Symbiotic Relationship of Metabolic Heat Generation Differences of Sexes

Posted on by

The following text has been in one or more obscure and seldom visited directories of my computers for many years. The timestamp on the file is January 18, 1995 but most likely I put it on one of my computers shortly after it was posted in the UseNet newsgroup misc.kids. My kids were young then and I read the newsgroup regularly. Hence, this probably has been on my computers for over 20 years.

I’m posting it here because every once in a while I want to share it and I have difficulty finding it. I think this will be an easier place to find it and more likely to be permanent.

From: berkery@emsun1.crd.ge.com Wed Oct 17 05:33:39 1990
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: Cold Feet
Organization: General Electric Corporate R&D Center

A few people have asked me to elaborate on that last statement in my previous posting. You know, the one about women and cold feet. So, ok, here’s yet another note from Jack’s compendium of little known scientific theories.
—————————————————————————
“Symbiotic Relationship of Metabolic Heat Generation Differences of Sexes.”
by Berke Jackery

Darwin and his successors have tried to explain physiological traits in animal species as the result of adaptation to environmental effects. There is one such proof for a certain trait in the human species which is obvious to even the most casual observer. That no one has heretofore published this fact is quite amazing since it is so immediately obvious. I’m talking about COLD FEET in females of the species homo sapiens.

It is a fact that women’s metabolism levels are not sufficient to generate enough heat to keep all their extremities warm. Over the millennia they have found that the agony of de feet can be alleviated by finding a suitable male who’s heat generation capacity can satisfy their needs. Males of the same species have metabolic rates which produce an overabundance of energy in the form of radiated heat. (Often their bodies produce excesses which are not converted to energy but are expressed as large quantities of methane gas.) This uneven heat generative difference between the sexes has evolved a symbiotic relationship where those who require it will attempt to attract the services of those who can produce it. The result is that when the two get between the sheets, the female will contrive to move her icy toes (some have been measured at temperatures close to absolute zero) toward and even under some part of the male’s anatomy thereby stealing his heat.

The male however, seldom even notices this stealthy behavior since whenever any portion of the female anatomy rubs up against any portion of his, his temperature immediately rises several hundred degrees to balance the process. The procreation process of the species is likewise related to this need to exchange heat. When the female feels the need for some whole-body heat rather than a simple toe-job, or when the male on the other hand has such an excess of heat that he must have a receptive heat-sink to take it from him, the relationship requires that far more body parts be rubbed together. The symbiosis is then complete and the male – female bonding remains intact solely because of this need for an interchange of body heat.

The alternative would have been to evolve a system similar to many insects where the female gets some hapless male to satisfy her needs then summarily bites his head off thereby severing the relationship altogether. Luckily for human males, their mate still has that all-consuming need for warmth whether or not he has ever fully satisfied her. So he is kept around as long as he continues to provide some convenient spot to warm her toes.

That, at any rate is the theory, but I think it’s a very solid one. How else can you explain why women would want to sleep next to a large hairy beast that sweats and snores and farts and grinds its teeth all night. Let’s face it guys, we’re really nothing more than giant heating pads for these females. But, well, when one considers the payment for services rendered, I can live with that. I’ve got lots of excess body heat to spare.
—————————————————————————
Jack Berkery, Computer Scientist, GE Research, Schenectady NY

Because cowering like rabbits under the desk works so well

Posted on by

Paul C. Duffy has the strangest thoughts. And then he shares them with a letter to the editor:

I was disheartened beyond words to read about a program that offers would-be victims of school shootings alternatives to the traditional lock-down reaction to such crimes.

…

Canton police Detective Chip Yeaton, who sounds like a caring citizen and father, spoke in support of the proposed school program, called ALICE, which stands for alert, lockdown, inform, counter, evacuate. Yeaton said that “school shootings continue to happen, and young people are dying. We need to change the philosophy.”

Yeaton is right, but his focus is wrong. Our philosophy does indeed need to change: We need to find the real and moral courage to stand down the gun lobbies — the National Rifle Association and other Second Amendment zealots — whose reckless defense of gun rights has led to a society where almost anyone can acquire a Glock 9mm and the ammunition needed to ruin lives and communities in seconds.

What Duffy totally ignores or does not comprehend is that people can acquire a 9mm Glock and the ammunition to defend lives. I realized I’m biased as I have a handgun on my hip as I type this but handguns are designed for and used millions of times each year to defend innocent life. Duffy’s brain is stuck in “prey” mode.

Read Columbine by Dave Cullen. When violent predators attack students at a school cowering under the desk this behavior gives the predator feelings of even greater power and control. They feel justified in killing those who cower beneath them. One of the prime motivators of the Columbine predators was that they believed people were so stupid they didn’t deserve to live. We don’t know what their thoughts were the last couple of hours but it would seem to me their opinions of human intelligence could not have improved as they saw people “hiding” underneath desks and tables and they strolled from person to person and shot them.

I kept wondering if the Boston Globe got the letter writers name wrong. Maybe it was actually “Fluffy” instead of “Duffy”. And the ‘C’ stands for Cottontail.

Duffy advocates being a coward in the face of a single criminal predator but “courage” while advocating people “stand down the gun lobbies”. He should think this through. Suppose he does “stand down the gun lobbies”. Then what? Is he going to start confiscating firearms from people? I would like to point out that Fluffy Duffy should be happy he has the gun lobby. They are what separate him from the 80 million gun owners in this country. Rabbits are no match for hunters.

Update: Sebastian also comments with Oh Noes! Freedom!

Quote of the day—Rivrdog

Posted on by

Isn’t looking for real or literary meaning in a Tweet the modern equivalent of mining for diamonds in a goat’s ass?

Rivrdog
November 19, 2012
Comment to Quote of the day—DarthWeiner75.
[He’s got a point there.—Joe]

The First Amendment was supposed to protect…

Posted on by

…your right to speech, religion, assembly and redress of grievances.  The Second amendment was supposed to protect the First.  Both will be tested in ways you are not expecting.  You will be blindsided.  Expect it.


When someone doesn’t like what you’re saying and tries to do something about it, your Second amendment right says, “I don’t think so, Skippy”.


Uncle’s post here, if you listen to the broadcast, reveal a looming contest.  There is an on-going attempt to marginalize you, through legal, economic, social and bureaucratic pressures.  Pay attention.  Pay attention also to who stands their ground and who caves.  Don’t bother with the rationalizations, but stay focused on principles.

Quote of the day—DarthWeiner75

Posted on by

I guess since you can’t walk around with your dick hanging out #opencarry is the next best thing. #juvenile

DarthWeiner75
Tweeted on November 17, 2012.
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via a Tweet from Linoge.

It’s “interesting” that someone would consider the exercise of a constitutionally protected right “juvenile”. Would he consider exercise of your right to not incriminate yourself “being a sissy”? Or maybe “freedom of speech is for crybabies”.—Joe]

I found a new use for a KitchenAid mixer

Posted on by

For several years I have been using KitchenAid mixers for Boomershoot. We have made several tons of explosives with them. They work great.

Today I bought another mixer and brought it home to my clock tower. It turns out they can be used for other things as well as explosives:

WP_000379

I made a big batch of lentil chocolate chip cookies this afternoon with it. It’s not Boomerite but it still did a great job.

If they were roses I would understand

Posted on by

Thursday morning I found this on the stairway to my clock tower:

WP_000358

Those are six taco shells carefully placed on six steps. I have no idea what the story on those were. Had they been roses I kinda sorta would have guessed what they meant. But since they look like burnt taco shells I’m baffled.

Quote of the day—Henry Louis Mencken

Posted on by

Of all the classes of men, I dislike most those who make their livings by talking—actors, clergymen, politicians, pedagogues, and so on. All of them participate in the shallow false pretenses of the actor who is their archetype. It is almost impossible to imagine a talker who sticks to the facts. Carried away by the sound of his own voice and the applause of the groundlings, he makes inevitably the jump from logic to mere rhetoric.

Henry Louis Mencken
From Minority Report, H. L. Mencken’s Notebooks, Knopf, 1956.
[It would seem to me that the appreciation of the applause is an important item. If the talker causes the listener to think and contemplate it would seem to me that you have an entirely different species than if the talker stirs the emotions with the intent to generate applause.

Still, I understand his point. I get particularly annoyed at actors and politicians that know how to “work a crowd” but know next to nothing about the topic they are pontificating on.—Joe]

Middle East heating up

Posted on by

My dad asked me what my thoughts on the Israel / Palestine
issue were, and why it could never seem to get a lasting negotiated peace
agreement of some sort. My answer was:

As long as there were people at the top who had a personal
vested interest in keeping it going, it would never stop, and pretty much all
the leaders (both secular and religious) in the surrounding Islamic nations
find having a Jewish state nearby to blame everything on very useful. So, IMHO,
it will never have a negotiated peace
for any significant period of time.

Historically, negotiated peace treaties are worth
less than the paper they are printed on; they are merely used to play for time.
War (on some scale) seems the normal state of most people of the world, and the
only time there was peace was when someone big and strong came through, crushed
all rebellion or dissent utterly, and made it clear that fighting was NOT going
to end well (i.e., heads on pikes, razed cities, leaders hunted down like dogs,
etc). The Mongols, the Huns, Alexander to Great, the Romans, the Persians, the Egyptians,
the Ottoman Turks, the British Empire, Germany and Japan post-WW II. The list
is seemingly endless. Peace of a generation or longer comes not from negotiation
and good will. It never has. Peace comes from having strength and will enough
to make the cost of NOT-PEACE prohibitively high to the leaders that would ask for war. I say let Israel do what it needs
to do to expand and secure its borders, and if that means we can’t count the
dead in the radioactive wastelands of its newly established border-land DMZ
& Nature Preserve, well, so be it.

Quote of the day—Simon Black

Posted on by

Increasing taxes won’t increase their total tax revenue. Politicians have tried this for decades. It doesn’t work. The only way to increase tax revenue is for the economy to grow… and higher tax rates do not pave this path to prosperity.

Ron Paul was spot on. Economic ignorance abounds. And all the Talking Heads in the mainstream media blathering away about the Fiscal Cliff are only reinforcing his premise.

Bottom line– the Fiscal Cliff doesn’t matter. The US passed the point of no return a long time ago.

Simon Black
Guess what they’re NOT cutting in the Fiscal Cliff…
November 15, 2012
[H/T Tyler Durden.

I’m headed for a cabin in the woods this weekend. What are you doing?—Joe]

Interesting times

Posted on by

Observe Greece to see what our future looks like… Greek Brothel To Sponsor Broke Elementary School:

This is what complete social collapse looks like. First, the local Neo Nazi party has soared in the polls and is now the third most popular Greek party. Then, in lieu of other sources of capital, a local brothel became the head sponsor of a minor-league soccer club from Larissa. Now, the same brothel which appears to have seen a substantial return on its advertising spend, has decided to branch out… straight into a local elementary school. That’s right: a whorehouse is advertising its “services” to children in an elementary school. In exchange for what? Money to purchase a Xerox machine and a library.

Quote of the day—jack burton

Posted on by

Guns owners are disrespectful of authority. A failure to rely on authorities is an invariable sign of improper and overly independent attitudes. The mere fact that they gather together to talk about guns at gun shops, gun shows, shooting ranges, and on the internet means that they have some plot going against us normal people. A gun owner has no right to associate with another gun owner.

Therefore, to help ensure our right to happiness and safety we must ban and seize all guns from private hands, and forbid NRA-based criticism towards people who are only trying to help. Searching the homes of all NRA members for any guns and pro-gun literature will go a long way towards reducing crime.

jack burton
November 14, 2012
Comment to Columnist: Gun control doesn’t control enough.
[I’m pretty sure this was sarcasm. But I don’t know for sure.

Regardless, ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!—Joe]

Not Glocking so Glockily down the Glocky trail

Posted on by

My G20 quit feeding properly last summer, and I identified the problem as an original recoil spring that had gone soft.  A new Wolf spring and steel guide rod took care of that.  Then I wanted to try a new Lone Wolf barrel because I was getting so much case buldge that one use was about all I was comfortable with, and the LW barrels have more case support at the bottom under the case web area.  They also have standard cut rifling, which is supposed to better for cast lead bullets– something I’d like to try at some stage.


My first tryout of the new barrel led to a failure to feed the very first round, but after that it seemed to function normally and I figured all was well.  Not so fast.  Those were previously fired cases.  Last time out, with all new cases, I had several failures to feed, and had to bump the back of the slide to get it into battery.


This morning I tried feeding some rounds from several full magaxines, and here’s what happened;



Above is the slide resting quite securely, with its new, beefier recoil spring, on a jam.


Below, I’ve removed the magazine and locked the slide back.  That round is still wedged in the back of the chamber, and it took some fiinger pressure to dislodge it;



(Below) you see the mark below the case mouth, from the front of the feedramp digging into it;



My theory is that the new, softer cases are getting bitten more deeply than the work-hardened fired cases I tried the first time, resulting in more problems.  The original Glock barrel has much more “throating” or relief at the feed ramp area, which is why the Glock barrel is said to have less case support.  The LW barrel has more support in that area, but for now it doesn’t have enough clearance to feed reliably.  My new StarLine cases are trimmed at the factory to only a few thousandths over the minimum, and about 7 or 8 thousandths under the maximum case length.  The overall cart length is exactly, to within two or three thou extreme spread, what the Hornady manual (and several others) called for.  The rounds plunk right into the LW chamber with the barrel removed, but jam in the chamber when fed from any of several magazines, due to the feed angle and the tighter (actually just longer at the bottom because of less throating) chamber.


A longer bullet ogive might force the front of the cart down as it feeds, but at the moment I don’t know if that would help or hurt.  I might just put the perfectly good old barrel back in and live with super short case life for now.


I spent 30+ years doing custom work on various types of musical instruments, and long ago came up with an axiom I have repeated many, many times to perspective customers and fellow shop workers;  When you divert from the original design, expect a cascading series of unforseen problems.  In other words, expect to pay through the nose as we may have go back to the drawing board a time or two, to find ways to accommodate your custom thingamajig, making it work seamlessly with the rest of the system.


I noticed just yesterday that Brownell’s, I think it was, or maybe it was CTD, had a bunch of LW Glock barrels in a promotion, for all the Glock models except the 20, or those in 10mm.  This kind of sucks, because I was having a ball late in the summer shooting silhouettes at 100 yards.  The original barrel never seemed to give enough accuracy to make that a reasonable proposition.

Quote of the day—Rachel Elmalawany

Posted on by

For people like myself who are not satisfied with the justifications for carrying dangerous weapons, it sometimes seems that your viewpoint isn’t important when it’s a right guaranteed by the Constitution. Keep in mind, the Constitution has been changed before and can change again as long as you’re willing to put your efforts in the right place in Washington to get laws changed.

Rachel Elmalawany
November 14, 2012
Columnist: Gun control doesn’t control enough
[Keep in mind, Ms. Elmalawany, the constitution can’t be changed “in Washington”. It takes quite a bit more than that.

Keep in mind, Ms. Elmalawany, the entire Bill of Rights was a qualifier for agreeing to the constitution to begin with. If one of those items are nulled out the agreement to form a union is nulled.

Keep in mind, Ms. Elmalawany, that if you were to successful in repealing the 13th Amendment you would encounter, and rightly so, “stiff resistance” in the implementation. There are probably just as many people that would resist the implementation of a 2nd Amendment repeal as there are that would resist a 13th Amendment repeal implementation.

Keep in mind, Ms. Elmalawany, there are about 220 million people in the U.S. that don’t own guns. There are about 80 million people who do and who consume about 10 billion rounds of ammo each year. That’s what we do for practice. Please don’t attempt to verify our level of resolve or the quality of our practice.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Eric J. Friday

Posted on by

While there is a lot of public pressure to repeal the no duty to retreat and the self-defense immunity provisions, this task force should not bow to the uninformed opinions and allegations being made.

Instead, it should recommend that the Legislature take action to correct the deficiencies in the law and to make clear once and for all that law abiding Floridians and visitors to our state should never be forced to turn their back on a violent criminal attacker and should not have to fear that they will lose their livelihood, their freedom, or their financial future and become a victim twice.

Eric J. Friday
October 16, 2012
10/16/12 Task Force on Citizen Safety and Protection
[H/T Robb Allen.

Public pressure frequently has little to do with the facts. Public pressure is often a lot more like a mob. Rumors, inflammatory rhetoric, and high emotions substitute for data and logic.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Sebastian

Posted on by

Sorry, my current handgun is black, but if I’m going to murder my wife, it just has to be stainless. She deserves nothing less!

Sebastian
November 13, 2012
Attitudes on Gun Rights
[Yes, of course it’s sarcasm.

One could also turn that around a bit and say something similar about substituting an evil black rifle for a wood-stocked Mini-14.

Mocking the enemies of freedom is good thing.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Mike Lubrecht

Posted on by

[I]t’s widely known that anyone carrying a Glock has mental issues. In fact, I’m surprised that potential Glock owner’s aren’t disqualified by default when filling out the 4473 form!

Mike Lubrecht
November 1, 2012
WA-CCW email list.
[I find this funny even if I disagree with it.

Let the flame war begin.—Joe]

A Redistributed Pie Shrinks, A Selfish One Grows

Posted on by

Assumption: People change their behavior when the perceived incentives (cost and/or benefits) change.
Assumption: The world is not a zero-sum game.


Any arguments or dispute? No? Ok, then, a thought experiment.


A typical grading curve in school is 90% A, 80% B, 70% C, 60% D, less than 60% fails, where there are many standard point-earning opportunities, and occasional “extra-point” opportunities, where each person earns their own scores. Maybe everyone aces an easy class with all 90%+, maybe a herd of sluggards all fail. Any number of points might be earned in total.


Tell a classroom full of kids that the grading curve is to be changed. In order to help out the GPA of struggling students, points will be redistributed. After each test, project, or paper, any points above a grade cut-off will be shaved off as “extra” and re-distributed to the lowest scoring student. When the lowest scoring student has been brought to the level of the next-lowest student, then the points are shared between them, because they are both the neediest at the bottom. No “extra” points can be “banked” against future mistakes. If not everyone is brought up to passing by this method when just extracting “extra A” points, then more points will be extracted from the scores at the top, and the 80%-90% scores will get cut to 80%, and all the extra points re-distributed to those in need of points to pass. If some are still failing, then all the now-B students will get knocked down to C’s, and those points re-distributed. Etc.


Question: with the changes in incentives, how will students change their behaviors?


Some will keep doing what they are doing, because that is just who they are, and they want to learn regardless of grade. Likely it will not be many. Many near the top will see all their extra points being sucked away, and they will stop trying to earn more than 90%; indeed, I’d expect a competition to see who can come closest to 90% most often without going under. Those at the bottom will work even less, knowing they will be given some extra help, so they will need more points than ever. Those in the middle will get frustrated, because they are not doing well, but they are not getting any help, because it’s all going to those at the bottom, who are not helped in the end because there are not enough points to bring a dozen zeros up to 60% and passing. The total number of student points, reflecting the growing knowledge of the students in the class (at least in theory), will shrink. The number of people passing will shrink. The attitude toward the subject and teacher will deteriorate. In the end, a few will still be trying because they know it’s the right thing to do, but it will not be anywhere near enough to help out the grade situation, so learning halts, because no new teaching can start until a passing grade on existing material in achieved.Classroom average GPA will head to zero.


Compare that to progressive taxation, welfare, the economy, and government.


For those on the left that don’t get it, allow me to spell it out. The formerly high-scoring students grow too actively resent the low-scoring ones because they are dragging the high scores down. The failing students actively dislike the strong students because they COULD be working harder to earn more points to pass around, but aren’t. Those in the middle can’t help those at the top OR bottom, but get caught in the middle and accused of being “other” by both sides. It’s a toxic brew that sows discord, hatred, envy, and sloth. It destroys the incentives to succeed, shrinks the point-and-learning pie, and hurts everyone, regardless of the stated intention to help those in most need of a GPA boost, because it fails to recognize that GPA isn’t the GOAL, it’s a BYPRODUCT of the goal, learning. The goal of the government should not be to get everyone to a particular level of income & benefits, it is to provide place, laws, and opportunities for a person to be able to do that on their own.


On the other hand, change the grading system so that failure to earn a passing grade means you cannot get a free lunch, and continuing failure jeopardizes your families’ voting rights or welfare checks or eligibility for other government assistance or jobs. Failing has real, painful, consequences. Helping a struggling student to pass earns you extra opportunities, or classes, or money. Getting high grades in difficult or high-demand classes can earn college / trade-school tuition money or even a cash graduation bonus. Doing well for yourself has solid, immediate benefits. People can take as many classes as they want, and earn unlimited points or cash, and it’s not being taken from the low-performing students.


Which would return better long-term results?


Yes, I know this isn’t a new concept. It seemed like a good way to give a concrete example of how my basic assumptions and principles about people and how the world works, and perhaps shed light on the folly of current programs, and suggest a more sensible approach.

I thought I took care of that

Posted on by

Roberta, Sebastian, and Tam report on the nanny’s in Indiana getting their panties twist over Tannerite.

A few years ago almost exactly the same thing happened. A T.V. station (WSBTV) made a video whining about, as Roberta said, “Scary–Go-BOOM!” They got a politician to talk about how terrible it was and how he was “going to do something” about it.

I sent them an email and within 24 hours the video was taken down and we didn’t hear anything more about it. Not even from the politician.

This is a little different case in that they didn’t use any of my video for their whine piece but the same principles apply. Here is a starting point for your letter to the T.V. station. Modify it a bit and you have one for your legislator:

You recently produced a video about a legal product used by thousands of people every year and found people willing to say it scared them and you. For you to engage in a such a biased and even bigoted attack on a legal product used in a legal manner is exceedingly offensive to me and thousands of other people.

I can’t imagine what you were thinking. Would you show video of people using guns to legally hunt, shoot tin cans, or put holes in paper targets and then contact the opportunist politicians because you were worried someone might use their guns to commit a terrorist act? Or how about showing someone having a glass of wine with dinner or drinking a beer in their backyard? Would you demand the government do something about this because of your concerns about drunk driving?

When I was growing up my family was able to, and did, buy dynamite, blasting caps, at the local hardware store with no special license or transportation requirements. We paid for it, picked it up out back, put in it in the trunk of the car and drove home with it. That the average person can still acquire explosives easily, legally, and safely is a testament to what a great country we have. It shows that not only the government is subservient to its citizens but that its citizens are responsible and can be trusted.

If you had demonstrated these explosives were used in thousands of crimes each year I might think you had reason to be concerned. But you did not do this. You could have used that same product and those same video to show what a great country we have. You could have shown what unique freedoms we have and how those freedoms are not being abused. Seattle King 5 Evening Magazine did that with this video: http://www.boomershoot.org/2005/KING5.wmv. But you didn’t do that. You merely demonstrated you are a Puritan–afraid that someone, someplace, is having fun.

Winning the culture wars

Posted on by

A few days ago one of the women I met online in my nine dates with six women in nine days adventure sent me an email asking information about a local gun range and instructor for a female friend of hers.

Yesterday I had my semi-annual eye exam (yes, my eyesight is quite good). I wore an Insights Training sweatshirt. As I walked in the door a female patient looked at me and said, “Insights! Are you an instructor?” “No”, I told her, “I’m just a student of theirs.”

It turns out she had worked at Weapons Safety Inc. (a gun shop and range) when Insights did a lot of their classes there and hence was quite familiar with Insights. The female optometrist asked the other patient a little about what it was like to work there and then it was back to business.

As I was waiting the female receptionist was talking to still another female patient about LASIK and told her that her ex had bad eyes and wore very thick glasses. He then had LASIK and the next year was able to win a rifle competition he had no chance of winning with his previous eyes. The woman she was talking to didn’t seem the least bit fazed.

This was all in the Seattle area. Historically Seattle is very anti-gun.

We have essentially won the culture war on guns. We need to keep taking new people to the range (I had another one scheduled for 2:00 PM today but she became ill and we are rescheduling) but short of a major screw up the worst case in the next decade or so is that progress toward our end goal is halted.

But there is another culture war that looks every bit as bad as things did for gun rights advocates 15 years ago.

We have long known something was very wrong with our country. The gun issue was/is just one symptom. TSA is a big deal. The war on drugs is a big deal. The government involvement in health care is a big deal. The welfare state is a big deal. The government involvement in education is a big deal. The national debt is a huge deal.

Looking at the bigger picture there are just so many things wrong that it is easy to want to just run away, create Galt’s Gulch, or encourage secession. 15 years ago the gun rights situation looked hopeless too. As Tam said if you arrived as a time traveler at a gun store in 1995 and told them the future of gun ownership in 2012 they would have found the time travel part the most believable part of your story.

I’m not saying “everything is going to be okay”. In fact in at least one way we have essentially a mathematical proof that it’s game over and we are just watching the clock run out. But the question is, what do we do about it?

Some people are buying gold and silver. Lots of people are buying guns and ammo. But you can’t eat gold or silver. You can eat a bullet, but one is your lifetime limit and few people consider the Smith and Wesson retirement plan the best they can do. Stockpiling food and water in the city, at best, will only get you by as long as your supplies last. And even if you join up with a like minded tribe deep in the woods it’s going to be at best a couple of generations until the latest fashion debate is about how to arrange which type of bird feather on your fur coat and there is talk of an “assault weapon ban” on crossbows with the real agenda of getting rid of all bows and arrows and maybe spears too.

I think there may be a better way. I have the big vision but I haven’t yet been able to figure out how to implement it. It’s sort of like I know I need a bridge across this dangerous ravine. I know a fair amount about different types of bridges but none of them seem to be feasible. I suppose it’s possible the “ravine” is actually the “Grand Canyon” and we simply don’t have the “technology”, money, and/or time to build such a bridge in the time we have left. But if you consider 1995 the darkest days in the gun wars and a win being clearly visible by 2003 (most people predicted the AWB probably wasn’t going to be renewed) then that only took eight years.

One way to look at that is those eight years is that they were essentially a politically delaying action until we got our culture war game on. I claim a similar situation exists today. I’m sure freedom has not yet reached it’s nadir but there is a fair amount of political action that will slow the descent. If we can get our culture game going for freedom then we might be able pull out a win before the clock runs out.

The problem is I don’t see how to win the culture war. I don’t see that we have effective weapons in this culture war. I don’t even see how to fight the culture war. People are certainly trying but we are rapidly losing.

With guns we could take people to the range and the anti-gun people didn’t have anti-gun ranges to compete with us. The anti-freedom people have “free stuff” and “security” to offer. It’s all a lie in the long, or even intermediate, term but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is here and now. The media shows the sick getting treatment, the hungry being fed, and the TSA proclaiming the world is a safer place when they find eight ounces of toothpaste in grandmas carryon luggage. The hidden costs and the cancerous belief that more government is the solution to every problem are difficult to see and in the “distant” future of a few years from now.

What are the freedom games that would be the equivalent of USPSA, IDPA, Steel Challenge, and Boomershoot? Something that quickly engages people and gives almost immediate feedback would be ideal. It is a video game? But maybe the definition of “immediate” can be stretched a bit. Perhaps it is an experimental city with no taxes on income, capital gains, or sales. Or maybe it is teaching philosophy in our schools.

The way I see it we can win the culture war in the next few years or we can say George Orwell was off by two generations.