Quote of the day—sacrebleu14 / SA Hinchcliffe @sacrebleu141

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Y’all that voted for Biden?

You were warned

yes, unrealized gains tax is going after you increased home value before you even sell

To punish you for owning a home

sacrebleu14 / SA Hinchcliffe @sacrebleu141
Tweeted on October 25, 2021
[The most recent news I read said the tax would “only” apply to billionaires. Luckily I, my wife, my kids, and my step-kids are all multi-trillionaires so we should be able to avoid it for at least a while.

The billionaires will move their wealth out of the country to escape the tax. And before too long the politicians will say they failed to get the (claimed) desired effect and they will expand the range of the tax to include us and many others. Even if they don’t do that, inflation and probably hyper inflation will push more people into the billionaire class.

Yes, Biden voters were warned, but if the election was a fraud, and with all the fake stories about anyone opposed to Biden’s by the mainstream media you can’t really put the primary blame on the voters. If it comes down to having to shoot yourself out of socialism I’d like to suggest you let the Biden voters freeze in the dark rather than waste your ammo on them.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Gad Saad @GadSaad

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To all those who thought that @joebiden was better than Trump because the latter was going to end civilization. Is Biden doing better or worse than Trump regarding the economy and the border? Please use simple words so that I can follow.

Gad Saad @GadSaad
Tweeted on October 24, 2021
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Star-Ledger Editorial Board

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When he was in the state Assembly, Jack Ciattarelli voted against banning 50 caliber weapons, those military-grade exterminators that can sever limbs and puncture armor. These are the weapons of choice for urban warfare, and a skilled sniper can use it to take down light armored vehicles, helicopters, or even a taxiing airplane — from nearly a mile away.

Star-Ledger Editorial Board
October 25, 2021
Ciattarelli and guns: A history of misfires
[And how many 50 caliber “military-grade exterminators” are used in any type of criminal violence each year in the U.S.? Rounding to the nearest 0.1 percent, the answer is zero.

Because they have no principled argument, no legal argument, and no practical argument they lead with what they do have a huge advantage with, their lies and deception. It’s in their culture.—Joe]

Slowly at first then rapidly

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Shortages of both goods and services combined with massive government spending are resulting in inflation. And now there are predictions of increasing electrical power outages:

Longer, more frequent outages afflict the U.S. power grid as states fail to prepare for climate change

Across the nation, severe weather fueled by climate change is pushing aging electrical systems past their limits, often with deadly results. Last year, the average American home endured more than eight hours without power, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration — more than double the outage time five years ago.

I suppose you can call it “climate change”. Assuming it’s the political climate you have in mind. From the same article:

…state regulators largely have rejected these ideas, citing pressure to keep energy rates affordable. Of $15.7 billion in grid improvements under consideration last year, regulators approved only $3.4 billion, according to a national survey by the NC Clean Energy Technology Center — about one fifth.

After a weather disaster, “everybody’s standing around saying ‘why didn’t you spend more to keep the lights on?’” Ted Thomas, chairperson of the Arkansas Public Service Commission, said in an interview with The Washington Post. “But when you try to spend more when the system is working, it’s a tough sell.”

Politicians are demanding “green electricity”. But most types of “green electricity” are unreliable and more expensive. And at the same time there are demands to remove hydroelectric dams. Then they demand electricity be “affordable”. The grid is aging and stretched to the limit by increased consumption, decreasing production, and regulators don’t allow rate increases to replace and improve the equipment. Socialism, it’s the poison pill working it’s evil upon humanity.

A phrase comes to mind which was commonly used in regards to the “eco-freaks” when I was electrical engineering school, “Let them freeze in the dark.”

But the problem is it won’t be those who created the problem who “enjoy” the fruits of their work. It will be those who are out of political favor who will be last in line to get their share of the rationed electricity, food, medical care, etc.

Our situation will likely slowly deteriorate on all fronts then as all the reserves in the system are consumed it will be a rapid, catastrophic, and systemic failure. Prepare appropriately.

I need to include good backup electricity for my underground bunker.

Quote of the day—Glenn Reynolds

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If you want to be better-liked, try acting like a public servant, instead of a public master.

Glenn Reynolds
October 21, 2021
Glenn Reynolds
YES, AND THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE
[Interesting choice of phrases. I wonder when and where the first use of “public servant” contrasted with “public master” came about.

I know I was using it in 2008. But I don’t know where I got it from.—Joe]

The mind of an anti-gun advocate (@Pigdowndog)

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See also A process failure aka Peterson Syndrome and truth and falsity for more glimpses inside their minds.

From the comments to Quote of the day—Pigdowndog @Pigdowndog. Please be cautious in extrapolating these results to other people, especially if they come from a different country and/or demographic.

My quick look for more information on Pigdowndog resulted in moderate confidence he is in the range of 75 to 85 years old, lived a number of years in southern France, and I have high confidence he currently lives Southwest of London.

In my initial QOTD post, I said “Simple logic for simple minds.” I way over estimated his ability to think logically. Sorry about that. But he arrived on scene and didn’t take long to correct my error. Here is the evidence:

pkoning on October 18, 2021 at 6:42 am said:

You mean the UK, where a defenseless MP was murdered just days ago by a knife wielding religious fanatic?

Toastrider on October 18, 2021 at 6:50 am said:

And that’s with knife control in England.

Lulz.

Pigdowndog on October 23, 2021 at 3:09 am said:

There is no knife control in the UK apart from an age limit to buying them which is wholly sensible.

You’re right about the murder of an M.P. being tragic but that doesn’t mean that he should have been armed.

Even if he was do you think he would have had a chance to reach for the gun before the knife struck?

It’s real life, not Hollywood.

Thankfully those horrendous events are rare over here unlike over there.

Joe on October 23, 2021 at 10:01 am said:

I still would like to know what color the sky is in your universe. It’s very clear we do not live in the same reality. In my universe U.K. law states:

The maximum penalty for an adult carrying a knife is 4 years in prison and an unlimited fine. You’ll get a prison sentence if you’re convicted of carrying a knife more than once.

Basic laws on knives
It’s illegal to possess a banned knife or weapon. It’s also illegal to:

bring into the UK, sell, hire, lend or give someone a banned knife or weapon
carry any knife in public without good reason, unless it has a manual folding blade less than 3 inches long
sell a knife to anyone under the age of 18, unless it has a manual folding blade less than 3 inches long

The list of banned knives is long and includes batons and blowpipes.

Pigdowndog on October 24, 2021 at 2:44 am said:

You conveniently left out;
“carry any knife in public without good reason, unless it has a manual folding blade less than 3 inches long”
“use any knife in a threatening way”
“Lock knives are not classed as folding knives and are illegal to carry in public without good reason.”
All sensible sanctions as our knife crime is far too prevalent.
Your gun crime also is far too prevalent but your government just turns a blind eye to the consequences of allowing anyone to possess a killing machine.
I’m more than happy that we have protections in place that attempt to solve the problem rather than allow the carnage to carry on regardless of the outcome.

At first I was a bit perplexed. Is this someone suffering from Alzheimer’s and can’t remember what they said just the day before? It could be. But we’ve seen inability to follow logic or respond logically from Joan Peterson who I doubt was at the age where Alzheimer was a likely explanation.

After thinking about it some I am more inclined to believe they are not suffering from Alzheimer’s or other dementia. If that were the case I think the clues would show up in his twitter posts.

The weird inability to think logically and conform their claims to the hard reality is common in anti-gun people. Many of them simply do not accept reality. How else do you explain this?

Yesterday morning he claimed, “

There is no knife control in the UK apart from an age limit to buying them…

After I linked to and quote U.K. listing numerous knife regulations on the carry of knives and the bans of many common knives he came back less than 24 hours later and said I had “conveniently left out” further knife regulations. What? There is no knife control but when I don’t list all the knife laws he claims some sort victory by adding to the list of controls that supposedly don’t exist?

He then doubles down on the contradictions. Yesterday, referring to a stabbing, he said:

Thankfully those horrendous events are rare over here…

This morning he claims:

our knife crime is far too prevalent

There are other things I could point out but this should be more than sufficient to draw the appropriate conclusion.

These are symptoms of someone with mental problems. It may not be dementia but things between the ears are not in working order. It’s almost certainly Peterson Syndrome.

The TRUTH is here!

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It has been claimed:

The TRUTH is here!

From, and for, a politician?

Yeah. Sure. Thanks for the info. I’ll check in occasionally.

Quote of the day—John R. Lott & Rujun Wang

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Three states that have detailed race and gender data for at least a decade show remarkably larger increases in permits for minorities compared to whites. In Texas, black females saw a 6.3 times greater percentage increase in permits than white males from 2002 to 2020. Oklahoma data from 2002 to 2020 indicated that the increase of licenses approved for Asians and American Indians was more than twice the rate for whites. North Carolina had black permits increase twice as fast as whites from 1996 till 2016.

From 2015 to 2020/2021, in the four states that provide data by race over that time period, the number of Asian people with permits increased 93.2% faster than the number of whites with permits. Blacks appear to be the group that has experienced the largest increase in permitted concealed carry, growing 135.7% faster than whites.

John R. Lott & Rujun Wang
Crime Prevention Research Center
October 6, 2021
Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States: 2021 (alternate link here)
[People demanding more restrictions on concealed carry permits, or the existence of such permits to begin with, are racist.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Daniel Bostic @debostic

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I’m still grappling with the fact that we live in a country where you can be banned, censored, and investigated for calling out irregularities and demanding audits of an election.

Truly terrifying.

Daniel Bostic @debostic
Tweeted on January 11, 2021
[Prepare and respond appropriately.—Joe]

Good news

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Independent from the morality and constitutionally of abortion Texas S.B. 8 needs to go down in flames. As expressed by a FPC brief (from here):

This case is important not because of its specific subject matter of abortion, but instead for Texas’s cavalier and contemptuous mechanism for shielding from review potential violations of constitutional rights as determined by this Court’s precedents. It is one thing to disagree with precedents and seek their revision or reversal through judicial, congressional, or constitutional avenues; it is another simply to circumvent judicial review by  delegating state action to the citizenry at large and then claiming, with a wink and a nod, that no state actors are involved.

From Amicus‘s perspective, if pre-enforcement review can be evaded in the context of abortion it can and will be evaded in the context of the right to keep and bear arms. While the political valences of those issues seem to be opposites, the structural circumstances are too similar to ignore. As with Roe and Casey, many States view Heller as wrongly decided. Those States, with the help of many circuit courts, have showed an ongoing refusal to accept the holding in Heller and a continuing creativity in seeking to circumvent any protections for, and to chill the exercise of, Second Amendment rights.  It is hardly speculation to suggest that if Texas succeeds in its gambit here, New York, California, New Jersey, and others will not be far behind in adopting equally aggressive gambits to not merely chill but to freeze the right to keep and bear arms.

The First Amendment would also be subject to almost immediate attack if the Texas scheme were allowed to stand.

I suspect SCOTUS also sees the danger because:

The Supreme Court Court acted quickly to grant certiorari before judgment in Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson and United States v. Texas, the two primary challenges to S.B. 8, the controversial Texas abortion law.

…

This is an important legal question that extends well beyond the issue of abortion. It could, for example, implicate the federal government’s ability to challenge state-level Covid policies (as both the Trump Administration and Biden Administration threatened to do, although concerning different sorts of policies).

H/T to Law Firm of SolitaryPoorNastyBrutish&Short @AubreyLaVentana for the tweet alerting me. I knew about the Texas law and the risk. I did not know about the FPC getting involved.

Quote of the day—Kimberly McHale

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Not once does Abbott ever mention any actual gun policy change to help this from happening again. He especially doesn’t acknowledge the passing of his new permitless gun carry law that directly affects Texans’ ability to easily access guns more than ever.

Sen. Ted Cruz has also echoed similar sentiments and never touched on the actual issues that have led to the increase in school shootings throughout the state and country.

It is apparent that these politicians’ thoughts and prayers are not enough anymore. We must also hold our government to a higher standard. They must provide better laws, policy change, and gun regulations to our state and country. Our students, parents, and school faculties deserve better than just a familiar script of empty promises without any real changes ever being made.

Kimberly McHale
October 20, 2021
When Thoughts and Prayers Aren’t Enough
[Not once does McHale ever mention that gun control has never increased public safety. Not once does McHale ever mention that more government control is sometimes the wrong answer. Not once does McHale ever mention someone are willing to shoot innocent people is not going to be deterred by a legal requirement to get a permit to carry. Not once does McHale even mention that infringing specific enumerated rights is a felony punishable by death.—Joe]

Useful numbers

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I find some numbers very useful.

From pages 12 and 13 in Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States: 2021 (alternate link here):

There are three relevant sets of numbers from the Pew survey:

— 30% of American adults say that they own a gun.

— 72% of the people who own a gun, say they own a handgun or a pistol.

— 11% of handgun owners say that they carry all the time, 26% say they carry most or all the time, and 57 percent say that they carry at least some of the time.

With a little multiplication, we find that:

— 2.4% say that they carry all the time.

— 5.4% carry most or all the time.

— 12.3% carry at least some of the time.

To summarize, the total number of permits in the US is at least 21.52 million. Add in people who legally carry without a permit, and the number clearly becomes much larger. While 8.3% of the adult population has permits, the percentage of Americans who say that they carry most or all the time is about 5.4%.

What does this mean in practice? It means that in most places where people are allowed to carry a concealed handgun, there will be someone carrying a concealed handgun. If the probability that any one person has a concealed handgun permit is 5.4%, in a room with 10 people (assuming that the probabilities are independent), the probability that at least one person will have a permitted concealed handgun is 43%. In a room with 20 people, that probability goes up to 67%. With 40, that probability rises to 89%.

I usually express it a little differently. I would translate and distill the numbers above into, “On average, about one out every 19 people you pass on the street is carrying a firearm.”

Quote of the day—kot-begemot-uk

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Hal, put your signature on the patent application
I am sorry Dave, I can’t do that

kot-begemot-uk
September 24, 2021
Comment to UK Appeals Court Rules AI Cannot Be Listed As a Patent Inventor
[Interesting topic. Currently the world courts are divided on the subject.

In August, an Australian Court ruled an AI can be an inventor. A U.S. court agrees with the UK ruling that an AI cannot be listed as an inventor.—Joe]

You cannot comply

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Via Matthew Bracken:

ComplyYourWayOut

You can vote your way in but you have to shoot your way out.

Quote of the day—David Codrea

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The Patriots at Lexington and Concord who refused government arms confiscation orders were all criminals in the eyes of the law. Coincidentally, their firearms all qualified as “ghost guns.”

… there is no reason for the government to infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms unless it is going to be committing tyrannical offenses.

David Codrea
October 18, 2021
‘Ghost Gun’ Comments Show Sheriff Can’t Imagine Freedom
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

History buff

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Via Rolf and @LaughtingEyes::

HistoryBuff

Right to Bear Arms

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Via email from Rolf:

Recommended Age Range: 4-12

The Right to Bear Arms is a tool designed to assist parents in teaching children about the Second Amendment and constitutional liberties.  It highlights the time Charisma Cat attempted to take over the forest by using tricks, social shame, and manipulation to convince other animals to give up their teeth and claws.  Only the Bears refuse to surrender their arms.  You can guess what happens next.

I just ordered a copy for a Christmas gift for my grandson.

Speaking of propaganda

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What the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority says about itself:

Metrorail provides safe, clean, reliable transit service for more than 600,000 customers a day throughout the Washington, DC area.

“Safe” and “reliable” they say…

Compare the above with what the National Transportation Safety Board says:

Metro officials have been aware since 2017 of equipment problems that appear to have caused the train derailment last week in Northern Virginia, a preliminary investigation by federal safety investigators showed.

Metro train 407, which derailed on the Blue Line on Oct. 12, had two other minor derailments the same day and was able to get back onto the tracks, Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said at a news conference Monday morning.

The train derailed and re-railed itself once near the Arlington Cemetery station at about 3:20 p.m. and again near the Largo Town Center station at about 4:15 p.m.

After the third and final derailment, the train with 187 people on board got stuck in a dark tunnel near the Arlington Cemetery station. Riders had to walk the equivalent of about six football fields to get to safety.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) has known of problems with the wheel assemblies of 7000-series railcars for years, Homendy said.

“We were made aware that WMATA was aware of this situation with the wheel assemblies going back to 2017,” she said.

I wonder what the consequences will be to the government run Metro compared to a non government entity which did something similar.

A Boeing test pilot is being prosecuted over 737 Max crashes. I expect no prosecutions because of the Metro railcar issues and the probability of people being fired is low.

H/T to Paul K. for the email.

Quote of the day—Caitlin Johnstone

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It doesn’t matter what you’re allowed to say if it doesn’t matter what you say. It doesn’t matter if you’re allowed to call the oligarchic puppet put in office by the last fake election a dickhead. It doesn’t matter if you’re allowed to Google any information you want only to find whatever information Google wants you to find.

Caitlin Johnstone
October 10, 2021
The Science Of Propaganda Is Still Being Developed And Advanced
[True.

I’m at a loss for a solution as is Johnstone.

Sometimes I wonder if a major reset (economic collapse?) would improve things. But when I give it more than a moment’s thought I decide things will get worse under those sort of circumstances.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ethan Siegel

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  • The Big Bang teaches us that our expanding, cooling universe used to be younger, denser, and hotter in the past.

  • However, extrapolating all the way back to a singularity leads to predictions that disagree with what we observe.

  • Instead, cosmic inflation preceded and set up the Big Bang, changing our cosmic origin story forever.

Ethan Siegel
October 13, 2021
Surprise: the Big Bang isn’t the beginning of the universe anymore
[Data exists back to about one second from the beginning.of the universe! Prior to that it’s speculation. The Big Bang from a singularity hypothesis doesn’t match some of the early data. Cosmic inflation is a better match.

Fascinating.—Joe]