It's not really about that.

There are all sorts of proposals in the wake of EPS1 attack on Aurora.   There's one by Lautenberg and McCarthy that will supposedly make it harder for ciminals to anonymously purchase ammo on-line.   Bitter over at Shall Not Be Questioned has more info.

Normally I agree with those guys 99+%

This time I'm going to take exception; minor, but and exception.

It's not about Gun Control - it's about CONTROL.  They're not trying to control guns, or ammo, they're trying to control people.  That's what governments do - if you let them.   They eventually reach a point where they control every aspect of your life.   Every law is there as a means of controlling people.  If you control the people you win.  Granted it's a long term loosing proposition, but folks like Pelosi and Obama are incapable of seeing beyond they're own desires.  Hell most politicians are incapable of even realizing they're short sighted.

At times it seems like they do it because they think we're too stupid to make our own decisions. I've got to admit having elected Obama - they may have a point - a lot of people are apparently too stupid.  On the other hand, my internal Wookie says: "It's their life to screw up, we must allow them to make their own bad decisions."  Then the Objectivist voice in my head says - but they're inflicting their stupid decisions on me!

Sad but true - it's the way we let the system evolve.  The reality is worse I think.   They know if they tell the right lies, and scare people enough, the people will beg them to take control.  And they will, every chance we give them.  Doesn't matter if it's about Guns, or Finance, or Freedom of Speech.  They want to control it.

The laws aimed at guns are really just the most insidious of the lot, the ultimate goal is to remove our ability to defend ourselves, which makes us nothing more than another dependent of the system.

If you have some connection...

Since I won't mention the name of the Evil Piece of Shit that murdered all those people - I will simply refer to him as EPS.   (warning - links take you to places that mention EPS by name, which I think is a big mistake... but there you go.)

If you have some connection to the Tea Party then you may be a mass murder - at least if you think like George Stephanopoulos and Brian Ross

Wow, OK let's follow that logic for a minute:
 
He was living in Colorado - so if you live in Colorado you might be a mass murderer.
He was male - so if you're Male, you might be a mass murderer.
He died his hair - so If you die your hair - you might be a mass murderer.
.
Brilliant.   Well it's to be expected from the left where there is no individual thought or action because "we are all of the hive".     


Then we have this bit of idoicy from the NYT where Roger Ebert says:

Those like *EPS*, who feel the need to arm themselves, may also feel a deep, inchoate insecurity and a need for validation.

Great - so if you carry - you may be just like EPS.   Brilliant Logic there Roger,  And of course he calls for more gun control.  

We tried Prohibition on alcohol and we got, let's see... More Alcohol, Higher Prices and oh yeah, CRIME - lots of Organized CRIME.

We have Prohibition on Drugs and we get - let's see...    Drugs, Crime, Organized Crime and even a WAR on drugs that sucks tax payers money - OH, and let's not forget we also get Fast & Furious.

Yeah that's obviously the better way to go.  

Bite me Roger.

A proposal for a new LAW

In the wake of the Aurora shooting I think we may in fact need a new law.

I am positive it will be more effective than what the usual suspects are proposing.

For any case considered mass murder, or any shooting involving more than 3 victims, the name and photo of any suspects shall not be published by any media outlet, or allowed to be posted on the internet. Trials for suspects will be closed, and information available only on a need to know basis.   For those convicted, they will be removed from society with no trace left behind.

OK Sure lots of people want to know who the Evil Piece of Shit (EPS) is/was - but that's just morbid curiosity.  Don't indulge it.  Let's not make them famous.  Instead let's remember the victims, and their families, punish the EPS, and wipe him from existence.   Destroy their birth records, the school records, their medical records - leave no trace.    No 15 Minutes of Fame for you, you EPS.

Still need to figure out the checks and balances - don't want to make it too easy to railroad someone and if there is no media to bitch (well they don't typically bitch about the right things anyway but maybe, someday...) it might be too easy.    Maybe just refer to them in the media as Suspect#1 or Convict#1 until they're officially gone (dead).

This is one of the few types of cases where I'm really in favor of the death penalty. 

Yes I did

Actually a number of companies did build the roads and bridges, and towns, and schools - Ford for example.  Hmm come to think of it - the west was settled by individuals and towns formed around them then came schools.  A number of towns were built by and for companies (not always a good thing, but then what is?)   Ask Microsoft how much they had to pay for the 520 extension and access.

The railroads built a lot of towns and the towns grew around what the companies started.  Eventually the government moved in - and things started to go downhill.  Granted there was a brief period in the middle where government may have been useful as a way to share costs for projects too large for a single company to need or finance.   Now mostly the government just keeps things from being built - except the odd bridge to nowhere.

You don't start with a community popping up out of nowhere, complete with roads & bridges (well except in China - there it's mostly airports, with out the community though).   The infrastructure follows business, not the other way around. If you think different - look at all the rural towns that are evaporating before our eyes - why?  No jobs.   I've travel though a lot of small towns that where mostly vacant and falling apart.

Damn Socialists, always putting the cart before the horse, or government before the people.

You didn't build that

Obama Speech Transcribed by ABC?   I've listened to the speech, I think the following is reasonably accurate:

We’ve already made a trillion dollars’ worth of cuts.  We can make some more cuts in programs that don’t work, and make government work more efficiently…We can make another trillion or trillion-two, and what we then do is ask for the wealthy to pay a little bit more …

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me, because they want to give something back.  They know they didn’t -look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.  You didn’t get there on your own.  I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.  There are a lot of smart people out there.  It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.  Let me tell you something – there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.  There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.  Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.  Somebody invested in roads and bridges.  If you’ve got a business. you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen.  The Internet didn’t get invented on its own.  Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.  There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own.  I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service.  That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together.  That’s how we funded the GI Bill.  That’s how we created the middle class.  That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam.  That’s how we invented the Internet.  That’s how we sent a man to the moon.  We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that’s the reason I’m running for president – because I still believe in that idea.  You’re not on your own, we’re in this together.”

Well the obvious moral to this little speech is - Individual Bad, Group Good.
Bullshit - Most companies are started by an Individual - then they hire help.   Anyone think Steve Jobs could have invented the original Apple? Or Wozniak do the marketing?   No, but does that mean everyone who ever worked at Intel, Motorola, Amp, Visicalc, or Apple get's to take credit?   I don't think so.   If Woz hadn't invented the device and Steve seen the marketing potential - Poof - no Apple.   Individuals Matter!  Individuals have Vision - Groups have committee meetings, and design shit that doesn't work.  


And Yet - we're 1.3 trillion over budget? 
Adding a extra trillion in crap and then cutting it, is not the same thing as cutting a trillion dollars.

Wow - Rhetoric 101.   Bad Grammar 201.
Yes, he said: If you've got a business, you didn't build that.     I suspect what he meant to say was - Your business didn't build the roads and bridges.
 
With the notable exception of the companies that actually did build those roads and bridges, Obama was right - your pharmacy or sandwich shop or... what ever, didn't build those roads and bridges - On the other hand, your taxes either helped build them, or help keep them running - just like every other Tax Payer.  So What?  So when a business goes bad; say Lehman Brothers, unless you have a union shop, say GM, apparently "We Built it" but "You Ruined it".

A little history revision 
The internet wasn't created by Government research - They helped, they did the funding for the foundation (TCP/IP)  in conjunction with Stanford University (Vinton Cerf in particular).  One of the original nets was DarpaNet, but they were not alone.   There was some reluctance to allowing any commercialization of the internet in the early days.   Like much of what came out of the Space program, it was private industry that turned the internet into a commercial success, not the government.   - At least he didn't say Al Gore invented it. 
  
BULLSHIT ALERT
Who's this we shit he's talking about - I don't play golf for 30 days out of every year - on the tax payers dime. I don't drag 1000+ flunkies around and  rent 570 room hotel - even on business - There is no "WE" asshat.  We're barely on the same planet.

I sure as hell wish we weren't in the same country.

The one where I think I'm Mel Gibson for an hour

Sometimes things make sense right away, sometimes it doesn't come until later - a few more facts then "click" it falls into place. Sometimes - Like Now - I'm just swinging a bat at a ball pitched in a giant sensory deprivation tank..... Which sort of reminds me of how I feel when ever I listen to the MSM (main stream media) - deprived.

So we have Russian bomber in U.S. Airspace - twice, which is a little weird.   Maybe they're testing our defenses.  Maybe not.  Maybe they're testing Obama, which would would make more sense.  Except it doesn't (make more sense).  I definitely don't like it where it's going though - given the other Russian weirdness.

There was this story a while back about Russian Troops coming for a joint anti-terrorist thing, they're supposed to take over the Denver Airport, and the CIA headquarters at Langley.   Latter I found a bit more info - still kinda weird and disturbing.   It never made the MSM which makes me think it might be true - it's the type of thing the MSM would want to avoid.  But then it should have happened by now, and I still can't find anything else about it - probably a fizzle.  Then there's the Russian-Chinese Joint Ventrue  and the Russian-Chinese-Syrian-Iranian Joint Venture which is even more alarming - because it sounds like a prime opportunity to combat loss a lot of equipment in Iran.  So what is going on in Russia? ....  Any why is China so involved?   Should we be worried - we Know the Iranians don't like us - Obama not withstanding.  Are they getting training we'd rather they didn't?  Like specifically how our Anti-Terror teams work?  - That would suck.

Then I remember Obama's open mic "oops" moment talking to the Russians.  Now if I were a conspiracy nut - I'd put 2 and 2 together and come up with 7 and say that everything is linked and Obama is really going to use Russian troops to invade and take over the U.S.A.  It would require way too much secrecy and planning to pull off - I'm less than sanguine about the possibility of our elected officials and their butt sniffer lackeys keeping that big a secret.

There are occasional moments (brief - measured in seconds) I get all conspiracy itchy but I don't think this is one of them.  Or well - maybe not a big one.  Maybe it's something smaller - Suppose Putin is working with Obama by trying to create a little tension just before the election.  Now if that were the case  I'd have maybe expected Obama to get on MSM and tell Putin to back off - at which point Putin would back off and Obama would be all Herobama and it would give him a nice boost before the election.   - Yet silence - so will there be more of these little weird Russian events?   Will the Cloward-Piven plan be given another four years with the help of the Russians?   It would be good for them at least.  Maybe Putin's just showing a little piss and vinegar because he's bored.  Do you think maybe their pilots keep getting lost?

Nothing is going "Click" just yet - and I kinda wish it would.

Maybe I need a copy of Catcher in the Rye - Mel can I borrow yours?

Warmer or Colder

We've had almost as much sun in July here as we've had in the previous 3 months, it still did't get above 72 where I live, which is just fine by me.

So here's my take on global warming.  

I Don't Know

Given our inability to predict the weather for a week, I'm not too inclined to accept predictions of years.    Would it hurt for each individual to do what they can to reduce CO2 - probably not a lot, would it help? Again, I Don't Know.  So if the global warmers are even a little tiny bit right, and it doesn't cost me much of anything to do my little part - then it's probably worth the effort/cost.   If they're wrong, then as long as it didn't cost me or hurt much, I'm not going to sweat it.   So I do what I can with out going nuts about it.   If they're right - I did my part, if they're wrong I can live with it.  

Do I think the MSM is milking it for every thing they can get?  Yep.  Do I think the politicians are milking it too?  Sure.  Do I think a lot of it is bullshit?  Yep.  Do I think we might be creating a problem anyway? Yep.

I've looked over some of Borepatch's data and I suspect his take on the data analysis is correct - it's a bit out of my area of expertise so I can't really be sure.     I do know we do a lot of things I think are Stupid - even if they're not particularly harmful.   I don't think we need to drop to a world population of a billion to be self sustaining - I think it's much worse than that.   I don't think there's anything we can do on this planet to be self sustaining in the long run.

Solution: Get off the Planet - sooner would be better.    Solves all sorts of problems, and we've proved it can be done without the government. Well sort of proved it - but since NASA was built by the lowest bid private industry, imagine what companies who actually have motivations besides government contracts could accomplish. 

You know the only government funded project that I can think of that really helped the economy was the Space program - which returned something like 14:1  I suppose the MIC might be in the same league but I don't think the trickle down in technology is nearly as good, something about civilians getting military hardware makes the government nervous.  

Warm and Fuzzy again

I go though a number of emotions on Independence Day.  I typically start off being very happy I'm a U.S. citizen, which almost always leads me to thinking about becoming a U.S. subject.  At some point during the day, I look at the people around me and think, we wouldn't have the fortitude to fight that battle today.  Then I remember most of the colonists in 1776 didn't either.   That makes me feel better for a little while.  

Remember

Remember how we got started, and ask, are we almost there again.

The Declaration spelled out numerous of usurpations of which King George and his government were guilty.   Read it though and see how many apply to our own President and Congress.    It's more than a little scary. 


1,2,3,7 (in the reverse), 8,10,13, 15 (think Fast&Furious coverup),  17 (ObamaCare - It's not a TAX - but then neither is inflation - they just amount to the same thing), 18 (GitMo and no he didn't start it but he's keeping it going),19,21 and he's working on 27 (replace indians with black panthers)
That's darn near half.  If you include the bullshit congress pulls we could probably bump it a few.  It's not just Obama, he didn't start the Patriot Act, or Implement TSA but he's extending by fiat.




The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

1. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
2. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
3. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. 
4. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. 
5. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
6. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
7. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
8. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
9. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
10. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
11. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
12. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
13. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
14. For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
15. For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
16. For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
17. For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: 
18. For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
19. For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
20. For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
21. For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
22. For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
23. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
24. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. 
25. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
26. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. 
27. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

Fuck it

Why do companies insist on doing truly STUPID things.   My normal reaction would be to Dump chrome, change my primary search engine, switch to wordpress and never use another Google owned product again.   Sadly they own fucking everything!   OK maybe not everything.  I was thinking about getting a Kindle Fire, but that's based on Android, which is owned by Google.  Youtube is impossible to get away from - also owned by Google.  Hell I could spend the rest of my life trying to keep track of what google just purchased, so I could vote with my feet (ah fingers in this case).  

Now, I'm not sure what I'll do.    I suppose I'll switch browsers again, and go back to ixquick and yahoo - bing as a last resort (although they're probably just as bad).

Google - YOU SUCK.

Seriously?

Middleborough MA,  What is it with that state? Once upon a time, it was the birthplace of liberty.   It was a founder of this Nation. 


Now they're Nanny Central.   A $20 fine for swearing in public. It must be nice to live in a town where the most pressing problem is the occasional cuss word - Oh, and the passing of laws that probably violate the First Amendment.