Quote of the day—Roberta X

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Mitt’s probably the best practical hope — and a thin, thin reed indeed. Changing the slope isn’t the same as reversing the slope.

Roberta X
September 27, 2012
“Not Getting it” Less Is Not The Same As Having A Clue
[I agree. And as near as I can tell the slope is such that sliding off the “cliff” is pretty close to inevitable. No set of viable politicians will be, or can be, elected that have the political capital to reverse the slope. Approximately 47% of the population is dependent upon the slope remaining the same or increasing. Reaching them and getting them to vote against their own short term best interest is extremely unlikely.

I see the communists and socialists passing out flyers on the street corners and signs, speeches and chanting in the park across the street from where I work. I feel a chill up my back when I wonder if these are the same indicators that foretold the coming to power of the tyrannical governments of the USSR, China, Italy, and Germany and the deaths of 100+ million people in the last century.

I understand the psychology of postponing the chaos, hardships, and horrors of the “safety net” (it’s really more of a trampoline that bounces people up and then off into the dirt at a later time) and the “guarantees” of other “free” stuff people have come to depend on going away. But it’s going to happen. The only questions are when, how massive the disruption will be, and the form of society as we reboot. Is postponing it going to make it less painful or more? Without data and very little rational thought to support the belief I believe it will make it more painful.

I will vote in a few weeks but without passion or even “practical hope”, as Roberta put it, the elections can change much. I’m betting my best interest is in continuing to invest in copper, lead, brass, nitrogen based chemicals, food production, and smart capable friends as my hedge against inflation and the big “splat” at the bottom of the cliff.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Bubblehead Les

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If there’s any conflict between Hillary and the Chicoms, it’s kinda like the difference between a Maoist and a Trotskyite.

Bubblehead Les
September 26, 2012
Comment to She’s a libertarian all of a sudden.
[In political philosophy anyway. Hillary wouldn’t want to play second fiddle to Mao or Trotsky.

I’ve read a fair amount about Hillary. She is smart, extremely ambitious, craves power, and the ice water in her veins is pumped by a heart of steel.—Joe]

She’s a libertarian all of a sudden

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Seen at Tam’s;



U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in turn urged China and its Southeast Asian neighbors to resolve disputes “without coercion, without intimidation, without threats and certainly without the use of force”.


I wish she’d seen the light 40 years or so ago.  I wish the U.S. government would treat our citizens the same way.  I was at a press conference Monday to say the same thing for Gresham Bouma, but we got thrown off the front porch of the Idaho Department of Labor (which will cease to exist if Hillary gets her way with her new-found policy of eschewing all coercion, intimidation and threats).


Hillary is of course a die-hard Progressive (incremental comminust) and so she is all about using coercion, intimidation and threats.  Her quote above does prove that she at least understands coercion, intimidation and threats to be bad things, even if she’s been advocating them all her adult life.  There wouldn’t be a Democrat Party without coercion or threats, and only about 3 or 4% of Republicans could exist in their current iterations.  It could be said that the main purpose of today’s Democrat Party (together with their media allies and the government education complex) is to rationalize the increased use of coercion, intimidation and threats, and I suppose the purpose of the Republican Party has been to make it possible for the Democrats.


But talk about brass.  She’s made a career calling for coercion and threats in nearly every aspect of American life, and now it’s not to be tolerated from communist China.  Wow.  They must be laughing pretty hard at her right now.  You’d think she would lay awake nights thinking of her wild contradictions.  That is if she had a conscience.  Even if she were only concerned about her reputation for the sake of her position and power, caring nothing for the truth, maybe she’d want to think a little bit before opening her mouth.

Random thought of the day

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If people “are crazy, can’t be trusted, and need to be regulated and controlled”, as one Socialist recently told me, then doesn’t that mean that government which are made up of people need the same type of supervision?

It would seem to me that, if you value consistency and hence truth, you must conclude that either both people and governments made up of people need to be controlled or governments/supervisors must be made up of greater beings.

Governments which rule by divine authority have an extremely poor record of generating peace, prosperity, and happiness. Hence I think we can dismiss them outright. That leaves us with governments which have some degree of control over their actions or no control.

Again it would seem the choice is clear. Governments with no controls upon them are historically hostile to peace, prosperity, and happiness. Hence the only question would seem to be how much control. What is the optimal amount of control for a government and it’s people such that some measure of “public good” is optimized?

I suspect we have all the data we really need to answer that question. We have 50 states with various amounts of controls upon the government and the people living in those environments. The question can thus be refined a bit more. How do you measure “public good” and how do the various states rate using that system of measurement? Do there exist states with too much or too little control of government and/or their people? Or can it be shown that all states have too much/little control over government and/or the people and we need to increase/decrease the scope of the regulation of government/people in our experiments to find the optimum?

I think I know the answer but I’m willing to look at the data to see if my hypothesis is correct.

Or course there is also the valid concern of natural rights and where government gets it’s authority to regulated and control people. That is my preferred domain to have a discussion about limits on governments. But it’s challenge enough to get people to think about facts and results. Getting them to think about fundamental principles is generally an advanced topic beyond the scope of ordinary discourse.

Quote of the day—Tyler Durden

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The US is no longer the cleanest dirty shirt, or least syphilitic hooker in the whorehouse as we so responsibly noted previously.

Tyler Durden
September 14, 2012
Europe and US Un-Decoupling
[This is in worldwide economic terms.—Joe]

What would YOU do?

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Someone I Know (hereinafter refered to as SIK) related an incident at his home that occurred some weeks ago, and I thought that this blog would be a good place to mention it.


In the wee hours of the morning, SIK woke up, went to the living room for some reason or other, and found a stranger passed out on his couch.  He tried rousing him to no avail.  Shook him a bit, even, as you would do to wake up someone for an urget conversation.  No response.  The stranger was breathing, but obviously very drunk.  SIK went back to bed.  In the morning SIK’s wife went to the combination room to make coffee while SIK managed to rouse said drunk for a little chat.  Mr. 20-something-year-old Drunk didn’t know where he was at first.  He apologized for the intrusion.  SIK offered him a ride.  Drunk declined, and went on his way.  Wife said that she thought she’d seen him at a nearby house before (nothing suspicious – just there, like a neighbor or friend of a neighbor) but wasn’t sure.  SIK and his wife have guns in the house and know how to use them, if that matters to you.


End of story.


What would you do?  What is the right thing to do?  SIK has no small children or anyone else at the house.  Just he and his wife, if that matters to you.  I think it would matter to me, as I am something of a mother bear if you will.  I don’t know the answer for my sake.  There are many, many situations that are extremely difficult, at best, to second-guess if you’re not there– if you’re not the person responsible for making the decision.  So don’t.  You weren’t.  Just think about it.  I can tell you from experiences (though very different from this scenerio) that I have a hard time going counter to my “instinct”, which ever way that “instinct” might go.  Or is it “conscience”?  That could be a strength or it could be a weakness.  I admit that I don’t know.  Reason, alone, as I believe most people think of it, doesn’t always provide the best answer, but then maybe it depends on the depth of the reason.  In this case I think it could be argued that SIK made the worst possible decision, from a “tactical” point of view, and that at the same time it had the best possible outcome.  But what if the guy had been in a diebetic coma or something?


Edited to Add; The front door was unlocked, so the guy just walked in.

Don’t be an accessory

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On Friday there was a robbery and shooting just across the street from where I work. The bad guy exited the mall door which I use nearly every day when I go to lunch and/or do my banking:

An armed robbery downtown leads to a foot chase and struggle over the suspect’s gun. On September 21st at 10:30 a.m. a lone black male suspect entered a jewelry store on the second level at Westlake Mall wearing sunglasses and a thin latex mask depicting a bald white male over his face. The suspect inquired about engagement rings. The store owner (victim #1) was suspicious but afraid to do anything. Suddenly the suspect brandished a handgun, pointed it at the victim and demanded a whole tray of rings. The victim picked up the ring tray and handed it to the suspect. He resisted letting go of the tray during which time the suspect fired one shot towards the victim, grazing his shirt sleeve. The victim released the tray and the suspect ran out of the business into the mall. He ran towards the 4th Avenue/Hotel Lobby hallway with the victim in pursuit. The victim was screaming for help and announcing a robbery had occurred.

Once in front of the Wells Fargo/Westlake Mall entrance the suspect turned around and fired two more shots towards the victim, who then backed off. The suspect exited the mall running northbound on 4th Avenue in possession of over a dozen rings taken from the jewelry store during the robbery.

When I went for lunch on Friday the bank was closed and I had to use a different entrance because the area was all taped off. I then went to get some chocolate covered strawberries and found the chocolate store was next to the jewelry store that was robbed and it was also behind the police tape and closed. Bitter thought it should be a crime for the police blocking the entrance to a chocolate store. And the thought of that causing a riot did cross my mind.

So the lesson to be learned from all this is that if you don’t want to be a accessory to starting a riot you should carry your gun and drop the bad guy before he shoots up the place so badly they close the chocolate stores.

Who wants to move to Honduras with me?

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Via Say Uncle.

This is very appealing to me. It almost sounds like Galt’s Gulch:

Small government and free-market capitalism are about to get put to the test in Honduras, where the government has agreed to let an investment group build an experimental city with no taxes on income, capital gains or sales.

Proponents say the tiny, as-yet unnamed town will become a Central American beacon of job creation and investment, by combining secure property rights with minimal government interference.

“Once we provide a sound legal system within which to do business, the whole job creation machine – the miracle of capitalism – will get going,” Michael Strong, CEO of the MKG Group, which will build the city and set its laws, told FoxNews.com.

Strong said that the agreement with the Honduran government states that the only tax will be on property.

“Our goal is to be the most economically free entity on Earth,” Strong said.

…

The laws in the city will be separate from those in the rest of Honduras. Strong said that the default law that will be enforced in the city will actually be based on Texas state law, which has relatively few regulations.

“It will be Texas law with more freedom of contract. Texas scores well on state economic freedom rankings,” he explained.

Hmmm… I wonder what I could build and export using native labor and materials.

Quote of the day—Frances Carodine

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i can understand kill to eat but for sport. that like killing a tiger cause dick won’t get hard

Frances Carodine
September 11, 2012
Facebook comment.
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

H/T to Miguel.

In addition to exhibiting symptoms of an obsession with Markley’s law Carodine has problems with punctuation and grammar. It must be rough to live with a mind that messed up.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Atlas Shrugged Part II Trailer

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If you think you have the right to use force against me bring guns.

Atlas Shrugged Part II Trailer
September 5, 2012

That really resonated with me. But then the entire book did.

There are a bunch of other good quotes in there too.—Joe]

Adventures in online dating

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This is the weirdest response to my profile yet. I didn’t view them or contact them in any way. Yet this is the message I got:

Subject: Your a moran GET OFF MY PROFILE U TWIT….

10:34 PM on 9/22/2012

YOUR PROFILE SUCK BIG TIME…STOP WASTING MY TIME…
UR AN IDIOT ANY WAY…SOME MEN BORE ME…U BORE ME…OXEY MORAN…

My profile is probably a little “different” but I’m pretty sure someone was off their meds when they wrote the above.

My profile:

A little about me…

Update: I’m going to leave my profile active for a while and probably will eventually answer messages but I think I have found my match.

—-

Extremely patient, gentle, generous, quiet, and kind. And I admire myself for my modesty. 🙂

I spend a lot of time on my blog and am involved in civil rights activism. Libertarian is the closest description of my politics. I’m a certified firearms instructor but my career is writing software.

I like women with strong personalities. Think “Sarah Conner” from the second Terminator movie. That’s an exaggeration but it should illustrate the point.

Long walks on the beach are nice–if we brought the explosives to see how big a crater we can make in the sand and how high the water will shoot up into the air.

The adventures I create for other people are written up in magazines, newspapers, and documented on TV shows. And that is just what I do in public.

I push limits and have adventures most people have never imagined. Many people consider me the most interesting person they know. Life is never boring with me.

About the one I’m looking for…

I’ve thought that I would like a harem of super models with a mean IQ of 150 and a minimum of 130. But I’m pretty certain drawing a square circle using a unicorn horn is more likely. Also, taking care of more than one woman is probably beyond my ability so, upon further reflection, I have decided I’ll just have a more conventional relationship.

Must be smart, sane, and rational. My wife of 36 years lacked the last two.

Must live close (less than 20 miles, 5 would be better). I’m not interested in a long distance relationship.

Must like to cuddle and have long conversations in bed on a variety of topics. Must have a strong sex drive, somewhat adventuresome in bed, and comfortable in the nude.

Bonus points for being 5′ 10″ or more in height. Lost points for tattoos and/or piercings.

I’d just like to add…

I hope to find someone who likes hiking in the woods and mountains. Good physical condition would be a big plus.

Although I am generous I won’t fund shopping sprees for trinkets and frilly clothes. I’m a very practical and functional sort of person. But I would pay for a class on rappelling, defensive knife, or shooting a handgun faster and more accurately.

LAPD combat qualification simulation results

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Barron put in dozens of hours in producing the video and has the details here.


The short version is that I created some stages that simulated the LAPD pistol combat qualification course as close as I could and still comply with USPSA rules. The stage descriptions and diagrams are here. I reported on the results here but I made an error. I reported the pass rate if the course was run in low light conditions. With normal light it should be a score of 70% or greater. The end result is that the pass rate was 79% instead of the originally reported 90.9%. Again, keep in mind the morphing of the course into a USPSA stage made the course more difficult than what the actual course is.


Here is the video:



At the end you will see some brief clips of another stage we shot on the same day. A recreation of the Empire State Building shooting.

Quote of the day—Thomas Glenchur

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2000 guns enter Mexico per day! ATF lost maybe 600 net over the entire operation period of Fast and Furious operation. While it is small consolation to the grieving of Mexico, a disproportionate 40% of the 2000 guns per day are arriving directly from the United States. Because the smugglers are shielded within the “gun rights” industrial complex, no one has had the courage to directly challenge them by regulation. Issa’s witch hunt has a perverse agenda to tie up law enforcement’s hands against weapons regulations that protect Mexicans and Americans.

Thomas Glenchur
September 20, 2012
Comment to Illegal guns from ‘Fast and Furious’ still on street
[2000 per day? Only 600? “‘gun rights’ industrial complex”? Wow! Glenchur is suffering from Peterson Syndrome, is living in an alternate universe and only visits here, or he is one of those “I know the truth in my heart of hearts” types.

Another commenter, Gary Villa, responded and provided a template to straighten him out but I can’t imagine Glenchur used it:

This is not even remotely true. There is only one official US Government assessment of the number of guns smuggled into Mexico from the US. It is the 2009 GAO report on the issue, compiled from the ATF’s own trace data – “FIREARMS TRAFFICKING:
U.S. Efforts to Combat Arms Trafficking to Mexico Face Planning and Coordination Challenges”. Google it. The report is still on the GAO website. Pay special attention to the Dept. of Homeland Security letter attached in the appendix, expressing concern that the data be accurately represented so as not to portray the number of guns being more than it actually was, exactly as the Obama administration did just before F&F was launched.

Over 5 years, the total number of guns found to have been smuggled into Mexico from the US was only 3450 out of over 30,000 total seized. That’s fewer than 700 guns/year, nowhere near your ridiculous figure of 2000/day. Also, the types of guns that were found to have been smuggled were almost all cheap handguns, not AK-47s, which is what the F&F idiots allowed to walk. In addition, according to US State Department documents released by Wikileaks, the vast majority of guns going to the cartels are those sold to the Mexican government through the US State Department itself, as part of US military aid, not guns purchased from US businesses and smuggled across the border. Why pay retail for small numbers of neutered civilian semi-autos and risk smuggling them across the border when the US State Department, led by Hilary Clinton, will have fully-automatic military assault rifles, grenades, and anti-tank weapons delivered to your doorstep in bulk and at wholesale prices?

The Obama administration knew about both the GAO report showing that gun smuggling was not a significant source, and their own State Department reports that the guns from their direct sales were, months before the beginning of Fast and Furious. So, the ATF claims that they launched F&F to combat a problem that their own best data said didn’t exist, and walked a type of gun their own data said was not preferred by smugglers, but which the administration has repeatedly said it would like to ban. Yeah, none of that is suspicious.

By the way, those same guns WERE regulated, under Clinton, and his own administration admitted that their regulations had no measurable effect on any form of crime.

It’s hard to believe someone can be so out of touch with reality but I’ve sat across the table and talked to people like that for hours. They apparently have happy productive lives as take out clerks at the grocery store and reluctantly vote for Obama because a more socialist candidate isn’t available.—Joe]

Keeping the streets clean

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Well… I suppose this is one way to encourage people to keep their cars cleaner and make the streets look nicer:

A MASSAGE parlour and a car wash outlet in Sunway Mentari have given new meaning to the phrase “customer loyalty”. They have come up with a creative way to entice more customers to engage their services by offering free sex after nine car washes.

Posted in Sex

Quote of the day—Brandon Smith

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What is it that makes Keynesians so insanely self destructive? Is it their mindless blind faith in the power of government? Their unfortunate ignorance of the mechanics of monetary stimulus? Their pompous self-righteousness derived from years of intellectual idiocy? Actually, I suspect all of these factors play a role. Needless to say, many of them truly believe that the strategy of fiat injection is viable, even though years of application have proven absolutely fruitless. Anyone with any sense would begin to question what kind of madness it takes to pursue or champion the mindset of the private Federal Reserve bank…

Quantitative easing has shown itself to be impotent in the improvement of America’s economic situation. Despite four years of free reign in central banking, employment remains dismal in the U.S., the housing market continues its freefall, and, our national debt swirls like a vortex at the heart of the Bermuda Triangle. Despite this abject failure of Keynesian theory, the Federal Reserve is attempting once again to convince you, the happy-go-lucky American citizen, that somehow, this time around, everything will be “different”.

Brandon Smith
September 14, 2012
Get Ready For An Epic Fiat Currency Avalanche
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Susan

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I spent a day in Timbuktu. That was enough.

Susan
September 20, 2012
[I’ve been dating a bit via match websites. I met Susan for the first time today for lunch. She has lead a very interesting life. She has been to 22 countries—in Africa. Then there are the trips to Laos, Myanmar, Mongolia, North Korea, Iran, all five ‘stans, USSR (before and after the collapse), all the ordinary places like Europe, and several trips to Antarctica.

Once I recover some I have to write up something about some of them. I have had nine dates with six women in nine days recently. I have repeat dates with some on this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I think I’m done. Yes. I tend to focus intently on one task at a time.

Wow! There are some strange people out there as well as some nice and ordinary people. And there are the nice but not ordinary. Susan was in the later category. The one self-proclaimed liberal was a walking, talking, caricature that could be used by liberals most vehement critics.—Joe]

Jobs

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A “job” is the result of inspiration, creativity and production, plus available time.


“But Lyle, a job is the result of need” you say.  “The person hiring needs another employee, and the employee needs a job.”


If I’m hiring, it means I have a business, or it means I’m starting a business.  If I have a business, it means I created somehting and I’m already producing, and if I’m creating a business it means I’m in the process of creating something.  Before I can create something I must be inspired, and I must have the available time.


Before I have the available time, I must have produced, otherwise my time would be taken up merely subsisting– I must have subsisted by producing, and then some, else I have no time to create something new.


See where this is going?  A job is the result of productivity, else there is no place for a job.


So when we’re talking about “creating jobs” what do we really mean?  Do we really even know what we mean?


Politicians always talk about “creating jobs” and it is perfectly clear to me that they haven’t a clue what they’re saying.  Not a single one of them.


If I’m getting inspired to do something, and then find this law, this licensing requirement, this tax, this higher tax for being in business, this government “program” and on and on and on– this whole nightmarish quagmire of red tape and barriers, what do you think is going to happen to my inspiration?


All hell; maybe it wasn’t such a great idea anyway, it would cost a lot and take a lot of time anyway, with a lot of risk, and it would put stress on my family, but with all this red tape crap, these endless rules and endless lists and endless catagories I have to wade through to pick one that applies to me and my new business, the ever-present potential liability, and sometimes the outright harrasment, it just isn’t worth it.  (shrug)


You want to “create jobs”?  (you don’t, I know, but you like saying you do) There is one way and one way only– Start a business.  You don’t have the inspiration, or the creativity, or the guts for risk-taking to start your own business?  That doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.  OK, then get all this extra bullshit out of the way so someone else can.  Get the holier-than-thou Central Planners, those who are so mind bogglingly stupid that they think they can, and have the right to, plan our lives better than all of us combined, and get them the hell out of the way.  Then keep them out, because we need to believe that our new-found liberty will endure.


That is all it takes.  Just that one, simple, cheaper-than-anything-else thing.


At that point, hope has been restored. the imagination is free, capital flows in like a tsunami, business pop up like popcorn, inspiration has been liberated, the looming storm cloud has been lifted (I was going to say “black cloud”, but then I’d be accused of racism [and if you’re one of the would-be accusers, I feel sorry for you]) and Bob’s your uncle.


The jobs come as a side benefit to inspiration, creativity and productivity, so you don’t even have to think about them.  They’re a natural outgrowth of liberty.


So it’s a choice between two model views.  In one, the government’s job is to reign us in, control us, redirect us, and tax us for public works projects.  In the other, the government’s job is to protect liberty by protecting the property rights of every individual.


Just imagine that you’re starting your very own business, with your very own ideas, using your very own resources.  In which model would you want to do it?  Don’t even bother answering.  We all know.

Quote of the day—Sen. Chuck Grassley

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It’s clear that both the ATF and the Justice Department failed to provide meaningful oversight of Operation Fast and Furious. They ignored warnings from employees, and frankly, failed to do their jobs. It took the death of our own Border Patrol agent, action by a courageous whistleblower and intense scrutiny from Congress before they even took note of what was happening under their own eyes. Even then, they wouldn’t come clean with how bad it really was until after they had sent a false letter and retracted it eight months later.

Sen. Chuck Grassley
September 19, 2012
14 face discipline in Fast and Furious probe
[I have nothing to add but I’m doing some price checking on tar and feathers.—Joe]

Overheard at the morale event

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Ry: I’m into meta-curling.


Eric: What is that? Watching people curl?


Ry: Absolutely!

Quote of the day—wolflover3825

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And that is coming from someone who wants to disregard our right to self defense, someone who doesn’t acknowledge the part in the 2nd Amendment where it says “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”, someone who twists and turns everything inside out, upside down and sideways to misinform, confuse, and deceive the un-familiar. It’s actually funny he says that. It’s funny that he says the pro-gun people disregard the Constitution while he is the one that does it on a daily basis.

wolflover3825
September 9, 2012
Comment to Oh Ye of Little Faith: The Pro-Gun Movement’s Total Disregard for Our Constitution
[Sometimes I just have to shake my head. The anti-gun people accuse the pro-gun people of “total disregard for our constitution”. How can they possibly believe they can convince others of that? Yet, it would seem, they go beyond that and they actually believe it.

To be surrounded by people like them would be like living in an insane asylum.—Joe]