Category Archives: Quote of the Day

Quote of the day—Mike Konczal

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It’s important we get more sophisticated analysis of what has gone wrong with the ACA rollout to better appreciate how utilizing “the market” can be far more cumbersome and inefficient than the government just doing things itself.

Mike Konczal
October 23, 2013
What Kind of Problem is the ACA Rollout for Liberalism?
[In other words, “Our government program is such a disaster that we need a new and expanded government program to fix it.”

Monopolies are almost always a bad thing. The lack of choice creates a situation where inferior and expensive products do not get improved or replaced. Konczcal and hard-core liberals want government monopolies. The soft-core liberals want to regulate the market.

What Konczal doesn’t understand is that he, politicians, and government in general, do not have the domain knowledge to solve most problems. This includes regulating the solution providers. When I read the instruction manual for my car and it says to use a particular grade of gasoline and change the oil every 5000 miles I follow their recommendations. They know their car far better than I do. Even though I am a software engineer when a software package says it requires X megabytes of RAM Y megabytes of disk space I follow their recommendations because they know their software far better than I do.

The advocate for more government might say, “We will bring in experts and/or we will become experts.” This doesn’t work. I worked in a government lab for three years. I remember sitting in a meeting discussing how to get more research contracts. One guy said, “What we have is the ability to become experts on anything within a couple of weeks.” He was serious. I felt the blood drain out of my face. I had been working with him for over two years and I had not yet discovered anything that I considered him an expert on. They spent several years and millions of dollars coming up with a software testing and quality program for the software being developed at the lab. What they came up with was something that the industry had left behind a decade or two previously (the “waterfall model”).

The reason government cannot acquire the expertise is because they are a monopoly and expertise is like a product. It must constantly be improved and updated to remain relevant. And without the marketplace pressure it will stagnant and become obsolete.

Because of this lack of domain knowledge and the inherent inferiority of monopoly products government “doing it itself” will always be the wrong answer to a problem that doesn’t involve the use of force.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jeff Fyke

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@linoge_wotc @rickygervais Couldn’t agree more. @NRA members need guns to prove their men. #PenisEnvy #GunControl

Jeff Fyke
Tweeted on May 6, 2013

[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via still another Tweet from Linoge.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Larry Correia

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The Tea Party is made up of people who can do math.

Larry  Correia
October 17, 2013
The scientific Tea Party
[Citation here.

Of course they can do math! The Tea Party was a response to Obama Care and the massive government spending. And you probably didn’t even need to “do math” to figure that out. Mere arithmetic should be more than adequate for the task. But those on the left had to think of the Tea Party as inferiors in order to justify the condescending attacks. Apparently those on the left can’t handle or don’t want to be bothered with the arithmetic.

I don’t remember where I saw it but I remember reading many years ago something to the effect that politics was much too important to be subject to the impersonal rigors of mere numbers. Whoever said seemed to believe they had expressed some great truth. My thought was, and is, that numbers are a measure of reality. If you can’t express something in numbers then it’s just opinion. There is, of course, no guarantee that any given set of numbers reflect reality but if you can’t or won’t express something in number then it’s a pretty sure bet that it’s an opinion without basis in reality. And if your opinions don’t have any basis in reality you have no, zero, nada, zilch, business being involved in politics.

But that’s not the political system works. Unfortunately reality can only be ignored for so long. If reality could be ignored then something like this would make sense (H/T to ubu52 who said, “It’s total Fail to look at this as a math problem”). Where ‘this’ is the deficit. I was tempted to respond but I’m not sure the intended recipient would (or could) understand. If the deficit isn’t a math (or arithmetic) problem and the amount of spending being greater than revenue isn’t a valid concern then why not just print enough money that everyone in the country (or heck, why not the entire world?) receives $100 an hour for 40 hours per week “following their dreams” or whatever? Everyone could retire and live happily ever after. We could forget the debate over Obamacare because everyone could afford to pay for their own health care or buy the insurance of their choice, right? Everyone could afford to pay for their own education or not bother with it, right?

Numbers matter. If you can’t do arithmetic then you are going have some serious problems with math. And math is what bonds us to reality. If you can’t do math you don’t really understand reality. And that Tea Party members understand math and science better than those that can’t do simple arithmetic is no surprise.

What the Yale Professor who “discovered” what was blindly obvious to me and I would have thought most people didn’t conclude, which is also obvious to me, is that those who denigrate the Tea Party are those who truly deserve the condescending insults, jeers, and casual dismissal. And we have the numbers to back that up.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Chuck Michel

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The authors are candidly blunt about fatal gun deaths being their measurement criteria. Using this criterion amuses working criminologists who, knowing criminals on a deeply personal level, tend instead to use violent crime as the standard of measure. They do so especially when discussing gun control, because their research shows that guns are used to deter criminal activity (usually without a gun death), upwards of six times more often than to commit crimes (with or without a gun death). A woman pointing her pink-gripped revolver at a rapist with his clothesline noose will instantly prevent a fatal crime of violence that did not involve a gun.

Chuck Michel
October 21, 2013
New Math, Old Buncombe
[I cannot recall an anti-gun person ever using violent crime rates as a measurement of the (in)effectiveness of gun control. And frequently they will be so bold as to quote the denial of firearm sales as proof of effectiveness. It’s hard to get any more transparent about their true motives as when they brag about the millions of people that have been denied their right to keep and bear arms.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jeff Soyer

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A drone from PETA? Think of it as another trap shooting opportunity.

Jeff Soyer
October 24, 2013
PETA Now Using Drones to Spy on Hunters
[I wonder what the legality of shooting down a drone is. Shooting it down over the owner of the drones property almost for certain is illegal. Shooting it down over public property probably is is illegal. But shooting it down over your own property or the property of someone who gave you permission? That might be legal.

To do this right I think you should do it in one of two ways, neither of which is that suggested by Jeff:

  1. Radio controlled fighter plane with working gun(s).
  2. Explosives filled clay pigeon. It launched as close as possible to the drone then shoot it to detonate it.

I’d give you bonus points if instead of the clay pigeon you launch a milk jug filled with gasoline in combination with the explosives such that the detonation of the explosives disperses the gasoline and ignites it. It would sort of be like using a tactical nuke to remove a stump in the back 40 or an artillery shell loaded with sarin gas to take out the wasp nest. It would be more expensive than necessary but with PETA “making a statement” and “sending a message” is probably more important than the loss of the drone.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Timothy Sandefur

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The Fourth Circuit has shown that it isn’t interested in proof. This runs a dangerous risk of changing the rational basis test into a “Get out of the Constitution free” card.

Timothy Sandefur
October 23, 2013
Fourth Circuit: don’t bother us with the facts
[Not only do the courts not want to be bothered with the facts they will ignore facts presented and even refuse to rule on something.

A long time ago when I was much younger and even more naïve than I am now I believed the courts could and would straighten out a lot of the constitution issues with all the repressive gun laws.

I have reluctantly concluded that my friend Eric E. was correct when he told me over 10 years ago in regards to class action suit that I was involuntarily a part of and thought was totally wrong (paraphrasing), “Going to court is just rolling the dice. If you reject the settlement then you are giving up money that you should have collected some other time when you should have won but lost because the dice came up snake-eyes.” I cashed a check for something like $18,000.

As an engineer I am accustomed to the physical world being rational and predictable. The people world is, at best, a very thin veneer of rationality over seemingly random emotions. The result is a great deal of frustration with most people.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble

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How do you protect soft targets? That’s really the challenge. You can’t have armed police forces everywhere.

…

Societies have to think about how they’re going to approach the problem. One is to say we want an armed citizenry; you can see the reason for that. Another is to say the enclaves are so secure that in order to get into the soft target you’re going to have to pass through extraordinary security.

Ronald Noble
Interpol Secretary General
October 21, 2013
Exclusive: After Westgate, Interpol Chief Ponders ‘Armed Citizenry’
[Other people have things to say as well:

As Tam said, “I feel all through the looking glass, here.”—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jon Gabriel

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Math doesn’t care about fairness or good intentions. Spending vastly more than you have isn’t good when done by a Republican or a Democrat. Two plus two doesn’t equal 33.2317 after you factor in a secret “Social Justice” multiplier.

debtchartfw2

Jon Gabriel
October 21, 2013
The Reality of America’s Finances
[H/T to son James for showing me this.

Sometimes I think that part of the problem is that people think that math, even arithmetic, is subject to opinion. People will just proclaim, “I don’t agree with that”, and they believe they have refuted your numbers.

In many ways politics is faith based. The democrats have a tendency towards being economic tyrants and the republicans have a tendency towards being moral tyrants. Neither really understand principles. Or if they do their principles are to destroy the principles they can and ignore the rest.

With their policies having no principles it should come as no surprise they also believe that numbers are subject to whatever whim they have this election cycle. Numbers are just something you use to make your opinion appear valid. And everyone’s opinion is just as good as anyone else’s so that must mean that everyone’s numbers are just as good as anyone else’s.

Principles? They don’t even understand the concept of a principle.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jeff Fyke

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@linoge_wotc @rickygervais Exactly. It’s a fetish. @NRA members love fondling those shiny surrogates for actual manhood. #Pathetic

Jeff Fyke
Tweeted on May 6, 2013
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via still another Tweet from Linoge.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Thomas Sowell

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There are people who have never fired a shot in their life who do not hesitate to declare how many bullets should be the limit to put into a firearm’s clip or magazine. Some say ten bullets but New York state’s recent gun control law specifies seven.

Virtually all gun control advocates say that 30 bullets in a magazine is far too many for self-defense or hunting — even if they have never gone hunting and never had to defend themselves with a gun. This uninformed and self-righteous dogmatism is what makes the gun control debate so futile and so polarizing.

Thomas Sowell
January 22, 2013
Do Gun Control Laws Control Guns?
[While this is true a case can be made that the ignorance of gun control advocates does not matter. Their ignorance is irrelevant both to them and to us. The only important fact to them is that control is lacking. Independence and freedom, no matter the form, are what they are fighting.

Their single minded goal makes our mission all the more clear. Efforts on our part to remedy their ignorance are wasted. Our only goal is to defeat them.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Sarah Brady

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The House passage of our bill is a victory for this country! Common sense wins out. I’m just so thrilled and excited. The sale of guns must stop. Halfway measures are not enough.

Sarah Brady
July 1, 1988
[The Brady Campaign has been using the phrase “common sense” for a long time. It’s good of her to confirm what we all suspected they meant by that.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Molly Ivins

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I used to enjoy taunting my gun-nut friends about their psycho-sexual hang-ups – always in a spirit of good cheer, you understand. But letting the noisy minority in the National Rifle Association force us to allow this carnage to continue is just plain insane.

I do think gun nuts have a power hang-up. I don’t know what is missing in their psyches that they need to feel they have to have the power to kill. But no sane society would allow this to continue.

Ban the damn things. Ban them all.

You want protection? Get a dog.

Molly Ivins
Columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram
March 15, 1993
Taking A Stab At Our Infatuation With Guns
[She also says, “As a civil libertarian, I of course support the Second Amendment.”

Note that this is someone who lives in Fort Worth Texas in 1993. Those were very, very dark days for gun owners.

I could spend several paragraphs picking apart the quote above but I really don’t have the time or interest. I just want to address one point.

If you “get a dog” for your protection keep in mind that it has a mind of it’s own. It isn’t under your full control. A gun does not have a mind of it’s own. You can lock up the gun in a safe and leave it there when you are at work without worrying it will get cranky and bite the neighbor kid that is poking a stick at it if you left it in your yard. When you decide your life is in immediate danger of termination or permanent injury you can pull the trigger and be nearly certain your persuasive forces have been significantly increased when the dog could be thinking of begging for a treat.

If your dog is a weapon big and determined enough to pull down a large attacker do you really want that weapon to have a brain with that much independence, and that much less judgment controlling it’s actions?

If Ivins has evaluated the judgment of dogs versus her own and decided in favor of the dog I’m certainly not going to dispute her conclusion on the basis of the evidence I have seen so far. But she has no business making a similar decision for me or anyone else.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan Gottlieb

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You simply have to love Piers Morgan. Trying to have a rational conversation with him about guns is like filming a recruiting commercial for the gun rights movement.

Alan Gottlieb
Founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation
October 16, 2013
PIERS MORGAN ‘DOESN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE SECOND AMENDMENT IS,’ SAYS GOTTLIEB
[This was in response to what happened here:

In this video Piers calls Alan “stupid”. Alan has a degree in nuclear engineering. Piers “studied journalism”. I have spent hours talking to Alan and he’s very smart. I haven’t talked with Piers but my bet is that Alan is a lot smarter than Piers.

Further evidence of this is that this is the first time I have known someone to find a use for Piers. Piers makes a good recruiting tool.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Anshel Sag

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Having the ability replicate the human nervous system and some of their thought processes is a good thing to have, but I just hope that there are some very strict checks and balances within these systems. You know, to prevent a Skynet-like event where the robots become self aware and start to realize that the world is a better place without us. It’s a crazy thought, sure, but giving computers the ability to think and feel like humans is also a bit crazy too.

Anshel Sag
October 11, 2013
Qualcomm Takes Us One Step Closer to Skynet with Zeroth Neural Processing Chip*
[The propagation time of human nerves and synapses are many orders of magnitude slower than the electronic analogs because, contrary to the common misunderstanding, biological signals are transmitted via a chemical chain reaction not electrical signals. Electrical signals propagate at nearly the speed of light. IIRC it’s roughly 1 mSec per foot versus 1 nSec per foot. That’s one million times faster.

Imagine being engaged in physical combat with someone that has a OODA loop that is a million times faster than yours. The Terminator/Skynet universe of Hollywood may give you hope that wouldn’t be the reality of it. In that universe the machines were slow to observe and make decisions. In reality their actions would be, for all intents and purposes, instantaneous. If they were to use projectile weapons the compensation for all the environmental conditions, target direction and velocity, and all possible target responses would be calculated and if needed multiple projectiles would be launched to cover the responses.

At work, today, I’m working on something that writes computer code. Given a simple description in a few dozen lines it writes thousands of lines of code that compile and run without error. It completes the task almost before you can lift your finger from the “Enter” key. This same code would take a human many hours, if not days, to write.

Imagine a world with the industrial capacity of machines that not only build machines but can design them as well. There would be automated tools that build better tools and machines without human interaction. And those tools and machines could build better tools and machines than themselves.

It could be utopia. Or it could be a Terminator universe where the battle against an individual human is over in milliseconds and the battle for the entire planet is over in hours.

Sleep well.—Joe]

* See also Qualcomm Zeroth Processors official: mimicking human brain computing

Quote of the day—Roby Egan

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Quote of the day—Carl Stevenson

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We should have a very long memory of whom in power abuses us and who followed the order to do the abuse.

Perhaps if tyrants’ heads (and also their enablers) were still routinely mounted on sticks alongside the highway, for both a punishment and a reminder of their misdeeds, we wouldn’t have to endure such foolish people as them and the evil they set upon us.

Carl Stevenson
October 11, 2013
Comment to Park Service Milgram Failure.
[It would take a rather long and difficult research project to verify but my hypothesis is that the tyrants have mounted more heads along the roads “for both a punishment and a reminder” than the oppressed have mounted of the tyrants, their underlings, and their enablers.

Regardless of the truth or falsity of my hypothesis I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. If the tyrants mounted most of the heads then that would remind people of the hazards of letting tyrants gain power. If the victims mounted the most heads then that remind tyrants the hazards of their occupation.

I have been thinking about this sort of thing recently. The outrage of the victims that comes from extended oppression can lead to excessive killing and even genocide. Oppressors everywhere should be aware of this before they chose such a career path.

Think of the French Revolution or the genocide in Rwanda. To a certain extent “they had it coming” but I think society is better served when killing, even of evil tyrants, is done parsimoniously in a deliberate and carefully reasoned manner rather than en masse.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Frederick Douglas

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The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all absorbing, and for the time being putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North, and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages, and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others.

Frederick Douglas
From here.
[In Great Thoughts by George Seldes a portion of this quote was attributed to a March 30, 1849 letter to Gerrit Smith. But I found that letter in the papers of Douglass and it says nothing even related. I have been unable to find the original date and context of this quote even though portions of it are widely quoted.

I especially like the sentence “Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must certainly pay for all they get.” One could make the claim that the entire basis for the Second Amendment is to increase the cost for oppression. It may be that it cannot fully prevent it but it can dramatically increase the cost. And those that would oppress us, even if they may be able to succeed, must be forced to pay a cost. If they do not pay then there is no limit to the oppression they will inflict.

The Colorado Senators who lost their seats in the recall elections because of their oppressive gun control laws and arrogance is a lesson to those who believe oppression is cost free. If they win a battle then make them pay a heavy price.

H/T to Carl Stevenson for his comment which included part of this quote.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Matthew Willington

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Matthew Willington (@MD_Willington)
Tweeted on October 10, 2013 in reference to this post about liberals getting special privileges from the D.C. police.
[Almost for certain Matthew was referring to this line in Animal Farm:

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Animal farm is one of the few books I have read more than once. It is a really, really good book and a fairly quick read.

In the past few days I’ve been listening to the book Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto*, thinking about conversations I have had with Marxists, and our current government situation. It appears, and Mikee independently posted the same conclusion, the “liberals” (communists) in our government act as if and work toward the condition of there being no limits on the power of government. The Bill of Rights is considered “loopholes” that citizens “hide behind”. The listening in on our telephone calls, the storing of all our Internet traffic, the tracking of all our vehicles, the tracking of our cell phones, the abuse of the IRS, the search and seizure of property, the requirements of financial disclosure, and much, much more is strong evidence they want there to be nothing to “hide behind”. They are working toward a society where there are no limits to what the state knows about you and what it can do to achieve the ends of those in power.

What many people don’t consciously realize is that the greater the value of some the greater security it much have to protect it. If you leave a penny on the sidewalk there is a good chance that if it is in a puddle of water it will still be there if you come back for it the next day. If you put $1000 in plain view in your locked car near that same sidewalk it is likely to be gone by morning.

The 20 year old beater car needs less security than the new Mercedes. The piggy bank of a child needs less security than an ATM. The ATM needs less security than Fort Knox. The financial information at your accountants office requires less security than the computer system that contains the financial information of an entire nation. The personal information in the medical records of your doctors office needs less security than the computer system that contains the personal information of an entire nation.

Government power is something of great value to those that control it and extraordinary measures must be used to secure against abuse. The enumerated powers, the multiple branches of government, the reservation of powers for the states and the people, and the Bill of Rights, were all intended to secure government power from abuse.

It is extraordinarily clear government power is expanding without the bounds intended and is being abused with the abusers suffering no consequences. The IRS, Fast and Furious, and NSA, scandals are just the tip of the icebergs. We are in a positive feedback loop. The more power government gets the greater the attraction to those that abuse it. Those that abuse it want more power and less controls. The Marxists who want more government power and claim, “We just need the right people in control” either do not understand the issues involved and/or are the very people who should not be in control.

Scary times are here now and far more scary times are ahead. Read Animal Farm and 1984 as they were intended to be read. They are warning of the dangers of government power. They are not instructions manuals.—Joe]

* I’m annoyed by his claim there can be no morality without belief in god(s) but other than the religious parts it’s a good book so far.

Quote of the day—Emily Miller

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The police stonewalling and cover-up are so that the public doesn’t find out that Chief Lanier enforces laws differently in the District, depending on whether you are a powerful liberal who opposes Second Amendment rights, like Mr. Gregory and Mrs. Feinstein, or an average American.

Emily Miller
October 9, 2013
MILLER: Smoking gun exposed- D.C. police covers up giving Feinstein illegal ‘assault weapons’
[Why can’t this be considered a violation of the constitution via liberals being granted titles of nobility with special privileges?

The only other way I can see to look at this is that the liberals are saying the law does not apply in the “game” they are playing. I don’t think they really want to go there because a lot of people who normally play the rule also consider it fair play to play by the rules of their opponents. And if there are no rules, well, then there are no rules.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Luke Chitwood

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Whether or not Barack Obama actually has plans to personally invade the homes of America’s 100 million gun owners and forcibly remove their firearms is irrelevant. The NRA has achieved great success in making this event seem possible to the Americans who fear it the most. The NRA has perfected the use of slippery-slope arguments and doomsday predictions to activate a passionate, idealistic, and focused base.

Luke Chitwood
October 8, 2013
Here’s How the NRA is So Freakishly Effective in the Gun Control Debate
[Chitwood has a problem with the truth. This is just one of many examples in the article. Obama would never personally do this and the NRA would never suggest he might. And as usual, if someone starts out with false data and assumptions whatever follows is almost certain to be in error.

What Chitwood apparently doesn’t understand is that NRA members drive the NRA rather than the NRA driving it’s members. People join the NRA to, among other things, encourage them to protect gun owner rights. I know a few people that have quit or refused to join the NRA but all of them did this because the NRA compromised or were to soft of supporters of gun owner rights. Not that they were too “extreme”.

The NRA is a grassroots organization. Our opponents cannot seem to understand that. Their model appears to be that the NRA recruits members and turns them into some sort of mindless minion that does the bidding of the evil NRA overlord. As is usual, anytime an anti-gun person says something you can be fairly certain it’s crazy talk.—Joe]