon!
Entry for Boomershoot 2022 (April 29th-May 1st) is opening for everyone 12/5/2021 6:00:00 PM Pacific Time.
Sign up here: https://entry.boomershoot.com/
Don’t miss out!
If you have questions send an email to Boomershoot Entries or give me a call.
Good neighbors
Via email from Rolf:
Idaho has the fastest growing population in the U.S. in 2021:
Idaho had a population growth of 2.12%, growing from 1,789,060 to 1,826,913. People from all over the U.S. are being drawn to Idaho for its affordability and the strong job market. Additionally, Boise has a rapidly growing tech sector. Many people migrating to Idaho are from California, most likely due to its affordability (especially compared to California) and a much lower population density. Despite the state’s rapid growth, it is the 12th-smallest state in the U.S.
Idaho residents would prefer people, especially refuges colonizers from the socialist states, stay where they are and continue to provide a bad example for the rest of the country.
Quote of the day—bumbletron @citizenobscure
Stop granting these people the intellectual charity that they are arguing in good faith. They despise you. And they are at war with you. Rules of engagement are a disadvantage when your opponents have none.
bumbletron @citizenobscure
Tweeted on November 13, 2021
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Quote of the day—T.S. Eliot
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm; but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
T. S. Eliot
“The Cocktail Party” (1949), Act 1, scene 1.
[H/T to Phssthpok.
A search for the context of this quote led me to this gold mine of quotes created by Thomas Sowell.—Joe]
Not guilty on all charges
From The Hill:
A jury on Friday acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager who fatally shot two protesters and wounded a third, of murder and other felony charges.
Update: More information here: Jury finds Rittenhouse not guilty in Kenosha shootings
Quote of the day—Paul Johnson
The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.
Paul Johnson
1980
The Recovery of Freedom by Paul Johnson
[Via Thomas Sowell.
My web wanderings for the original source resulted in stumbling across this web page. I now have Intellectuals in my Audible library.—Joe]
Skynet smiles
I sometimes joke about the Skynet of the Terminator movies. And occasionally I get serious about it. But this is the first time I ever had a strong Skynet inspired chill engulf me when read about a new technology:
The 2.6 trillion transistors in the WSE-2 are organized into 850,000 cores. According to Cerebras Systems, the chip’s cores are optimized for the specific types of mathematical operations that neural networks use to turn raw data into insights. The WSE-2 stores the data being processed by a neural network using 40 gigabytes of speedy onboard memory.
Cerebras Systems says that the WSE-2 has 123 times more cores and 1,000 times more on-chip memory than the closest GPU.
I’m not sure why that emotional response occurred. It was as if some threshold had not just been crossed, but leaped over by such a huge margin. The potential threat became, not just real, but something much greater than that. I can’t say that I know or even really suspect that is true. It was just an emotional reaction.
However, see also what Elon Musk has to say about AI:
Never forget that a computer’s attention span is no longer than its power cord.
Prepare appropriately.
Dark lightning
“Dark lightning” has apparently been known since 1994. However, I had not heard of it until recently. Here is what NASA said about it in 2013:
Researchers studying thunderstorms have made a surprising discovery: The lightning we see with our eyes has a dark competitor that discharges storm clouds and flings antimatter into space.
Storm clouds are sometimes producing anti-matter? Wow!