So we vote for these people because. . . why? . . .

Ya'know, all this continuing resolution panic and yelping is an alternative to adopting a federal budget, kinda like the Constitution requires. Harry Reid's Senate hasn't voted for a budget since 2008.

Help me; altogether now, everybody say WTF!

Actually, at this point, WTF should be the stock response of all non-government citizens of whatever political inclination or affliction, left, right, committed, non-committed, ignorant or deranged, upon learning of each and every bit of news about the current political developments.

What would happen if bunchteen thousand citizens surrounded the White House and Congress, chanting, "WTF, WTF."

Nothing would change because our government masters no longer care. But it might make us feel better for a little bit.

Maybe we could all get matching tee shirts.

Potato Chip genius . . .

America does potato chips better than anybody. Just think, every potato is different, but American national snack companies can produce them in volume, all perfect in crispy, salty, potato chip goodness, packaged to assure you get the product while still fresh. I'm not talking about healthy eating. If you want to snack healthy, go ahead and munch vacantly on sprouts. And I'm not putting down other countries who may have their own national culinary triumphs, like . . . well, I'm sure there's something. Just, yea potato chips and American productive genius.

I don't care about the three-strikes rule. If you don't let me swing until I get a hit and be the pitcher, you can't use my baseball

Here's a growing list of things being shut down by the current tenant of the Spitehouse.. But the Spitehouse cooks and ushers and the military golf courses where the President plays, well, they are all essential federal services.

To switch metaphors, we are being treated like the bad doggie who has to have his nose rubbed in it.

I'm starting to think that it isn't a matter of we're all in this mess we're in together because of our unserious Democrats and our silly Republicans. I'm starting to suspect that maybe this mess we're in is because it's THEM against US.

I'm starting to suspect that shutting the government down all the way, not just 17% of it, could all maybe even work out.

But if we didn't have a federal government, the FBI wouldn't come if you called 911. Oh, wait, they already don't.

If we dint have the postal service, we wouldn't be able to get all our junk mail. Oh, wait, we can depend on email spam for that.

If we dint have the federal bank and the U.S. Mint, we would have to use debit and credit cards instead of cash. Oh, wait.

What if we didn't have the Department of Education, trying to make all state schools to look alike? Betcha home schooling could become an attractive alternative if the states failed to supply quality education. Oh, wait. And in the absence of student loans, colleges and universities might have to find pricing schemes based on demonstrative career value to students, instead of diversity and athletic showmanship, and the long con that is current higher education.

If we dint have the IRS, who could we pay our taxes to, under threat of penalties, for essential services, like Whitehouse ushers and cooks and cleaning staff? We'd have to depend on other tax nibblers, like states, counties, and municipalities. Oh, wait. We already do.

If we dint have the border patrol, who would prevent terrorists and criminals from walking in and preying on citizens? Oh, wait. That part of government is already shut down and the federal government says that states like Arizona can't step into the breach and patrol their own borders, even if they want to. Guess we are meant to welcome bomb throwers and drug dealers to their new home. Have a nice day.

For that matter, as to drugs, if we didn't have the DEA who would fight the war on drugs, you know, the attempted military and judicial interdiction on substances that a very many citizens routinely buy for their own entertainment, at prices way too high because of the interdiction activities of the federal and collaborating state governments? Like tobacco and booze.

And if we dint have the Department of Transportation and EPA, who would see to it that our gasoline supply was made artificially expensive with a heavy tax burden, used to require us to adulterate the fuel with 10% alcohol? Because polar bears, and because shut up. Who would manage things so that our miles per gallon is reduced due to the lesser caloric efficiency of the adulteration of the fuel with alcohol, while correspondingly reducing the availability of corn, which people around the world like to eat because it is cheap and nutritious. That is, cheap until we begin burning the stuff as fuel after processing the living daylights out of it, using fuel to do so, to turn it into alcohol to put into gasoline.

I'll observe that if a person feels antagonistic towards the current federal government, (Oops I typed "feral government by mistake so I fixed it.) that doesn't require one to be against all government, wherever and whenever. We could still have states even if the federal government were to be radically and brutally trimmed back or eliminated. And maybe the states could provide essential government services more effectively than the federal government. Or at least, no worse. For myself, I don't like the federal government much more than I don't like the state of Oregon. And while there is certainly an excessive portion of governmental boneheadery here, where would you rather live, Oregon with mountains and rivers and such, or the District of Columbia with, well, the District of Columbia?

Much of the basic structure of the modern United States of America was already in place by the time Woodrow Wilson went to the White House and began to progressivize government. There wasn't an interstate expressway system, but we have that now, because of Eisenhower. We also have much better communications and computing abilities but that largely is independent or even in spite of government activity, once DARPA turned the internet loose. And the federal government has grown awesomely since Woodrow Wilson, and especially, since Lyndon Johnson. (I'm told Harry Truman used to go for evening walks all around D.C., at night, instead of remaining secure in a White House surrounded by men with guns and ear pieces, as presidents are now)

So maybe the Spitehouse's attempt to rub out noses in it by closing some federal properties down will make us much more aware that those in government think that the free citizens of the United States of America must be coerced and managed and duped and bribed into behaving with deference to the wants, dreams, desires and beliefs in singing bullfrogs and unicorns of the political class and their fellow travelers. (I used the expression "fellow travelers" on purpose, and people of a certain age will know what I mean.)

Maybe the events of our current government shutdown could inspire many of us to begin to speculate about our relationship to our government -- there, I said it. "our government." And maybe there are those in our current government, from top to bottom, who could use a little dose of unemployment. Just as so many real Americans, not government Americans, are enduring presently.

I mean, think about it.

"Take a Bow" Rides Again . . .

In the government shutdown in the absence of budget sppropriation, the administration and President can keep "essential" functions up and running. So, only 17% is actually shut down and stuff like defense and Socisl Security and Medicare continue. President Obama has now called all union representatives back on the payroll; they're just that important to him. Other stuff, like Border control, which has been ordered to stand down, and the Amber Alert system -- just not all that essential to the administration.

Great show, guys. Take a bow. I can't wait to see this administration's antics when it steps into the health care ring and all the clowns erupt from the goofy clown car and start making decisions about who gets what medical procedures.

Take a Bow, Junior . . .

According to the Constitution, spending decisions are for the House of Representatives. The Democratic message is that Republicans are a deranged minority. Nevertheless, the most recent congressional elections put Republicans in the majority of the House and the Democrats are the minority. They also expected the House to cave in to the Senate intransigence, as they frequently, but not always, have done in the past, for "the good of the country" and to support comity.

Surprise!

Now, the President wants the House to have a vote on a spending bill, as if they've been on strike or something. (He yelped that disgruntled workers who disagreed with their corporate employer and didn't do as they were told would be fired). But the House has passed and sent four separate spending bills to the Senate where they've been voted down and the President declared he'd veto them even if passed.

Great theater, guys. Take a bow, and exit. Stage right.

Take a bow, guys, II . . .

Now the shut down government is spending money to close parks that ordinarily cost nothing for the government to run in the first place. In other words, more shut down theater.
They even wanted to close down Mt. Vernon, which is privately owned.

Take a bow, guys.

Shut it down and take a bow! . . .

Check it off the list;I have now survived the first day of the Great Government Shutdown of 2013. It was actually okay and I bet most Americans found the day unremarkable.

Actually, maybe we should consider making it a permanent feature. When Congress chooses to ignore the requirement to adopt a budget, which Congress has done, and when Congress refuses to adopt a budget proposal from the president, which Congress has also done with an overwhelming vote against the president's budget by his own party, then the government should be shut down until it is properly funded with a true budget appropriation, and not just a cockamamie resolution.

There's now about bunchty thousand non-essential federal workers sitting on their non-essential butts, worrying that the public will figure out what non-essential means and will spy a path to government debt reduction springing into sight when the government doesn't loom so high on the economic horizon, because of the shutdown.

As for the rest of us, well, the economy is already pretty well shut down already, so us civilians don't see that the government shutdown is that big a deal, when you get down to it. All those non-essential government workers haven't done all that much by way of curing the economy in the past five years. The governmental cure for an economy that doesn't generate enough wealth to support everybody, is to extract a major portion of the little wealth the economy actually produces, and then re-inject the wealth back into the economy in a non-productive fashion, and then stand up with outstretched arms expecting thunderous applause, gratitude, and admiration.

So let's try this shutdown thing out for a while; we might find we like it. We might find that the only damage the shutdown does is to the political class and its parasitical hangers-on.

I can live with that. Government workers have not shown much concern for us so we need not feel bad for them. And I don't.

Well, if I have to choose which side . . .

Here's a story in the Daily Mail about a stand-up comedian I never heard of who punched a journalist when he found out the journalist was tweeting about him negatively. The punchee appeared to have been injured more in his self-absorbed dignity than physically.

It occurs to me that the Republic might be much improved if maybe three or four journalists got punched now and then. Maybe a coupla dozen politicians as well. Not to cause injury, but just, shall we say, for purposes of enlightenment.

Things that happen when certain kinds of people are in charge . . .

Here's a list of over 700 companies and organizations that have applied for and received an exemption from Obamacare. They don't have to comply with the employer mandated health insurance laws, but of course -- their employees are not exempted.

Oregon has been advertising it's exchange to begin October 1, 2013. There is a grace period between then and the first of 2014 after which you must be insured. IRS will be on the case to assure you buy medical insurance for 2014, for in case your employer doesn't cover you. If you don't guy coverage, you'll pay a fine to IRS -- I mean, a tax on uninsured people. It's the same money, tax or fine. But the Supreme Court wants to call it a tax to make Obamacare all legal and stuff, and if they call it a tax, it probably would be unconstitutional.

What's it going to cost if you don't get employer provided coverage? What will you have to pay for a family plan? What happens if you lose a job, or get cut back on hours? What insurance companies are going to sell through state exchanges in each state? What is going to happen in states where the exchanges aren't set up yet, or aren't ever going to be set up? What happens if you have to move from one state to another, in search of a job?

Need help trying to figure out what to do?

Good luck.

This is so not ready for prime time.

The Sky is Falling, Zombies, and Government Shut-Down . . .

The House has passed a CR (continuing resolution) to keep the government in business until they can get around to ever passing a budget, because they have so much work to do and can't get it all done in maybe two days a week of actually working, for which they get paid over $150,000 a year, plus perks.

The only problem is that they left out Obamacare from the CR, which means that there will be no legal way for Obamacare to operate come October 1.

Also, there is some reluctance to agree to raise the debt limit, you know, the rule that says there's a limit to how much the government can borrow -- the debt limit that gets raised every time the executive bureaucrazy wants to pass money out to their cronies in big business. (You didn't think the cash all went only to poor people, did you?)

Anyhow, the government could shut down real soon, if the Senate doesn't do something about a continuing resolution.

My question is this. If the government shuts down, does that mean that Senators, Representatives, and executive officials won't get their pay checks?

You know what the answer is, and you know what the answer should be, and those two ain't the same thing.

Maybe it was just routine. . . workplace violence , or maybe they were just horsin' around . . .

An Al Qaeda affiliate, Al Shabaab, sent a bunch of gunmen into a crowded shopping mall in Kenya and shot up the place. They would ask if somebody was Muslim, and if not, they'd kill'em. Thirty-nine dead and well over a hundred wounded. Hostages were taken as well.

Remember how, just before the election, what was left of Al Qaeda was on the run, basically all but all washed up?

Yeah, right. That and rap music is lyrical, Co'- Cola is a disinfectant, and Hillary Clinton just learned she is pregnant.?

Let's get this straight . . .

The Republican majority-controlled House, at nearly the last minute, has passed a bill to provide continuing financial authority to keep the government spending money . . . but not Obamacare. They are voting to keep the government open. Those who voted against the bill would let the government shut down before they give up Obamacare.

For the bill to become law it must be passed in the Senate and survive a possible presidential veto. The Senate is controlled by the Democrats who vow not to pass the bill, thus leaving the government without continuing funds. Even if it were to pass in the partisan Senate, the President promises to veto the financial authority to keep the government running unless Obamacare is also funded.

In other words, the Senate and the President will vote against funding the entire government - defense, entitlements, federal aid, everything - if they can't have Obamacare.

So what do you think we'll hear from politicians and public comments in the media? The Republicans want to shut down the government.

Hey, I think Obamacare will prove to be a disaster, and an increasing number of citizens agree with me. Maybe even more are opposed than approve if you believe some recent polling. But opinions vary. It's at least possible that the country could grow to accommodate Obamacare if the economy and employment situation could ever get out from under the load of crap burdening us at the time.

I just want it straight. It's the Democratic Senate and President threatening to let the government shut down, and the Republican House which has voted to fund the government.

Why Gen Y is unhappy . . .

And there's some advice about what to do about it at the end.

Putin to Obama . . .

You owe me one, Dude.

The confict in the middle east is both more and less complicated than you think . . .

Check this out. Bashar Assad's grandfather has some insights into the conflict between his Alewite culture, and the Arab Muslim objectives in the region. And he said some nice things about the Palestinian Jews. France was in charge at the time, and he was looking for French protection from the Muslims.

How about just assigning fifty push-ups and a penalty patrol . . .

I'm still thinking about this Syrian adventure before us. Well,it wouldn't be an issue except President Obama kinda made it an issue some time ago when he blustered that if poison gas was used, that behavior would cross a red line requiring the U.S. to toss some bombs. So now his story is that he kinda sorta didn't say what it sounded like he was saying. Then he said he didn't need any stinking congressional permission to send "his" military into action, and now he wants congressional approval.

I don't think there's any good guys in the Syrian conflict. That isn't to say that Assad deserves to die. He does. But I don't trust our current political masters to get the job done in a clean, uncomplicated fashion. There is just way too much crocodile tears being conspicuously shed by professional moralizers.

Oh, he gases his own peepul! He must be shown how unacceptably uncivilized that is. He must be punished. Such evil cannot be permitted by us to persist in the world.

Oh, yeah? If we are now in the business of punishing evil heads of state for abuse of their citizens. . . When do we start bombing North Korea?

A different kind of reluctant warrior . . . .

Our president sent our Secretary of State to make the case for punishing somebody in Syria, explosively. A bunch of federal employees were told to stay close to the office over the holiday weekend, because maybe stuff was going to happen where they would be needed. And then, and then . . . Nothing.

President Obama has asked Congress to decide whether or not to act in Syria, despite the fact that he has basically already declared war on Syria. At least that's what the Syrians think. No doubt President Obama is snickering to himself over the clever way he stuck the turd in somebody else's pocket, so when things get bad he'll have somebody else (besides Bush) to take the blame.

So now it is up to Congress to make an executive decision. (And yes, I see what I just did, there.). Two things: Kerry is probably steamed pretty good, after having been a self-righteous, smug dove since 'Nam. And I sure would like to see a landslide Congressional vote of "present."

Who thinks Syria needs to be bombed a little?

I saw people holding up signs opposing our attacking Syria, today.  Not many, maybe four or five standing on a pedestrian overpass.  Betcha this is the beginning of something that's gonna get real interesting, given our Secretary of State's long history of peace demonstration and his current statements calling for military action in Syria.

We must bomb Syria because Syrians are killing one another in unpleasant ways . . .

President Obama is having a tough time getting anybody to support his plan to punish Bashar Assad for using poison gas. He said a year ago that the use of chemical warfare in Syria would cross a red line requiring a military response on his part. Now that poison gas has been used, Obama will look like a roaring doofus if he doesn't at least fire some bombs off at Assad.

The absence of support by anybody, except maybe the Fwench, is mainly because people can't see how attacking Syrians advances or supports any national interests. There are no important objectives, people say, to be gained from an attack on Syria.

But they're wrong. There is an objective.

The objective is for Obama to feel good about himself.

It's just bidness. . . .

You maybe knew that Al Gore had a television network. Maybe you knew that his network didn't attract many viewers, so he wanted to get out from under it. Glenn Beck, an "arch-conservative," was interested in buying the network, but Al Gore refused to sell to him. Beck had wrong political ideals and Gore didn't want to have the subsequent promotion of those ideals on his conscience.

So Al Gore sold his network to Al Jazeera, America.

You can't make this stuff up.

Bengahzi, latest news . . .

Okay, so the State Department has investigated itself and found it was okay on the Benhgahzi matter. And the four State Department minions who were disciplined for their role in the Bengahzi matter have now been reinstated. I guess that means that Mrs. Clinton, the head of the State Department at the time, is cleared to run for President, now.

Oh, look. There is a new puppy at the White House.

How to be happier . . .

Some studies have shown that older people tend to be happier than younger people, and researchers seem to be puzzled by the phenomenon.

It's not so difficult to understand.

I'm 71, so I think I can be counted as among the older. I'm pretty happy. Every day I look and don't see my name in the obituary reports, it makes me happy. Woohoo! Way to go!

The Solheim Cup . . .

I watched bits of the Solheim Cup this weekend. That's where the best of the LPGA play against the best female golfers from Europe. Of course, there's top competitors on the LPGA tour from Asia, but they get left out. It's team Europe against team America. Team America lost. But their outfits were hotter, so they had that going for them. If only their putters had been hotter.

A little hint to the academic left . . .

Just as a symbol is not the same thing as the thing symbolized, socialism is not the same thing as society, and society is not the same thing as the state. Try to catch up.

I am Spartacus . . .

Sarah Hoyt so writes, "I am Spartacus," and maybe we should all be prepared to declare ourselves Spartacus, as well, and soon. Check it.

The special language of the celebrity life-style . . .

All of a sudden, I noticed. Whenever some minor celebrity permits herself to be photographed without clothing or appearance of shame, the accompanying text invariably describes her as "confident."

I guess they have to feel confident, because otherwise they would merely be bare-assed naked, and anybody can do that. In fact, most of us spend considerable effort to avoid being caught bare-assed naked.

Next up. A female celebrity bursting out with a loud, swampy fart of extended duration will be described as "charitable."

Al Qaida is on the run, we were told . . .

Let's see, now. We've shut down a bunch of embassies and consulates, so any Americans in the area who need our government's help will find the doors locked. We've evacuated embassy staff from Lahore.

Who is on the run, exactly?

What's going down here?

I remember as a little kid when out of the country there'd be beggers. My Dad explained that begging was what they had to do to eat, and they'd be happy to get the dime I had to give. But the deal was, you wouldn't see beggers in the States. At least not in the fifties and sixties. Not that there weren't poor people in the U.S.

That's why President Lyndon Johnson declared a "war" on poverty in the middle of the Vietnam war. He said we could afford both "guns and butter."

Now, there's beggers at all major intersections and at interstate rest stops. Without passing judgement on those with their cardboard signs, I mean, WTF?

It's been about fifty years and billions of dollars on government aid of various kinds and evidently we are losing the war on poverty. What's the chances that government "help" is a big part of the problem?

Recent Obamacare detours . . .

Remember when Pelosi said they'd have to pass Obamacare to find out what was in the bill?

Well they passed it, and then they read it.  Now, Congress and its staffers want no part of it, despite a statement in the law that says they have to participate in the plan.

Obama has now exempted Congress from paying for their own medical coverage under Obamacare, so they're cool, now.

Of course, you know who will pay for their share of the insurance, don't you.

What I want to know, is where do us aroused villagers get pitchforks and torches, like we see in the movies.  Or tar and feathers for that matter.  Amazon? 

I think Obamacare is a bad idea, but many don't.  Nevertheless, even if you think Obamacare is great, can you think of anything that would say Congressmen and their staff should be given a pass?

The self appointed cool kids are all way above this sort of patriotic hickery. . .

Many of us remember the iconic photos around 9/11, and one in particular with firefighters in the rubble with a flag.  Well, it was almost not included in the 9/11 Exhibit because the unqualified dimwits in charge thought it to be too over the top patriotic and American.  They thought we should tone down the patriotism thing a little bit, so as to, well, I don't know what.  Misha's reaction is what we call a righteous rant.  Take a look, but put your coffee down first.

The empire strikes out . . .

Ilya Somin has a box score of the government's losing attempts to stifle rights.

In Horne v. Department of Agriculture, a decision issued in June, the justices unanimously rejected the Obama administration's argument that raisin farmers did not have the right to go to court to contest the seizure of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of raisins. The Fifth Amendment states that the government must pay "just compensation" whenever the government takes private property for "public use." But the administration claimed that farmers could not even raise the takings issue in court without first enduring lengthy delays and paying a $483,000 fine.

Horne was the administration's third unanimous defeat in a property rights case in 18 months. In Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, it claimed that a couple had no right to go to court to seek compensation after the EPA blocked construction of their "dream house."

In Arkansas Game & Fish Commission v. United States, it unsuccessfully argued that the Fifth Amendment doesn't require compensation when the federal government repeatedly and deliberately floods property owners' land. Even liberal justices normally skeptical of property rights claims, including one of President Obama's appointees, found these arguments too much to swallow.

The Obama administration has also suffered unanimous defeats in several other important cases.

Last year, the justices rejected the administration's position that the religious freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment does not apply to churches' decisons to hire and fire employees with religious duties, such as teaching theology. Obama appointee Justice Elena Kagan called the administration's position "amazing."

In United States v. Jones, another 2012 case, the justices unanimously rejected the administration's claim that the Fourth Amendment does not restrict the government's authority to attach a GPS tracking device to a car

Degradable bumper stickers . . .

In the last three weeks, as I've rambled through Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina, I've seen no more than a couple dozen Obama stickers.  They've even been vanishing here in Portland.

I'm sure it must be a matter of  sticker material that degrades, as one can still find a Kerry or Gore sticker 'round here, and true Portland progressives would surely not be scraping their bumpers clean.

Right?

Golf vacation . . .

Golf vacation is over.   Four days in North Carolina - nothing but golf, and food, and smoking and drinking, and calling one another names where parental legitimacy was involved or where the named was favorably compared to an organ of elimination . . . and there were no women present but for the ladies serving coffee at the breakfast buffet.

It was great!

I am now back in the world of women.

Inexplicable increase in I.Q. detected . . .

In the last presidential election, it's been reported, about 55% of women voted for Obama. Now, a recent poll shows less than half of all women approve of Obama.

Civilization!!!! .....

We are on vacation and visiting with family in Cincinnati.  We dropped into a grocery store and, wondrous to behold, our stuff was put into plastic bags and I could loop them all over my forearms and make a single trip to the car instead of carrying two bags at a time in my arms with three trips to the car.

Cool!

I know, I know.  In Portland we know that using paper bags is good and plastic bags are evil, but I don't  care.  I like plastic; I'm a wild man and I cannot be restrained.

The Death of DOMA, and another fine mess you've gotten us into . . .

It's the latest, most important news.  DOMA is toast. 

I never knew where Congress got the authority to create a restrictive definition of marriage in the first place.  It sure isn't in the enumerated powers.  What, the interstate commerce clause?  That means if a homosexual couple gets married in a state which permits such marriages, they are married for purposes of federal law, and have the benefits and obligations that arise under federal law. 

Well, if the Defense of Marriage Act is toast, does that mean that states now have to recognize homosexual marriage relationships created under other state's laws?  Or can the states say that a marriage that would be contrary to law in one state isn't automatically made lawful because some other state let it happen under more liberal laws?  In other words, may states now question the legitimacy of actions of other states, when citizens move from state to state?

Further, there is the Prop 8 clusterf*ck the court is dealing with.  California voters passed Prop 8, saying, no homosexual marriage.  Some people sued the state, saying that Prop 8, enforced by the state, would violate some sort of rights they imagined they had, just as if a right is some sort of biological appendage rather than a condition created by government action.  Anyhow, the political masters of California, who didn't like Prop 8 much in the first place mostly because they don't like the idea of citizens getting all uppity and thinking they should be considered, decided not to defend the case brought by the people who were suing to claim Prop 8 was a violation. 

So, how tough is it to win a lawsuit, when the defendant doesn't show up?

To avoid a default position, the original proponents of Prop 8 stepped in and nominated themselves as defendants.  The plaintiffs, suing the state, wanted them kicked out of court, saying, "We aren't suing you, we're suing California and you have no right to be here."  The problem went to the 9th circuit judges who said citizens can defend a lawsuit when the state defendant won't.  Contrarily, the Supreme Court has  ruled that citizens cannot appear and defend if the state, as defendant, won't.

I guess that means that the challenge to Prop 8 will be upheld because the political masters of California are going to take a dive on the issue, and the voters who voted and passed Prop 8 can pretty much go pound sand, for all that they matter.  Governor Brown wants queer marriage in California, and his will be done.

So where does that leave us?  Who the hell knows.  More litigation will ensue, for sure, for sure, and speeches will be made, politicians will weep phony tears, activists of one sort or another will activate, and pulpits will roar with righteousness.  And all the sturm und drang will be in aid of homosexual marriage. 

Hey, what percentage of Americans are exclusively homosexual in the first place?  Maybe 5%, if that?  And what percentage of those want the right to marry?  Certainly not all.  After all, a helluva lot of straight people have determined that marriage isn't all that.  So we have all this attention paid to something that will benefit only a fraction of a very small minority.

Thanks Supremes.  You made the mess worse.  Gah!

I guess that the issues of government surveillance of citizens without probable cause, contrary to the 4th Amendment, can be safely ignored.  And no need to concern ourselves with the politicizing of IRS decision making.  And we needn't be concerned about who decided to let Americans die without even trying to do something about it in Bengahzi.  And nothing to look at when Kathleen Sibelius tries to shake down constituents.  No need to wonder about the EPA's violation of administration rule making rules.  Homeland Security's heavy handed violation of travelers means nothing.  A porous border with the federal government declining to enforce its own laws is something we should welcome in the name of diversity and social progress.  And don't speak of the threat of militant Islamism which has declared war on us and shown over the years that attacks can be made within our borders with impunity.

None of that dreck is all that important, compared to the rights of homosexuals to fulfill their heart's desire to prance down a wedding aisle with a white veil masking a heavy beard, all with the approval and support of loving government busybodies.

Don't get me wrong.  Homosexuals are wronged by the present state of the law.  Well.  Fix that.  Let's get it done clearly and without confusion, and let's stop screwing over the icky queers, if that's our thing, and let's get on with the real challenges to our republic. 

Or could it be that our government masters welcome and promote the distraction provided by minor issues, like homosexual marriage, so that attention will be directed away from some the concerns noted above, all of which arise in the first place mostly because many of our government masters are not fundamentally in favor of a republican form of government which essentially empowers the little people to resist the depredations of solipsistic politicians? 

Nah, surely not that.

Big Alterna . . .

Got some unsolicited stuff in the mail, as we do, now that my bride has subscribed to some information services promoting good health.

It occurs to me that providing for alternative medical practices and ingestible supplements is a big business, bringing in big, big bucks, when you figure that on top of all the stuff being sold, there's a whole arkload of alternative treatment practitioners, healers, spiritual advisors, swamis, consultants, and suchlike, from acupunctuationists to rolfbrokers, to reikipilots, and all notional practitioners in-between.

And every damn one of them shares to following two points.

• They aren't doing what they do or distributing what they deliver for no charge.
• They all hate and despise what they contemptuously call Big Pharma, by which they mean protocols and substances that have been developed with more than a passing familiarity with the scientific method.

I say it's time to recognize that you have a choice between Big Pharma, and Big Alterna.  And your choice ought to be related to efficiency of result, alone, and not the fact that Big Pharma makes big bucks.

In that regard, Big Pharma is indistinguishable from Big Alterna, and don't think otherwise.

But hey, if you believe that a $139.00 hat with earflaps, made out of a sun activated corn silk and mole fur blend derived from ranch-raised moles, will cure migraines and ice-cream headaches, well, go for it.

It probably won't make any difference, in Darwinian terms, anyhow.

The NSA, that is, National Spy Agency . . .

There are reasons for being suspicious of our government.  And keep in mind that being against the government is not the same thing as being against the country.  We're just talking about the guys running the place, you know, the current four branches of government, the judiciary, the legislature, the executive, and the vast unelected civil service.  (Yeah, there's four, that is, one more than your teacher, who didn't know any better, told you about in the seventh grade.)

Let's see.  There's Fast and Furious.  There's Sibelius.  There's Bengahzi.  Then there's the Bengahzi cover-up.  There's the IRS being politicalized.  And there's the NSA wiretapping deal.  There may be more that I've forgotten.  Any of these could be enough to shake up the White House.  After all, with Nixon, the problem was bugging just the Democratic campaign offices, and that was enough.  But the NSA has bugged the entire country, including your voice calls, email, texts, etc.  A ginormously huge data center is being built in Utah to store everything the NSA gets.

And this is potentially the worst of all.  First, I'm pretty sure there are hackers in China and Russia, and maybe Iran, who can't wait to hack into all this NSA data.  If they haven't already.  And of course, we have our own domestic hackers to worry about, not the mention the various government busybodies who are going to check you out.  And if they are collecting information from everybody, then everybody is the potential target, and it has nothing to do with actual guilt or 4th Amendment probable cause. 

Do you think that girl you dumped in your senior year has forgotten about it, now that she works for the Veteran's Administration where you just happen to be applying for benefits?  Let's just check you out.

But that isn't the worst of it because, second, there's a million dedicated, crazy conspiracy-theory paranoids out there, slapping their knee right now and saying, "I knew it!" 

We have a whole lot of crazy people running around loose, since the great psychiatric insight of the seventies -- that the best and most humane treatment for crazy people is to pretend they can function in normal society and to ignore them and their emotional pain until they commit a serious crime that gets them locked up for a time.

So here's a little message for all the crazy people. 

Boys and girls, just because it's true that the NSA really is collecting all sorts of information about everybody, not just foreign transactions, doesn't mean you haven't been crazy all this time.  You just caught a lucky break, but you are still crazy.  Even though all the electronic data is being collected, the government is still not spying on you and watching what you do through the light bulbs, not now and never was

At least not the old kind.

I'm not so sure about those new curly compact florescent kind.

Can you say "ersatz," boys and girls? . . .

I drink no-fat milk.  I use whole wheat spaghetti noodles and pizza dough.  I eat low fat cheese.  I use turkey sausage, not pork.  One morning, for breakfast, my wife made "pancakes" using grated apple, banana, and egg.  (They were good.)  I use artificial sweetener.  My hamburgers have no burger in them, so they have soy and nuts instead.  I think the little bits of bacon in my salad are really flavored bits of brown styrene.  My buttery popcorn involves no actual butter.

I could have teeth "whiter than white" by use of an inexpensive product.

My shirts don't need ironing after washing. 

My car shifts its own gears.  The gasoline in its tank comes partly from corn alcohol.  The fabric of my pants comes from an oil well.

So, it occurs to me that I am living an inauthentic life.  And I'm not alone in that.

Is it then any wonder that we can hear the pitchman on television say, "Get the facts, just try it for yourself," and not even hear the  clanking of the logic underneath that statement? 

All the phony we live with has nourished our stupid quotient.  (If you can have an intelligence quotient, I.Q., then you can have a stupid quotient.)

So, don't get me started on politicians.

Bad moon rising . . .

IRS is being sued for going far beyond the scope of a search warrant and seizing all sorts of patient treatment records, far in advance of 4th Amendment limits. 

Keep in mind that IRS is given enforcement obligations for Obamacare. 

If IRS won't "play by the rules," why are the citizens required to report honestly, on penalty of criminal punishment? 

Are we getting closer to when massive and pervasive civil disobedience is in order?

Freedom of speech . . .

The Homeowners Association said he couldn't have an American flag in his yard, so, as a good neighbor, he took the flag down and freshened the look of his home.  Take a look.

That'll show 'em who's boss . . .

So the acting head of IRS had turned in his notice that he was quitting in June.  in response to the IRS scandals - one of the four breaking out in Washington at the moment - the President fired him.  Two weeks before he was going to leave on his own.

The President wants us to know that sometimes doing the right thing means being a hard-ass.

Happy 21st Century Mothers Day

Mothers Day.  Once, 'twas an honored and harmless commercial tradition of coercing males to spend money on useless trinkets, flowers, and over-priced buffets.

Now, in the politics is everything age, it is a splendid opportunity to increase breast cancer "awareness," whateverthehell "awareness" is supposed to actually mean.  Also, a good time to celebrate and encourage abortion rights for reluctant breeders - they's kinda the same thing as mothers, right?

Fathers Day?  The kids spend five minutes crayoning a card. 

Increased awareness of prostate cancer?

Cue the sound of crickets.

Hey, make me a sammitch . . .

Washington State Senator Jeannie Kohl-Welles

is sponsoring a six year effort to go through all the laws of Washington and remove all mentions of men, males, and suchlike so as to make all official language gender neutral.  It's going to be a six year process to bugger the language so as to make men aware of their reduced status in a modern world run by women who are mighty.  Hear them roar.

So, instead of watchman, we'll have watchperson.  Also, there'll be firepersons on duty and people can make a living or just be fisherpersons for a hobby.  Instead of penmanship, we'll have something horrible like good write-itude.

I guess Senator Jeannie Kohl-Welles has checked around and satisfied herself that having a hyphenated name entitles her to a mandate.  I mean persondate.

And for manhood and womanhood, I guess we could go with "convexity" and "concavity" to refer to traits normally associated to distinguish gender behaviors.

One can make jokes about this endlessly, but I'm pretty sure Senator Jeannie Kohl-Welles would not "get" any of them. 

The sad thing is that this sort of effort to achieve gender neutrality in the language can only grow out of a sense of inferiority.  I suspect that women who are comfortable with themselves don't get their ears hurt when they hear the word "fireman." 

This can't be the new normal, can it? . . .

The report says that a young woman couldn't enter a stranger's home in the ordinary way, like, maybe ringing the doorbell or knocking on the door.  So the young woman, being unusually small, took off her black dress and crawled through the doggie door.  The homeowners, hearing odd noises, investigated, and found her sitting in the bathtub, no water, naked.  She was in due course arrested.  When being taken into custody, she told the cops she didn't think she was doing anything wrong, sitting naked in a bathtub in a home she entered through the doggie door.

What do you say to an unknown naked girl in your bathtub?

And what's going on between the ears when a young woman thinks it's okay to take off all her clothes and crawl through the doggie door into a stranger's home?

I know, nobody is ever actually told, specifically, that as you go through life you should never take off all your clothes and crawl through a doggie door and go sit naked in a strangers' bathtub. 

But we all pretty much agree that that's something not to do, without being told.  Right?

I know this must be true, because in all these years I've never met an unknown naked woman in my bathtub.  I have a camera for just in case.

Where do terrorists come from? . . .

Many observers of public affairs express fear that all of the many no-neck mouthbreathers who make up the political right will collectively rise up against poor, pitiful not-hurtin-nobody Muslims, because said mouthbreathers are ignorant Americans, "clinging to their guns and religion."

No sign of it yet.  Wonder here do we keep 'em?

Americans pretty much know that not all Muslims are terrorists, so there isn't any general persecution of Muslims forthcoming.  And that's the truth.

On the other hand, while not all Muslims are terrorists, the terrorists have all been Muslim.  Not one damn Buddhist in the lot.  And that's also the truth.

So, if anybody is looking to find a terrorist, I wouldn't spend a lot of time looking at the membership of, say, some Presbyterian church.

We need to do something . . .

It's far too easy for people to go to kitchen utensil conventions and to buy pressure cookers from unlicensed vendors there.  We need tougher laws governing selling of pressure cookers, licensing, and background checks.  Because if we can save one life, and because shut up.

Latest science news . . .

Some scientists have been studying vertebrate brain structure, and there are similarities, in all vertebrate nervous systems, no matter whether fish, amphibian, reptile, bird, or mammal.  After much brilliant work with that part of the brain that deals with hoots and calls and language in humans, scientists can now understand the meaning of sparrow bird calls.

It turns out that "tweet tweet twitter peep twitter," doesn't mean, "good morning to all the world!"

It means, "Back off or die, motherfuck!"

John Kerry be clowns himself again . . .

Kerry said that we are "all united," and North Korea will "never be accepted as a nuclear power."

Never be accepted!

He went to elite schools, was admitted into elite clubs, and has unwaveringly thought of himself as one of the superior, able to identify all who fail to measure up for membership in his exclusive digs.

Hey John.  You don't get to say who gets to be a nuclear power.  If the get ahold of a bomb, they're a nuclear power.  Q. E. D.

Doofus!

Just a little observation . . .

Have you noticed how frequently mouthbreathers and dropouts feel the need to instruct others?

The Supreme Court prepares to screw up gay marriage . . .

Everybody has a right to get married.  Nobody has the right to marry whoever or whatever they choose.  You can't marry somebody who doesn't want to marry you back.  You can't marry somebody who is only six years old. You can't marry somebody who is already married to somebody else.  You can't marry more than one at a time.  You can't marry your pet St. Bernard bitch, no matter how comely she may be.  You can't marry a unicorn.

The gummint gives specific legal rights to people who marry according to the gummint's specific marital prescriptions, like rights to consent, rights to pass on property, tax distinctions, etc.  Rights are legal conditions created by government.  Not all rights belong to everybody. If so-called rights to marry are extended beyond the boundaries of the specific marital prescriptions, they cease to be rights.  They become property.

 

The problem isn't that gay people are denied rights available to married, straight people. The problem is that special privilege has been granted to married people. Why should marriage, a public confession to strictly private behavior, be given any special privilege at all?

 Want more rights for gay people?  Consider that at the state level, citizens vote on issues of rights all the time, while also voting for representative candidates.  There are even referendum privileges where citizens can propose changes to laws granting or reducing rights.  But at the federal level, citizens only vote for representative or executive candidates, never issues.  We are stuck with the fact that Congress and the Executive can and will act only as they damn well please. 

 

But at the state level, we get to vote.  That's a hint that the right to marry is a state issue, not a federal issue.  Some states permit gay marriages; some don't

 The issue of marriage only seems to be of federal concern when it arises between the states, as when state A permits a couple to marry, where they would not have been permitted to marry in state B.  We've always relied on the theory of full faith and credit to resolve these matters, and that's why somebody came up with the cockamamie Defense of Marriage Act.  At the federal level!  Thereby putting the federal government and some state governments at odds, and creating a 10th amendment quandary to be ignored by the buttheads of the right who didn't like getting outvoted.

I don't see marriage as one of the enumerated powers of the U.S. Constitution and it sure as hell isn't covered under the interstate commerce dodge, where butthead progressive types seem to find justification for most of their pet notions. 

 So it seems to me that the DOMA is the problem and could be dumped for unconstitutionality. 

 

What to do if you are gay, in a committed, loving relationship, and your state of residence is not one of the states permitting gay marriage?  Move to a more congenial state, and marry, butthead.  (I suggest that anybody contemplating marriage, straight, gay, or just bent a little funny, should take a look at divorce law while looking at marriage law.) 

Thus Walt hath spoken, fully anticipating the Supreme Court to pay no attention whatsoever to the words of Walt.

Science question . . .

Tardigrades.  Okay, so I now know you can't drown them, freeze them, roast them, starve them, or dry them out, and they can survive in the cold vacuum of space.  They will survive.

Can you squash the little buggers?

Portland has an arts tax . . .

Portland, Oregon, has a permanent tax on everybody, for the arts.  Every resident of Portland over age 18, who has income, must pay $35.00.  Shut up and send the money in.

The revenue raised by the tax is going to be spent, half, to get more arts teachers in the schools.  the other half will be spent for "the arts".  I think that means for cronies, cuddle buddies and fellow travelers.

This tax was the result of a vote.  Voters approved it.  Wonder if the voters would be just as jazzed by the idea of a math tax, to hire more math teachers in the public schools, and the other half -- for math?  Hey, where are people most limited, in their ability to appreciate artistic expressions, or in their ability to understand and use basic number relationships?  What holds more people back in their prospects for a comfortable life, the inability to understand percentages or the inability to distinguish between crimson and scarlet?

How about this.  I'll pay the tax and they won't have any problem with me.  I like art and I can afford it.

But there is a whole 'nother issue.  If this law is later held to be a  head tax and therefore unconstitutional, as legally it ought to be, I'll expect my refund to be paid promptly without giving me any problems.  But deep down, I expect that that's 35 dollars I'll never see again. 

Because it truly isn't about the constitution or the arts; it's all about who gets to spend my money and what they choose to spend it on

Just sayin' . . .

Have you seen the car commercial showing the doofus in the white shirt and necktie trying to teach his kid how to play catch?  Doofus has to keep chasing the ball 'cause kid can't get the ball to him -- because the kid is throwing as awkwardly as his father.  Dude throws like an African-Indonesian with a Hawaiian birth certificate.

Mandatory Sequester comment . . .

Remember that around a year ago, President O said that he would veto any congressional attempt to avoid the sequester of funds, which he demanded?

Nah, they didn't think you would.

For the last six years (that includes Bush, doncha know, but doesn't exclude Obama) the American population has suffered continual erosion of their family budgets, both through price increases, like gasoline, and through loss of revenue, from job losses and income reductions.  And our federal rulers can't find a way to reduce expenses and are yelping about national disaster in the form of a mere 1 or 2 percent reduction in spending?  When spending already exceeds income by a hell of a lot more? 

The sequester would be a decent first step towards resolving the problem, even though insufficient in and of itself.  And it won't be a disaster, that is, it won't be a disaster unless it is implemented disastrously to punish the impertinence of people who don't think that increased government spending must be supported in any and all cases and by any means possible.

We have fallen in amongst bandits.

Should we start looking for cover? . . .

Last year our government bought, according to published information, 1.2 billion rounds of hollow point ammunition.  That's not our military; that's government civilian agencies like Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service.  Simple math tells us that there are multiple rounds for every man, woman and child in the U.S. 

And your little dog Toto, too.

Wonder if our government masters are planning to do something they expect will seriously arouse the citizen subjects?

State of the Union Speech . . .

Oh, this guy is go-o-od!  Slick can get it done, can't he?

I mean, when you watch and listen to the speech, it sounds really terrific.  There are points where you feel like standing up and cheering.

But then when you read the speech, and you are restricted to the cold, hard logic of English sentence structure --  he repeatedly contradicts himself, that is, when what he is saying isn't actually nonsense or false to fact. 

But it truly sounds so good, doesn't it?  'What we have, here, is a seamless blend of "finally, somebody who gets it,"  with "this guy just doesn't get it."

I guess that's why commentators have termed him, "magnetic."  He has a positive, attractive pole and a negative, repulsive pole.  All in one.

These people perturb me off . . . mightily . . .

The currently fashionable snark of the right hand side of the political spectrum is to refer to people on the left as "low-information voters." Well, guess what.  There's low information voters on both sides, and in far greater numbers than there should be. 

But that isn't the real problem.  An absence of information can be corrected.  It's bad information that is the problem.  And where does the bad information come from?  News media just publishes stuff.  It normally doesn't create the stuff it publishes.  (The key word is "normally.")

When it comes to politics, the news media gets the information from the political people  - the politicians and all their operatives, suckups, agents and cronies.  The truth isn't in them.  Right and left, blue and red, conservative and liberal, fat cats and wellfare pimps, bullies and whores, big and small government believers, all of them, with the constant 24/7/365 spin, "analysis", and polls, are responsible for the fantastic, bad information breathlessly published, also 24/7/365,  by the news media.

Is there anybody left who isn't convinced, by now, that except for the religious terrorists in the middle east, the source of all the problems and challenges facing us is Washington D.C., and all the state capitol buildings?

I hereby move that it be resolved that we relentlessly present all politicians with nothing but disrespect, sarcasm, mockery and contempt.  It shouldn't be hard to do and we get plenty of opportunity.

They've earned it.

Separation of Economy and State.. . .

It's become popular in certain self-satisfied circles to justify disregard of constitutional considerations by pointing out that the writers of the constitution just couldn't know how the world would change and couldn't craft a political document that created a government capable of dealing with the modern world.

Well, the constitution does, after all, provide for amending the document.  So to say that the writers of the constitution couldn't provide for the future is disingenuous, verging on deceptive.  They planned for what they couldn't know of the future, by providing a way for the future to amend the document as it would later appear necessary.

In fact, the document was amended almost immediately, for fear that government busybodies would ignore the rights of a free people.  And there was historical justification for doing so, for example, freedom of and from religion leading to a clear separation of church and state.  These early Americans had seen first hand religious persecution and government interference with religious affairs, and they were close in time to crusades pitting Christianity against Islam.  They knew of executions based on religious beliefs and forced conversions, and the dreaded Inquisition.  So, the clear separation of church and state was imposed in response to a known danger of government, as they knew it to be.

Now, we live in modern times, and we see more of the damages a powerful government can do.  We know better, now, in ways our constitutional fathers could not know.  When our smug and self-loving social critics complain that the constitution is outdated, they are probably right.  We know now of a government threat not apparent to the framers of the constitution given the body of information they had, at the time.  We need another amendment to the constitution.

I think we need a clear separation of church and the economy.  No "stimulus" of the economy.  No price supports.  No commodity boards.  No "investment" in businesses.  No security regulations.  No tax-exempt activities or tax breaks to encourage business activity.  No interference to settle labor disputes, other than to respond to criminal activity or breach of the peace.  No federal banking regulations -- federal "reserve" bank.  No picking of "winners and losers."  None of it.  Government is not good at business and the economy, and much too frequently government activity pretextually in aid of the economy amounts to powerful politicians rewarding friends for favors, or spending public moneys on pet projects featuring fat doses of self -aggrandizement.  So.  None of it.  If you can't do it right, the truth of which has been demonstrated adequately, then leave it the hell alone.  Mint hard money and let banks take care of banknotes, privately.

The trouble with government activity in the economy is that it re-assigns risks in unrealistic ways.  Naturally, government activity will affect the economy, as when the navy ships are in port, money flows.  It's when the government tries to do stuff in order to deal with the economy, directly, that is the problem.  So.  Quit it. 

Maybe we can curb some of the bureaucratic temptation to help us, by helping themselves to the public purse.

And I'm getting pretty damned suspicious about government fooling around with education, too.

A billion here, and a billion there . . .

When you save, you park some unneeded money somewhere -- bank, bond, stock, mattress -- in hopes that when you want to turn that money into something needed, like food or rent, it will be there. If you put the money into a bank you are thought to be prudent. If you put the money into the stock market you are thought to be a genius when the market rises, and an unfortunate victim when the market falls, as it inevitably but unpredictably does.

 

 When you put your money into any financial institution, bank or corporation, wonder of wonders, they don't actually keep it for you. The institution either spends it frivolously or loans it to some moron who can dress well enough to impress a lending officer. The institution frequently makes some money in spite of itself and sometimes distributes some of the money to you -- always first assuring that its officers get bonuses at year end. You, of course, would frequently not approve of how your money gets spent. And you are betting that both the money and the institution you put it into will be there when you need it to be, despite observing one institution after another bite the big one over your lifetime. It requires a great deal of blind, unreasoning faith to make this bet, and this faith used to be called patriotism.

 

 Nowadays, we have a new economic system. It seems a mere handful of exploited foreigners can manufacture all the products that are actually needed, and a great deal more besides. So we've turned ourselves into developers and marketers of unneeded goods and services -- just kinda to keep our hand in. Many of us basically get paid for peddling something unnecessary, but if it doesn't sell, we don't eat, so we keep at it anyway. Many more of us, not wishing to peddle garbage, have become what is called -- with a straight face, mind you -- knowledge workers. We collect data and reassemble bits and pieces of it into new and exciting configurations so as to support the making of predominately inconsequential decisions, which in turn mostly have to do with how to sell more shoddy goods and unneeded services. Finally, if we are good at peddling garbage or mining data, we get to supervise others in the same sad trades, whether or not we are good at supervising.

 

But each and every worthless trinket that gets bought and pitched into a landfill ( a whole 'nother issue ) contributes even if only slightly to keeping some poor desperate drone alive and secure in the knowledge that somehow he matters.

 

That drone may be you or it may be me, so spend while you can and don't be stingy. It all counts. 

 

 Of course, when times get tough, lots of us lose our worthless jobs, so we can't spend.  Generally, the cause of such tough times is usually, but not always, caused by government policies.  This is known as bad luck, or karma.  In such times, government steps in and gives money to those who've are no longer getting paid for doing the stupid stuff they used to get paid for.  The theory is that those people will thereby be able to continue to spend and will, in due course, continue to support this financial merry go round.  But since we don't actually have a government that is quite right bright, those exalted government managers are unable to understand that every dollar they give to somebody to stimulate spending, comes from taxing somebody who now no longer has that dollar to spend because government took it.  So, in fact, the effect of "stimulating" the economy which depends on spending, is really merely shifting the same spending from one sector to another, with no real actual gain. 

 

 So hang on as long as you can, because our government leaders think that energetically whirling around in circles somehow is evidence of their being a big wheel.  And the fact that the system is spinning around in one spot makes it dig itself in deeper and deeper.  In other words, we are so screwed.

 

Hating Hillary . . .

Hillary Clinton's defiant congressional testimony before Congress concerning the management of the Benghazi travesty has brought some old critics out of the closet.  Take a look, here.  Wow.

That is, wow, if it is true.  But also, wow, if it's false.  Somebody, either Hillary or her accuser, here, is a sure-enough, bigtime weasel.

Apropos of nothing much, I always wondered how it was that the mysteriously missing billing records from her time as an influential attorney working for the Rose Law Firm, while married to the state governor, were found much later, when no longer useful, in the plate room of the White House.  (But I never lost any sleep over it.)

Common sense gun restrictions . . .

The Wall Street Journal, among others, reports that al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has kidnapped about forty people, including Americans.  The Islamists are doing this in Algeria, in order to retaliate against the French, who are intervening in Mali.  The location of the kidnappers and the kidnappees is far away from any immediately effective response.  An Algerian security force attempted to storm the place to rescue the hostages, but was driven off.

See?  This just goes to show that all the wrong kind of people have access to guns.  It should therefore be a national priority to eliminate easy access to guns that can be used to shoot people.  The Supreme Court said that we have a constitutional right to own guns, but there can be reasonable restrictions on gun ownership.  So, the common sense solution to the problem is to let people only have the kind of guns that are incapable of shooting people.

We would all be much safer then, because terrorists would be unable to use deadly force, since they would naturally only own the kind of guns that are incapable of shooting people.  Terrorists would have to content themselves with yelling.  Which, you have to admit, would be better for us infidels.

Of course, psychopaths, like the ones who shot up the schools, or the one who shot up a theater, or the one who shot up an army post, or the one who shot up the University of Virginia, all would still be able figure out ways to obtain the old fashioned kind of guns that can shoot people.  But we are just going to have to live with that because, as I'm sure you all know, being a dangerous psychopath is a civil right, such that attempting to restrict a psychopath from being dangerous would seriously trample on their free expression of their psychopathology.

You win some, you lose some.

I Know It's Crazy But What Would Happen if . . .

I've been reading about the incredible debt the U.S. has been undertaking here of late.  Things like, the debt in the last three years has increased by 60%.  Things like, the amount of debt growth in the last four years is greater than all the debt the government ever undertook -- and paid off -- since the country was formed. 

Young people are so screwed by this debt.  Their entire productive future is at risk of having politicians pay federal debt out of their future.  They have to pay off unconscionable student loans, and pay off the government's traitorous level of overspending, and have a life, too?

I've also been reading about the gun regulation controversy, and some have gone so far as to suggest that armed rebellion or even a break-up of the states, forming several smaller countries, could result from an attempt to take guns away.  Probably not, but what if . . .

So, what happens if a few states decide to up and quit?  Would there be a civil war, again?  Nowadays, would Pennsylvania, for example, supply it's young men to fight in a war to prevent Texas, for example, from withdrawing?  Would they go?  At this point in our country's story, do we have enough currently serving military officers willing to go to war on the president's orders to prevent disintegration?  Or would they resign their commissions?  More importantly, are there enough riflemen willing to obey orders to shoot at Americans at home, and get shot at by them, in turn?

Maybe not.  The American military is best equipped to fight "big" wars with massive force.  Would the military leaders really order missles to be fired and bombs to be dropped on fellow Americans, in this day and age? 

And here's my question.  If some states were to withdraw and form a new government for themselves, leaving the union, would  their citizens cease to be U.S. citizens?  And if so, what's their responsibility for the national debt?

If the national debt gets worse, would or could a price be reached by a money hungry federal government to let citizens of a state "buy its way out" of the union, with a negotiated payment price and terms? 

Win-win?

A new year's fiscal cliffery . . .

It's now 2013, a new year, and righteous time for resolutions.  The Republicans have resolved to continue being Republicans, and the Democrats have resolved to continue being Democrats, the proof of which proposition exists in the cliff avoidance plan adopted in the Senate, at the absolute last minute, when they've had literally years to figure out how to get this done.  Gah!

What was the fiscal cliff?  It was a silly scheme whereby if our political masters couldn't finally figure out how to reform our tax system and/or how to bring overspending under control, then the previous tax cuts would "automatically" expire having the effect of increasing the tax burden, and massive spending cuts would "automatically" happen, "across the board."  The morons who passed this legislative kludge thought of it as so repulsive that surely they would have to figure out a good way of growing up to accomplish good government, so as to avoid going over the cliff that they had created for themselves.

Okay, we have two massive problems.  The first problem is that we're broke.  The government doesn't have enough money to do all the things it has committed itself to do.  What should be done? 

One thing would be to reduce spending, first, by eliminating all waste, and second, by eliminating all unauthorized spending, and third, by reneging on selected committments for impossibility.  (Wait one.  Unauthorized spending?  There hasn't been a budget passed for three years; it's all unauthorized!  And renege on what kind of committments?  For example, do we have to give money to the Palestinians and the Egyptians, when we already give money to the United Nations, thereby funding international corruption?) 

Another thing to do about being broke, which has been the strategy of choice, more or less, for the last ninety years or so, is just print up additional new money.  That's called inflation and our government masters have decided a long time ago that a "little bit" of inflation is a good thing, somehow.  This is absolutely going to continue happening.  Oh, and "more than a little bit" is defined as when people start to pay attention.

I teach bankruptcy.  One of the interesting features about bankruptcy is that debtors are nearly always able to keep increasing their debt during "pre-bankruptcy," which means that there's always somebody who expects to profit from somebody else's financial vulnerability by lending, despite the signs of financial insecurity. 

That leads to the third response to being broke.  Borrow money to keep living beyond one's means.  It's kind of like, how can I be broke?  People keep lending me money.  How can I be broke?  There's still blank checks in my checkbook.

And this is why Congress invented the fiscal cliff for itself.  Basically, Congress said that if we hadn't done anything effective to control our spending and revenue, then, magically on January 1, 2013, we would be officially broke in our own estimation, even if there were people who were willing for one reason or another, to keep lending and funding our financial descent into harmless world-class international inconsequentiality.  (Why, there might be world leaders who would welcome and encourage the collapse of the United States.  Imagine that!)

So, what did the Senate do at the last effing gasp of December 31, 2012?  It passed a law to twiddle with taxes and do nothing about spending, so as to claim that it saved us from the cliff.  Basically, spending will be looked at in the future when we examined the so-called debt limit that we (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) impose on ourselves. 

See, we aren't broke at all.  We can keep the party going by a quick trip to the ATM.  We can always borrow more; it's just money and other people's money at that.

And that leads us to our second massive problem.  That is, that all of our political masters, legislative, judicial, and executive, are more or less but always too much, either stupid or evil.  No other explanation will account.

I think our political class thinks that it can continue along the same path it set out on since President Wilson, because the American public at large is extremely reluctant and unlikely to pick up its guns and engage in an armed revolution against the present parasitical and tyrannical government.  (But maybe all the guns better be seized, I mean controlled, for just in case.)

And I agree.  It won't come to that, and that's why I don't own a gun.

But massive civil disobedience?  That sounds more likely. 

When you think about it, perhaps government has lost, or is about to lose the benefit of the public conviction that government can essentially be trusted to act for the greater good.  If government ceases to be an advocate for justice, and becomes a mere change agent to redistribute wealth, then it loses it's moral justification for the use of overwhelming force even as it may continue to use overwhelming force.  At that point, government becomes our adversary, which like any adversary might be outwitted, deceived, and finally beaten in that fashion.

And for this reason, I can say without a trace of cynicism, I wish us all a Happy New Year, and I resolve to continue to have faith in the foundational ideals that formed our unique American culture.

The NRA misses the target . . .

Okay, so I expected silliness from the anti-gun side.  They want more regulation in spite of the simple fact that all of the proposed regulations, as well as the considerable regulations that already exist, won't prevent a nut case who hates his mother enough to put four rounds into her face from blowing away little kids, if that's the plan.  Nevertheless we have calls to ban automatic weapons, which have already been illegal since the 1930's, or to ban high capacity magazines, when all a crazy nut nonentity loser has to do is buy several regular magazines and stick them into his pocket on his way to the elementary school, or the theater, or the church, and on his way to momentary fame with his name and picture spread all over the news for a week or two.

And I also expected that the National Rifle Association would reject the notion that it is somehow complicit in mass murders.

But the recent press conference by the NRA is just as silly as the anti-gun dreamers.  The motto is now, "Guns don't kill people.  Violent video games and Hollywood slasher movies kill people." Give me a break.  Those things are classless and repulsive, but that's about it.  If anything, violent or pornographic movies and media might act as an outlet for twisted aggression rather than as an instigator of evil.

So what does the head of the NRA suggest?  Armed guards in all schools.  Right. 

The government and the Cult of Homeland Security has done such a good job with the TSA and airport safety; let's create a government school security authority, armed, for safety sake.

Hey, it isn't that I don't care that our little kids, or big kids for that matter, are highly vulnerable.  It's just that I don't trust government solutions to do anything, other than increase opportunities for graft and political patronage, to protect the kids. 

But hey.

It occurs to me that there are lots of citizens at home, nowadays, having lost their jobs.  and a whole lot of those jobs are never coming back.  So what do we have?  An untapped pool of home school instructors, that's what.  If schools are so dangerous that we have to have armed guards permanently posted in the schools, well, keep the kids home, where they will be safer.  And probably better educated in the long run.

What serious people do . . .

 



An elementary school in Israel.  Prepared to improve the odds.  (Thanks)

Have you ever noticed that all the crazies who want to go out in a blaze of bullets before the final round that ends their life, never, ever, choose to go to a police station and try to shoot all the cops?

Realistic response to a threat = teacher has a carbine.  Idealistic response to a threat = lock the doors and call "first responders".  Silly response to a threat = gun free zones.

John Kerry for Secretary of State . . .

The leading edge in men's fashion . . . .

Tights for men?  They are are calling them "meggings," for men's leggings, I guess. 

With all the cultural conditioning that goes on from birth about the proper distinctions between men and women, well, let's just say there's a name that's suitable for men who choose to wear meggings.

Give it a moment.  It'll come to you.

How civilization ends, not with a bang, but a guffaw

Evidently, adult "onesies" are what all the seriously hip people in the UK are wearing.

Open the gates and let the barbarians in; this civilization's done for.

The Imperial City Council has decreed . . .

The Portland City Council went all in, declaring that no retailers can offer plastic bags, and all must offer paper bags.  The mayor says that this is because the plastic bags get into the ocean, citing no evidence of any kind. 

I don't know anybody who disposes of plastic grocery bags in a way that's gets the bags into the ocean -- unless the trash collection companies are sneaking trash containing plastic grocery bags into the ocean, and if that's the case it seems to me that the point of the solution is to deal with them.  Not that I think that's what's happening.

I just wonder how it is that the grocery bags get to the ocean, as the mayor has noted.  For that matter, I wonder what color the sky is in the mayor's world, and can he hear it when the butterflies blink.

Anyhow, paperbags are only somewhat recyclable and much of them end up turning into a nasty substance in permanent landfills.  When they get recycled, you get paper stuff.  Plastic bags are also recyclable, and require less energy to do so, and there's lots of high-value products made from the plastic.  For that matter, the plastic bags could be, themselves, a product of recycling.

Anyhow, I, for one, think plastic grocery bags are superior to paper grocery bags, and I think that the Imperial City Council of Portland is populated by morons whose egos have sucked their brains dry.

But you know what? 

I'd be perfectly okay with a ban on plastic bags in favor of paper bags, if the matter could be put to a vote, and the majority of us citizens voted in favor of a ban on plastic grocery bags. 

In other words, the issue isn't just the relative merits of paper or plastic.  The other, greater, issue, is who is the boss of you.  And I've got a good idea how the city council thinks about that.

Always listen to the man with a badge and a taser, boys and girls, for he is your friend and will save and protect you . . .

A clear case of contempt of cop.

Pinellas Park, Florida -- Daniel Jensen wasn't running from the law, he was trying to protect his home from burning up. Yet, Pinellas Park Police tasered him in the process. Jensen and his attorney say it's an excessive use of force.
Jensen was still shaken and visibly emotional as he retold what happened last Thursday evening. He said being tasered by police has not only impacted him, but it also impacted his children, who saw it all happen.
He described the Pinellas Park Police officers actions as "brutal." He said they showed "no compassion."
"All I remember is laying in water, being electrocuted for saving my home," said Jensen.
Four days later, burns on Daniel Jensen's body still mark where the stun gun's probes hit him. He says they tasered him for doing what any father and husband would do protect his family's home from an out-of-control grease fire.
The 42-year-old father of two recalls his wife waking him around 6 in the evening, saying there's a big fire at his neighbor's house.
"I could hear it, I could feel it," he explained.
He ran outside and grabbed a fire extinguisher. He sprayed it until it was empty.
"I was calling for my daughter and getting no response. I came out, grabbed the hose and sprayed her room until I heard she was out. I was always taught to help when you can; help is what I tried to do," said Jensen.
He continued to recount the events. He said he then took the garden hose and started watering down his fence and the back corner of his rooftop, trying to prevent the fire from spreading to his property. But with each attempt, Daniel said Pinellas Park Police kept pulling him back... even though firefighters were not in sight.
"They kept telling me, 'Let it go, that's what insurance is for.' That's not acceptable to me," said Jensen.
Captain Sanfield Forseth with the Pinellas Park Police Department said officers could have charged him with obstruction for not listening to an officer's orders.
"I wasn't doing that. What I was doing was what any home owner would do to protect a family and home," said Jensen.
Captain Forseth said the department will not be charging him.
When Jensen saw the fire jump on to his back roof, he again grabbed the hose. That's when he said -- unknown to him -- a police officer pulled out a taser and fired it at his back.
"As I went to grab the hose, I hear an officer on this side. There was a boat here; he was just behind it. He said, 'Hit him, hit him! Take him down, tase him!'" explained Jensen. "I didn't know they were talking to me, or about me. I was concerned about putting water on the fire, and the next thing you know I'm being tased."
Daniel said a Sergeant ordered an officer to tase him, but the officer never warned him as department policy requires.
According to Pinellas Park Police policy, an officer will use a taser when "other control techniques" would likely result in a "physical confrontation" that may cause injury to the officer or person. But the officer must first give a "verbal warning" that he is going to use a taser.
After tasing Daniel, he said several officers picked him up, carried him to the front yard, threw him on the ground and handcuffed him.
Daniel says he's very disappointed in the police department.
"They should have more tolerance with the public, to exhaust all options before firing electricity into somebody, handcuff them instead of tasering them."
Daniel said about the experience as he fights through tears, "It was horrible. I was laying in a puddle of water being electrocuted here by the people that are supposed to protect us. I'm trying to protect my family, my neighbor, and they bring harm to me. I don't understand."

Captain Forseth with the Pinellas Park Police Department said they exhausted all other options, and that their goal was to keep Daniel and the officers safe from the fire.

 

 The cops are supposed to  be law enforcement.  To you and me, and most cops, that means, they have special powers of arrest in aid of enforcing criminal laws and they have a duty to do so.  But some cops . . .

Here, cops ordered this guy to stop doing what any normal person would do in such an emergency -- he wasn't committing any crime.  No crime, no special cop powers.  But he ignored their orders.  So he had to be tased.  For his own safety.  And this was probably an "obstruction of justice" according to the chief cop, because he wouldn't stop doing what he had a legal right to do, at the command of a cop, based on the cop's uninformed and untrained opinion -- backed up by a badge and a taser.

What about the election . . .

I'm supposed to comment on the election?  Okay.

It's about hand.  The issue is, are you willing to dump devotion, reverence, reliability, and competence in order to get the upper hand? 

You know the answer.  The entire steady march of 19th century Marxism through the 20th century is all the proof you need.