Dilbert Explains Government

"Evil is the cure for incompetence."

Yup, that's pretty much the diagnosis.

We Must All Hang Together...

...or assuredly we shall all hang separately. - Benjamin Franklin

Click the link.

Second Quote of the Day - Thomas Sowell Edition

Because this is my blog, and I can:

I can't get excited by the question of whether Senator Robert Menendez had sex with a prostitute in Central America. It is her word against his -- and when it comes to a prostitute's word against a politician's word, that is too close to call.  --  Thomas Sowell - Random Thoughts

OK. I Hadn't Heard That One!

I received a joke by email (I know, who does that?) I thought I'd share:

When Bill and Hillary first got married Bill said, "I am putting a box under the bed. You must promise never to look in it."

In all their 30 years of marriage, Hillary never looked. On the afternoon of their 30th anniversary, curiosity got the best of her and she lifted the lid and peeked inside. In the box were 3 empty beer cans and $81,874.25 in cash.

She closed the box and put it back under the bed. Now that she knew what was in the box, she was doubly curious as to why there even was such a box with such contents. That evening, they were out for a special anniversary dinner.

After dinner, Hillary could no longer contain her curiosity and she confessed, saying, "I am so sorry, Bill. For all these years, I kept my promise and never looked into the box under our bed. However, today the temptation was too much and I gave in. But now I need to know, why do you keep the 3 beer cans in the box?"

Bill thought for a while and said, "I guess after all these years you deserve to know the truth. Whenever I was unfaithful to you, I put an empty beer can in the box under the bed to remind myself not to do it again."

Hillary was shocked, but said, "Hmmm, Jennifer, Paula and Monica. I am very disappointed and saddened by your behavior. However, since you are addicted to sex I guess it does happen and I guess 3 times is not that bad considering your problem."

Bill thanked her for being so understanding. They hugged and made their peace. A little while later Hillary asked Bill, "So why do you have all that money in the box?"

Bill answered: "Well, whenever the box filled up with empty cans, I took them to the recycling center and redeemed them for cash."

Quote of the Day - .gov Efficiency Edition

Stolen shamelessly from Sharp as a Marble, this comment by DustyDog:

If gun confiscation happens, it won't be a shoot out. You'll get 3 letters of advance notice filled with dire threats. Then a final warning (which will arrive a week late), and two late notices, full of threats. You'll hear that the people running the database can't keep track of how many weapons were turned it, so if you turn in anything and get a clean card, you'll in the record as having no guns. So you drive to the location to find out it was misprinted on the form. You call and google, and find the right place. You'll go through a humiliating pat-down for knives and drugs, but they won't take the gun or ammo you have in your hands - that's somebody else's job; wait in line. You'll wait in line all day long, to be turned away.

You'll come back earlier tomorrow, wait all day, and turn in a gun.

When you turn in your gun, you get a receipt with no unique code. They throw your gun in a completely unsecure box, in an unsecure room. "It's easier now. When the door was locked, the guns would pile up until there was no more room. Now, the boxes are always empty in the morning."

The next week, you get a letter saying that due to a database crash, the government is not sure if you turned in your guns. You'll be ordered to fill out a form, under threat of imprisonment. You'll have the option of affirming that all your guns were turned in, or that they were not.

If you affirm, you'll get the same letter every six months. If you refuse to affirm, you'll go on a waiting list. Two to five years later, a guy with a high school diploma will show up to take your guns. You won't need a gun to kill this guy, a ten-year old could beat this guy down. He won't have your name right and the names of guns on his list won't be the names of guns ever actually made; the records are obviously all mixed up. If you tell him your name is Juan and you're renting from [you], he won't be back for another 2 to 5 years.

That's pretty much how Canada's attempt at long-gun registration went, before they finally gave up.

Wanted: Dead or Alive

They told me if I voted for McCain, we'd go back to the times of the Wild West, and they were right!  Seems there's a price on the head of ex-LAPD officer Chris Dorner, and the rest of the posse is out to git'm!


Or anything that faintly resembles him.

Citizens are having to take countermeasures:




Someone's even made up this helpful guide:

But this guy isn't worried about his truck:


Given the general marksmanship skills of the cops (there are what, 40+ hits on that blue Toyota [not gray Nissan] pickup, and they hit ONE passenger, once?  The other was cut by flying glass!  But only the police and military need those high-capacity assault magazines and semi-automatic machine gun bullet hoses that are spray-fired from the hip so that they can kill large numbers of people indiscriminately!)  he'd be better off if he painted a target on his chest and back.  They'd NEVER hit him then!

People keep tut-tutting when gunnies say they we want our guns so we can oppose a tyrannical government should the need arise.  "Pshaw!" they say.  "You can't stand up against tanks and assault helicopters!"  As Phelps pointed out:

This is how badly the LAPD is doing against one man.

Do you really think that there is any way they can do anything when dozens of "right-wing nutjobs" start doing what he’s doing all across the country?  Or even worse, all in one city?

You gun banners are playing with fire.

And that is why they're afraid of us and want us disarmed.

And always have.

Now, go read LawDog.

Dr. Benjamin Carson

Damn, I like this guy!

Quote of the Day - "PRECISELY!" Edition

From Sebastian at Shall Not Be Questioned:

By now many of you have seen this video where Joe Biden admits gun control won’t be effective at stopping crime or mass shootings. Well, that's because the purpose of gun control isn't either of those things. To say that they want to turn millions of gun owners into criminals is not really accurate. What's accurate is that they already think you're a criminal. They just want to be able to punish you for it.

Nothing Additional Required

Dept. of Our Collapsing Schools - Algebra Edition

Back in 2008 when I wrote The George Orwell Daycare Center, I quoted the LA Dog Trainer in an unusually good investigative piece:

When the Los Angeles Board of Education approved tougher graduation requirements that went into effect in 2003, the intention was to give kids a better education and groom more graduates for college and high-level jobs. For the first time, students had to pass a year of algebra and a year of geometry or an equivalent class to earn diplomas. The policy was born of a worthy goal but has proved disastrous for students unprepared to meet the new demands. In the fall of 2004, 48,000 ninth-graders took beginning algebra; 44% flunked, nearly twice the failure rate as in English. Seventeen percent finished with Ds. In all, the district that semester handed out Ds and Fs to 29,000 beginning algebra students — enough to fill eight high schools the size of Birmingham. Among those who repeated the class in the spring, nearly three-quarters flunked again.

Things have, apparently, not improved.

A couple of years later, I reported that the local University of Arizona would begin teaching remedial high-school algebra to incoming (and unprepared) freshmen, so it's not like it's something restricted to Los Angeles.

However, LA has decided to DO SOMETHING about it!

Stop even trying to teach it.

Yeah. That'll work.

Quote of the Day - Who's Paranoid? Edition

From a comment to All Political Power Grows Out of the Barrel of a Gun:

I want to carry a gun to protect myself from criminals, they want to ban guns to protect themselves from friends and neighbors. But I'm the one that's paranoid. -- Larry Arnold

What Piers Morgan Doesn't Get

Generally while I'm at work in the office I like to have something running in the background that is interesting to listen to.  Today, for example, I fired up Bill Whittle's "virtual inaugural address" followed by a few different Uncommon Knowledge interviews of various people.  I don't recall which person said it, but in one discussion, Peter Robinson asked his guest what primary difference he could say there was between Americans and Europeans.  His respondent said (I paraphrase) that one major difference was our attitude towards government.  When the housing bubble burst and the economy both here and abroad cratered, he said, Europeans were out in the streets protesting for their governments to DO SOMETHING!  (I distinctly remember seeing articles about Greek "anarchists" protesting against cutting government.)  Only here in America did people spontaneously organize to tell the government to get the hell out of our lives and leave us alone.

I was reminded of a piece written by Steven Den Beste a few years ago, Non-European Country, wherein he said:

It's true that America is more like Europe than anywhere else on the planet, but it would perhaps be more accurate to say that the US is less unlike Europe than anywhere else on the planet.

Someone pointed out a critical difference: European "nations" are based on ethnicity, language or geography. The American nation is based on an idea, and those who voluntarily came here to join the American experiment were dedicated to that idea. They came from every possible geographic location, speaking every possible language, deriving from every possible ethnicity, but most of them think of themselves as Americans anyway, because that idea is more important than ethnicity or language or geographical origin. That idea was more important to them than the things which tried to bind them to their original nation, and in order to become part of that idea they left their geographical origin. Most of them learned a new language. They mixed with people of a wide variety of ethnicities, and a lot of them cross-married. And yet we consider ourselves one people, because we share that idea. It is the only thing which binds us together, but it binds us as strongly as any nation.

Indeed, it seems to bind us much more strongly than most nations. If I were to move to the UK, and became a citizen there, I would forever be thought of by the British as being "American". Even if I lived there fifty years, I would never be viewed as British. But Brits who come here and naturalize are thought of as American by those of us who were born here. They embrace that idea, and that's all that matters. If they do, they're one of us. And so are the Persians who naturalize, and the Chinese, and the Bengalis, and the Estonians, and the Russians. (I know that because I've worked with all of those, all naturalized, and all of them as American as I am.)

You're French if you're born in France, of French parents. You're English if you're born to English parents (and Welsh if your parents were Welsh). But you're American if you think you're American, and are willing to give up what you used to be in order to be one of us. That's all it takes. But that's a lot, because "thinking you're American" requires you to comprehend that idea we all share. But even the French can do it, and a lot of them have.

That is a difference so profound as to render all similarities between Europe and the US unimportant by comparison. But it is a difference that most Europeans are blind to, and it is that difference which causes America's attitudes and actions to be mystifying to Europeans. It is not just that they don't understand that idea; most of them don't even realize it exists, because Europeans have no equivalent, and some who have an inkling of it dismiss it contemptuously.

And that made me think of something else.

After the 1996 school shooting in Dunblane, Scotland, the British Parliament rushed through legislation banning handguns above .22 rimfire caliber, and it wasn't a ban saying "You can't have any more," it was a "Mr. & Mrs. Law-abiding British Subject, we know who you are and we know what you own - turn them all in." From this 1998 British Home Office report, Firearm Certificate Statistics, England and Wales, 1997 (PDF):

Following the shooting incident in Dunblane, Scotland, in March 1996, changes to the existing firearms legislation were introduced to increase public safety. The resulting Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 banned all handguns over .22 calibre with effect from 1 October 1997. A hand-in exercise took place between 1 July and 30 September 1997 which resulted in 110,382 of these larger calibre handguns being surrendered in England and Wales, while 24,620 smaller calibre handguns were handed in voluntarily in anticipation of further legislation. The remaining large calibre handguns held on certificate include muzzle-loading guns, signalling apparatus, firearms used for the humane killing of animals, war trophies etc. (All handguns were subsequently prohibited from 1 February 1998).

(My emphasis.  And how did that "increase public safety" thing work out?  Oh, right.)

In the UK, they surrendered guns that were not banned.  Here in America when we think something is about to be banned, we buy every one we can get our hands on, and everything we think might get banned along with it.

Steven was absolutely correct - Europeans like Piers Morgan can't comprehend it. It baffles them completely.  And contemptuous dismissal?  It's Piers' trademark, but he doesn't hold a patent on it.

Bill Whittle - Virtual Inaugural Address

Nineteen minutes of brilliance.

Quote of the Day - A Call to Action Edition

Sebastian at Shall Not Be Questioned writes:

We are not facing the anti-gun crowd, save Bloomberg. We’re facing the left-wing of the Democratic Party, and they mean to destroy us. They are betting this trend is real, that the country will be increasingly urban, left of center, and more in favor of gun control. They are betting the farm that we’re on our way to extinction. Are we?

Call your Congresscritters.

Daily.

"All Political Power Grows Out of the Barrel of a Gun" - Mao

Via Instapundit comes this Captain's Journal entry on When Did the Left Fall Out of Love With Guns? Pullquote:

Yes, the left still loves guns. There is no other reason for the fawning acceptance of the vulgar SWAT raid tactics in which innocent men like Mr. Eurie Stamps get shot and killed. These tactics are repeated all across America every day.

The left just doesn't love guns in the wrong hands, and anyone who isn't an agent of the state is the wrong hands. Listen to Representative Jim Hines (D – CT) tell you why high capacity magazines are still necessary in government hands.

There is absolutely no justification for weapons that were made for the explicit purpose of killing lots of people quickly to be in the hands of civilians.

Let that wash over you again. "Killing lots of people quickly" and "civilian hands." The two don’t go together.

I'm reminded of two previous QotD's here.  One that now resides at the masthead of this blog:

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. Moshe Ben-David

And this one from Glenn Reynolds himself just a few weeks ago:

Governments exist, historically, for only one reason: Because they’re really, really good at killing people.

And governments are bound and determined to achieve and maintain a monopoly of force.  Ours is no exception.

As Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote in his 2003 dissent in Silveira v. Lockyer,

The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed - where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.

We forget that at our peril.

It CAN happen here.

Quote of the Day - David E. Young

From his On Second Opinion Blog, The Mason Triad Context of Second Amendment Development and Purpose: Barriers Against Power in All Forms and Departments of Government:

The citizens in 1789 relied on flintlock firearms just as the soldiers of a period army. At that time, a standing army in time of peace was the face of tyranny. Today, the face of tyranny is just as common in the world, but is much more intrusive and dangerous, and is usually referred to as a police state. Americans have the constitutional right and duty to prevent the establishment of any police state in the United States. The people must keep their government under their control, which is accomplished, not by fighting, which is only a last resort, but by making certain that violations of the Constitution by those at the helm of government are challenged and reversed.

In the modern world, government raised forces, whether troops or police, are not armed with flintlock firearms. Police forces always carry modern arms. The purpose of such arms is self-defense. Every American citizen is guaranteed the same right by the Second Amendment. In order for Americans to keep their government and its forces under their control, as the Constitution guarantees, the people, at a minimum, have the right to keep and bear the same type of arms that police are provided.

RTWT. David has the distinct advantage of being able to make his point quickly and with ironclad references.

Wait, This Was in the New Yorker?

A film review, but still....

So film critic Richard Brody writes a piece on Sylvester Stallone's latest, Bullet to the Head (which I saw today - good to see that Hollywood is joining up in the War on Gun Violence by putting out these educational films; Bullet to the Head, Parker, The Last Stand, Gangster Squad, Hansel and Gretel - Witch Hunters, Jack Reacher....).

Let me excerpt the pertinent paragraph from Brody's review:

In effect, the fabulous armamentarium that Jimmy Bobo maintains is the fundamental means of resistance for ordinary citizens against a government and its misdeeds. Some smart politicians and related cronies had the idea to hire low-level criminals as unwitting agents and then to dispose of them conveniently; one of these criminals, Bobo, is smart enough to catch on, strong enough to hold out, and tough enough to fight back. "Some will rob you with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen," Woody Guthrie sang (in "Pretty Boy Floyd"), and "Bullet to the Head" is the story of bearing and keeping arms for purposes unrelated to a well-regulated militia and altogether connected to the ultimate, if veiled and limited, prospect of fighting back against the government.

(My emphasis.)  Who are you, and what have you done with the New Yorker magazine?

Oh, wait:

Gun Sales Soar on Photo of Armed Obama

The White House's attempt to portray President Obama as a gun user may have had unintended consequences today, as a newly released photo of Mr. Obama firing a rifle at Camp David set off a panic of gun buying across the US.

That piece is satire, but Obama as Gun Salesman of the Decade (and quite possibly the Century) is an already established fact.

But that one paragraph in the middle of a movie review? Wow. I guess I've found Stephen Hunter's new nom de plume.

'Love is what makes you smile when you're tired.'

Not what you'd expect from this blog, but I received this in an email tonight and thought I'd share:

A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds,

'What does love mean?'

The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined

See what you think:


'When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore.. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love.'

Rebecca- age 8



'When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different.
You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.'

Billy - age 4



'Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.'

Karl - age 5



'Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.'

Chrissy - age 6



'Love is what makes you smile when you're tired.'

Terri - age 4



'Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.'

Danny - age 7



'Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that.
They look gross when they kiss'

Emily - age 8



'Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.'

Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)



'If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate. '

Nikka - age 6
(we need a few million more Nikka's on this planet)



'Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.'

Noelle - age 7



'Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.'

Tommy - age 6



'During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling.

He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore.'

Cindy - age 8



'My mommy loves me more than anybody
You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.'

Clare - age 6



'Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.'

Elaine-age 5



'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.'

Chris - age 7



'Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.'

Mary Ann - age 4



'I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.'

Lauren - age 4



'When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.' (what an image)

Karen - age 7



'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross..'

Mark - age 6



'You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.'

Jessica - age 8


And the final one


The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife.

Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.

When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said,

'Nothing , I just helped him cry.'

A Legal Immigrant on Gun Violence

My brother emailed me this one:



Preach it, Brother!

Having Fun With Facebook Comments

Not blogging much, but commenting is fun!