Author Archives: Lyle

E = I – R

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I heard that formula from Dennis Prager.  It’s the formula for determining happiness, or more specifically, unhappiness.  It stands for; Unhappiness equals the difference between Image and Reality.  To put it the other way around; the greater the correlation between your image (or expectations) of reality and reality itself, the more the happiness.  He’s been studying happiness for some time, and has determined that situation seems to have little to do with a person’s stated happiness, i.e. some people in horrible situations will self describe as fairly happy, while others in what we would think are beautiful situations may self describe as unhappy.


You could substitute image with expectations, or maybe a few other things, but the concept remains the same.  I think he’s on to something.  It’s right along the lines of a saying, which if I’m not mistaken comes from way back in Asia; “Few desires; happy life”.  They’re not identical, but similar.


That brings up the subject of drive (a form of desire, see) which can lead a person to do wonderful things, or horrible things, depending on one’s constitution.  Drive and image are very different.  You may be driven, or inspired, to do something, but if you have a realistic view of reality you have a better chance of accomplishing it and a better ability to deal with it if you don’t accomplish it.  Maybe “few desires; happy life” is an invitation to resignation (get the hope beaten out of you and you’re happy) but it need not be interpreted so.  I prefer U = I – R.


I’ve been on a bit of a departure from Joe’s blog subtitle, but all of this stuff applies very much to politics.  I might bring it around thusly; The angry left is angry (unhappy and blaming others for it) because of a rather serious disconnect from reality.  The next question is; why are the left’s images of reality so far off?  Where do these off-kilter images originate, what put them there and what are the main vectors of propagation?


A slightly simpler formula might be; U = C (unhappiness equals the level of your confusion).  Same thing.  The other would be; H = Ur (your level of happiness equals the degree to which you understand reality).


Hmm; so I guess reason is the path to happiness.  So then I guess we can fight over who has reason and who only thinks they do, and we can kill each other over the question of who is the happiest.

Democracy Dies a Lot

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There was a lot more to this vid.  It went on and on, but here’s the gist of it;



“Democracy is dead” every time the communists/parasites lose an election.  This has been going on for years.  Using their reasoning, which says for example that the people can’t be trusted with education and so the government must do it, the people can’t be trusted with guns and so the government must own them all, et., etc., they’ll eventually decide that the people can’t be trusted to vote and so the government must decide everything instead.  Then democracy will be alive again.  See how that works?


The sad thing is that I might have been (no; was) that pathetic fool when I was about that age (having just been freed from the public education gulag and still listening to Pacifica News on Public Radio).  So in a way I do feel for the lad.  Lucky for me there was no internet when I was that age.  It wrenches my gut to think about that– what if there had been?

What is a Man…

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…that is not motivated by fear, anger or lust?


This is a companion to yesterday’s quote of the day.


It’s a tough question.  It might upset some people.  It has to asked though, somewhere along the journey.

It’s a Matter of Context

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I point out, to those who are befuddled by the Chinese criticizing America’s human rights record, that we are talking about one communist government criticizing another.


See?  It makes perfect sense.


“Human rights” you see, means the right to be controlled by an all-knowing and all-powerful government.


Better now?

Red Flags

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I could go on and on and on and on about all the times I’ve been scammed in business.  When you’ve been in business for 35 years you accumulate a lot of stories of woe and intrigue.  One of the dumbest scammers was a couple of kids using a stolen credit card, who wanted us to deliver thousands of dollars worth of musical instruments, picked out over the phone sight unseen, each being the most expensive of the available choices, to a parking lot on a Sunday.  We just got as much information out of them as we could, called the cops, and found out that these kids had been busted multiple times in the past for check and credit card fraud.


Just the other day, we got an order for multiple units of the most expensive thing we have to offer.  First red flag.  Not enough to get all suspicious, but it makes you wonder just as little bit.  In the comments box, he/she/it says to hurry, but offers no reasons why.  Second red flag.  That may sound innocuous to you, but it’s extremely rare.  When we try to process the transaction, it comes up with a no-match on both the cvv number and the billing address.  Third red flag.  When I reply, asking for the correct cvv number and billing address he/she/it has no idea what I’m talking about and therefore can’t provide any info.  Fourth and fifth red flags.  That’s two more; one because a person spending a lot of money for something needed right away couldn’t get the numbers right, and two because someone is doing all this as his/her/its very first time making an on-line purchase (if you’ve done it before, you know the meaning and importance of a cvv number and a billing address).  If you don’t know what “cvv number” means I can maybe sort of forgive you because some sites refer to it as a “security code” but I can’t forgive you for being unable to use google for a few milliseconds to find out.


My long legacy of being scammed tells me this is a kid with a stolen card, or some other dirtbag loser/gangsta and that I shouldn’t engage in any more messing around.  It’s not any one or two red flags, but the accumulation of red flags that made me nix the deal.  I know full well that it is possible that this is an innocent, inexperienced buyer, but it’s too unlikely a scenario to gamble a lot of money.  Nor will I offer any explanation to this person, beyond “…our security department has rejected the order.  Please look elsewhere.  Sorry.”  Other red flags I won’t tell you about.


Those of you who aren’t in business do understand (don’t you? no, you probably don’t– no one learns about business unless they actually do it, because most people go through public education) that any time there is a problem with a credit card, it is I, the business owner, who always eats the shit on the deal.  No one else is responsible.  You may THINK that the credit card bank is letting your unauthorized charges go at their expense, but they’re charging the vendor (that’s me) whenever that happens (it’s called a “chargeback”) and then merchant services threaten to cut off, or jack up the price on, my merchant services.  The business owner is always at fault.

Yeah, so there was an eclipse on Sunday

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My brother had called me the day before from Californistan, when it was nice and sunny here, and told me to look for it between five and six PM, my time.  As I was driving home with my daughter from a panic shopping trip to Moscow, I noticed the time.  “It’s right now.”  But it was cloudy– full overcast with occasional rain.  As I turned to look toward the sun, sure enough.  There it was!  For whatever reason, I could see it much better with my polarizing glasses than the little Cannon Powershot ever could.  For one thing, the auto focus was somewhat at a loss for doing anything with clouds.  Here are the best two out of about a dozen shots I took from the highway;



 



I guess around southern Oregon/Northern Cali/Nevada way, they had a full annular.  I’ve never seen one of those, but back around 1979/1880, I remember another, even more overcast day that went full dark in the middle of the day.  That was pretty cool.

Metal Oxide Semiconductors

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It’s happened several times before.  Good alternator, good battery, dead battery.  Over the last two or three days, I noticed my good starter getting slower and slower.  Since vehicles these days, inexplicably, have only a voltage meter, I couldn’t tell from my instrumentation whether I had extra drain, a dead battery, or dirty terminals.  You do get a slight clue though, if you watch the voltage closely immediately after start-up.  If everything is working normally, you’ll see the voltage start out a bit lower, then creep up to normal running voltage in a few seconds.  My meter was rock solid.  With a current meter, such as was the norm in the 1960s, you’ll see the charge or discharge current.  Much more useful in my opinion.  Best would be to have both volts and amps.


The pickup barely started this morning, and at work it didn’t start at all.  Like a jerk, only then did I clean the battery terminals.  Still no go, so I got a boost from Dan.  The terminals get corroded and that can sometimes allow current to flow one direction, but not the other (that’s a diode, see).  In this case the batt would discharge just fine, but it couldn’t get any charge current (hence the full voltage immediately after starting– the voltage wasn’t being pulled down by any charge current).  Eventually you’re a walkin’, yo.


I went and bought a new battery anyway, because I’ll have a use for it either way.  By the time I got back from across town, the old battery was fully charged and snappy as ever, so now I have a new one I can use either in my son’s van or my old beat-up T-Bird.  Fun fun fun.  Plus I got a decent charger for the garage, just in case.  If the battery had had only a few less electrons to give up this morning, I’d have been knocking on doors for a boost.  No more.  I have used my ham radio 12V supply to charge a car battery, but it doesn’ like that.  The huge current load tends to blow some fairly important components.


Yeah so; if your starter slows down, just a little, clean your terminals before it gets worse.  You may just have solved the whole problem, right there.  You do keep a terminal brush and some tools in your vehicle, right?

Booker T. Washington – Up From Slavery

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I haven’t read the book, but now I’m interested.  Maybe I’ll get it for my daughter so she can bring it into her history classes.


One thing I want to call to your attention is that the later printings of the book contain an “explanation” in the forward by a Marxist professor, telling us not to take it seriously.  What was that Michelle Obama said about the left’s need to change our history and our traditions?





 

I like it, but…

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…she should be suckling an adult if it’s supposed to depict The Obama Way.  Well, children, adults– everyone.  Maybe there should be a long line behind the kid, all carrying signs and complaining/competing over who gets to suckle next.

Wars on Nouns

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(My computer stinks  This was posted days ago but never showed up.  I try again)

As a practical matter, I don’t see how you can wage war on anything but nouns.  Just sayin’.  Americans fought a war or two against “Britain” which is a noun, thoughbeit a proper noun.  Japanese “imperialism” is a noun, etc.  “Socialism” is a noun too, as is “jihad”.

This war-on-nouns stuff started, I figure, with the “War On An Emotion”.  That of course being “terror”.  I agree that it is pretty silly to initiate a military war against an emotion like terror, among other things, because war itself can be pretty terrifying.  Now if you wanted to wage war against happiness I suppose that would be a little easier.  You may be able to bomb people out of their happiness.

So it comes down to the particular nouns that might be legitimate enemies against which we might legitimately wage war.  More importantly, it comes down to those things that are worth protecting, even with deadly force when necessary.  Those too are nouns.  Life is a noun.  Liberty is a noun.  Property is a noun.  It is far easier to be against something (Critical Theory) than to be for something.  When we consider fighting wars, we need to keep that in mind.  For what are we fighting?

For those who will say “Who is Dennis Prager?” I say that he is the one who said, “I prefer clarity to agreement”.

So let’s be clear.  Only once that is accomplished can we decide on whether or not we agree.

I’ve heard that we can’t legitimately declare war against jihad (or rather, for liberty – the opposite of jihad)) because jihad isn’t a country.  That makes waging war against it a logical impossibility, I guess is what we’re being told.  OK.  So they’re saying we can only wage war for or against real estate?  An enemy can only take the form of real estate?  See; I can play stupid word games too, and my stupid word games don’t help either.

Hint; liberty isn’t a country any more than jihad is a country.  It’s a concept, and hopefully liberty is a movement.  Jihad is a concept and certainly it is a movement, for caliphate (another concept).  We fight and die for concepts.  Life too, but the concept of liberty is an extension of the protection of life.

Dennis Prager Demands Violence, Torture

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Last night on his radio program, Dennis Prager said we need to “hold [Republicans’] feet to the fire”.

No doubt he’ll be hearing from the Secret Service any second.

This Would be Cool

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…but the manufacturer defaced it horribly by putting lettering and numbering all over it.  I wouldn’t mind owning one, but then I’d be forced to advertize for Colt’s without compensation, flashing that company name and address around everywhere I went.  They should pay me to own it.  And those serial numbers?  Those weren’t required by law in the 1840s and ’50s, and the gun would look SO much tidier without them.

(This in response to people who complain that my products have to be defaced with my company’s name and the model number, or the patent number in some cases.  It turns out that there’s also a significant culture in the muzzleloader world that hates the idea of signed or numbered guns.  That fact that maker’s marks, serial numbers, inspectors marks and proof marks have been a necessary and worthwhile part of manufacturing since Grok made his first stone club seems to get lost on some people.  Maybe the famous works of art would be worth more if they’d never been signed, too [they were such shameless self promoters they turned every work of art into an advertizing billboard for themselves].  We do refrain from using flashing lights in our logo if that’s any consolation.  Our engraved logos are matte black on matte black, but they’re still too obnoxious for some people)

Outlaw Socialism

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There.  Fixed it.

(and no – it doesn’t become legal if you give it a new name)

Solemn Oath or Meaningless Formality?

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About that Marine who was “less than honerably” discharged.

First, I had to check four major news sources before I could find what the Marine actually said.  The UK news, MSNBC and the WSJ all just quoted his “Screw Obama” bit (Yahoo News came through).  But what counts is the bit about the Oath;

But U.S. District Judge Marilyn Huff refused to intervene, saying the military had the discretion to discipline Stein after he stated he would not follow all the orders of the president.
…
She said that message read: “As an active-duty Marine, I have sworn to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. Obama is the economic enemy, the religious enemy, the domestic enemy.”

Stein has served nearly nine years…

I can see the judge’s position.  He said he would not follow “some” orders, so she kicked it back to the military.

Anyway, it puts you in a sort of pickle when you take that Oath, doesn’t it?  So all you who’ve taken it have a question to ask yourselves every single day.  Do you follow all orders, no matter what, OR do you defend and protect the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic?

With a communist in the Whitehouse, what are your options?  The Devil (so to speak) has you by the neck.  You’re damned if you do, damned of you don’t.  I don’t think we want a coup on our hands, but we don’t want a communist giving orders either.  Stein’s problem was that he posted about his obvious conundrum on Facebook.  Best to get out, maybe?  But then you’ll only be replaced with someone who doesn’t have a problem following order from a communist, and that’s not good at all (how long before the Oath is changed to one that gives alliagence only to the commander in chief?).  As I say; Pickle.

Anti Gun Americans Will Flip

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In an e-mail from Oleg Volk;

“Fetishizing the gun…

“American antis will flip at this animation series…”

Yup.

Combating the Mindset

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A radio news report this morning said there have been three accidental shootings in Latah County recently.  One of them happened when a guy was “cleaning a loaded pistol”.  Yeah, right.

We know about these accidents, why?  Because when the injured went to the hospital for their minor wounds, the people at the hospital call the cops.

I once shot myself right through the weak hand thumb.  I went to the hospital to get the projectile extracted from my thumb.  It was sticking out both ends of the wound.  The thought of calling the cops, I am certain, never entered anyone’s mind at the hospital that day.

OK, class.  This is a test.  WHY did no one at the hospital think of calling the cops in my case, but they automatically called the cops in those other cases?  Hint; why aren’t the cops typically called in on a lawnmower accident, a ladder accident, any time you cut your finger while chopping vegetables, cut your head running into a door, etc?

Answer;  Because those accidents do not involve guns.  We’ve all been conditioned.  If it involves a firearm, call the cops.  No thinking required.  If it doesn’t involve a firearm, well take care of the patient, stupid.  This is a hospital.  If that’s not bigotry, it sure does look like it.

(I shot myself with an arrow, you see.  Flawed wooden arrows can fracture upon launch, and since your hand is right there on the bow, the fractured arrow can be thrust right through your hand)

“Oh, but those gunshots could have been part of a crime” you say.  And that’s my point– even you are programmed.  If a gun is involved, well, crime.  Sure, and someone could have shot me with an arrow while I was threatening them, or that cut you got chopping food could have been done on purpose by your raging spouse, and that contusion on your kid’s head from the bicycle crash might have been caused by you hitting him with a blunt object on purpose, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.   Get the irrational programming (the mindset; gun = crime) ironed out.

Armed Robbery Thwarted in Moscow

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The local newspaper story is here.  You only see part of it unless you subscribe.  Basically, the robber was distracted with pulling money out of the cash drawer, which was placed on the counter and the clerk took the initiative, snatching the robber’s gun.  The gun was dropped.  The robber then fled, leaving the cash and the gun behind.  Oops.  He later came back and turned himself in– probably not a bad idea, given the circumstances.

One of the radio reports has the cops telling us, after this incident, not to fight back– to do whatever the criminals tell us to do.  Uh, hey Skippy: isn’t that exactly the sort of advice that enabled the 9/11 attacks?

You can’t really plan ahead for what you’ll do, and you certainly cannot second guess the actions of the clerk.  What happened this time, and what happens time and time again, is that someone recognizes an opportunity to stop a crime, and then takes that opportunity while the taking is good.  That’s all.

I wouldn’t call it an act of will so much as a reflexive reaction based on a split second certainty, founded in basic principles.  My son once recounted an incident at school wherein he had a habitual bully pinned to the floor, crying, before Son even really knew what had happened.  No; you don’t plan this stuff, but you don’t want to be hamstrung by stupid advice from cops and other wannabe authorities either.

Good for that clerk for having the presence of mind plus the wherewithal to act.  He used his bare hands against an armed robber, no one was hurt, and the robber is in custody.

Right Too Late

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Hat tip; Billy Beck  This can’t get enough exposure;

Some of the people close to me are in effect communists.  No; they don’t attend Party rallies and most of them don’t send money to The Party (though some do through their union dues and they may not even know it) but their underlying assumptions are the same.  That’s all it takes.  You don’t need to be a Firm Believer in the teachings of Brother Marx, carrying around the little red book, or even understand where your beliefs came from.  You only need those underlying assumptions you acquired by default sometime in childhood, and just a little bit of envy, or resentment, or frustration, or anger, and plenty of reinforcement from those with whom you’ve chosen to surround yourself.  The Party and it’s allies will then be free to do the rest, because you won’t notice until it’s too late.  It all sounds fairly reasonable, even good, along the way, because “we all know that something has to be done”.  Right?  And that something is, as always, more government (less freedom).

Suckers.  I can forgive the kids (most haven’t received a proper education) but what about you adults?  Seriously.

It’s interesting.  I was listening this weekend to a man who barely escaped with his life from Cuba.  He said his parents supported Castro.  All Castro wanted was justice after all (there was clearly a lack of justice in Cuba, pre revolution) and to serve the collective good of The People.  His parents supported Castro wholeheartedly.  That is, until the newly empowered communists came and took everything they had– everything his parents had worked for all their lives.  I heard the same basic story directly from a famous musician who had escaped from Cuba by skipping out on his handlers while on tour in the U.S.  You risk your life doing that.  If the catch you, they kill you, or take you back to make an example out of you.  The man I was listening to this weekend was in tears, trying to warn us that the same thing is happening here in the U.S., in this land of his Last Great Hope.  They’re using same promises and the same rationale, using the same underlying assumptions, with the same goals right here and right now.  If it succeeds it will have the same outcome.  It always does.  Only this time it’s global.

It has been said that being right is ok (sometimes) but being right too soon makes you a radical extremist.

What about being right too late?  What does that make you?  I ask you Progressives.  You’ve grown up with the warning signs all around you, and now the warning signs have reached ear-splitting decibel levels.  What does it make you if you’re right too late?  Or does your anger or fear, or hatred, or disgust with the human race, prevent you from caring about the consequences?  I know there are those who believe there are too many people on the planet already.  Some people know what we’re headed for and they secretly long for it.  For other Progressives– those who just want to live a good life and want what’s “best” for everyone; What does it make you when you’re right too late?

When Government Is Out Of Control…

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…the truth is shockingly radical to some people.  How DARE he say that!  Well it isn’t truth’s fault that truth is sometimes shocking, is it?  Well is it?

Allen West does a pretty good job of standing his ground and staying focused;

Did you catch the fact that the Vice Chairman of the National Communist Party thinks that being called a communist is insulting?  I found myself hoping that West would bring it up.  Could you imagine a high ranking NRA executive thinking it an insult to be called an NRA member?

Communists (Progressives) have to slink around in the dark as a way of life and they know it.  Turn on the lights!

“Well I don’t care what he says.”  I love it.  CNN goes to the actual, openly named Communist Party (they’re probably on a first name basis) for their reaction to someone calling someone else a communist.  Oh, the layers of irony and stupidity.  See; this how these things make the major headlines.

It’s all because Allen West had the gall, the nerve, the cheek, the chutzpah, to describe what was right in front of his face and for all to see.  The loonies go apoplectic, try to beat West over the head with his own comments, and now a lot more people have heard that the communists had to re-brand themselves, that they have a caucus in Washington, the self described Communist Party comes out saying it’s insulting to call people communists, and West gets a boost. This is how it works, people. We win every time we stick to basic truth.

Now if West had gone all Republican (getting scared, going marshmallow, saying he didn’t really mean it, and sorry to be so reckless with my words, please forgive me, mea maxima culpa) he’d have lost.  And we’d lose with him. As it is, the loonies actually look like loonies, making loonies of themselves, calling out more loonies to join the loony-fest, and the truth gets a boost.

Hat tip; Glen Beck, and I credit him also for bringing some of our history (the parts that don’t get taught in the coercive, i.e. government, schools) into the public spotlight over the years.

Ted Nugent About His Chat With Secret Service

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Some say the The Nuge is too over the top.  They need to listen more closely.  He says what needs to be said.  If it drives the loonies out of the woodwork, perfect.  That’s exactly what we want– bring the conversation, the principles and the clarity, out, naked, front and center.  That way we win.  There is no other.  Obfuscation and beating around the bush, “moderating” the message, only serves as chum in the water for the sharks.  Don’t bandy words with fools.  Listen and learn;

ETA; You know they were trying to intimidate him.  Don’t be intimidated.  This sort of thing will continue until the left finds out that it backfires on them every time it’s tried.  Alan West, for one, is beginning to figure it out.