Getting Back to Gloom-n-Doom...

Silicon Graybeard gives us a glimpse of one flavor of the Unintended Consequences of Obamacare™.

Go have a read.

Remember, we had to vote for it in order to find out what's in it!

I suspect my ophthalmologist of 30 years will be retiring very, very soon.  And will be putting about eight people out of work in the process.

Bug-Out Vehicle

aka: The Earthfucker.

Added a new vehicle to the stable, something more suitable for going to the range or out in the sticks hunting, or - in the extreme - bugging out of Dodge with the family than the '11 GT Mustang:












It's a 2005 F250 Crewcab SuperDuty 4x4 with a 6.0L turbodiesel and a 5-speed automatic. Gotta put nerf bars on it, or my 5'0" wife will NEVER be able to climb into it. It's a bit of a stretch for me.

The (factory) color is "Screaming Yellow." I call it "The Tonka Toy."

I figure when the Zombie Apocalypse hits, I can run over anything I can't outrun. An in-bed auxiliary fuel tank is high on the list of accessories for this thing.

UPDATE: Oh well, I guess not.

Quote of the Day - The Destruction Principle

From Captain Capitalism:

It is easier to destroy something that already exists than build something of genuine value up from scratch.

This is key to understand the psychology Crusaders and Crusaderism because when given the choice of:

"Work hard, study something rigorous, and put in the effort into a long and demanding career"

or

"Find something in society that already exists, villianize it and declare it evil, then wage a campaign against it"

the lazy, mathophoic, work-fearing leftist crusader will ALWAYS go for destroying institutions and pillars over doing something that requires effort.

And you must understand how arrogant and truly evil this is. The crusader doesn't target these pillars or institutions of society because those institutions and pillars are evil. They target those things because the crusaders are evil.

An Accurate (if ominous) Prediction

Mark Steyn as interviewed by Ed Driscoll, Sept. 17, 2012:

DRISCOLL: So with all of that as prologue; with the ongoing collapse of so many aspects of what make up Barack Obama's worldview, why is Mitt Romney seemingly flailing in the polls as of the time of this interview?

STEYN: Yeah. That bothers me too, because this guy ought to be losing by ten points at least. And I know people say well, it's a fifty-fifty nation and it's going to be a tight election and all the rest of it. If it's tight this time around that says something very alarming. You know, a lot of people don't — simply don't get the numbers. The word trillion doesn't really mean anything to people; it has no relation to their lives. And at a certain point it takes on a bit of unreality because if you can spend trillions of dollars you don't have and you do it for one year and you do it for two years and you do it for five years, people think well, why can't we keep on doing that. So that doesn't seem like a real problem to many people.

And then I think there's something even more worrying. That if you go back to 2008 — and we all did this at the time — we said basically those of us, you know, who however reluctantly supported McCain. When he lost we said well, the guy gave the impression he wanted to lose and people were exhausted by war and people were tired of the Bush administration and the Republicans hadn't covered themselves in glory in the previous couple of years and this guy would be the first black president and everyone's saying he's the greatest speaker of all time and he's a real glamorous celebrity figure.

You know, McCain did the thing where he was mocking Obama as the celebrity. Now we've had four years of him. He's a crashing bore. He's not a great speaker. He's got nothing new to say. He staggers around doing the same — giving the same leaden speech as the economy flatlines, as the jobs market shrivels, as people in their early fifties go on disability and people in their late 20s move back with their parents.

If he gets sort of elected as the nonglamorous failure, what that would mean is that America is essentially saying there's no prospect of recovery. We're sticking with big nanny Obama because at least he's guaranteeing our food stamps and our disability checks. And they would essentially be accepting — they would be accepting, I think kind of — a European nanny state view of America that would in effect spell the end of this country. They'd be basically saying there's no possibility of an American dream.

Yes, we could vote for Romney, but who wants to take a flyer on economic recovery. At least if we go with Obama we have the certainty of the food stamps and the certainty of the disability checks. That's a — there's no hope — he's basically offering them the hope — the certainty of no change. And he's saying when everything gets bad, and it's going to be bad for as far as the eye can see, vote for me because you'll get your food stamps.

I think he called it.

Why Are We Letting This Happen?

Milton Friedman from his "Free to Choose" lectures from 1980:


Which is why the Left had to control destroy the culture first.

Michael Ramirez, National Treasure

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Bill Whittle Recites "The Gods of the Copybook Headings"

In his own interpretation:

"That America will return one day, I know it will."

Received, again, via email. My thanks to Dave.

Old Aviators and Old Airplanes....

This is a good little story about a vivid memory of a P-51 and its pilot, by a fellow who was 12 years old in Canada in 1967. It was to take to the air. They said it had flown in during the night from some U.S. Airport, the pilot had been tired.

I marveled at the size of the plane dwarfing the Pipers and Canucks tied down by her. It was much larger than in the movies. She glistened in the sun like a bulwark of security from days gone by.

The pilot arrived by cab, paid the driver, and then stepped into the pilot's lounge. He was an older man; his wavy hair was gray and tossed. It looked like it might have been combed, say, around the turn of the century. His flight jacket was checked, creased and worn - it smelled old and genuine. Old Glory was prominently sewn to its shoulders. He projected a quiet air of proficiency and pride devoid of arrogance. He filed a quick flight plan to Montreal (Expo-67, Air Show) then walked across the tarmac.

After taking several minutes to perform his walk-around check the pilot returned to the flight lounge to ask if anyone would be available to stand by with fire extinguishers while he "flashed the old bird up, just to be safe."

Though only 12 at the time I was allowed to stand by with an extinguisher after brief instruction on its use -- "If you see a fire, point, then pull this lever!" I later became a firefighter, but that's another story. The air around the exhaust manifolds shimmered like a mirror from fuel fumes as the huge prop started to rotate. One manifold, then another, and yet another barked -- I stepped back with the others. In moments the Packard-built Merlin engine came to life with a thunderous roar, blue flames knifed from her manifolds. I looked at the others' faces, there was no concern. I lowered the bell of my extinguisher. One of the guys signaled to walk back to the lounge. We did.

Several minutes later we could hear the pilot doing his pre flight run-up. He'd taxied to the end of runway 19, out of sight. All went quiet for several seconds; we raced from the lounge to the second story deck to see if we could catch a glimpse of the P-51 as she started down the runway. We could not. There we stood, eyes fixed to a spot half way down 19. Then a roar ripped across the field, much louder than before, like a furious hell spawn set loose---something mighty this way was coming. "Listen to that thing!" said the controller.

In seconds the Mustang burst into our line of sight. Its tail was already off and it was moving faster than anything I'd ever seen by that point on 19. Two-thirds the way down 19 the Mustang was airborne with her gear going up. The prop tips were supersonic; we clasped our ears as the Mustang climbed hellish fast into the circuit to be eaten up by the dog-day haze.

We stood for a few moments in stunned silence trying to digest what we'd just seen. The radio controller rushed by me to the radio. "Kingston tower calling Mustang?" He looked back to us as he waited for an acknowledgment.

The radio crackled, "Go ahead Kingston."

"Roger Mustang. Kingston tower would like to advise the circuit is clear for a low level pass." I stood in shock because the controller had, more or less, just asked the pilot to return for an impromptu air show!

The controller looked at us. "What?" he asked. "I can't let that guy go without asking. I couldn't forgive myself!"

The radio crackled once again, Kingston, do I have permission for a low level pass, east to west, across the field?"

"Roger Mustang, the circuit is clear for an east to west pass."

"Roger, Kingston, I'm coming out of 3000 feet, stand by."

We rushed back onto the second-story deck, eyes fixed toward the eastern haze. The sound was subtle at first, a high-pitched whine, a muffled screech, a distant scream.

Moments later the P-51 burst through the haze. Her airframe straining against positive Gs and gravity, wing tips spilling contrails of condensed air, prop-tips again supersonic as the burnished bird blasted across the eastern margin of the field shredding and tearing the air.

At about 500 mph and 150 yards from where we stood she passed with the old American pilot saluting. Imagine. A salute! I felt like laughing, I felt like crying, she glistened, she screamed, the building shook, my heart pounded.

Then the old pilot pulled her up and rolled, and rolled, and rolled out of sight into the broken clouds and indelibly into my memory. I've never wanted to be an American more than on that day. It was a time when many nations in the world looked to America as their big brother, a steady and even-handed beacon of security who navigated difficult political water with grace and style; not unlike the pilot who'd just flown into my memory. He was proud, not arrogant, humble, not a braggart, old and honest, projecting an aura of America at its best. That America will return one day, I know it will. Until that time, I'll just send off this story; call it a reciprocal salute, to the old American pilot who wove a memory for a young Canadian that's lasted a lifetime.

I know we still retain the possibility to be again what we once were, but I'm afraid that entropy will win in the end.  The culture of a nation reflects the philosophy of that nation, and ours is no longer that of John Locke and Adam Smith, but rather Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx, when it isn't just "...a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind's wings should have grown" as Ayn Rand put it.

If you didn't mist up a little when reading that story, you may be who I'm talking about.  

"That America will return one day....

I sure hope so.

Quote of the Day - "You're the MAN Now!" Edition

From a comment over at Joe's:

Note that those on the far Left have the delusion that they are besieged, when in fact they control the state, they control the vast civil service bureaucracies, they control the news and entertainment media that force the rest of us to swim in a sea of agitprop all our lives.

They tell themselves that they want to "speak truth to power," but in fact they speak power to truth, all day, every day.

Anonymous

And on this holiday, may we be truly thankful for all we shall be receiving over the next few years....

Bill Whittle for President

Via Insty.

Short version:

Long version:


Too late, I fear. Far too late.

Quote of the Day - Curmudgeon Edition

From Adaptive Curmudgeon:

The arc of history is not always upward and onward. Sometimes it stagnates. I don't like the merest hint that I might be in a period of stagnation. But sometimes it looks like it may be coming. People without adequate technology to program PacMan flew to the moon. They flew to the moon with sliderules! Decades later I can have satellite TV but we collectively lost our shit and never went to the moon again. Yes to "Bridezilla TV" but no to "space, the final frontier"? Really? Why?

On a smaller scale I've seen computers pop up everywhere but simultaneously dumb themselves down. I used to meet geezers that had never seen a mouse and I found that understandable. Now I meet kids who have never been without a smart phone that can call Hong Kong, yet they can't swap their own batteries or understand where they've saved a file. I find that reprehensible.

I don't like sliding backwards. I was promised hovercars and space flight, I got Twitter and Starbucks. I demand a recount!

RTWT, and watch the video.

A Little Levity

From my favorite Merchant O'Death:

National Ammo Day

I missed it by a day, but I put in an order today for 200 rounds of Federal Premium 168 grain .308 Match, and 200 rounds of 175 grain 7.62x51 Match.  That ought to cover it.  And it should let me test the accuracy capabilities of my 700 5R and my M25 (I hope).

We'll see if this stuff shoots any better than my handloads, anyway.

Oh, and I also ordered a single-set trigger for the Remington a couple of days ago.  We'll see if THAT helps reduce group size any, too!  At some point I'd like to be capable of hitting paintballs consistently at 200 yards with either rifle.

Quote of the Day

The USA was once a melting pot. It is now a centrifuge.

Brilliant observation.

ETA:  First it was a melting pot.  Then it was a salad bowl, separate but intermingled.  NOW it's a centrifuge.

Step 1: Eliminate the Debt Ceiling

Geithner on eliminating the debt ceiling:


Can't run up a billion TRILLION extra dollars in debt every nine months if there's a ceiling on what the .gov can borrow print. And opposing this insanity is "a tool for political advantage." Check.

ETA:

Tribalism

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address - November 19, 1863

It took another hundred and fifty years, but that nation, so conceived and so dedicated, no longer endures.

UPDATE:  Victor Davis Hanson, Too Few Oppressors, Too Many Victims - Excerpt:

Since the election, some fatalistic Washington conservative elites have accepted — and Obama operatives have rejoiced in — a supposedly new and non-white-male ethnic electorate: Americans will be categorized, and collectively so, on the basis of largely how they look and, to a lesser extent, how they sound. Republicans, then, better get with the new tribalism and remarket themselves to address the new minority monolith.

Accordingly, the enlightened and redeemable liberal elements of the otherwise now played-out old white majority, when combined with the new ethnic minorities, will result in a permanent progressive majority — one that rejects the archaic, if not toxic, racialist values that have been in the past so injurious to the idea of what the United States might have otherwise become. Just imagine a better world with no more required reading of white male Greeks, no more inordinate focus on Shakespeare’s Shylock, no need to suffer through Twain’s N-word or Tolkien's stereotypical dark-skinned orcs — or indeed, the one-dimensional and boring world we inherited from a Jefferson, Madison, Melville, Lincoln, Grant, Edison, Bell, TR, Salk, Nimitz, and Ike.

You Are a Nobody without Your Tribe

Yet the new emphasis on tribe is not necessarily a liberal vision. It ignores all human individuality and assumes that friendships, marriages, and alliances will not dare trump racial and ethic solidarity. Ours is now instead a Galadriel’s mirror of the Balkans, of India’s castes, of Rwanda, but no longer of a multiracial melting-pot America, where our allegiances were to be political, economic, and cultural and not necessarily synonymous with how we looked.

RTWT.

I've Got a Lot to Say...

...I just can't muster enough energy to sit down and say it.

Maybe later.

Well, THAT was Fun!

Monday: 400 miles, 16 hours.

Tuesday: 160 miles, 13 hours.

Wednesday: another 160 miles, 19 hours.

48 hours in three days.  And I'm on salary.

I'm kinda tired.  And I have three days of accumulated stuff to catch up on.  Oh boy!  No blog for you!

This About Covers It

Monday was a 16-hour day.  Tuesday and Wednesday look to be similar.

Bill Whittle says pretty much what I'm thinking, but I do have something to say about his latest Stratosphere Lounge.  That will have to wait.  But for the time being:

Quote of the Day - Nice Daydream Edition

From a comment at Rachel's:

Maybe it's time to go rope-a-dope. Maybe this is the moment for Boehner to call a news conference on the steps of the capitol, with all House and Senate Republicans clustered behind him, to say something like: "Fellow Americans. Members of the media. We are here to congratulate the President and the Democrat party for their election victory. You want more candy? We'll give you all the fucking candy you can eat. Higher taxes on the rich? You got it. Fast track for Obamacare? Let's accelerate that sucker so the wait time for an MRI is a couple of months by 2016. History tells us that an iceberg is lying straight ahead of our unsinkable ship. History also tells us that if the Titanic had rammed the iceberg head on, it would have stayed afloat. So we're not going to try to wrestle the wheel away from our teenaged Captain. We're just going to tell him, and all the other passengers, that we're about to hit a shitload of ice. So wear a warm coat, and full steam ahead." - Buddhahat

Someone Agrees with Me

A political cartoonist, anyway:



Robert Arial.

I Just Wanted to Repost This

I first posted it as a Quote of the Day in September of 2008. Time for it again.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

by Rudyard Kipling - October, 1919

I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshiped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return.

A Letter to the Country from an Emergency Physician

Excerpt:

This morning a middle-aged woman came into the emergency room in cardiac arrest. ACLS was performed to keep her alive. Other patients were in the ED before she even arrived, certainly with what they felt were emergencies, but treatments for these individuals were placed on hold as this event took precedence. After 75 minutes of continual heroic measures and life-saving interventions, with her grief-stricken husband crying, holding her hand for the last time, and stroking her face, she died.

This was no movie, no reality TV show. This was as real as it gets. Real life and real death. Family huddled around the bed to say their goodbyes and wished they or we could have done more.

I walked to my office, emotionally drained and exhausted, and from across the emergency department another patient, upset that she had to wait, spoke out brashly in tones that carried to every room in the department. "I know someone's dying and all, but I am in real pain here."

READ IT.

The United States of Greece

Didn't have to spend the night in Podunk, AZ after all.

So the election was yesterday:
We got four more years of the Moving Torb, the Senate still is in the possession of Cthulhu and the house is still on the side of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

Obama has retained himself the captaincy of this ship:


I'm going to do something I don't do a lot, copy an entire blog post from a different site because it is said so well I want to archive the whole thing.  Via ZeroHedge:

I apologize for what you’re about to read

Simon Black on November 6, 2012
Dallas, Texas.

It's really hard to ignore what's happening today; the election phenomenon is global.

Over the last several weeks, I've traveled to so many countries, and EVERYWHERE it seems, the US presidential election is big news. Even when I was in Myanmar ten days ago, local pundits were engaged in the Obamney debate. Chile. Spain. Germany. Finland. Hong Kong. Thailand. Singapore. It was inescapable.

The entire world seems fixated on this belief that it actually matters who becomes the President of the United States anymore… or that one of these two guys is going to 'fix' things.

Fact is, it doesn’t matter. Not one bit. And I’ll show you mathematically:

1) When the US federal government spends money, expenses are officially categorized in three different ways.

Discretionary spending includes nearly everything we think of related to government– the US military, Air Force One, the Department of Homeland Security, TSA agents who sexually assault passengers, etc.

Mandatory spending includes entitlements like Medicare, Social Security, VA benefits, etc. which are REQUIRED by law to be paid.

The final category is interest on the debt. It is non-negotiable.

Mandatory spending and debt interest go out the door automatically. It's like having your mortgage payment autodrafted from your bank account– Congress doesn't even see the money, it's automatically deducted.

2) With the rise of baby boomer entitlements and steady increase in overall debt levels, mandatory spending and interest payments have exploded in recent years. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office predicted in 2010 that the US government’s TOTAL revenue would be exceeded by mandatory spending and interest expense within 15-years.

That's a scary thought. Except it happened the very next year.

3) In Fiscal Year 2011, the federal government collected $2.303 trillion in tax revenue. Interest on the debt that year totaled $454.4 billion, and mandatory spending totaled $2,025 billion. In sum, mandatory spending plus debt interest totaled $2.479 trillion… exceeding total revenue by $176.4 billion.

For Fiscal Year 2012 which just ended 37 days ago, that shortfall increased 43% to $251.8 billion.

In other words, they could cut the entirety of the Federal Government's discretionary budget– no more military, SEC, FBI, EPA, TSA, DHS, IRS, etc.– and they would still be in the hole by a quarter of a trillion dollars.

4) Raising taxes won't help. Since the end of World War II, tax receipts in the US have averaged 17.7% of GDP in a very tight range. The low has been 14.4% of GDP, and the high has been 20.6% of GDP.

During that period, however, tax rates have been all over the board. Individual rates have ranged from 10% to 91%. Corporate rates from 15% to 53%. Gift taxes, estate taxes, etc. have all varied. And yet, total tax revenue has stayed nearly constant at 17.7% of GDP.

It doesn't matter how much they increase tax rates– they won't collect any more money.

5) GDP growth prospects are tepid at best. Facing so many headwinds like quickening inflation, an enormous debt load, and debilitating regulatory burdens, the US economy is barely keeping pace with population growth.

6) The only thing registering any meaningful growth in the US is the national debt. It took over 200 years for the US government to accumulate its first trillion dollars in debt. It took just 286 days to accumulate the most recent trillion (from $15 trillion to $16 trillion).

Last month alone, the first full month of Fiscal Year 2013, the US government accumulated nearly $200 billion in new debt– 20% of the way to a fresh trillion in just 31 days.

7) Not to mention, the numbers will only continue to get worse. 10,000 people each day begin receiving mandatory entitlements. Fewer people remain behind to pay into the system. The debt keeps rising, and interest payments will continue rising.

8) Curiously, a series of polls taken by ABC News/Washington Post and NBC News/Wall Street Journal show that while 80% of Americans are concerned about the debt, roughly the same amount (78%) oppose cutbacks to mandatory entitlements like Medicare.

9) Bottom line, the US government is legally bound to spend more money on mandatory entitlements and interest than it can raise in tax revenue. It won’t make a difference how high they raise taxes, or even if they cut everything else that remains in government as we know it.

This is not a political problem, it's a mathematical one. Facts are facts, no matter how uncomfortable they may be. Today's election is merely a choice of who is going to captain the sinking Titanic.

Obama owns it now. There was the slight possibility that Romney/Ryan might do something to slow the inevitable, but as commenter Sarah said a few days ago:

Obama: Taking us over a cliff at 100 mph.
Romney: Taking us over a cliff at 80 mph.

Pretty much.

Still, I cannot blame him. Of the portion of the public willing to get up off their asses and vote, something less than 60% of those eligible, just over half voted for more "free stuff."  Obama is a symptom of the underlying problem, not its source. A hundred years of "progressive" public education has given us a largely apathetic population approximately half of which is unable to reason or to do simple math, and a media that unable (even worse, unwilling) to do simple journalism. The Church has anointed its Pope and retained him, despite the best efforts of the Protestants to unseat him.

On the way up to the job site this morning at 0600, I was listening to a local call-in talk show where they were discussing the election.  A gentleman called in and said (I'm paraphrasing, but not much):  "I turn 80 this year.  The country I grew up in no longer exists."

I am reminded once again of what the Reverend Donald Sensing said in December of 2003, before G.W. Bush really started running for his second term in 2004:

I predict that the Bush administration will be seen by freedom-wishing Americans a generation or two hence as the hinge on the cell door locking up our freedom. When my children are my age, they will not be free in any recognizably traditional American meaning of the word. I’d tell them to emigrate, but there’s nowhere left to go. I am left with nauseating near-conviction that I am a member of the last generation in the history of the world that is minimally truly free.

When I asked him in 2008 if his opinion had changed, he replied:

Yes, most definitely it has. The demise of freedom in this country has accelerated even faster than I imagined back in 2003.

I submit that, if the Bush Administration is seen as the cell door hinge, the Obama Administration will be seen as the lock plate and deadbolt.

For that which we are about to receive, may we be truly thankful.  We've earned it.

Welcome to the United States of Greece.  The Austerity Riots should be spectacular.

Edited to add this, from Unix-Jedi, since Obama is "more flexible" now that the election is over:


(Click for full size)

I never said there was no difference between Romney and Obama, just that neither was going to solve the looming budget crisis.

Something Else that Might Move You

I'll be out of town the next couple of days, so NO BLOG FOR YOU!  In the mean time, here's a clip that might affect you in the same way as another recent post:


I should be back on line on Friday.

Quote of the Day - Mostly Cajun Prediction Edition

Don’t Panic!

Expect Obama to show an early lead in exit polls… until Republicans start getting off work.

Remember as You Go to the Polls Tomorrow

Quote of the Day - Rachel Lucas (Once More!)

It’s 10:50 p.m. in Turin and if I stay on the internet and see one more poll like this CNN one that has Obama tied with Romney, but with a +11 Democrat sample – which is 57% higher than the advantage Obama had in 2008 – then one of my carotid arteries will spontaneously hemorrhage. It’s not that such polls are right and therefore scary, it’s that they are so unfathomably insulting to human intelligence that key biological systems self-destruct to protect the cerebral cortex from irreparable damage secondary to what we in the medical field call WTF NeuroParalysis.

Rachel at her best.

Insulting to human intelligence?  The media knows its audience, Rachel.  It's been playing to them for decades.

UPDATE:  I had the day off for personal reasons, and driving around between appointments, I tuned into the Rush Limbaugh show for a change just to see how histrionic he would get on this last day before the election.  He kept hitting the topic of the polls, the polls, the polls!  It's a tie!  Obama's ahead!  Romney's ahead!  It's too close to call!  He made largely the same point that Rachel does above, pointing out the (obvious) skewing, generally buried several paragraphs down in the poll reports.

Paraphrasing, he said something along the lines of "I thought this close to the election the pollsters would be more interested in being right than in trying to influence the vote, but I was wrong.  What are they going to do when Obama loses big?"

I shouted the answer back at the radio:  Blame it on voter suppression and CHEATING.  They've been screaming about voter ID being "voter suppression" for months now, and the Democrats always accuse the Right of what they themselves are doing, so you can bet your ass they're going to scream that the election was stolen by voter suppression and fraud.  I just hope Romney wins, and by a big enough margin to overcome their cheating.

Trust Me, I'm an Engineer

Field expedient Glock Holster:



Had to share that one.

Somehow I don't think Dennis will be adding that model to his catalog.

Birkenstock might, though.

Interesting Data Point

I have the day off, and during a spare few minutes I decided to run over and visit my favorite Merchant O'Death.  I noticed a sign I hadn't seen posted before, and asked about it, then asked if I could blog about it.  Their response, "It's there for public consumption.  Go ahead."  So I shall.  The sign in question:


What's the deal?  About 80% of the guns that come back due to reliability issues are not due to gun problems, but ammo problems.  The customer is advised to pick up a box of PMC or CCI or anything on the shelf not from WalMart, and try the firearm again, and then if there are still function problems, then bring it back.

The overwhelming majority don't come back.

Doing a little Violence Policy Center Research™ (a Google search), I turned up a few links looking for "WalMart ammo quality," like this thread from Cheaper than Dirt's Forum from 2009.  Excerpt:

I recently talked to a shooting range owner about this issue. He told me they had noticed more issues with ammo bought at Wal Mart (misfires) than ammo bought at other retailers. He had heard the the major U.S. manufacturers actually set aside ammo that wasn't perfect (i.e. discolored) to sell to Wal Mart at a discounted price. This person's info is generally accurate so, who knows? -- "Speed Biker"

The next few replies were in defense of reputable ammo manufacturers and their quality control, and that's what I've found over most of the web, but I like this gunshop, and I trust the guy behind the counter when he tells me that they're seeing people have a lot of trouble with Wally-World ammo not functioning well (FTF, FTE, misfires, etc.)  I don't know if this is a recent development, influenced by the massive ammo orders placed by the federal .gov, or what, but I found it interesting that it was such a problem that they felt they had to put up a sign to preemptively stop "warranty" repairs that weren't, in fact, warranty repairs.

Anybody have any similar stories?

German Gun Control

Seems to work over there as well as it does everywhere else:

Perverted gynaecologist who kept sick photos of his patients also owned nearly 1,000 guns

Police have discovered a gynaecologist was storing nearly 1,000 guns as well as keeping photos of his patients' private parts.

The medic, Dr Christian Koller, stored the pictures in hidden cupboards and safes in his Munich office and apartment, alongside machine guns, rifles, pistols and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

The officers were conducting a raid on the surgery after former patients made a complaint of malpractice against him and were not expecting to find over 700 guns.

Police say the doctor - who has surrendered his medical license - told them he was an 'obsessed collector.'

'He has a collector's licence to keep some of the weapons as historic firearms but nothing on this scale,' said a police spokesman.

His junk-on-the-bunk picture actually qualifies as an "arsenal" for a change!

There look to be several select-fire and full-auto weapons in there, too.  I see only sixty or so guns in that shot, so there has to be 10x that many we haven't seen.  Obviously enough to get the Daily Mail editor's knickers in a twist, since "over 700" and "nearly 1,000" are separated by, oh, about 300. 

Author Unknown

Probably Major Caudill, USMC (Ret.):

We're the Battling Bastards of Benghazi,
no fame, no glory, no paparazzi.

Just a fiery death in a blazing hell,
defending the country we loved so well.

It wasn't our job, but we answered the call,
fought to the consulate, 'n scaled th' wall.

We pulled twenty countrymen from the jaws of fate,
led them to safety, 'n stood at th' gate.

Just two of us, 'n foe by th' score,
but we stood fast to bar th' door.

We called for reinforcement, but were denied,
so we fought, 'n we fought, 'n we fought, 'n we died.

We gave our all for our Uncle Sam,
'n Obama didn't give a damn.

Just two dead SEALS, who carried the load,
no thanks to us, we were bumps in the road.

Quote of the Day - Adaptive Curmudgeon Edition

Just a taste, you really need to read the whole post:

I have revised my earlier support for candidate A.  I’m was going to vote for him.  Now I’m going to build a shrine to him.

Quote of the Day - Higher Education Edition

(M)ost school systems are run by people who think that a four year degree in literature is a wonderful thing, and I do, too, but the country is kept running by people who know temperatures and pressures and torques and amps and volts and combustion characteristics and other things that don't fit in the average sit-com. Yes, there are some colleges offering these things, but there are also a lot of people who picked up the skills on the job. -- Mostly Cajun, Ch-ch-ch-changes!

I graduated from college with a degree in what I call "nuclear basket-weaving" - a Bachelor of Arts in General Studies, my three areas of concentration (in descending order): math, physics and engineering.

This gave me a good technical background but no actual practical knowledge other than how to do drafting, back when it was still done with paper and pencil.  That did not make me all that employable.  I started off as a helper in an electric shop at $5/hr, back when the minimum wage was $3.35.  And remember, I had a four-year degree (after 5½ years of school)!  The bottom quintile of pre-tax income in 1986 was $14,300 or less.  I made less.  I did not tell them (nor did I feel) that $5/hr was beneath my dignity.  I said "Thank you, sir, you won't regret this!"

That $5/hr job allowed me the opportunity to learn, and the stuff I know today I learned on the job. It's made me very employable. I've been unemployed once over the last twenty-six years, and that was over Christmas of 2009. Currently, I get a call or an email from a headhunter about once or twice a month. That's because I do know stuff about temperatures and pressures and torques and amps and volts and bits and bytes and words. Kids coming out of college these days? Not so much.  And the majority of the ones who do?  Foreign students who are likely to take that knowledge home with them.

My income now puts me on the ragged edge between the fourth and fifth quintiles.  Add in my wife's income, and we're solidly in the (bottom of) the top 20% of income earners in the U.S. as households go.

All because I studied stuff that makes me valuable to the people who produce wealth.

As I've pointed out previously, Mike Rowe has a lot to say about this topic that's worth listening to.

As You Go to the Polls...

...just remember this:


Stolen blatantly from Phelps.

"It seems to move people."

Sorry about the ad, but watch the piece.

Bill Whittle's Latest

Going to vote for Ron Paul? Gary Johnson? No one at all?

Listen up. Bill has something to say to you:

New Media

Provides new outlets:


About 7½ minutes. Well done!

(h/t: DJ in comments.)