Quote of the day—Miranda Devine

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That letter from the Dirty 51 had “all the classic earmarks” of a disinformation operation, all right — one designed to ensure Joe Biden won the presidency. And it was essentially a CIA operation, considering 43 of the 51 signatories were former CIA.

In the two years since, not one of them has admitted they are wrong.

David Priess at least gets marks for subjecting himself to a cross-examination on Fox News one recent afternoon. He tried to defend the letter by saying people were too stupid to understand it. The letter was “still true” because it did not use the words “Russian disinformation,” but concocted the weasel phrase “earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

He knows perfectly well that Biden and the media drew no distinction, that the letter he signed was used to censor and deride The Post’s accurate story and deny the American people the truth about one of the two candidates for president.

“It’s not my fault if people don’t look up definitions,” Priess said, smirking. “Those words are still true. It has all the classic earmarks.”

He has all the classic earmarks of a psychopath.

Miranda Devine
October 19, 2022
It’s been two years since 51 intelligence agents interfered with an election — they still won’t apologize
[Why should they apologize for accomplishing their mission without suffering any consequences for their deliberate deception? I’m certain they are quite proud of their accomplishment. They changed the course of history with a single letter. That is rather remarkable.

I think they deserve 20 years at hard labor followed by forced donation of their organs to be put up for auction for donation to Donald Trump’s favorite charity. But there is no guarantee of justice.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Thomas Coffin

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The practice of marketing weaponry designed to inflict mass casualties in combat toward our own people must end if the nation is ever going to end this cycle of repetitive mass murders. There is no legitimate basis for the civilian version of the MCX-SPEAR, marketing JR-15s “to Wee 1s,” or facilitating arms industry profiteering by obliterating the line between military weapons and those appropriate for the legitimate use by civilians.

Thomas Coffin
October 20, 2022
This new military-grade rifle should not be owned by civilians. So why is it being sold?
[Assuming the opinion piece is sincere… Mr. Coffin, SCOTUS disagrees with you. Thanks for the tip.

Reading between the lines a little bit… Starting with the author’s name, the article is a little odd. It’s as if this was actually a stealth marketing gimmick for the new rifle and The San Diego Union-Tribune fell for the fake opinion piece.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Scott Bach

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The right to carry is here, and it’s here to stay, and everybody’s got to get used to that. This angry fist-shaking by various states like New York and New Jersey is going to blow up in their faces. They can pretend that Bruen doesn’t say what it says, but it’s only going to come back to bite them.

Scott Bach
October 25, 2022
New York court rulings against gun law may signal trouble for similar New Jersey bill
[I suspect the “bite” will be in the form of being held in contempt of court. But I fantasize about their criminal prosecution and compensation of their victims.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Curtis L. Spackleton

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My life was unbearable before I ordered high-quality merchandise from 2ndAmendmentShirts.com. My wife recently left me, I had just gotten fired from my job, I was losing my hair, and I lived in a cardboard box in a sewer. That all began to change just minutes after ordering one T-shirt and one flag. My new wife is much prettier than my previous one. I make $3 million a year despite working only 10 minutes a day from my new home on my own private island. My hair has even grown back thicker than it was before. Thank you, 2ndAmendmentShirts.com – you have saved my life!

Curtis L. Spackleton
Pine Nut, Alabama
A Humorous Introduction to 2AS
[I suspect this may be hyperbola..

After all, who thinks the primary criteria to judge a wife by is how pretty they are?—Joe]

Quote of the day—I am the Dan in the box @JakesForLuck

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I also assume they have tiny peckers.

I am the Dan in the box @JakesForLuck
Tweeted on July 6, 2022
[It’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday, it is another science denier!—Joe]

Quote of the day—Tom Gresham @Guntalk

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Mental Health Reminder: Before you get into an online shouting match with someone, remember that it’s quite likely that there is no one there. It’s a bot. Often best to move on, putting your efforts into something that’s actually productive. Like reloading. 😉

Tom Gresham @Guntalk
Tweeted on October 21, 2022
[This is probably good advice.

Reloading, practice, and building your underground bunker.—Joe]

What is the worst that could happen?

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Given the abundant historical data we can ask some interesting questions that should prove enlightening to people that have an interest in being enlightened.

  1. Based on the historical record what has been the best possible outcome from a country adopting a predominantly Marxist political philosophy? Where and when is this example?
  2. Based on the historical record what has been the best possible outcome from a country adopting a predominantly free market, free minds political philosophy? And where and when is this example?

Compare those two scenarios and highlight the advantages and disadvantages of the outcomes due to one philosophy over the other.

  1. Based on the historical record what has been the worst possible outcome from a country adopting a predominantly Marxist political philosophy? Where and when is this example?
  2. Based on the historical record what has been the worst possible outcome from a country adopting a predominantly free market, free minds political philosophy? Where and when is this example?

Now compare these two scenarios and highlight the advantages and disadvantages of the outcomes due to one philosophy over the other.

If you country were to have a complete political reset and have the option to chose between a Marxist and a free markets, free minds, political philosophy which would be the lowest risk of catastrophe?

Which political philosophy would be the most likely to result in the greatest good for the greatest number?

What is your choice for the political philosophy for your country as it comes out of reset? What are the critical factors in your choice?

Discuss.

Quote of the day—Alice Smith @TheAliceSmith

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Socialism shifts wealth around at a loss.

Capitalism creates more.

Alice Smith @TheAliceSmith
Tweeted on August 20, 2022
[This is why socialism ends in universal poverty and capitalism (free markets) doesn’t appear to have an end.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ed Durr

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We have the strictest gun laws in the country, and this is yet another clear example of the Democrats’ open hostility to the Second Amendment and the Constitution as a whole. Protecting public safety also includes protecting the individual right to self-defense, yet Democrats take every opportunity to prevent people from protecting themselves. … Criminals are the problem, not law-abiding citizens who have rights.

Ed Durr
New Jersey State Senator
October 13, 2022
New Jersey poised to enact ‘nation’s strongest’ gun law after Supreme Court ruling
[Durr certainly knows this but doesn’t want to say it out loud. New Jersey Democrats recognize citizens have rights and are deliberately attempting to eliminate the exercise of those rights. They ultimately want to eliminate the memory of them. To them, Nineteen Eighty Four is a how-to book.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Daniel Han

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New Jersey’s top lawmakers unveiled sweeping gun legislation Thursday that would significantly restrict when and where guns can be carried outside of the home, a bill they touted as “the nation’s strongest measure concerning concealed carry.”

The bill would, among other things, require people wanting to carry guns in public to purchase liability insurance — the first statewide mandate of its kind in the nation should the bill become law — and banning guns from being carried in 25 broad categories, including but not limited to government buildings, health care facilities, airports, casinos and private properties where the owners have not given express permission to have guns. Violations would be deemed a third-degree crime.

Daniel Han
October 13, 2022
New Jersey poised to enact ‘nation’s strongest’ gun law after Supreme Court ruling
[Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs (and perhaps others) will probably challenge the law:

“These attacks by New Jersey lawmakers on right to carry are a big middle finger to the U.S Supreme Court,” Scott Bach, the group’s executive director, said in a statement. “We look forward to overturning these measures in court and forcing the state to pay our legal fees.”

I expect the defiance will only change form until the politicians are slapped with contempt of court consequences which affect them personally and significantly or they are prosecuted. I look forward to their trials and convictions.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Bev Fitchet

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Gun ads are just guns ads, guns are just guns, it’s the shooter who decides how to use them. Remington is not at fault for the actions of Adam Lanza. His own mother isn’t at fault for what her kid did. Lanza was freak, he could have gone to a gas station, buy gasoline, and set that school on fire. He could have learned to make bombs with common household products. He could have used a knife. No gun control in the world stops a mass shooter, only a good guy with a gun can do that, and at Sandy Hook, good guys were disarmed and vulnerable.

Bev Fitchet
October 17, 2022
Gun Control Groups: Gun Ads Kill People
[As pointed out in the article the murderer did not buy the gun used at Sandy Hook after being inspired by a gun ad. How do we know this for certain? Because he didn’t buy any guns. He murdered his own mother and stole her gun. So, even if we ignore the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, how is it the plaintiffs can get any traction with this line of attack on our rights?

I’m reminded of the Brady Act passage. Jim Brady (President Reagan and a SS agent) were all shot by John Hinckley. The anti-gun groups pushed the Brady Act (“instant” background checks) through based on this high profile crime. Never mind that Hinckley would have passed a background when he purchased his gun. They used deception to create a law which has zero benefit to society.

The facts do not matter to these people. Lies and deception have been an integral part of their culture since, at least, the mid 1980s. They are self-identifying as evil.

Prepare and respond appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—AndyN

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For the year 2020
Population of Philadelphia: 1.6 million
Population of Pennsylvania: 13 million
Homicides in Philadelphia: 499
Homicides in Pennsylvania: 1,009

When gun laws are the same throughout the state, and your city accounts for 12% of the state population but nearly half of all homicides in the state, the problem isn’t guns.

AndyN
October 1, 2022
Comment to Quote of the day—Jim Kenney
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Brian B @ogbrian_b

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He has a small dick

Brian B @ogbrian_b
Tweeted on July 4, 2022
[It’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday, it is another science denier!

You have to wonder how he is so certain. I suppose it could be an intimate relationship or voyeurism. But my bet it is just the usual delusional belief about gun owners. It is too bad there isn’t a good treatment plan for that.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Maj Toure (@MAJTOURE)

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White guys should’ve started an org #WhiteLivesMatter to stop the FACT that whites are MURDERED by police more than ANY other group.

But they “back the blue” complain about the BLM phrase & did NOTHING but a reactionary slogan cuz they felt “left out.”

The HEIGHT of Karenism.

Maj Toure (@MAJTOURE)
Tweeted on October 5, 2022
[Sometimes the wisdom of taking a early stand isn’t as obvious as it is in hindsight.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Lori Glaze

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Let’s all just kind of take a moment to soak this in … for the first time ever, humanity has changed the orbit [of a celestial body].

Lori Glaze
Director of planetary science at NASA
October 11, 2022
Smashing success: NASA asteroid strike results in big nudge
[It is a remarkably big deal. Imagine firing a bullet even one 1/1000th of that distance at an object about 500 feet in diameter and moving thousands of miles per hour and hitting it. Now think about what this technology could mean for our planet. It could save millions or even billions of lives and prevent incalculable amounts of property damage. It could even prevent the extinction of hundreds or thousands of species.

Now NASA should contract with private enterprise to put a bunch of rock pushers on the moon or in orbit and be ready to push threats away from us on short notice.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Joseph R. Goodwin

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Firearms with no serial number are just as “bearable” as the same firearm with a serial number, and there is no “common use” issue here as the presence or lack of a serial number makes no difference with respect to whether the type of weapon is commonly used. Finally, I can find no authority for the idea that a firearm without a serial number would meet the historical definition of a dangerous or unusual firearm.

Joseph R. Goodwin
United States District Judge
October 12, 2022
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, v. RANDY PRICE
[EXCELLENT!

We don’t require serial numbers on books so why should we have serial numbers on guns? Books and ideas are far more powerful than guns…

Just imagine all the things that could follow from this:

  • No gun registration. They didn’t have gun registration at the time the 2nd was written, right?
  • Now, what is the point of 4473s?
  • With no 4473s I can sell or give guns to anyone that isn’t a known convicted felon.

If this happens, even if only for a year or two, it will make mass confiscation far more difficult for decades even if the bad guys reclaim political power and crank gun control up to eleven..

I expected this would happen eventually but I did not think it would happen this quickly. It might be a little too much too fast for political acceptance. The political left may be able to get some traction in the upcoming elections off of this sort of thing. The danger would be packing the court or some such thing if things move too fast.

Is there room on Mount Rushmore for Clarence Thomas? If not, he should be given his own mountain.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Anders Hagstrom

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A top-of-the-line Russian nuclear-powered submarine has gone missing from its harbor in the Arctic along with its rumored “doomsday weapon,” according to multiple reports.

NATO has reportedly warned members that Russia’s Belgorod submarine no longer appeared to be operating out of its White Sea base, where it has been active since July. Officials warned that Russia may plan to test Belgorod’s “Poseidon” weapons system, a drone equipped with a nuclear bomb that Russia has claimed is capable of creating a “radioactive tsunami,” according to Italian media.

The drone can be deployed from the submarine at any time and detonated at a depth of 1 kilometer near a coastal city. Russian state media has claimed the device can create a 1,600-ft. wave that smashes into the coast and irradiates it.

Anders Hagstrom
October 3, 2022
Russian nuclear submarine armed with ‘doomsday’ weapon disappears from Arctic harbor: report
[A fallout shelter in Idaho is looking very good to me right now.—Joe]

Citations needed

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With great eagerness I read the article, Crypto’s Decline Was Inevitable, Because It Is Based on a Classic Money Myth. I’ve been struggling for a long time to understand whether Bitcoin (and/or other cryptocurrencies) are the future or a Ponzi scheme:

I expected the author to make everything clear to me.

I was extremely disappointed.

While I tend to believe the main conclusion, the decline of the cryptocurrency market is inevitable, is true, I am exceedingly annoyed that he does not back up his claims. He merely asserts that, as a psychoanalyst, he knows his claims about the nature of money are true.

Even highly credentialed economists are not so arrogant as to make sweeping claims about the nature of money or the inevitable decline of cryptocurrency without detailed explanations and/or numerous citations. This guy is not even playing in his area of expertise and claims complete mastery of it.

That’s really, really lame. This discredits his entire profession. And, for a psychoanalyst, that is no easy task.

COVID observations from the WA islands

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Via the Seattle Times:

Measured by the ultimate marker of pandemic success — the death rate — San Juan County, population 17,850, ranks as the second-best county on the West Coast, and among the top dozen in the nation.

The San Juans also had the lowest hospitalization rate in the state, by far, even though it’s one of the older counties demographically (35% of its people are 65 or older).

“For the first two years, we had the lowest case rate in the United States,” says San Juan’s health director, Dr. Frank James. “You’re the first person in the media who has called to ask us how we did it.”

…

So how’d the San Juans do it? For starters, they are islands, which James says gave them a built-in virus management advantage. It’s also a relatively homogeneous population.

But the story of what happened there isn’t just geographic luck. The county with the highest death rate in Washington state, Ferry County, has less than half the people of the San Juans, and is more remote. The reality is the novel virus eventually infiltrated every corner of every state. (Example: the North Slope Borough, up on the Arctic Ocean in Alaska, reports a COVID death rate more than 10 times higher than the San Juans).

…

Long story shortened: The San Juans imposed the first mask mandate in the state, and possibly the first one in the nation. When the sheriff told James he couldn’t enforce it due to lack of manpower, James turned to the businesses to impose it instead.

…

Ironically the San Juans are one of the least vaccinated places for childhood diseases. Against COVID it became the most vaccinated county in Washington, at 83%, and more than 95% for its seniors.

Bottom line: By the time of the San Juans’ first death, in January 2022, the state had already suffered 11,000 deaths, the nation more than 875,000.

The virus crashed through eventually. Suddenly this spring towns that had mostly evaded it were reporting the highest case rates in the state. By then most everyone had been vaccinated and boosted, “so it didn’t end up causing the severe disease that was experienced by almost every other community in the U.S.,” James says.

The islands’ grand total of two deaths, one in January and one in March of this year, were among unvaccinated residents, the health department says.

…

The counties with the highest death rates bring up the rear in getting vaccinated. Ferry County is still only 43% vaccinated. Its neighbor Stevens County remains the least vaxxed place in the state, at 36%, despite 158 deaths and a rate nearly 30 times that of the San Juans.

The tragedy is that most of the deaths in these counties happened after vaccination became widely available.

image

Anecdotal. But worth looking into.

Something not mentioned is the COVID variants hitting in the later stages of the pandemic were probably less deadly. If they were able to nearly eliminate entry of the first, and perhaps most deadly, variant(s) to the island then that may have contributed to lower death rates.

Also not mentioned and necessary for a full analysis is the vaccine injury/death rates.

Quote of the day—John R. Lott Jr.

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The Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), which I head, hired McLaughlin & Associates to survey 1,000 general election voters from July 21-24, 2022. The survey began by asking people whether they supported red flag laws. It then informed respondents that there are no hearings before an individual’s guns are taken away, and that there are no mental health care experts involved in the process.

People initially answered by a two-to-one margin that they support red flag laws (58% to 29%), with the strongest support coming from Democrats, the wealthy, blacks and Hispanics, and people aged 18-29.

However, after being told that there are no court proceedings before an individual’s guns are taken away, and that there are no mental health care experts involved in the process, support changed to opposition (29% to 47%). Strong support plummeted from 34% to 14% and strong opposition rose from 18% to 29%.

John R. Lott Jr.
October 5, 2022
Media Spin on Gun Control Doesn’t Match Voters’ Opinions
[Lies and deception are the only way they can win. And they know that. It is part of their culture. Don’t let them get away with it. Use it as evidence at their trials.—Joe]