Category Archives: Freedom

Lawsuit against the innocent continues while the guilty go free

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The ATF and Federal prosecutors responsible for Fast and Furious have been removed from the lawsuit by Agent Brian Terry’s survivors:

A judge has dismissed federal employees from a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of a slain Border Patrol agent over the botched “Fast and Furious” gun operation, noting congressionally-mandated remedies are already in place for when an agent dies in the line of duty.

But the judge let stand the lawsuit against the gun dealer:

Attorneys for the Terry family said they will appeal the judge’s ruling and will continue to pursue the lawsuit against the remaining defendant, Lone Wolf Trading Co., where the gun found at the shootout scene was purchased.

The gun dealers involved in Fast and Furious were told by the ATF they should let the sales of guns to known felons go through. The gun dealers objected but cooperated anyway.

What were the gun shops going to do? Tell their regulators to “shove it”? The ATF would have been “auditing” them, refusing to tell them what they had done wrong, with plausible threats of stomping kittens to death, destroying evidence, falsely telling the court you been convicted of robbing banks, entrapping you, and falsely claiming you ran a meth lab.

This is an incredible injustice. AG Holder and everyone that contributed to the decisions for this belong in jail.

When will they issue tags?

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I just finished Emily Gets Her Gun: …But Obama Wants to Take Yours.

I had sort of followed her Washington Times series and hadn’t really planned on getting the book. I was sort of tempted when she won an award at the Gun Rights Policy Conference:

EmilyAlan

Finally I gave in and purchased the audible version so I could listen to it while driving. I’m not sure I should be driving when read it though. It generated a lot of adrenaline.

My thoughts on the book are that I’m going to do my best to avoid going to D.C. until you can get hunting tags for D.C. politicians and police.

The book should have a stronger title. Something like “The Most Dangerous City in the Nation is a Police State”. Or maybe “In D.C. Only Criminals and Cops Have Guns and You Can’t Distinguish Between Them.”

It is really, really bad in D.C. The roadblocks they put up to prevent you from getting or using a gun are bad enough. I knew about them and sort of accepted that is the way it is going to be until the Federal courts slap them down. But they way they treat gun owners even if you are within the law is criminal. The police have literally told gun owners, “I don’t have time for Constitutional B.S.” It’s not just the 2nd Amendment they despise. The ignoring of the 4th Amendment and due process is standard operating procedure.

The politicians and police committing these crimes cannot believe they are innocent of wrongdoing or protecting the innocent. Their actions are so atrocious that I’m serious when I say there should be hunting tags issued for them.

It will never happen you say? Hmmm…

Times change.

How long was it from the time Saddam Hussein, his sons, and thugs were comfortable in their position of power in Iraq until they had “dead or alive” bounties on their heads? Maybe a year or two at most?

How long was it from the time Mussolini, Hitler, and their thugs were in comfortable positions power until they were hunted? Maybe a couple of years. And Hitler’s thugs were hunted for several decades after their crimes.

How long was it from the time Nicolae Ceauşescu and his thugs were comfortably in power until they were being hunted? If you are generous it was about two weeks.

I have to conclude that when the government is a police state things can change extremely rapidly. It just might be possible there will come a time, within my lifetime, when people will be able to get hunting tags for the thugs in D.C.

Silver ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

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While looking for something else I stumbled across one ounce silver rounds with ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ on them:

ag47_coin_bu_-_sample1ozt_silver_love_reverse_bu_2

I find it interesting you can only purchase these in quantity 1:

1ozt_silv_2nd_amend_round_obverse1ozt_silv_2nd_amend_round_reverse

You can also get an ounce of silver in .45 ACP:

1ozt_silver_45_bullet

Quote of the day—Jonah Goldberg

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This has been one of the most enjoyable political moments of my lifetime. I wake up in the morning and rush to find my just-delivered newspaper with a joyful expectation of worsening news so intense, I feel like Morgan Freeman should be narrating my trek to the front lawn. Indeed, not since Dan Rather handcuffed himself to a fraudulent typewriter, hurled it into the abyss, and saw his career plummet like Ted Kennedy was behind the wheel have I enjoyed a story more.

Alas, the English language is not well equipped to capture the sensation I’m describing, which is why we must all thank the Germans for giving us the term “schadenfreude” — the joy one feels at the misfortune or failure of others. The primary wellspring of schadenfreude can be attributed to Barack Obama’s hubris — another immigrant word, which means a sinful pride or arrogance that causes someone to believe he has a godlike immunity to the rules of life.

Jonah Goldberg
November 14, 2013
Obamacare Schadenfreudarama: It feels pretty good to watch the whole thing fail.
[H/T to John Balog in the comments here.

It is great to see that proponents of big government get whacked alongside the head with the clue-by-four of reality. Most of the time they are smart enough and deceptive enough to hide the tragedy of their misdeeds by diffusing it through time and layers of obfuscation that enable them to avoid taking the blame for the damage done. This time they reached way too far. It’s obvious to all but the most dedicated Marxists that this is a failure that directly affects millions and millions of people. And this time it will be much more difficult to blame on others.

Even these left wingers are jumping ship:

Of course there are those who view the Obamacare failure as a good thing:

Obama has a Second Chance to do what he should have done when first elected in 2008 with the criminally LOOTING Banking and Wall Street-scare EMPIRE (but which he didn’t have the guts to do then) —- he would have an amazing chance to do a rare ‘re-do’, and NATIONALIZE both the crooked looting Health-scare private corporate looting industry, AND go back and NATIONALIZE the even more obvious crooked looting Financial-Scare Industry — and insure (no pun intended) that important PUBLIC GOODS, like Health Care and Banking are removed from the hands of the PRIVATE CROOKS and returned to the hands of the democratic citizens who deserve not to be further ******.

Do not be complacent. This is a crisis and we must take advantage of it because you know the Marxists will if we don’t.—Joe]

Train wreck

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The Whitehouse is panic stricken over the failure of Obamacare and didn’t just trip and fall on their face this morning. They quadrupled down on their live demonstration of failure.

It was obvious to even an outsider like me that they had no clue what they were doing when they made their announcement this morning. Just what do you think the insiders that know in far more detail are going to say and do? I’m not just talking about people who work for the insurance industry. The insurance industry might be successfully demonized by Obama and friends and made to be the scape-goat for Obama’s mess. I’m talking about all the government regulators of insurance. The insurance industry is highly regulated by the states. While these regulators may not understand or approve of the free market you can be sure that after a few years of contact with the insurance industry they know a thing or two about the industry.

What are these regulators are going to say about these changes? We don’t have to do much speculation. The clues are coming in:

Washington later became the first state to announce that it would not allow insurers to extend their policies. Saying that its state-based exchange was “up and running and successfully enrolling thousands of consumers,” Mike Kreidler, the Washington state insurance commissioner, expressed “serious concerns” about Obama’s move and “its potential impact on the overall stability of our health insurance market.”

“In the interest of keeping the consumer protections we have enacted and ensuring that we keep health insurance costs down for all consumers, we are staying the course,” he said in a statement Thursday afternoon.

That is the “for the public” version. What almost for certain is being said in back channels to representatives in Congress and the Whitehouse is that changes such as these would violate state law. Obama does not have dictatorial powers, as much as he might like to, and he may be able to find some legal loophole to avoid or delay enforcing Federal law upon the beleaguered insurance companies. But he cannot demand insurance companies bypass state processes and laws to make changes he thinks will work. Furthermore these people know the Whitehouse changes are complete nonsense.

Obamacare is like a train. The millions of people who are losing their insurance are the passengers on this train. The train entered a tunnel at full speed only to find the tracks weren’t fastened down (the website being non-functional). But the train can’t stop. It’s still sliding, sparks flying as the wheels get ripped off on the rocks, into the end of the tunnel which could not be dug through the rocks made impenetrable by the laws of economics. At this point there is nothing the supporters of Obamacare can do but watch the crash and attempt to avoid prosecution.

The tragedy is that the politicians responsible for the train wreck made sure they were not on the train. But this should not be a surprise to anyone. Liberals love forcing people onto trains. Obama may say he’s not a dictator but he has a fair amount in common with some of them. The obvious match being dictators who forced other people on trains which carried them to their deaths.

Quote of the day—Anonymous Conservative

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The phases are Crisis, High, Awakening, and Unraveling. Here, Crisis is r-psychologies confronted by the shortage of K-selection. This turmoil produces an adaptive shift in the population’s psychology towards a more K-selected, politically Conservative psychology. High is the environment of r-selected resource excess that is produced by a majority K-selected populace, living in an environment where these rewards are enjoyed by those who produce them. Awakening and Unraveling are just the leftists gradually increasing in number due to the r-selection, and fucking up a good thing until it all falls apart, and the Crisis returns.

There is one huge difference this time, and that is our use of public debt to increase resource availability and extend the period of r-selection. This has allowed for a slight increase in the population’s shift towards the r-psychology in this cycle, and lengthened the period of Unraveling. That all will increase the magnitude of the Crisis we will face. This would have been predictable, if you had viewed the increases in national debt which began around 1980 in the context of this work . The disturbing aspect of this is that when the collapse comes, the hardcore Left will be particularly loony, since their amygdalae have essentially no adaptation to a more free, competitive environment. Today, not having free government healthcare, and free cellphones is the same to them as being tossed into Lord of the Flies. When things get so bad that there is no food or housing, they will be capable of anything. The coming Crisis will be epic.

Anonymous Conservative
June 14, 2013
Strauss and Howe’s Generational Theory, in the Context of r/K Theory
[What the author of the post claims will happen is that as society collapses the liberal psychology (“r-selected” people) will be unable to handle it and non-liberals (“K-selected” people) will physically, environmentally, and evolutionarily dominate the situation and come out of the crisis far better than the liberals.

Ry and I were discussion something a bit tangential to this yesterday and what he said is valid. Paraphrasing, “We need to be careful reading this stuff because it matches what we believe and want to believe.”

Still, I have ordered the book and look forward to listening to it.—Joe]

Hostage!

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The leftist mind thrives on clinging to its victim status. We make that work against us. We’re the problem insofar as we entertain their victim status assertions. Here’s a short conversation that took place tonight between me and a loved one;

LO; “I need (such and such help from you).”
Me; “I can do that, but you’ll need to (clean up a years old, nagging financial matter)….that’s my pre condition. It’s as simple as that.”
LO; “blah blah blah…Wait. That’s your pre condition?! So you’re holding me hostage!! Anger. Body language indicates a feeling of having gotten one over on me. Now I’ve crossed a line that shouldn’t have been crossed, or so I’m supposed to believe. I am a piece of crap, or so I’m supposed to believe. I should be wary of the pain that’s going to come from this transgression, and that wariness should alter my position on the matter. I should fold, and then beg forgiveness for my evil ways and my generally evil constitution.
Me; (pause) Yes. If getting you to do the right thing is holding you hostage, then I’m definitely holding you hostage” and I just look LO in the eye, and then add; “You need to take care of this (nagging financial matter) right away too, not weeks or months from now, but within days.”
LO; “I’ll take care of it by the weekend. You have my word.”
And that was that. LO will love me for it, and love LO’s self for it. Not for the help, mind you, but for the insistence, as a condition for the help, that LO do what we both know is the right thing. Even right now, because all the tension and angst and doubt has been taken away and the right decision has been made on good terms, LO is being all chatty and friendly with me, which doesn’t happen very often.

This was not planned. This is not a tactic. It was not manipulation or intimidation, competition or one-upmanship. It cannot be planned. It was love, and love doesn’t back down, feel guilty, try to illicit guilt or demand anything in return. It doesn’t need to keep its story straight or feed an ego and doesn’t allow itself to be distracted, upset or derailed. It’s just holding your ground for the right reason and it is the simplest thing ever. I only bring it up because it’s something I haven’t understood well enough in the past, resulting in much pain and suffering.

Would that I’d known this simple and obvious thing a few decades ago…

So you could say that this is a testimony, just one example of things going the right way when so many times they’ve gone the wrong way.

And so it is the reason, or the mechanism, by which a lot of people seek “freedom” from right, do to wrong, while others seek freedom from wrong, to do right. Both the communists and the libertarians see themselves as would-be liberators. Each sees the other as the problem standing in their way. But one is beautifully right and the other is horribly wrong.

That’s where we get the term “liberation theology” as practiced by the likes of Rev. Wright. They see the “constraints” of true freedom and true justice, and of property rights, responsibility and so on, as chains of bondage. They’re being held hostage in that sense and we do practically nothing to correct them. Instead, as a whole, we appease them and try not to offend them too much, trying to make ourselves look good in their wrong-seeing eyes. We don’t stand up to the challenge purely on principle and make the clear case, fearless, insistent and without rancor, and they hate us for it. We fail their test.

Criminal psychology

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I’m in the process of making a post on personality disorders, liberalism, and how to deal with them. I read a fascinating blog post about it. It is very long but awesome. I’ll get my synopsis out in a day or three.

In the mean time I engaged an anti-gun person on Twitter to do some testing. Here is the result:

@DanielHupke @_Garreth_ If only that BOOM was another #gunbully eating his gun.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@ConcldCourier @snwflk713 @_Garreth_ @PatriotTay @MomsDemand Come on baby, suck that gun, pull that trigger.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@ConcldCourier @snwflk713 @_Garreth_ @PatriotTay @MomsDemand Suck the bullets out!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

Eh. There wasn’t any bullying to be seen. There was only law-abiding citizens exercising their rights. @rosesindew @HelloPoodle

— Linoge (@linoge_wotc) November 12, 2013

@linoge_wotc @rosesindew Funny how THAT got you needing to advertise your gun-gun.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

I hate to break it to you, but I’ve been lawfully bearing arms for over a decade now. #assumption #fail @HelloPoodle @rosesindew

— Linoge (@linoge_wotc) November 12, 2013

@linoge_wotc @rosesindew So what? Why is it such a big deal that you’ve got to point your guns at people?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @linoge_wotc @rosesindew People that attempt to infringe our rights are either ignorant or criminals: http://t.co/7VZA2zFoAJ

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew You have every right to shoot yourselves. Stay in your own yard & play together.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

HelloPoodle @linoge_wotc @rosesindew We do. Our yard is called the United States of America. If you don’t like it go someplace else.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc I love watching cunts like you get obsessed with me. Love it. Hilarious. Shows your true motives.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew Nah, I got the anchor babies on ObamaCare now. Lots of free shit, ya know? Hoo hoo ha ha #RWNJ

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc it’s called exposing gun control advocates as the bullies they are, ur doing a great job helping me!

— Christine Larios (@rosesindew) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc Nah, you’re just a cunt who wanted attention & sympathy she didn’t get. A little ego maniacal.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Keep talking about your big guns & how nobody is gunna take ’em. Paranoid much?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc Like your mom?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc again thanks for proving me right over and over

— Christine Larios (@rosesindew) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc more like you

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc Yes, we’ve proven you’re a cunt & this isn’t about guns at all. Just that you’re scum.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc My, aren’t you the attention whore. Do a cartwheel now!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc People who conspire to infringe the rights of others go to prison. You should find a good lawyer.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Oooohh you’re being conspired against now. Tin foil hat a little tight?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc You have had EVERY opportunity to show responsibility in gun ownership. But what have you chosen to do?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I’m just gathering evidence to be submitted at your trial.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Public opinion is drastically rising against you. Again, it’s about the tea party crap, not guns.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I’m a certified firearms instructor. What have you done beside commit crimes against gun owners?

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc You’re just too fucking stupid to realize you don’t point guns at soccer moms to get their support.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I’ll alert the press. This should be good.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc What “crimes” are being done to you? Are you feeling unsafe again? They’re coming for you!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I hope your delusions are worth it. It must be lonely in your imaginary world: http://t.co/5xI0QbHMsF

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc http://t.co/7VZA2zFoAJ

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Well, you have your guns. For now.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc That sounds like a threat. It’s going into your file.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc You really are fucking paranoid. Not sure you should have weapons. @NewYorkFBI

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Ooooooh, the teatard is scary!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Don’t you mean FOIL? They’re out there. Whop whop! Here come the black helicopters!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

So @HelloPoodle is back to wishing death on those she disagrees with? Must suck to be that consumed by hate. @rosesindew @JoeHuffman

— Linoge (@linoge_wotc) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew You wood think a poodle would be more laid back. Must be tough having a bark & no bite

— Hal (@Hal_Maine) November 12, 2013

@linoge_wotc @rosesindew @JoeHuffman Oh, look, you’re back for more. Actually, it’s fun hating scum suckers like you. Dumb pig.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@Hal_Maine @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew Yeah, I better show everybody my gun so they’ll wonder if I might be dangerous.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@Hal_Maine @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew Gotta make sure you let everybody know you’re carrying though, right? NRA bumper sticker?

The problem is

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Via the NRA.

From Massachusetts:

Selectman Barry Greenfield introduced an enforcement discussion Wednesday that he hopes will lead to the safeguarding of guns in town…

The problem, he said, is that police do not have the authority, granted by a local ordinance, to enforce the law and inspect the safeguarding of guns at the homes of the 600 registered gun owners in town.

Fourth Amendment rights are apparently a mere discussion point because later he says, “There are civil liberty matters to consider”.

The real problem here is that they have a registry of a protected class of people. In this case it is gun owners but it doesn’t matter what the name of the minority or what the government justification for it is. Registries of Christians/Catholics/Muslims/Jews/Japanese/Germans/Italians have all been used for oppression someplace or sometime. A registry of a people exercising constitutionally protected right is a precursor to direct infringement of that right. Requiring the registration of those exercising their rights has a chilling effect on the free exercise of those rights and is unconstitutional.

In allowing himself to be quoted Barry Greenfield has admitted he is conspiring to commit felonies. He should review 18 USC 241 and 18 USC 242, voluntarily surrender to authorities, and sign a written confession. If he does I could see making a case for a good plea deal. Otherwise someday those words could be used at his trial.

BarryGreenfield
Barry Greenfield

Sebastian recommends tar and feathers.

Thirdpower points out the slippery slope is real.

11th day of the 11th month

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It’s Veterans day, commemorating the end of world War One, The Great War. It’s good that it ended, but because the politicians didn’t know much about psychology or economics, they ended it badly, guaranteeing  a rematch. Ouch. In any case, just a few thoughts.

I volunteered and served in the Army Reserve. Drove boats for them – at the time is was MOS 12C (bridge crewman) a subcategory of combat engineer specializing in bridging. Also spent time packing an M60 around. I was in during the first Gulf War but not deployed. I did my six years and got out. My dad and his brother were both drafted around the Korean War, served their time, got out. My mom’s brother was career Air Force, and her dad was in during the 30’s (army, horse- and mule-back unit) and WW II (coastal patrol, kind of vague on navy vs coastguard). My brother in law is retired regular AF, now in the AF reserves as an E9, senior NCO on the airbase. A great uncle was in the Spanish American war. My wife’s “adoptive” dad was a gunner in WW II on a troop transport, saw kamikaze attacks landing troops on Okinawa. [Later edit: Oh, yes, I don’t want to forget the great aunt that was a WAAC. She wound up in North Africa in WW II]

I always thought it interesting that there was never much talk about “duty” and all, no strong service rivalry. It was just sort of a “respectable thing to do if it was a good fit” sort of thing, but it still rubbed off on me that it was more of a “very good thing to do unless it was a very bad fit.” I know it’s not for everyone. But it is done for everyone, even those that hate the military – and I think that’s one of those things that galls the peace-niks on the left most. They can’t stand the idea that maybe the military where they couldn’t or wouldn’t serve MIGHT be necessary, and really MIGHT be doing it for them as well, and that level of selflessness from people they despise and look down on just totally rubs them raw. On the other side of the coin, for all the inter-service rivalry, trash-talking and  competition, at the end of the day they all respect each others signing up and going through it.

But it seems like there are increasingly two Americas, one that doesn’t expect it deserves anything, and as a result it volunteers and serves (or at least supports and understands those that do), and those that expect to be given a lot, have a sense of entitlement, and at the some time don’t serve or honestly respect those that do. Not sure what it all means, or where that’ll lead, but it doesn’t strike me as a good thing.

Those those that served, cheers! To those that understand, thanks for your support.

Random thought of the day

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Good intentions are not a valid defense at most trials. They may help in the sentencing phase but not so much in the determining of innocence or guilt.

The creators of Obamacare and oppressive gun laws should take note.

Daniel Webster has some thoughts on good intentions as well.

Watch it! That slope is slippery

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This is interesting:

This case isn’t about censoring information, but about complying with French law.

Isn’t that like saying the following?

  • This isn’t about discrimination, but about complying with Jim Crow law.
  • This isn’t about rape, but about complying with the right of a man to have sex with his wife under state law.
  • This isn’t about suppressing political speech, but about complying with laws to respect the President.

People need to be careful about the rationalizations and precedent they set. It’s not very far down the slippery slope to, “This isn’t about political assassination, but about removing a tyrant from power.”

Perhaps it’s Stockholm Syndrome

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This is the equivalent of a rapist using a condom and lubricant:

…this is the future of airport security here in the nifty fifty, but the changes that are taking places in Charlotte and Dallas are certainly something that we can support. Think more comfortable spaces, better signage, and even places specifically intended to use for slipping your shoes back on.

The perpetrators should be prosecuted not encouraged. I suspect Stockholm Syndrome has something to do with it.

Quote of the day—Alan M. Gottlieb

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Under the First Amendment, California is not allowed to compile a list of books you can read, and under the Second Amendment the state should not be allowed to compile a list of handguns you can own.

Alan M. Gottlieb
November 6, 2013
GLOCK FILES AMICUS BRIEF SUPPORTING SAF’S CALIFORNIA CASE
[Nor is California allowed to compile a list of religions you may join, a list of crimes that you are required to confess to, or a list of people exempt from the 13th Amendment protection.

SAF, “winning back firearms freedom one lawsuit at a time”.—Joe]

ACA leads toward divorce

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Remember what I posted a little while ago? Looks like it’s going mainstream as a consideration. No, I’m not predicting a sudden tsunami of two-income divorces, but society changes a bit at a time, incrementally, at the margins. And at the margins, ObamaCare makes divorce look like an economically sensible thing to do, and it’s yet another drag on the economy and social stability as people try to game the system for personal benefit at the expense of “the greater good.” The incentives in the law are really insane.

Progressive violence

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I was looking at some of the mining history in Idaho and found this:

Labor unrest was a problem throughout the district in the 1890s, and martial law was declared on two occasions. In 1899 labor agitators destroyed the Bunker Hill mill with a massive explosion of dynamite (Figure 35). Attempts, often successful, to destroy property were a favorite tactic used by union organizers against companies whose management was opposed to having unions at their mines.

BunkHillAfterExplosionFigure 35. Bunker Hill mill following explosion in 1899. (Engineering and Mining Journal, v. 67, p. 648).

And from here:minewar

Business are frequently criticized for their oppression and violence against workers. Progressives/liberals/communists do not have any high ground to claim.

Make it moot

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New York City’s has a “stop and frisk” policy where the police stop, question, and frisk people they deem suspicious. If drugs or weapons are found the evidence is used in criminal charges against them. In a typical year 500,000 to 600,000 stops are made. 86% to 90% of the time the person is innocent.

A Federal Judge told New York City to knock it off. But then she was removed from the case. Paul Barrett wants the city to use this opportunity “to come to a consensus on how the NYPD can continue its decades-long successful campaign to reduce violent crime, while at the same time respecting the Constitution’s ban on discriminatory government policies.“

As near as I can tell Barrett doesn’t have a problem with the searches as long as they don’t discriminate by race on who is being stopped for searches. I find this almost surreal. What would get it through his head that ignoring Fourth Amendment rights is a dangerous path to travel? Barrett’s mother escaped Europe as a little girl. Many of her relatives died in the camps during WWII. Maybe if consensus were for the police to refrain from frisking people unless their papers aren’t order. Have the police ask nicely and say, “Papers please.”

No. The “consensus” should be for the cops to cease stopping and searching innocent people. And another thing is the people should pass “constitutional carry” legislation and also end the war on drugs. After that what would be the point of frisking people? Suspicion of stolen property? Sure. Wounds from when they got shot attempting to harm an innocent person? Sure. But only after articulable probable cause that the person was a person of interest in a crime.

The number of innocent people stopped should be on the order of 10% or maybe 20%. When the innocent stop rate is 90% that is conclusive evidence the police need tall shiny boots and a German accent.

There’s some truth in it

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BlondeObamacare

Via email from JoeyD.

Let’s look to the UK for healthcare

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The UK has government run health care. That’s been working out well hasn’t it?

Oh! Maybe not:

A plan to create the world’s largest single civilian computer system linking all parts of the National Health Service is to be abandoned by the Government after running up billions of pounds in bills. Ministers are expected to announce next month that they are scrapping a central part of the much-delayed and hugely controversial 10-year National Programme for IT.

…

“The department has been unable to demonstrate what benefits have been delivered from the £2.7bn spent on the project so far,” Margaret Hodge, chair of the PAC, said. “It should now urgently review whether it is worth continuing with the remaining elements of the care-records system. The £4.3bn which the department expects to spend might be better used to buy systems that are proven to work, that are good value for money and which deliver demonstrable benefits to the NHS.” A further £4.4bn was expected to be spent on other areas of the vast IT project.

H/T to Adam Baldwin.

What I don’t think most people realize is that software doesn’t scale in a linear fashion from small projects to large. I can write, debug, a deliver a program to you that prints out, “Hello world!” in a minute or two. I can easily do it in five lines of code. That figures out to about 1200 lines per day* if I were to spend the entire day coding at that rate.

Yet when you look at the number of lines of code delivered on real projects it’s about 10 lines per day per developer. On a project as large as an operating system like Windows it’s much lower.

The problem is that planning, complexity, documentation, testing effort, and difficulty goes up much faster than the number of lines of code increase. You can pump out the code at a fast rate but it’s not something that is going to work well. It will be very fragile. You can find test cases where it will work correctly but as soon as you do something a little unusual or the system is under load and the timing on something changes you can end up extremely difficult to find bugs.

As the size of the project goes up communication between teams become a problem. With a poor design a small change in one part of the system affects many other parts. Communicating and coordinating this occupies increasing amounts of time and care. A change occurred “somewhere” in the system and your code stopped working. It can take an hour or a week to find the problem and get it fixed so you can continue to add features. Even worse are “build breaks”. This is when someone changed something and you can’t even build the software into something that runs so it can be tested. This can mean every single programmer on the entire project is at a standstill. As you might imagine these are very high priority events and you can have people baying for your blood. People take them very seriously and the consequences are high but they still happen.

A former roommate working on Windows NT back in about ‘99 told me she had a bug fix ready for check-in but wasn’t allowed to for months because of concerns that it was a change that could affect other people.

How many lines of code are in the Obamacare system? I don’t know for certain but there are reports that it contains 500 million lines needs to have 5 million lines rewritten. Do the arithmetic to arrive at your estimate of how many people working for how many days is required before it will be “fixed”. My best guess is that the politicians had the U.K. model in mind and that’s what they will get (see above).

Everything I see about the Obamacare web site indicates it was thrown together by someone who didn’t know what they were doing. There are very few companies that have been able to write very large complex systems successfully. Microsoft and Google come to mind. The contractor for Obamacare isn’t on anyone’s list of successfully large scale system developers.

They claim it will be working by the end of November? Did they say which November?

* Yes. Lines of code per day is a poor way of measuring productivity. For example one can be very productive while reducing the number of lines of code in a program. Yet, it is good enough for many uses and can illustrate valid points with serious error.

It’s for your own good

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Sometimes people just don’t get it unless you can present the information to them in the proper format for their brains to grasp it.

Does the following help?

From @State_Control:

CapitalistsSocialists

What if it were a business that told you to buy their product or they would send men with guns to collect the money anyway? It’s for your own good they tell you. What would you do?

Why should it be any different if it is Obama doing the same thing?