Kafka didn’t write Cliff’s Notes for law design… did he?

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Shamelessly borrowed from RNS comes this gem:

Section 501 of ObamaCare makes a non-profit hospital giving charitable care a punishable offense. Short version: people might not buy insurance if they think they can get free care via charity, so Section 501 “discourages” giving free care by fining non-profit hospitals that do so. For-profits face no such penalty.

But, not to worry! via AceOfSpades comes the return volley.

Hospitals, being full of smart people, are now exploring buying insurance for their frequent delinquents, er, regular uninsured customers. Possibly even working ObamaCare exchange insurance that can’t deny care for pre-existing conditions into the regular admitting procedure for uninsured people.

[Later Edit, pulled from my own comment: Don’t forget that the EMTALA requires emergency medical care centers to treat all comers with emergency medical needs, and those in active labor.]

Sure, why not! No possibility of adverse selection there, right? No chance of side-effects or unintended consequences to either of these things, eh wot?

FacePalm.

Folks, we now have front-row seats at the Theater of the Absurd. Gonna need more popcorn.

And another thing that made me angry

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Thinking back to the dark ages of the ‘94 Assault Weapon ban today reminded me of some other things that upset me at the time. There were numerous court challenges to the law. One of the most frustrating things about the disposition of these cases were that the government would say, in essence, “We haven’t prosecuted anyone under this law so you don’t have standing to challenge it.” I recall (but cannot find a quote) Attorney General Janet “Butcher of Waco” Reno saying that they had no intent of enforcing the law either. Hence the courts dismissed the challenges. Here is one such case.

My interpretation of it was that this they knew they would lose in court and were deliberately preventing us from proving they had overstepped their Constitutional limits.

They lie. They can’t help themselves

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Over at Sebastian’s he talks about the distortion of the language by the anti-gun people. In specific the attempt to change the meaning of the phrase “well regulated militia” from “well functioning” to “government regulated”. And how it upset him when he found out about it:

I went through most of the Clinton years not understanding how the Assault Weapons Ban was even remotely constitutional, and wondering why nothing was done about it. When I found out, I became angry.

It was just a few minutes ago when I was having lunch with Barb L. I told her about Speaker of the House Tom Foley losing his seat over the AWB. At about that same time she was a Washington State lobbyist and generally pretty plugged into Washington State politics. But she didn’t understand how he lost his seat.

I explained it was because of the AWB and there were two things that really, really pissed us off above and beyond the ban itself.

One was they called the ban “Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act”. It’s a firearms use protection act that bans guns? They lie. It’s what they do. They can’t help themselves.

And the other was that Foley kept the voting open for several minutes after the stated voting period had expired. The bill failed but by keeping the voting open they got people to change their votes until they had enough for passage. He then closed the voting. The video of him doing that was incredible propaganda for the pro-gun side during his election that fall. Foley became the first sitting Speaker of the House to lose his bid for re-election since Galusha Grow in 1862.

If the gun owners his district in Eastern Washington could have gotten away with it I’m sure you could have sold thousands of tickets to use a horse whip on him.

Russian commentators on U.S. gun rights

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Russian political commentators seem to have a better handle on some aspects of U.S. politics and human psychology in general than do U.S. commentators:

Who is stronger, the gun lobby or the president? The answer is – of course, the gun lobby.

…

Obama came up with his gun violence reduction plan after last year’s mass shooting drama in a Connecticut primary school. Immediately, gun sales shot up. Leading US firearms manufacturers – Ruger, Smith&Wesson, and Remignton – reported a 40-50 sales increase. So, Obama virtually did his opponents from the National Rifle Association (NRA) a big favor, said Valery Garbuzov, deputy head of the Institute for US and Canadian Studies in Moscow.

“Whenever people learn that there might soon be a shortage of some goods or other, they rush to buy things they would never have bought under usual circumstances. That same with guns. Obama’s plan triggered an adverse reaction. I think that it was a poorly calculated move,” he told the Voice of Russia.

My first gun was purchased because of President Clinton and the impending “Assault Weapon Ban” of 1994. Numerous other people I know became gun owners for almost identical reasons. Obama is a better gun salesman than Clinton. We’ll be reaping the rewards from Obama’s efforts to ban guns for at least a decade.

Which U.S. political commentators are talking about this? Our opponents just keep urging the politicians to, indirectly, sell more guns. The more gun owners there are the more firmly entrenched the right to keep and bear arms becomes.

This is what they think of you

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Via a Tweet from Linoge:

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After you grasp the fact that this person regards gun owners as “murderers who hate children” think about what the next step is. What is the normal disposition of “murderers who hate children”?

My conclusion is that this person wants people who exercise the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arm in prison or executed. And just what does someone like this think of people who defend Second Amendment? My speculation is they are hostile to the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments as well as the Second.

These are very, very dangerous people.

Update: Linoge emailed me more tweets from this person. Imagine if they were saying these things about blacks, Jews, or gays. It reinforces my conclusion that these are very dangerous people.

lougagliardicompromise1

lougagliardicompromise3

lougagliardicompromise4

lougagliardijustifiedhomicide1

lougagliardijustifiedhomicide2

lougagliardilibertarian

lougagliardireligion

lougagliardireligion2

lougagliardiwantpeopletodie

lougagliardiyoukilledthosechildren

Gun cartoon of the day

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It’s a Markley’s Law Monday gun cartoon!

The real message of course is the same as if blacks, gays, women, or some other minority showed up to a “presidential event”. Gun owners are a minority and need to get out of the political closet and show their numbers. That this cartoonist thought it was appropriate to say something like this just shows what a prejudiced bigot he is.

Via an email from Weer’d Beard who sometimes follows Baldr Odinson.

Quote of the day—Nick Armer

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I was wondering if you’re obsessed with guns because they make up for what your dick lacks you limp dick piece of shit

Nick Armer
Email to Connecticut Carry on May 9, 2013.
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]

The law does not apply to us

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I used to work for a government lab. One of my most persistent memories is of when a co-worker vigorously asserted, “See this badge? This means the law doesn’t apply to us. The people that enforce these laws are the same people that want this work done.”

It’s as if these exact words were used when building the Obamacare web site:

H/T Joey for the email.

Quote of the day—Emily Miller

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The entire public discussion of gun control issues today is dominated today by terms created by the people who want to chip away at Americans Second Amendment rights. Anti-gun activists invented these phrases:

  • Assault weapons
  • High capacity magazines
  • Cop killer bullets
  • Universal background checks
  • The gun show loophole
  • High power ammunition

Not one of these terms actually means what President Obama, Mayor Bloomberg, and their allies mean to suggest by it. Rhetorical deception is the key component in the push for more gun control laws.

Emily Miller
2013
Emily Gets Her Gun: …But Obama Wants to Take Yours
[In other words, they know they cannot win unless they use deception.

If you ignore the adrenaline dumps and the blood pressure spikes this is a very, very good book. It’s easy to read and very informative. Even though I have been involved in the fight for nearly 20 years I still learned things from it. Read it and encourage your friends to read it.—Joe]

Random thought of the day

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After President Obama set the precedent with not enforcing the individual mandate and the discussion I had with Ry the other day I thought back to some of the other things he has done along the same line. The rule, in direct violation of Federal law, about reporting long guns sales to the ATF is one example. The selling of thousands of guns to people known to be ineligible to posses them who were delivering them to the Mexican drug cartels is another. And failure to prosecute officials in D.C., New Jersey, Chicago, and New York, etc. for infringing upon the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arm in general.

I was then anticipating the sweet, sweet pleasure of the screams of the anti-gunners at some time in the future. I was imagining that we get an extraordinarily very pro-gun president in office and, just like President Obama, he say you don’t have to pay a particular tax for the next year. The $200 transfer tax on suppressors, destructive devices, and machine guns would be at the top of the list. Form 4473’s are a burden, people affected don’t like them, so don’t worry about them. And, oh, by the way, we won’t be enforcing the NFA 34 registry or Hughes Amendment for the next year either.

At the end of the year, machine guns, suppressors, short barreled rifles, short barreled shotguns, and destructive devices would be so widespread they would be considered, “in common use” and therefore protected by even a strict reading of the Heller decision.

The tears of the anti-gun people would be so plentiful we would collect them, put them in empty pop cans and sell them as reactive targets. Life would be good.

Then I had another thought. Obama also is not punishing the IRS for oppression of organizations opposed to his political party. Nor has he done anything about the NSA spying on everyone. And now the judges being appointed don’t need the support of even a single person in the minority party of the Senate. What justification do I have for even having a wild fantasy about something like that? What justification do I have to imagine the socialists will ever lose control of the Whitehouse? Or after the next election even either house of Congress?

The reality is that I need to put more effort into Plan B.

My next shipment from Dillon Precision arrives on Monday:

DillonPackage

Quote of the day—Myrddin

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Gun control advocates have offered capitulation couched as ‘reasonable demands’ for far too long. If the pro-gun lobby is going to resist any significant restriction on guns, then we should put on the table the very thing they fear most.

…

We need to start far more drastic measures if we are going to save our children and ourselves.

It is far past time to call for a total ban on guns.

Myrddin
December 14, 2012
Forget the assault weapons ban, it’s time to ban guns completely
[Myrddin has no sense of political, physical, or criminological reality.

With our enemies that out of touch it’s no wonder we are winning.—Joe]

Higher rates than entire countries

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In addition to being extremely ignorant about guns many anti-gun people have no clue about math:

Some U.S. cities have higher gun murder rates than entire countries.

I find it amazing someone can pack so much stupid into a single sentence.

First off “gun murders” are an extremely biased measure of crime. It presumes that murders by various method are independent of each other. They are not. Substitution of weapons are well known to criminologist who study these things. If it were possible to eliminating firearms from society the murder rate would not be reduced by an amount corresponding to the number “gun murders” prior to the flying unicorns carrying off with all firearms.

Furthermore, firearms are far more frequently used as defensive tools than as offensive weapons. Any law which hopes to decrease their use as an offensive tool must be carefully crafted and enforced such that it does not decrease the availability and use as a defensive tool more than it does as an offensive tool. To the best of my knowledge no such law has ever existed. Hence infringing upon the right to keep and bear arms, no matter how insignificantly, actually runs a strong risk of contributing to increases violent crime.

Second, saying someplace has a higher rate of anything than entire country only demonstrates how stupid the person is. If someone lives alone and commits suicide that household has a 100% suicide rate. This is a higher rate than every city, county, and country on the planet. If Tom McKay, who wrote the article, thinks his statement is of any significance whatsoever beyond making scary sounding noises he truly has crap for brains.

Thwop-thwop-thwop-thwop!

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Last night there was at least one helicopter going up and down the Palouse river, very low and very slow, over and over again. I could hear the tail rotor wash, which is unusual.

It was out again this morning at first light. I spoke to a neighbor on the way out the door and didn’t know what they were doing, but he did notice that our local fat cop was down by the river. While I was driving in this morning my wife left me a phone message. She’d heard on the news that they were looking for a kayaker who’d failed to return home last night. Dang.

My son and I have floated that river in a canoe, and although it’s a very small river there are lots of rocks and things that can snag you or flip you over at the worst times when the current is strong. Then again it’s very shallow most of the way this time of year, such that you could usually stand up if you were dumped out. But this is November and it’s been COLD these last few nights, getting WAY down below freezing. There are also places where brush and trees overhang the water.

I’ve found no updates since around 8:30 AM Pacific. If they haven’t found her by now, someone needs to get down on that water, up close and personal.

Hopefully she’s holed up at a friends house, or warm and snug in a tent, and it’s just that her phone isn’t working. There are plenty of cellular dead zones around here.

Update 12:51 PST; I got a call from my daughter, and checked on line to verify. They found a body. I just don’t get it. It was really cold last night. You don’t get wet in that kind of cold and last for very long unless you’re wearing one of those insulated dry suits they use for diving in ice water, and you don’t go kayking for miles on a river if you plan to stay dry. Something’s not right with what we know so far. Official weather report says it was down to 14 F in Palouse, but down on the river in still air like that it’s going to be the coldest place for miles around. Tragic, and sad. I guess we could all tell stories of how we did some daring thing or other, just for fun, where it could have turned out very bad but somehow didn’t. I was hoping this would be one of those stories, but alas…

Gun Song – I feel like a bullet (in the gun of Robert Ford) by Elton John

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Another Elton tune. Not really about guns, but guns have become used as metaphors in all sorts of ways in our language. Much of language is sourced in metaphors and cultural references and expressions that have (d)evolved into words or shorthand. The more common or the more powerful an item or reference is, the more it’s used and the further expressions are stretched. Here it is yet another oblique reference.

Robert Ford was an old west outlaw that killed his gang leader, a guy by the name of Jesse James.

Quote of the day—Jack Lessenberry

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Nobody needs to have a handgun in America.

Nobody needs to have guns in their home, period.

That should be the starting point for any discussion about gun control in our insanely murderous society.

Jack Lessenberry
December 19, 2012
Ban all guns, now. Nobody needs to have a handgun in America — period
[“Insanely murderous society?” Citation needed.

No Jack, there are couple of other starting points in the discussion. 1) The Bill of Rights guarantees the pre-existing right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. And probably most importantly; 2) When the collections start are you going to be taking point? There will be lots of openings for that position. There will not be a lot of opportunities for retirement but you can count on getting your 15 minutes of fame early, as well as late, in your career.—Joe]

Differing only in degree and implementation

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Ry stopped by my office today and after we completed the work discussion I mentioned that I had lunch with a friend who is in the health insurance industry. I repeated part of the rant I heard at lunch. It went something like, “We spent years implementing Obamacare and we had to get information from the Whitehouse blog because they did rule-making via the blog. Then last week it was from the President’s speech. And today they came up with a letter we will be ‘required’ to send our customers?”

Ry replied, “I hope they like discounts on Samsung products.”

I thought about that for about five seconds without being able to make any sense of it. I was a little behind in the news. Venezuela is nationalizing businesses and selling things at “fair prices”. Samsung is the most recent to enter into a “joint venture” with the government.

“So you think he will take over the insurance industry with the stroke of a pen?”, I asked. Paraphrasing just a bit; Ry replied, “Just like in The Matrix where there was no spoon, here, there is no pen. He is playing 3-D chess and we are trying to play checkers against him. We are concerned about the rule of law and he has changed the legal landscape and moved on. What is happening here only differs in degree and implementation from Venezuela.”

I have no counter to his assertion.

I’m at ground zero

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Every day I go to work I see the park where this admitted Socialist Seattle Council person gave her speech the other night:

Councilmember-elect Kshama Sawant told Boeing machinists her idea of a radical option, should their jobs be moved out of state

“The workers should take over the factories, and shut down Boeing’s profit-making machine,” Sawant announced to a cheering crowd of union supporters in Seattle’s Westlake Park Monday night.

This week, Sawant became Seattle’s first elected Socialist council member. She ran on a platform of anti-capitalism, workers’ rights, and a $15 per-hour minimum wage for Seattle workers.

There are people, ironically, selling communist newspapers on many of the street corners near here.

One street over, 3rd Avenue, is what Barb L. calls, “Mugme Street”. The Seattle Police department says that location is one of the crime hot spots in Seattle. All the warning alarms go off in my head as I walk on that street to get to my bus. Things “just aren’t right” there. It is rare not to see at least two cops on that street when I briskly walk through “the danger zone”.

The SPD and King County Sheriff’s Office just finished doing some street cleaning in the park and on Mugme Street:

Just in time for the holidays, Seattle Police and King County Sheriff’s Office have wrapped up more than 30 drug dealers and suspected gang members following a months-long undercover operation around Westlake.

“This operation was about helping downtown businesses and their customers as well as Metro Employees and transit riders downtown,” says Sgt Thomas Flanagan from the KCSO’s Metro Police Unit.

In September, members of SPD’s Gang Unit, Narcotics, West Precinct Bikes Anti-Crime Teams and deputies from the King County Sheriff’s Office’s patrol and Metro Units began Operation Happy Holidays after receiving numerous reports of drug dealing and gang activity near the 3rd Ave corridor. For months, police documented hand-to-hand drug deals and purchased crack cocaine, powder cocaine, pills, and marijuana in the downtown core and developed cases against 40 people. This week, police began making arrests.

Last night when I was leaving work I saw two police officers with a guy up against the wall just outside the parking garage for our building. They were going through his pockets.

This morning I looked around some. I didn’t see any of the usual shady people hanging around. Maybe it will stay clean around here for a few days.

I really wish I could earn the kind of money I’m addicted to back on the farm in Idaho. This is ground zero for criminals and, redundancy alert, Marxists.

Quote of the day—Jim Rosapepe

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I’m glad the people of the 21st District support my efforts to get assault weapons off Maryland streets once and for all.

Jim Rosapepe
November 11, 2006
Maryland State Senator
Advocates for Assault Weapons Ban Sweep Close Contests in Maryland
[Don’t ever let someone get away with telling you no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Total speculation

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I’m an optimistic sort of guy, really. Kind of a contrarian because I get to explore and test my thinking and assumptions better that way, but I’d rather look at the bright side, all things being equal. So, what’s the possible bright side of the ObamaCare crap sandwich we have been handed? Just spitballing a few thoughts, here… Continue reading →

Old Rations

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You often hear the phrase “rotate your supplies” from experienced preppers. You have to use what you store, store what you use, and check things regularly to that you know you really do have what you think you have. Great idea, doesn’t always work exactly as planned. I came across a couple of these the other day.

OldRations 004 Continue reading →