Quote of the Day - Rachel Lucas (Again)

In its entirety:

He does this because he knows he’s got cover

He is unafraid to stand there and say of a weather event, “We leave nobody behind, we make sure we respond as a nation and remind ourselves that whenever an American is in need, all of us stand together to make sure we’re providing the help that’s necessary” because he knows no one in the mainstream press will hold his balls to the fire for the incandescent hypocrisy and flat-out lie of it. He knows he’ll get coverage like this instead so he’s unsurprisingly fearless – audacious! – in delivering that bullshit with a straight face.

Can I get an "AMEN!"?

Happy Halloween

Want to see what I've been working on?  No, not the .458, my grandson's Halloween costume.  He got a black bodysuit - head to toe - on a whim when my wife took the grandkids out costume shopping, and I got the great idea to do an electroluminescent wire stick-figure. 

Or three:


The power supply is in a black box on a black belt, and he selects which character with just a couple of switches.

Turned out pretty good!

UPDATE:  The costume went over well!  He got four handfulls of candy at one house because they liked it so much!  Lots of compliments!

Edited to add:

Here's what suit looks like in the light:

This is a Gun Blog, Right?

So here's some gunny content for a change.

This guy channels Breda, Tam, oh hell, pretty much every gun blogger with ladyparts on the subject of Women and Guns.  Specificially, male significant-others giving women advice on their first gun:

Just because he was born with a penis doesn't mean he knows about guns.

Can't say I disagree with any of that.

Quote of the Day - Visual Edition

Remember: Preppers are the crazy ones.

-- Thirdpower at Days of Our Trailers

Quote of the Day - Rachel Lucas Edition

HOLY SHIT I THINK ROMNEY IS GOING TO WIN THE ELECTION.

Have you seen the polls? And talked to people? Am I the only one with several historically-Democrat friends who are voting for Romney this time because they've "had a taste of the Turd Sandwich and would rather try the Giant Douche" now?

Whatever works.

What? Their Heads Don't Explode?

Yes, let's politicize children again.  (And they keep telling me that kids aren't being propagandized these days.)

Here's a little video that on the YouTube page says:

Re-electing President Obama is a momentous decision that will require every single voter.

What would the children of the future say if we let them down this November?

At the time of this writing the video has 135 'likes' and 1425 'dislikes'.  Here it is:


UPDATE: Oops! Looks like it was SO unpopular, they made it "private," but I saved a copy. Here you go:


And here are the lyrics:

Imagine an America
Where strip mines are fun and free
Where gays can be fixed
And sick people just die
And oil fills the sea

We don't have to pay for freeways!
Our schools are good enough
Give us endless wars
On foreign shores
And lots of Chinese stuff

We're the children of the future
American through and through
But something happened to our country
And we're kinda blaming you

We haven't killed all the polar bears
But it's not for lack of trying
Big Bird is sacked
The Earth is cracked
And the atmosphere is frying

Congress went home early
They did their best we know
You can't cut spending
With elections pending
Unless it's welfare dough

We're the children of the future
American through and through
But something happened to our country
And we're kinda blaming you

Find a park that is still open
And take a breath of poison air
They foreclosed your place
To build a weapon in space
But you can write off your au pair

It's a little awkward to tell you
But you left us holding the bag
When we look around
The place is all dumbed down
And the long term's kind of a drag

We're the children of the future
American through and through
But something happened to our country
And yeah, we're blaming you

You did your best
You failed the test

Mom and Dad
We're blaming you!

I'm still reminded of this video, though. 


UPDATE - 10/29/12: What the upper video represents is a chorus of kids like this, from 2007:


Except he doesn't think that adults "did (our) best."

UPDATE:  11/4/12 - a comment left in the AR15.com thread on this topic wins One Internet:

We are the children of the future.
You are the hippies of the past.
You voted for Obama.
And he fucked us up the a**.

Last Time Before the Election

And I'll add a new graphic at the top:


This is new, too:





And this one:


And this:


And these:

The Thomas Sowell excerpt is seven minutes, the Caroline Glick piece is 50 minutes.  Both are absolutely worth your time.

Low Information Voters?

About what I expected:


Don't tell me that supporters of the Republicans are just ignorant rubes.

And never tell me that the media isn't covering for Obama.

Just LISTEN to these people!

"The sad thing about this story is how believable it is."

The title for this post comes from a comment in this thread at TigerDroppings.com that begins with this post:

Interesting Rumor Concerning General Carter Ham and Stand Down Order (Posted on 10/26/12 at 9:45 p.m.)

I heard a story today from someone inside the military that I trust entirely. The story was in reference to General Ham that Panetta referenced in the quote below.

quote:
"(The) basic principle is that you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on; without having some real-time information about what's taking place," Panetta told Pentagon reporters. "And as a result of not having that kind of information, the commander who was on the ground in that area, Gen. Ham, Gen. Dempsey and I felt very strongly that we could not put forces at risk in that situation."

The information I heard today was that General Ham as head of Africom received the same e-mails the White House received requesting help/support as the attack was taking place. General Ham immediately had a rapid response unit ready and communicated to the Pentagon that he had a unit ready.

General Ham then received the order to stand down. His response was to screw it, he was going to help anyhow. Within 30 seconds to a minute after making the move to respond, his second in command apprehended General Ham and told him that he was now relieved of his command.

The story continues that now General Rodriguez would take General Ham's place as the head of Africon.

I found this story when I got home after hearing this story.

quote:
President Barack Obama will nominate Army Gen. David Rodriguez to succeed Gen. Carter Ham as commander of U.S. Africa Command and Marine Lt. Gen. John Paxton to succeed Gen. Joseph Dunford as assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced Thursday.

General Rodrigues Nominated as Head of Africon

As I was typing this I heard John Bolton on Greta say that there are conflicting reports of General Ham's comments on this tragedy and why a rapid response unit was not deployed. Bolton says someone needs to find out what Ham was saying on 9/11/12.

Interesting to say the least.

Angering, in my opinion.

UPDATE:  Borepatch has his take on it.

UPDATE 10/28/12:  Bayou Renaissance Man says this story is just another conspiracy theory with no basis in reality.  I stand by the title to the piece, though.

A Heartbeat Away from the Presidency

$500 TRILLION dollars to 120,000 families? That's $4,166,666,666.67 per family!


Because Ol' Joe is just one heartbeat away from the Presidency!

Two September 11ths

On September 11, 2001, President George H. Bush was

reading along with a group of schoolchildren at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota County, Florida, when White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card informed him that a second airplane had just hit the World Trade Center. Bush remained seated for roughly seven minutes, and followed along as the children read the book. After spending about twenty minutes total with the children, Bush was scheduled to give a short press conference at about 9:30 a.m. At the conference inside the school, Bush made his first speech about the attacks and was later taken to a secure location by the Secret Service aboard Air Force One before returning to the White House later that evening.

Bush's critics, notably Michael Moore in his film Fahrenheit 9/11, have argued that the fact that Bush continued reading the book after being notified that the attack was ongoing shows that he was indecisive.

We heard about this ad nauseam for years.

What was Bush supposed to do? The aircraft had already crashed. No one knew what might come next. Things were still chaotic, and information - verified information - was hard to come by.

On September 11, 2012, President Barack Obama was in the White House when the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya was attacked by terrorist forces at about 9:40PM local time, about 3:40PM in D.C. According to the Washington Post:

About a half-hour after militants overran the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last month, the State Department notified officials at the White House and elsewhere that the compound was "under attack" by about 20 armed assailants, e-mails obtained by The Washington Post on Wednesday show.

Two hours later, the State Department reported that the Libyan militia group Ansar al-Sharia had asserted responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and had also called for an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli.

--

"Embassy Tripoli reports approximately 20 armed people fired shots; explosions have been heard as well," the center wrote at 4:05 p.m, or 10:05 p.m. Libyan time.

A Predator drone already on station over Libya was directed over the Consulate to observe, providing a live feed to Washington. The U.S. had forces at bases in Italy, just an hour away by air - less, if fighter jets had been dispatched.

The emails sent to Washington were not just plain, everyday emails. They were marked with priorities that got them to the front of the line and to the White House.

By 11PM Benghazi time the fighting at the Consulate was over. The ambassador and one other were dead, but the ambassador's body had not been found yet. Some of the personnel, with the body of one deceased American, relocated to a "safe house" some distance away. At 2AM the safe house came under attack. After about an hour's fighting, two more Americans were dead.

Approximately five hours elapsed between the beginning of the conflict and the deaths of the last two Americans. The email notifications arrived in Washington, and the Predator drone arrived overhead in Benghazi during the first hour of the conflict. If President Obama was not made aware of the situation during that first hour, then his entire staff is incompetent. If he was made aware before the deaths of the last two Americans and took no action...

When will Michael Moore and the rest of the Left declare Obama indecisive?

Edited to add this:

The rescue team from the CIA annex evacuated those who remained at the consulate and Sean Smith, who had been killed in the initial attack. They could not find the ambassador and returned to the CIA annex at about midnight.

At that point, they called again for military support and help because they were taking fire at the CIA safe house, or annex. The request was denied. There were no communications problems at the annex, according those present at the compound. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters. In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA compound. The security officer had a laser on the target that was firing and repeatedly requested back-up support from a Spectre gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to provide support to Special Operations teams on the ground involved in intense firefights. The fighting at the CIA annex went on for more than four hours -- enough time for any planes based in Sigonella Air base, just 480 miles away, to arrive. Fox News has also learned that two separate Tier One Special operations forces were told to wait, among them Delta Force operators.

A Special Operations team, or CIF which stands for Commanders in Extremis Force, operating in Central Europe had been moved to Sigonella, Italy, but they were never told to deploy. In fact, a Pentagon official says there were never any requests to deploy assets from outside the country. A second force that specializes in counterterrorism rescues was on hand at Sigonella, according to senior military and intelligence sources. According to those sources, they could have flown to Benghazi in less than two hours. They were the same distance to Benghazi as those that were sent from Tripoli. Spectre gunships are commonly used by the Special Operations community to provide close air support.

According to sources on the ground during the attack, the special operator on the roof of the CIA annex had visual contact and a laser pointing at the Libyan mortar team that was targeting the CIA annex. The operators were calling in coordinates of where the Libyan forces were firing from.

But no one would authorize anything.

Death Panels? We Don't Need No Steenkin' Death Panels!

Reader Phil B. emails from New Zealand another appalling story, this time on the subject of Britain's National Health Service, the model many on the Left here want us to emulate:

Hospitals are paid millions to hit targets for the number of patients who die on the Liverpool Care Pathway, the Mail can reveal.

What is the "Liverpool Care Pathway"? Well, Wikipedia defines it as:

The Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient (LCP) is a UK care pathway covering palliative care options for patients in the final days or hours of life. It helps doctors and nurses provide quality end-of-life care.

That's what it's supposed to be, but the reality is, unsurprisingly, somewhat different. From the first link:

The incentives have been paid to hospitals that ensure a set percentage of patients who die on their wards have been put on the controversial regime.

In some cases, hospitals have been set targets that between a third and two thirds of all the deaths should be on the LCP, which critics say is a way of hastening the deaths of terminally ill patients.

At least £30million in extra money from taxpayers is estimated to have been handed to hospitals over the past three years to achieve these goals.

Critics of the method warned last night that financial incentives for hospitals could influence the work of doctors.

The LCP involves withdrawal of life-saving treatment. Patients are sedated and most are denied nutrition and fluids by tube. On average a patient put on the Pathway dies within 29 hours.

One of the leading critics, hospital consultant Professor Patrick Pullicino, said: 'Given the fact that the diagnosis of impending death is such a subjective one, putting a financial incentive into the mix is really not a good idea and it could sway the decision-making process.'

Gee, ya THINK?

Here's a recent example of the LCP in action:

An 85-year-old woman died on her own after relatives were not told by doctors that she had been put on the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway.

Olive Goom was alone when she died at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital after medics did not consult with her family, a newspaper reported.

Hours before, relatives had been reassured by staff on the phone that there was no urgent need to visit, even though doctors had already removed tubes providing food and fluid.

They only found out she had died when her niece went to visit her and found she was already being prepared for the mortuary, and last night said they would never stop feeling guilty that no one was there in her final hours.

An exception? No.

Their experience is shared by a number of families who have said relatives were put on the Liverpool Care Pathway - the system designed to ease the suffering of patients in their final hours - without any consultation.

And now we know why. Follow the money. The hospitals are paid to do so.

Government-run single-payer health care! Hey, let's do it here!  It'll work if the right people are in charge!

And Monty Python thought they were making satire:

Quote of the Day - Inevitable Fascism Edition

Before Fascism can arise, the people have to first believe in socialism - i.e. they have to believe in a total state that can solve all problems. By savaging the ideas of free-economics and democracy, the notionally international socialists pave the way for the national socialist.

All international socialist regimes eventually evolve into national socialist for the simple reason that while international class identity is utterly mythical, ethnic and cultural identity is not.

It's not just the ideological indoctrination that lays the groundwork, it's the active disruption of society and the economy by the international socialist. The history of Fascism clearly shows that all national socialist states arise after a protracted and significant attack on the society by international socialists. Mussolini rose to power only after his nationalist socialist thugs put an end to a crippling internationalist combo of strikes, riots and terrorism so bad that people in the cities were beginning to starve. Hitler rose to power thanks to the SA street brawlers protecting the urban lower-middle class from vicious attacks by ruthless gangs of (mostly) Stalinists.

Once you've decided to have some ice cream and enter the ice cream shop, it's then just a question of what flavor you want. Once the pseudo-intellectuals have destroyed the widespread acceptance of individual freedom in economic matters, it then just becomes a matter of choosing which flavor of socialism people will choose.

-- Shannon Love, in a comment to the World Affairs Journal post A Whiff of Weimar.

RTWT. EUtopia is ugly, and getting uglier.

And I have to add this, courtesy of Rachel - EU Parliament member Nigel Farage of the UK from a couple of days ago:

Yup, Crazy as His Daddy Was

North Korean army minister 'executed with mortar round'
A North Korean army minister was executed with a mortar round for reportedly drinking and carousing during the official mourning period after Kim Jong-il's death.

Kim Chol, vice minister of the army, was taken into custody earlier this year on the orders of Kim Jong-un, who assumed the leadership after the death of his father in December.

On the orders of Kim Jong-un to leave "no trace of him behind, down to his hair," according to South Korean media, Kim Chol was forced to stand on a spot that had been zeroed in for a mortar round and "obliterated."

The execution of Kim Chol is just one example of a purge of members of the North Korean military or party who threatened the fledgling regime of Kim Jong-un.

So far this year, 14 senior officials have fallen victim to the purges, according to intelligence data provided to Yoon Sang-hyun, a member of the South Korean Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee.

Rule by terror. Works like a charm, until it doesn't.

Obama - Re-elected Because of Fracking?

The "Green" President? Interesting video:

"...and We Can't Afford Lube."

Quote of the Day - What Agenda? Edition

From Michael Crichton's 1/28/2005 American Enterprise Institute speech, starting at 1:07:

Michael Crichton: I gave a talk to the Press Club in '93 in which I told them that they were out of the quality revolution, that they were in desperate trouble. But they didn't care then and they probably don't care now. I operate on the assumption that the mass media will never be accurate. I don't think they ever have been. When did yellow journalism start? Almost at the beginning of American newspapers. And I don't see any reason for them to change. The great dictum of journalism is "simplify and exaggerate," which is exactly what Walt Disney told his cartoonists.

I do believe there will come a time, and it may come quite soon, when because of the internet people will be willing to spend a lot of money for verified information.

(Audience member): The New York Times this week in the Science section reported that ice shelves are melting, and I guess that I'm willing to believe that's not true, but I find it hard to believe that the reporter, the editors, the scientists quoted are either independently or in collusion advancing an anti-, er, pro-, sorry about that, global-warming agenda.

Crichton: Work on that.

The whole thing runs about 85 minutes. Good speech.

Quote of the Day - Tam, Again

Oh, Republicans, you never fail to disappoint me.

Sure, you talk a good small government game, and then the minute you get into office it's all about the gays and the 'bortion and the flag-burnin' and drug warrin' and Family-Values-with-a-capital-KJV and next thing you know you're No Child Left Behindin' and Department of Homeland Securityin' and if I wanted all that snoopy government busibodiness I'd have voted for the Democrat in the first place.

I Can't Help Myself (Update, bumped)

Somebody wrote another gun-control op-ed.

I left a comment.

Okay, two three four. Hell, I've lost count.

UPDATE - 10/24:  OK. I've left nine.  Here's the last one:

This thread appears to have petered out, so I'd like to make one final point before leaving. At the time of this writing, there are 38 comments (and one deleted) by eighteen commenters. Of the eighteen, two support more gun control. Of the two supporters, one left one comment, one left six. Each of the comments left by a gun control supporter was countered by generally two respondents, generally with statements of verifiable fact.

The opening statement of the essay we're responding to asserts that "... the National Rifle Association and gun industry merchants ... through misinformation and clever public relations" have hoodwinked the American public into buying more (and more lethal) firearms.

I submit that this comment thread debunks the idea. Defenders of the right to arms are not ignorant and deluded, we're well-informed. We've reached our conclusions after examining facts, not hyperinflated scarey numbers and hyperbole.

AND WE'RE ACTIVE. The various gun control forces - the Brady Center, the Violence Policy Center, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, the author's Stop Handgun Violence, and all the rest - cannot generate grassroots support. They're attacking the problem from the wrong end, and most of us understand that.

I will close this comment with a quote from writer Teresa Nielsen Hayden that explains their problem as succinctly as I've ever seen it put:

"Basically, I figure guns are like gays: They seem a lot more sinister and threatening until you get to know a few; and once you have one in the house, you can get downright defensive about them."

Who'd like to go shooting?

It's already got one "Like."

OK, I've Reached a Conclusion

I was aware the recently deceased author Michael Crichton had investigated the available data in the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming controversy, and had concluded that it was a farce - so much so that he changed the subject of his 2004 book State of Fear from being an eco-disaster novel to being an eco-terrorism novel. It's the first novel I've ever read that had footnotes and a bibliography.

Here he is discussing the topic with Charlie Rose (about 9 minutes):


And he gave a lecture at CalTech in 2003, entitled Aliens Cause Global Warming that is also worth your time.

As a result of his anti-CAGW activism, he was, of course, labeled a "denier," and vilified.

In addition to Mr. Crichton's opinion, I'd read a lot but still I hadn't reached a definitive conclusion on the question of whether the burning of fossil fuels was having a measurable, detrimental effect on global climate. Is the world getting warmer? Quite possibly. Is it due, in whole or in part, on increased CO₂ due to human consumption of fossil fuels? I didn't know. Is a warmer Earth a bad thing? I didn't know. I suspected that it wasn't, and I was very skeptical of the positive-feedback argument the doomsayers were predicting.

Day before yesterday I was made aware of another skeptic - Burt Rutan. Burt is the designer of Voyager, the first airplane to circumnavigate the globe without refueling, and of SpaceShipOne, winner of the Ansari X Prize. Burt Rutan's argument is that, as an aeronautical engineer, he has analyzed test flight data for decades. All of the climate data had been analyzed by scientists. What would an engineer make of it?

The result was a 98-page PowerPoint presentation (also available as a PDF) that covers five specific issues propounded by Climate Scientists:

1. Recent burning of fossil fuels suddenly and dangerously increased CO₂ beyond previous levels.
2. Human CO₂ emissions causes greenhouse warming.
3. Dangerous, sudden global warming occurred the last 50 years.
4. The current temperature is too hot, and further warming is BAD.
5. It is more difficult to adapt to climate changes than to attempt to control them.

He tackles each issue in turn, in detail, and using the data the Climate Scientists use.

He made a presentation of his conclusions at the 2009 Oshkosh fly-in, entitled Non-Aerospace Research Quests of a Designer/Flight Test Engineer, stating:

I put myself in the (Those who fear expansion of Government control) group, and do not hide the fact that I have a clear bias on [ Anthropogenic global warming (AGW)]. My bias is based on fear of Government expansion and the observation of AGW data presentation fraud - not based on financial or any other personal benefit. I merely have found that the closer you look at the data and alarmists' presentations, the more fraud you find and the less you think there is an AGW problem... For decades, as a professional experimental test engineer, I have analyzed experimental data and watched others massage and present data. I became a cynic; My conclusion – "if someone is aggressively selling a technical product whose merits are dependent on complex experimental data, he is likely lying". That is true whether the product is an airplane or a Carbon Credit.

I'm convinced. CAGW is complete bullshit.

Quote of the Day - Economic Disincentive Edition

From Silicon Greybeard:

Tyler Durden at Zerohedge pointed out In Entitlement America "a one-parent family of three making $14,500 a year (minimum wage) has more disposable income than a family making $60,000 a year.
(Chart)
Note that more than doubling pretax income from $14,500 to $30,000 results in a loss of 28% of their net income. It would take an exceptionally rare person to go through a drastic drop in quality of life for the possibility of getting really high income and better standard of life some day way in the future.

He has a chart and everything. Go read. Then read this.

I started off my "professional" (post-college) career in February of 1986 with a $5/hr. job at age 24. That's $10,400/yr. I moved into my first (and only) apartment on Jan. 1 1987. It cost $225/mo. A year after starting employment, my pay was $15,600/yr. By the time I was 30, I was making $30k/yr. I bought the house I'm currently living in when I turned 29. I'm 50 now, and I'm doing pretty good, but nowhere near $250k. I've never taken food stamps, never received an Earned Income Tax Credit, Medicaid, a rent subsidy, or Utility Bill Assistance. I did my own taxes for years - 1040EZ for Federal before I bought the house. I guess all that stuff was available, but I was young, single, healthy and working.

If I'd been a young high-school dropout with a live-in girlfriend and a kid or four, perhaps I'd have been all over that "free money."

And I'd still be making $15k/yr, afraid to make more because of the loss of those "benefits."

And my kids would probably be in the same boat, and complaining that "The MAN" was keepin' 'em down.

Happy 10/22!

Here's mine:


Same as last year. This is the rifle my wife gave me on Father's Day the first year we were married. That makes it 17 years old, now.  Of course, when she gave it to me, it looked more like this:
Now the only things on it that are original are the receiver and bolt group.

M4? No. The 10/22 is Barbie™ for men!

The Sesame Street™ President

Rights vs. Duties

(This is another draft from the past that just needed a little light cleanup before hitting "Publish.)

In a previous piece, A Fisking, a couple of commenters have taken exception or raised questions that ought to be addressed in depth. The first was "craig":

'Any "right" that demands that someone else provide a service, a material good, or any other thing of value is not a RIGHT.'

Whoa there.

We do use the word 'right' in two ways, but it's not so clean as negative-rights good, positive-rights bad. The only rational basis for comprehending what we mostly understand intuitively lies in natural law, but natural law does include a few positive rights in addition to the obvious negative rights.

What John Locke described and Jefferson wrote into the Declaration are natural or 'negative' rights. These are rights (life, liberty, property) that automatically exist in a person unless they are negated (taken away) by some external force or impediment. They are inalienable in that they exist prior to any governments or laws; men are 'endowed by their Creator' with these rights, and so no government may, as a matter of justice, arbitrarily impede them.

The problem is that 'positive' rights (rights that impose a duty on another) do exist. The left has ruined our concept of them, starting with the Soviet propagandists who boasted about the Soviet 'rights' to employment, housing, etc., to distract from their obvious offenses against natural rights.

First and foremost, a child has the right to the care of both his father and his mother. To neglect the duty of caring for one's offspring is to deprive him of justice. A child also has the rights to care, food, and shelter, as do his parents when they are old and unable to care for themselves. Without a natural-law understanding that the act of procreation also 'endows' certain duties upon persons, all basis for the law's treatment of families (marriage, guardianship, inheritance, etc.) vanishes.

I responded:

Here we're going to have to agree to disagree.  A parent has a duty to their minor children.  Adult children have a duty to their eldery parents.  I do not consider the imposition of these duties "rights."  My definition of the word "right" is then narrower than yours.  "Duties" are not the reciprocal of "rights," in my view.  I have a right to arms.  I do not have a duty to be armed.  I have a duty to care for my children and my parents.  They do not have a right to have access to my checking account.

To which "craig" replied:

OK, I'll agree with that take, if you can tell me where duties come from.

A Catholic Christian can say that rights and duties alike are corollary attributes of the God-given dignity intrinsic to humans as beings made in His image (i.e., with free will, rationality, and conscience).  So I'm comfortable speaking of duties.  But in the absence of some philosophically rigorous basis, it's hard to claim that there are intrinsic duties upon any person.  Sure, care for offspring is in our DNA, but it's also in animals' DNA and yet many of them abandon or even eat their young.  If the adult animal survives to reproduce another day, it's all the same to natural selection.  We don't treat animals as moral agents in this case; what causes us to treat humans as such?

Classical philosophy considers justice as the condition of one's having what is rightfully his.  But reciprocity between rights and duties has to be limited:  only when another's acts leave you incapable of exercising your natural right, do they implicitly assume a proportional duty to aid.  This is nothing more than restoring what rightfully belonged to another, and such is just and is consistent with centuries of common law.  He who breaks, buys.  He who procreates assumes a duty to care for offspring.  He who impedes your right to self-defense in a particular place implicitly assumes a duty to defend you.

If you don't have at least this level of correspondence between right and duty, then it must follow that a declaration (as QuadGMoto argues above) that the incapable have no right to food, only need, means that by that same declaration it cannot be unjust to let Granny starve.

Good discussion.

Yes it is.

Andrew MacDougal also asks:

What about the 5th amendment right, "...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." Providing just compensation seems to require somebody else do something.

What about the 5th amendment right "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence." In the same way a trial requires all sorts of work by paid professionals plus a jury donating their time, so a 'right' to health care requires other people to work.

Pressed for time even then, I deferred to my readers to reply, and one Chris Gerard stepped up:

I would posit that it is different, and I'll address the two points separately.

First, with regard to private property, you can't only talk about the part where just compensation occurs. The absolute most important part of that clause, in my opinion, is the part where the government is taking your property away from you. Furthermore, that taking is happening whether you want to allow it or not, and will be done - as with so many other government actions - with armed agents of the government standing by if need be. Just compensation isn't just requiring someone else to do something; here, it's saying that the .gov is going to take your private property if need be, but they have to compensate you justly for doing so.

The second part of 5A that you mention, on the other hand, is a very "um... lemme think about that for a minute" kind of argument. Again, though, I have to begin with the part where the accused is facing a government that's here to do some taking (likely why these two clauses are in the same Amendment. Neat, ain't it?). In this case, we're talking about taking your money (fines), freedom (imprisonment), or life (death penalty). That's a Big Damned Deal, and requires as it should a whole big lot of folks to make damn sure that the .gov, on behalf of the people, has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt the necessity of removing your money, freedom, or life.

While there is a glowing similarity to the healthcare argument, it's still apples and oranges once you take away the government force. When it comes to getting treated at a hospital, sure it can be life-or-death, and yes, that makes the situation arguably every bit as important as a trial - if not more so - but we're not talking about a situation where the hospital administrators are taking away health you already had. And that makes it very, very different.

The next day I received an email from retired blogger Publicola, which I turned into its own post, More on Rights, which was his exploration of individual rights as property rights. I can't say I disagreed with any of it.

But now it's my turn, as promised.

As I have noted previously in the "Rights" essays linked over on the left sidebar, I am convinced that Ayn Rand was correct in that there is only one fundamental right - the right to one's own life - and that all other rights are corollaries of that fundamental.  I believe that John Locke's "Life, Liberty, Property" list of fundamental rights are such corollaries.  I also believe that Rand was accurate when she defined any right as "a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context."  So let me address craig's question concerning the source of duty.  Let me quote Heinlein:

Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.

Duty is voluntary. It is not imposed by outside forces - thus there is no such thing as (for instance) "obligatory charity" - the term is null.  Self-respect is a function of education and of culture.  What one would never imagine doing in ones own culture has throughout history been done to other cultures without a second thought.  Remember Rand's "moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context."  If that social context changes, then the actions that are sanctioned also can change, based on cultures.

Bear in mind, I'm not saying this is philosophically correct, I'm saying this is how it has worked throughout history.

Quote of the Day - Thomas Sowell Edition

From his recent column Random Thoughts. It's absolutely full of quotable bits, but I'll start with this one:

The question to be asked of people in the media, and that they should ask themselves, should be: "Is your first loyalty to your audience or to your ideology?" The same question should be asked of educators, especially those who see themselves as "agents of social change," even though that is not the job description under which they have been hired and paid.

Well?

Kids, Guns and "Safe Storage"

Well, here we have another case of where a 12 year old got her hands on an loaded, unsecured firearm:


Sorry about the video quality.

UPDATE: 911 recording and Interview with the pre-teen and here mother here. The weapon in question was her mother's .40 caliber Glock.

Quote of the Day - Outsourcing and Offshoring

This is an excerpt from Mark Steyn's recent column, Who's 'Politicizing' Benghazi? at NRO. It's a rather long one:

...the State Department outsourced security for the Benghazi consulate to Blue Mountain, a Welsh firm that hires ex-British and -Commonwealth special forces, among the toughest hombres on the planet. The company's very name comes from the poem "The Golden Journey to Samarkand," whose words famously adorn the regimental headquarters of Britain's Special Air Service in Hereford. Unfortunately, the one-year contract for consulate security was only $387,413 — or less than the cost of deploying a single U.S. soldier overseas. On that budget, you can't really afford to fly in a lot of crack SAS killing machines, and have to make do with the neighborhood talent pool. So who's available? Blue Mountain hired five members of the Benghazi branch of the February 17 Martyrs' Brigade and equipped them with handcuffs and batons. A baton is very useful when someone is firing an RPG at you, at least if you play a little baseball. There were supposed to be four men heavily armed with handcuffs on duty that night, but, the date of September 11 having no particular significance in the Muslim world, only two guards were actually on shift.

Let's pause right there, and "politicize" a little more. Liberals are always going on about the evils of "outsourcing" and "offshoring" — selfish vulture capitalists like Mitt shipping jobs to cheap labor overseas just to save a few bucks. How unpatriotic can you get! So now the United States government is outsourcing embassy security to cheap Welshmen who in turn outsource it to cheaper Libyans. Diplomatic facilities are U.S. sovereign territory — no different de jure from Fifth Avenue or Mount Rushmore. So defending them is one of the core responsibilities of the state. But that's the funny thing about Big Government: The bigger it gets, the more of life it swallows up, the worse it gets at those very few things it's supposed to be doing.

Not the Characature He was Made Out to Be

Mitt Romney slays at the Alfred E. Smith dinner.  Damn, he was FUNNY!


If you don't have time to watch the whole thing, skip to the 4:50 mark and start there.

Gunsmithy Update

I hate roll pins.  Lost the one for the bolt catch tonight.  Damn, those little suckers can fly!  Everything else is together.  I discovered the rings I had for my Tasco ProPoint are WAY too low for the rifle.  Ordered some more stuff.  It'll be 3-5 days until I get it all in.  Maybe some bloggy this weekend.

Anyway, it's past my bedtime.  G'night!

Quote of the Day - NSFW Edition

No, I'm not reproducing it here.  Just go.

Y'know, even I might wear that on a T-shirt.

First runner-up for QotD, same source:

The Brady Campaign To Get Some Attention Dammit

The snark is strong in this one....

Quote of the Day - Boundaries Edition

So there I was, buck naked in front of an attractive woman I had met an hour before, one female friend holding my junk out of the way and a male friend holding my hand in solidarity, and the thought struck me:

There went the last of your boundaries, AD. That's not good. A grown man should have boundaries.

Ambulance Driver, Blogorado IV: The Recap

Remember when I said I really want to attend a Blogorado some day?

Maybe not....

No Bloggy! Gunsmithy!

My Rock River .458 SOCOM upper arrived today.  I guess it's time to assemble that lower, huh?  And load some ammo.  I also received 500 Remington .458" 300 grain JHP's today.

Time to get busy.

Quote of the Day - Hayward's First Law

Hayward's First Law of Environmental Energy Politics: there is no source of energy, no matter how clean, that environmentalists won't oppose if it becomes cheap and abundant. -- Steven Hayward, PowerLine: Algae Energy: Get Ready for the Turnabout

There were a couple of other really excellent pullquotes, like this one:

...unlike ethanol, wind, and many other energy boondoggles, there is a lot of private capital going into algae energy research, and while some research efforts clamor for government grants, etc, most of this is being done without government subsidy for the simplest of reasons: if someone can make algae fuels competitive with oil, they’ll make the next great energy fortune.

(My emphasis.)

It's a short piece. RTWT.

Quote of the Day - Education Edition

When my kids were going through K-12, I found "gifted" meant mostly "will do what the teacher wants."  Real gifted kids, with the scores to prove it, were more often than not treated as "behavior problems" even if perfectly respectful and controlled. -- Sarah Hoyt

Climate is What You Expect Model

Weather is what you get.

Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released... and here is the chart to prove it

The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures

This means that the 'pause' in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996

The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week.

The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

This means that the 'plateau' or 'pause' in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.

And here's that graph:


Of course, this won't change anything because there are people out there emotionally and financially dependent on the meme that global warming causes everything.

Well, THIS is Different

Wow. I think the Democrats really pissed off the Pope.

LIAR! LIAR! LIAR!

Or: "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"


Another 13 minute video worth your time.

In Lieu of Original Content: Bill Whittle

Bill Whittle is a national treasure.

UPDATE:  Here's his latest Afterburner, too - "Old School"

I Resemble This Remark (Bumped)

Found at AR15.com

UPDATE: Oct. 10 - Looks like "Oh John Ringo, No!" is a major fan as well. Chapter 1 of Tiger by the Tail. Just read.

I'm buying the eARC now.

Quote of the Day - Election Issues Edition

From House of Eratosthenes:

Romney Could Shoot Big Bird in Broad Daylight, Set the Carcass on Fire, Urinate on it to Put the Flames Out, and Not Lose a Single Vote ...anywhere.

Pretty much.

"Unintended Consequences" or "Loophole!"

U.S. Citizen does the math that liberals never do. Excerpt:

The (Affordable Care Act) tax represents a 20% increase in cost to their employer from $7.25 to $8.69 per hour.

Instead of paying the ACA tax, workers’ hours will be reduced.

RTWT. It's short and to the point.

And goes along with the Steven Crowder piece below.

Bill Quick has some evidence backing him up.

The REAL Obama 2016

Steven Crowder goes serious.  Worth your thirteen minutes.

More Sesame Street Campaigning

The Democrats keep throwing slow hanging curve-balls, the Republicans keep hitting 'em out of the park:

60, 90, 120, 180 Days (Bumped)

So, back in April I bought a custom-engraved AR15 lower, and I decided I wanted a "thumper" upper for it, either a .50 Beowulf or a .458 SOCOM. I went with the SOCOM because bullet selection for the .458 is better, I think, and the boltface matches the .308 Winchester casehead rather than the 7.62x39, so if I'd like to try a 6.5 Benchrest upper, I can.

Rock River Arms was promising "60-90 day" delivery on complete uppers, but on the parts page they advised that bolts and carriers were delayed. I inquired as to whether this would affect the 60-90 days on complete uppers, but was assured that would not be the case but it would be 90 days, so I'd have a complete rifle well in time for the Gun Blogger Rendezvous in September.

I placed my order on May 3.

On July 12 I inquired as to the status of my order. The response:

Most uppers and rifles run at least 90 days, some are extending by 30-45 days due to component availability.

Fair enough. I checked again on August 6. The response:

The .458’s are running over the approximate 90 day time frame, so it could be 30-45 days before it is available.

Well, that meant the Rendezvous would be a washout. So I waited some more.

I emailed them again yesterday, 154 days after placing the order. They replied this morning:

We just received the barrels in, the upper went to the floor to be built so it will be shipping out in 2 weeks to 30 days.

So, instead of 90 days, it's going to be 168-182 days.

If I can believe them this time.

UPDATE, 10/9/12: I received this email today from UPS:

This message was sent to you at the request of ROCK RIVER ARMS to notify you that the electronic shipment information below has been transmitted to UPS. The physical package(s) may or may not have actually been tendered to UPS for shipment. To verify the actual transit status of your shipment, click on the tracking link below or contact ROCK RIVER ARMS directly.

Important Delivery Information

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adult Signature Required - Adult must be at least 21 years of age
Scheduled Delivery: 15-October-2012

And Rock River has billed my credit card.

Looks like I'll have a thumper next week!

Rugby Players Eat Their Dead

This story makes me wince:

Rugby player loses testicle after final defeat

British rugby league player Paul Wood has lost a testicle after a collision during the English sport's showpiece final at Manchester's Old Trafford stadium on Saturday.

Wood was playing for the Warrington Wolves against Leeds Rhinos in the Super League Grand Final.

The prop sustained the injury one minute into the second half, but managed to play the rest of the match before seeking treatment.

(My emphasis.)

(*shudder*)

You Can Bet They'll Ban This in Britain

Expat Phil B. sends me this story:

The games controller that looks just like a real gun: Fears over latest Xbox gadget designed to resemble military-grade weapon

The game controller in question:


I can hear the panties twisting from all the way over here.

Sesame Street Strikes Back

Sent to me by my favorite Merchant O'Death.

Old Men Must be Dangerous

Back when I wrote, "It's most important that all potential victims be as dangerous as they can," I opened the piece with this quote from a post at Grim's Hall:

I was reading an article the other day, in the local newspaper, about an elderly Korean gentleman who has moved into town and opened a martial arts studio. He chastened the reporter who had come to interview him not to suggest that the martial arts were 'all about fighting.' "No!" he said. "The purpose is social harmony."

That is exactly right. The secret of social harmony is simple: Old men must be dangerous.

Very nearly all the violence that plagues, rather than protects, society is the work of young males between the ages of fourteen and thirty. A substantial amount of the violence that protects rather than plagues society is performed by other members of the same group. The reasons for this predisposition are generally rooted in biology, which is to say that they are not going anywhere, in spite of the current fashion that suggests doping half the young with Ritalin.

The question is how to move these young men from the first group (violent and predatory) into the second (violent, but protective). This is to ask: what is the difference between a street gang and the Marine Corps, or a thug and a policeman? In every case, we see that the good youths are guided and disciplined by old men. This is half the answer to the problem.

In my essay Culture, I wrote about the problem America has not with violent crime, but inner-city violent crime; about how our crime statistics are skewed by the fact that young, urban black men are so much more violent than any other group, and that this may be because - at least in part - they have so few dangerous old men to guide them from violent-and-predatory to violent-but-protective.

Here's a good example of one of the few. (h/t Instapundit.)  And read the comments.

Quote of the Day - Movie Edition

Interviewer:  Why in the hell would anybody want a Sherman tank?

Cmd. Sgt. Maj. Zack Carey:  Because it's very hard to shoot yourself while you're cleaning it.

Societal Collapse

Watch this 14-minute documentary on the situation in Greece:

(Athens: Social Meltdown from Ross Domoney on Vimeo.)

Then go look at what's going on in Greece right now.

And then read what the Greek Prime Minister is warning.

And this can't happen here... why, exactly?

h/t to Bayou Renaissance Man for the link to the video. And by all means, read his entire piece, since he discusses also Spain, Italy, South Africa and Iran.

There are a bunch of international dominoes all lining up for what could be a spectacular fall.

What was it that Mostly Cajun said a while back? "Retire? I will probably get killed in the early battles of the coming revolution."

Ouch!

No comment.

Michael Ramirez's Third Pulitzer for Political Cartooning

Right here:

Bowling Pin Match!

The October Bowling Pin match is Sunday the 14^th.  Usual place, the Tucson Rifle Club action range. 

Time: 8:00 AM sign-up, first rounds downrange about 8:20. We should be done around 11.  Weather should be beautiful.

Handguns only: .22 rimfire, centerfire revolver (.38 Special minimum), semi-autos (.380 minimum).

You're welcome to shoot your revolver against the semi-auto crowd, but we think it's more fun to shoot wheelgun-vs.-wheelgun.

Cost: $10 for the first gun, $5 for any additional guns. Bring about 100 rounds for each. You probably won't need 'em all unless you're really good at missing fast.

What's a bowling pin match? This:


Hope to see you there!

Your Moment of Zen

Time for a new one.

How's this for a private beach?

Quote of the Day - Presidential Debate Edition

I haven't had anything to say about Wednesday's debate 'cause I didn't see it, but I have to say that Jim over at The Travis McGee Reader has today's QotD:

Okay. Obama presented a world view of free candy. Romney offered free ice cream. Obama promised to be a more compassionate Romney. Romney promised to be a more efficient Obama.

If there were any "world-view" differences, science has a serious challenge: develop an instrument sensitive enough to detect them.

The only one I can think of: "Supreme Court Justice Eric Holder."

For Robb

Robb Allen has a birthday bleg.

I'm in.  How about you?

Quote of the Day - Tam Brings the Snark

When the day comes that America has cattle cars and camps, the boxcars will have ads on the side and the prisoner's uniforms will have sponsorship logos. ("Real Americans wear Nike when they get reeducated!")

You KNOW she's right. But only she would think it and write it down.

Remember When?

I watched an interesting interview of actor/producer James Garner from 1999 recently, and I've extracted three significant pieces from that interview that I wanted some feedback on.  Please watch the short (2:50) video, and give me your thoughts.  I'm really interested.

Remington Lied. Sorta.

Back in June I reported that Remington wouldn't be making their 405 grain .458" softpoint bullets as reloading components, based on an email exchange I had with them.  Regardless, through the power of the interwebs, I managed to get my hands on some (though, regardless of the power of the interwebs I have YET to receive my Rock River upper to shoot them through).

This afternoon I received an email from Midway USA informing me that these bullets are currently in stock!  So Remington DID make a batch for component sales.

But not many, apparently.  Between 3:52PM when I received the email and 7:37PM when I checked the web site, they're all gone.

Perhaps they made a batch of the 300 grainers as well?  Nope.  None of those either.

Oh well. 

(Of course, it occurs to me that Midway might have lied....)

Quote of the Day - Jerry Pournelle

Commenting on this piece, where a former Register of Copyrights Ralph Oman recommends that, as the article put it, any new technology should be illegal until proven otherwise:

The United States was formed to protect liberty. It now has a major party that is afraid that someone, somewhere, is doing something without permission.

I am reminded of a quote from Randy Barnett from his book Restoring the Lost Constitution:  The Presumption of Liberty:

Had judges done their job, this book would not need to be written. Since adoption of the Constitution, courts have eliminated clause after clause that interfered with the exercise of government power.

--

Without these missing clauses, the general scheme of the Constitution has been radically altered, which is precisely why they all had to go. The Constitution that was actually enacted and formally amended creates islands of government powers in a sea of liberty. The judicially redacted constitution creates islands of liberty rights in a sea of governmental powers.

And that sea is continually rising.

I Can Relate

Today's PvP cartoon:


Yup.

Where's my sunbeam?

Reynolds/Foley?!?

No! Glenn Reynolds has been posting his candidacy for the 2016 Presidential race with Elizabeth Foley as his running mate.

Back in 2003 I think we had the right ticket, and by 2016 (assuming we still have a country) Rachel should be back in the U.S. from her extended trip abroad:


I think it needs some updating, but I still like the slogan.

Quote of the Day - Precious Snowflakes Edition

Found at House of Eratosthenes:


Can I get an "AMEN!"?

Number Six

Recently Bill Whittle did an epsiode of Firewall entitled "Number Six," about the sin of envy.  He starts off with a hypothetical: what would happen if your employer gave you - no strings attached - $200k.

But you found out that all of your coworkers got $500k?

And if the deal was structured so that either everyone took the money or no one got the money, well, I assure you that there are people out there - not everyone, but a few - who would rather tear up two hundred thousand dollars of pure gain simply because the idea of other people having more is so repulsive to them.

We call these people "Progressives."

Jeremy Clarkson of the hit British TV show Top Gear has experienced this firsthand. Reader "Sinker" sent me a link to Clarkson's essay on the subject.

Pullquote:

A few moments ago, my dog died, and, as an experiment, I announced the fact on Twitter. Now, everyone must have known that when a family pet is put down, the family in question is bound to be upset. So you'd expect a bit of sympathy. And, in America, that's what you'd get.

Not in Britain, though. Moments after I posted my Tweet, a man called Ryan Paisey asked: "How does she smell?" Adam Farrow said the news was "kinda funny". Phil May wanted to know if it was James May's fault, and Tom Green said simply: "Good". All that in less than what Twitter calls zero seconds.

Five minutes has now elapsed, and still it's a non-stop tirade of abuse. Which confirms my theory. Britain is a nation of 62 million complete and utter b*******. We are the country that invented the concentration camp, and international slavery.

I think, however, Mr. Clarkson has misdiagnosed his countrymen. It's not that they're "complete and utter b*******," it's that they're complete and utter Progressives. I know, they're hard to tell apart, but you can be a b****** and not be a Progressive.  The opposite is not true.

They've taken class warfare from the 99% vs. the 1% to the absolute individual level - if anyone has more than anyone else, then they're "the enemy." And if someone is ostentatious about their possessions, they're even more greatly hated:

There is more evidence of our inherent nastiness to be found on the road. Last week, I was testing the magnificent Ferrari 458 Spider, and I couldn't have been more despised if I'd run around a shopping centre in full SS uniform and a Ku Klux Klan hat trying to steal children. The message was clear: "Whoever is in that car has become rich by exploiting the workers, and, as a result, we are not going to let him out of that side turning."

Here in the U.S., the Progressives have not made as much "progress":

Again, we must draw parallels with the US. Over there, when a tramp sees someone drive by in a Ferrari, he will say, "One day, I'll have one of those." Here, what he will say is: "One day, I'll have him out of that."

And I think Clarkson really understands Progressivism's influence, too:

Outwardly, we hated communist Russia; inwardly, it's what 95 per cent of the country wants.

Here it's maybe a third.

But they're working really hard to increase the ratio.

I wanted to add this, too. In 1967 the "Longshoreman Philosopher" Eric Hoffer was interviewed by Eric Sevareid and it was broadcast in September of that year. Listen to Hoffer on the topic of intellectuals and on the people of Britian as of 1967:


Not quite fifty years later, you can see where the U.S. is heading.

Magic Fairy Dust

On the masthead of this blog are four quotes, one of them by reader/blogger Moshe Ben David from a comment he left here that goes:

The most glaring example of the cognitive dissonance on the left is the concept that human beings are inherently good, yet at the same time cannot be trusted with any kind of weapon, unless the magic fairy dust of government authority gets sprinkled upon them.

Tam has a concrete example of this in her post The king's men.