Bullies

A freshman at a Massachusetts high school named Phoebe Prince hung herself, and it has been attributed to the unremitting bullying that she received on a daily basis. 9 of the other students in the school have been charged in the case. Experts and pundits are all voicing opinions, and a quick Google search on the topic returns more than you can possibly read. Jodee Blanco, an activist and author on this subject, wrote a column that describes bullying and it's effects better than most. She was bullied as a child, and remembers.

I remember, too. I moved halfway across the country and entered a school mid year. It began almost immediately, and it was relentless. Even those who wouldn't participate just stood off to the side. The teachers must have known, but took no action. My parents knew, bruises, torn clothes, broken glasses. I went to my parents, and I thought at the time my father's response was cruel, but he was right. He taught me to fight back.

I learned to fight, and I took no more abuse unanswered. Insult me and you got insulted back. Put your hands on me, and it was going to happen right then, right there. Suspensions and consequences were for later. You didn't have to like me, but you would at least leave me alone.

It wasn't too long after I quit being a victim that I started to find some friends and the problem faded away. I still have zero tolerance for bullying or hazing. I wish I had learned to fight back sooner. I wish someone had taught the lesson to Phoebe Prince.

Bullies are always cowards at heart and may be credited with a pretty safe instinct in scenting their prey.
--Anna Julia Cooper

A Promise for 2012

The Boston Globe has an article on Mitt Romney's recent speech in Iowa. Here's the opening line:

AMES, Iowa — Mitt Romney offered an enthusiastic defense last night of the comprehensive health care law he helped create four years ago in Massachusetts...

Fair enough, Mitt, you enacted it, and four years out, you feel strongly enough about it to give a speech in it's defense. Further on in the article, there's this interesting quote:

"Basically, it’s the same thing," said Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist who advised the Romney and Obama administrations on their health insurance programs. A national health overhaul would not have happened if Mitt Romney had not made "the decision in 2005 to go for it. He is in many ways the intellectual father of national health reform."

So, here's my promise to Mitt Romney and the Republican Party, I will not vote for Mitt Romney for President under any circumstances. If he is the candidate, I will vote for a 3rd party candidate, or just skip voting for President at all. If you didn't learn the lesson with McCain, you will have to repeat it in the fall of 2012. Get this man off the stage, have Sarah Palin explain it to him, and let's find a fiscal conservative willing to run for office. If Mitt Romney wants to run for President in 2016 as a centrist Democrat, a position he could make a honest attempt to fill, more power to him. I won't vote for him then either, I don't like his position on any number of issues, including the 2nd Amendment.

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
--John Adams

Militia Probe Included Undercover FBI Agent

The headline says Militia Probe Included Undercover FBI Agent. Well, of course it did. If you're hanging around with a fringe group of people that are planning and threatening violence, are making explosives, and put enough information about it out by email and websites that your group is attracting new members, you've got your very own FBI agent.

It would be a dangerous job to go undercover in a group like this and we rarely hear the stories of the men that take on the task. If this group was as dangerous as the indictments suggest, pretending to be a member would have been a ongoing risk. In this case, there is evidence that local law enforcement officers were targeted and a specific officer was going to be assassinated. If the evidence at trial is sufficient to convict them, they should get their own rooms at Gitmo.

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
--Blaise Pascal

The Real Agenda

James Lovelock, the "the globally respected environmental thinker and independent scientist who developed the Gaia theory", has come out and clearly stated the agenda of the Global Warming crowd in an interview with the UK Guardian.

"I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change," said Lovelock in his first in-depth interview since the theft of the UEA emails last November. "The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful."

One of the main obstructions to meaningful action is "modern democracy", he added. "Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while."

Thanks, James, that was really helpful in putting the issue of climate change in proper perspective.

The idea that 'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others.
--Ayn Rand

Teh Funny, I Findz It

Here's how to think about your favorite firearm or cartridge when posting on web forums. I didn't write it, but I like it, and would be willing to credit authorship if anyone knows the source.

M14/M1A: Clunky, heavy, and overpowered. Essentially a Garand tarted up with a removable magazine, in a half-baked attempt to adapt a 19th century rifle design philosophy to the mid-20th century. Most often named as favorite infantry rifle by people who never had to hump a 10-pound wood-stocked rifle with lots of sharp protrusions and no collapsible anything on a three day exercise, or try to make it through a firefight with the standard battle load of five 20-round magazines.

AK-47: Crude and inaccurate bullet thrower designed by and for illiterate peasants. Chambered in a caliber that manages to cut the ballistics of a proper .30-caliber battle rifle in half without passing on any weight savings to the grunt. Ergonomics only suitable for Russian midgets. Archaic cable trigger spring, crummy sights, no sight radius to speak of, no bolt hold-open device, and a clumsy safety. Favorite infantry rifle of Middle Eastern goat herders, guys named Abdullah, and backwoods militia types who like the fact that it shoots cheap ammo and has ballistics like their familiar .30-30.

H&K G-3/HK-91: Ergonomics of a railroad tie. No bolt release, and a locking system that requires three men and a mule to work the cocking handle. Fluted chamber that mauls brass, and violent bolt motion that dings the brass that didn’t get mauled too badly by the chamber. Stamped sheet metal construction, yet just as heavy as a milled steel M14. Safety lever that requires unnaturally long thumbs, and a trigger pull that feels like dragging a piano across a gravel road with your index finger. Favorite infantry rifle of Cold War nostalgics and third world commandos.

M-16/AR-15: Underpowered varmint rifle burdened by a crummy magazine design. Nasty direct-impingement gas system that poops where it eats. High sight line, flimsy alloy-and-plastic construction. Generally favored by range commandos, tactical disciples, military vets who have never fired anything else for comparison, and Brownells addicts who a.) enjoy spending three times the cost on the rifle on bolt-on accouterments, and b.) never have to use their rifle away from a dry, sunny range.

G-36: Flimsy plastic rifle with non-user adjustable fair-weather optics that fog up when a gnat breaks wind in front of them. Magazines that take up twice as much pouch space than others in the same caliber because of the “clever” coupling nubs on the magazine housing. Skeleton folding stock that is about as suitable for butt-stroking as a plastic mess spork. Twice as expensive as other rifles in its class because of the “HK” logo on the receiver. Preferred infantry rifle of SWAT cops, and soldiers whose militaries haven’t been in shooting conflicts since the 1940s.

Glock: Butt-ugly plastic shooting appliance with the ergonomics of a caulking gun. Five-pound trigger with no external safety makes it ill-suited for its target market(cops who shoot a hundred rounds a year for qualification). Favored by gangbangers because the product name is short and rhymes with other short, rap-friendly words.

Beretta 92F/M9: Clunky and overweight rip-off of a clunky and overweight German design from the 1930s. Shear-happy locking block, ergonomics that are only suited for linebackers, barely adequate sights that are partially non-replaceable, and low capacity for its size. Favored by Eighties action movie fanatics and John Woo freaks.

1911: Overweight and overly complex piece of late 19th century technology. Low capacity, useless sights in stock form, and a field-stripping procedure that requires three hands. Favored by people who are at the cutting edge of handgun technology and combat shooting of the 1960s.

H&K P7: Wildly overpriced, heavy for its size, low capacity in most iterations, and blessed with a finish that rusts if you give the gun a moist glance. Gas tube has a tendency to roast the trigger finger after a box or two of ammo at the range. Favored by gun snobs who think that paying twice as much for half the rounds means four times the fighting skill.

SIG Sauer: Top-heavy bricks with the rust resistance of an untreated iron nail at the bottom of a bucket of saltwater. Ergonomically sound, if you have size XXL mitts. Some minor parts made in Germany, so the manufacturer can charge 75% Teutonic Gnome Magic premium. Favored by Jack Bauer fans and wannabe Sky Marshals/Secret Service agents.

S&W Revolvers: Archaic hand weapons from a bygone era, the missing link between flintlocks and autoloaders. Low capacity, and reloading requires a lunch break. Heavy for their capacity, unless you’re talking about airweight snubbies, which hurt as much on the giving end as they do on the receiving end. Rare stoppages, but few malfunctions that don’t require gunsmith services, which are hard to come by in a gunfight. Favored by crusty old farts who just now got around to trusting newfangled smokeless powder, and Dirty Harry fans with unrealistic ideas about the power of Magnum rounds vs. engine blocks.

SMLE/Enfield: Refinement of a 19th century blackpowder design. Weapon of choice for militaries who either couldn’t afford Mausers, or had ideological hangups about Kraut rifles. Rimlock-prone cartridge that only barely classifies as a battle rifle round because of blackpowder derivation and insufficient lock strength of the platform. Favored by Canadians with WWII nostalgia, and people who think that semi-auto rifles are a passing fad.

Browning HP: Fragile frame designed around a popgun round. Near-useless safety in stock form that’s only suitable for the thumbs of elementary schoolers. Strangest and most circuitous way to trip a sear ever put into a handgun. Favored by wannabe SAS commandos, wannabe mercenaries, and Anglophiles who think that hammer-down, chamber-empty carry is the most appropriate way to carry a defensive sidearm.

Benelli shotguns: Plastic boutique scatterguns made by people with the martial acumen of dairy cows. Hideously expensive, and therefore popular with police agencies that get their equipment financed by tax dollars.

FN FAL: Long and lightweight receiver that’s impossible to scope properly. Overpowered round, twenty-round magazines that run dry in a blink, and an overall weapon length that’s only suitable for Napoleonic line infantry, but utterly useless for airborne and armored infantry. Made by Belgians, a nation with a military history that is limited to waving German divisions through at the border. Favored by Falklands veterans, Commonwealth fanboys, and people who think that dial-a-recoil gas systems are the epitome of infantry technology.

9mm Luger: European popgun round that’s only popular because the ammo is cheap for a centerfire cartridge. Cheap ammo is a good thing for 9mm aficionados, because anything bigger and more dangerous than a cranky raccoon will likely require multiple well-placed hits. Wildly popular all over the world, mostly in countries where people don’t carry guns, and cops don’t have to actually shoot people with theirs.

.45ACP: Chunky low-pressure cartridge that hogs magazine space and requires a low-capacity design (if the gun needs to fit human hands) or a grip with the circumference of a two-liter soda bottle (if the gun needs to hold more than seven rounds). Disturbingly prone to bullet setback, expensive to reload, fits only into big and clunky guns, and a recoil that has an inversely proportionate relationship with muzzle energy.

.40S&W: Neutered compromise version of a compromise cartridge. Even more setback-happy than the .45ACP, and setbacks are much more dangerous because of higher pressure and smaller case volume. Manages to sacrifice both the capacity of the 9mm and the bullet diameter of the .45. Twice the recoil of the 9mm for 10% more muzzle energy.

.357SIG: Highly overpriced boutique round that does the .40S&W one worse: it manages to share the capacity penalty of the .40 while retaining the small bullet diameter of the 9mm. Noisy, sharp recoil, and 100% cost penalty for ballistics that can be matched by a good 9mm +P+ load. Penetrates like the dickens, which means that the Air Marshals just had to adopt it only to load their guns with frangible bullets to make sure they don’t penetrate like the dickens.

.38 Special: Legacy design with a case length that’s 75% longer than necessary for the mediocre ballistics of the round due to its blackpowder heritage. On the plus side, the case length makes it easy to handle when reloading the gun. This is a good thing because anyone using their .38 in self-defense against a 250-pound attacker hopped up on crack will need to empty the gun multiple times.

.32ACP: Inadequate for anything more thick-skinned than Northeastern squirrels or inbred Austrian archdukes. Semi-rimmed cartridge that is rimlock-happy in modern lightweight autoloaders. Doesn’t go fast enough to expand a hollowpoint bullet, and it wouldn’t matter even if it did, because the bullet would only expand from tiny to small-ish.

.44 Magnum: Overpowered round that generates manageable recoil and muzzle blast if you’re a 300-pound linebacker with wrists like steel girders. Often loaded to Lite levels that turn it into a noisy .44 Special while retaining the ego-preserving Magnum headstamp. Considered the most powerful handgun cartridge in the world by people whose gun knowledge is either stuck in 1960, or who get their expertise in ballistics from Dirty Harry movies.

10mm Auto: Super-high pressure cartridge that beats up gun and shooter alike. Very brisk recoil in anything other than all-steel S&W boat anchors, with a shot recovery that’s measured in geological epochs for most handgun platforms. Often underloaded to wimpy levels (see .40 S&W), which then gives it 9mm ballistics while requiring .45ACP magazine real estate.

.380ACP/9mm Kurz: Designed by people who thought the 9mm Luger was a bit too brisk and snappy, which is pretty much all that needs to be said here. Great round if you expect to only ever be attacked by people less than seven inches thick from front to back.

.357 Magnum: Lots of recoil, muzzle blast, and noise to drive a 9mm bullet to reckless speeds in an attempt to make up for its low mass and diameter. Explosive fragmentation and insufficient penetration with light bullets; excessive penetration and insufficient expansion with heavy ones. Still makes only 9mm holes in the target.

5.7×28mm: Ingenious way to make a centerfire .22 Magnum and then charge quadruple price for the same ballistics. Awesome chambering for a police weapon if you’re the park ranger in charge of the chipmunk exhibit at the zoo, and you want to make sure you can take one down if it turns rabid on you.

.25ACP: Direct violation of the maxim “Never do an enemy a minor injury”. Designed by folks who wanted to retain the bullet diameter of the .22 rimfire round, but take a bit of the excessive lethality out of it. Favored by people who don’t feel comfortable carrying anything more dangerous than the neighbor kid’s rusty Red Ryder pellet gun.

If you find it hard to laugh at yourself, I would be happy to do it for you.
-- Groucho Marx

Coexist

I see these bumper stickers on cars all the time. It makes no sense to me. You can't coexist with people that intend to do you harm because of the things you think and believe.

For example, I think the scientific questions surrounding the idea of anthropogenic global warming are unresolved. There are a lot of people who believe the Goracle, but when it comes to actually proving the question, I think what has been presented thus far falls short. Over time, as temperatures rise, or don't, and more data is collected, the question will be better resolved.

That's not good enough for James Cameron, however. He wants to kill me for not believing in global warming.

The "Avatar" director was equally unsparing in his comments about those who don't accept global warming as fact. "That's right," Cameron said. "I want to call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads."

James, it might be time to see a therapist and get on some medication until you work out those anger issues. You can afford it and it will give you something to do while the scientific community studies the climate.

Coexistence is what the farmer does with the turkey, until Thanksgiving.
--Mike Connolly

Terminal Lance

If you were an enlisted Marine, this will make sense to you. Maybe you didn't see it this way, maybe you went on and had a career, but you knew Marines that spent their four years playing just the tip with the Big Green Weenie. Some of them made Corporal, some of them made Corporal twice. Here's a reminder of what daily life is really like from Terminal Lance.

It's hard to explain if you weren't part of it, if you just didn't feel like most of the time there was the easy way, the hard way, and the Marine Corps way, and that doing it the Marine Corps was the most infuriating way because it made no sense, but we were going to do it that way because it was the Marine Corps way.

Sometimes it is entirely appropriate to kill a fly with a sledge-hammer.
--Major Holdredge

In the Wake of the Recent Legislation

The news has been filled with reports of death threats against politicians and acts of vandalism. I would like to add my voice to the people that are speaking out to condemn this behavior. It does nothing to further any cause in the United States to threaten to kill politicians. It is morally wrong. It exposes the person or persons engaging in the behavior to possible criminal charges.

No matter how outraged you are by some piece of legislation, or the behavior of any politician, do not decide to threaten their life. Work to overcome the legislation by legal means. Work to elect different candidates as the opportunity presents. One of the amazing things about the United States is the resiliency of our systems, the way the various branches and levels of government interact and counteract to maintain the republic.

I researched this behavior for you, and would like to present some photographic examples of things that you should not engage in, no matter how outraged you are. People, please, this just only make you look like total hypocrites and makes the causes you believe in seem meaningless.





Now, I assure you, I looked at Google images for threats against Obama, and did not find any. Not one. They may be out there, and I am sure the Secret Service knows, but there were not any pictures of signs I could find. All the signs, held up in public, were about taxation, Obamacare, the Tea Party, and so on. Legitimate protest, a reasonable use of the 1st Amendment. The ones that do come up in searches, over and over, all threatened the previous President.

We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard.
--Voltaire

And Now, On to Immigration

Immigration "reform" is next. They need to get this done in the next few months so that the new citizens can vote be counted in November.

I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how.
--Josef Stalin

Well, Someone Likes the Health Care Bill

In an effort to put a positive spin on the recent health care legislation, I would like to offer the following quote:

"We consider health reform to have been an important battle and a success of his (Obama's) government."

I found that in an AP news article about an essay from Fidel Castro. The Cuban leader also chided America for taking so long to enact what Cuba accomplished decades ago.

I don't like Communism because it hands out wealth through rationing books.
--Omar Torrijos Herrera

Reality

A group of us, including the senior instructors were discussing the study of Aikido at the end of last night's class, and one of them said something I have been pondering.

"There is a difference between loving something and being in love with idea of that something."

He was referring to people that think they want to be martial arts masters (or ninjas or Jedi Knights, for that matter)and so they attend a class or two, or watch a dozen YouTube videos. The hard work, of taking 2 or 3 evenings a week to go to classes, of practicing at home, studying an art, accepting falls and injuries, of making slow, incremental progress and feeling like you'll never be more than a beginner is harder.

Apart from Aikido, though, the truth of his statement applies to many things. Lots of people are in love with the idea of being married. This shows in the time and effort often spent to plan and execute weddings. Being married and in love, doing the work of integrating your life with another person and building a relationship is something harder.

It's the same that happens to a lot of people every January. They make resolutions, join a gym, start a diet, because they are in love with the idea of being in good shape. The changes in lifestyle and diet necessary to make lasting changes are too difficult and by March, the treadmill in the spare room is a rack to store boxes and laundry baskets.

The sad people that buy a uniform and festoon it with medals they did not earn are in love with the idea of being a hero. Going to boot camp, earning the uniform, following orders, and perhaps at some point, being scared and tired and hungry for months in a combat zone and still doing your job to the best of your ability, that's heroism in a military sense.

The socialists in charge of our government are in love with the idea of being in charge. They love the feelings of power that being in government gives them, are addicted to the trappings of power, the limos and the fawning minions that serve them. Actually governing responsibly, of following the guidelines laid out in the Constitution, of managing the people's money so that we had a surplus instead of a crippling deficit, of serving the people that elected them and voting on legislation on the merits, instead of making backroom deals for votes, now that would be the work of being in charge.

And there's us, the vast unwashed, the voters and taxpayers. We are in love with the idea of Democracy. Taking the time to be informed, electing the best people, ensuring that each generation learns the history and structure of our government so we all know how things work, of choosing to run for office ourselves and participating in the decisions being made, that would be loving Democracy.

True love is a discipline.
--William Butler Yeats

Buried Deep in the Health Care Bill

The New York Times reports this morning that

buried deep in the health care legislation that President Obama signed on Tuesday is a new requirement that will affect any American who walks into a McDonald’s, Starbucks or Burger King. Every big restaurant chain in the nation will now be required to put calorie information on their menus and drive-through signs.

Everything you require has a cost. Creating the signs, having them made, and installing is not free. Companies and corporations don't bear that cost. They pass it along. It is a given in economics. You can't tax a corporation, that's a polite fiction, all they do is raise the price of the good or service being provided so that the burden shifts to the end consumer. This requirement is not really about new signs in restaurants, though. It is the foot in the door to controlling what you eat.

“I think it is an historic development,” said Kelly D. Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale. Consumers spend more than half their food dollars outside of the home, he said, “and when people eat away from home they eat more and they eat worse. And part of the reason may be because they don’t know what’s in fast foods, and they’re often shocked to find out....The broader issue is that this firmly establishes the government’s role in improving the nation’s nutrition,” he said.

That's just what I was hoping for. My government, that hasn't managed it's debt in my lifetime, taking on what people eat as a mandate.

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.
--Patrick Henry

10% Tax on Tanning Salons Begins Immediately

So the very thing to take effect is a tax. A punishment for what is deemed to be dangerous behavior. Ponder where that sort of thinking will lead.

Nothing is so galling to a people, not broken in from the birth, as a paternal or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read and say and eat and drink and wear.
--Thomas Babington

How Will They Know?

If we will be required to have health care, or be fined by the IRS, how will they know? What sort of tracking and verification systems will be put in place? How will it be reported? What sort of nationalized databases will be needed?

There is no knowledge that is not power.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

5 Days to Review

Obama to Sign Health Care Bill Today
Five days, huh?

Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.
--Adolf Hitler

Promises, Promises

Well, okay, it passed, where's my $2500.00?

All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach.
--Adolf Hitler

There Will Be No Incentive

Looking for a new drug? A better treatment for a disease that only effects a few thousand people? A new way to do a surgery? Ever wonder how we got so many new expensive treatments in the last hundred years?

It's because companies that operated at a profit could invest millions in research, develop a new drug or process and then go to market with the expectation that they would make a profit. Those companies have been vilified as evil capitalists in recent years, but who is going to do that research now? The era of innovation is over. Cost will be everything, and costs will be ruthlessly controlled.

We are entering the era of socialized medicine, and you (and I) are not the beneficiary, or the patient, or even the customer, we are the expense.

There is a story about a goose that laid golden eggs. It made them one a day like clockwork. Frustrated that not everyone could have a golden egg fast enough, the goose was killed so that the eggs could be taken out. Once opened, it was just a dead goose, and there were no more golden eggs. I have never seen a fairy tale retold with more accuracy than this one.

Socialized medicine is the crown jewel of socialism. This will change our country forever.
--Rep. Michelle Bachmann, (R-Minn.)

Set Your Memory to Long

Remember in November.
Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, debate, and dissent.
--Hubert H. Humphrey

Hot Brass is Dangerous

Okay, dancing around with a loaded weapon and ignoring muzzle control because a piece of brass went down your shirt is dangerous.

In other news, falling behind the targets in a room clearing drill isn't safe, either.

Just to round out the post, handling a loaded weapon in a crowded hall at a gunshow isn't following the four rules. There's just no safe backstop, and that muzzle invariably will be pointed at something you don't want a hole in when it goes off. Not good press for a gun show.

How much would you want to stand at the wrong end of a shooting gallery?
--Groucho Marx

An Attempt at Projecting a Real Cost

Might be $2 Trillion or more. Whatever it is, on top of the bailouts, it is the bill that we will look back on for the rest of our lives as the one that destroyed the U.S. economy.

Alas! by what slight means are great affairs brought to destruction.
--Claudianus

And What He Said, Too

Walter Williams has a column on health care that complements the previous one by Michelle Malkin. It says something critically important that I have been thinking for months. To make access to any goods or services a "right", is to condemn the the providers of that good or service to slavery.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
--Abraham Lincoln

What She Said

This is what I wanted to say, but I'm not going to bother restating what Michelle Malkin has already laid out. Go and read. The Democratic promises for the health care bill are a lie. A complete and utter fabrication. A lie so big and so blatant that it destroys any remaining trust I had in the ability of the government to tell the truth to it's citizens. It is simply a naked grab for more control over the economy, another step in taking the United States into socialism.

Kick open that door, and there will be other legislation to follow. We’ll take the country in a new direction.
--Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, 2010

A Voice of Reason

From the Washington Post, a letter from the Virginia Attorney General to the Speaker of the House:

March 17, 2010
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Office of the Speaker H-232, U.S. Capitol Washington, D.C.

Dear Speaker Pelosi:
I am writing to urge you not to proceed with the Senate Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act under a so-called "deem and pass" rule because such a course of action would raise grave constitutional questions. Based upon media interviews and statements which I have seen, you are considering this approach because it might somehow shield members of Congress from taking a recorded vote on an overwhelmingly unpopular Senate bill. This is an improper purpose under the bicameralism requirements of Article I, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution, one of the purposes of which is to make our representatives fully accountable for their votes. Furthermore, to be validly enacted, the Senate bill would have to be accepted by the House in a form that is word-for-word identical (Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U.S. 417 (1998)). Should you employ the deem and pass tactic, you expose any act which may pass to yet another constitutional challenge. A bill of this magnitude should not be passed using this maneuver. As the President noted last week, the American people are entitled to an up or down vote.

Sincerely,
Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, II Attorney General of Virginia

So it isn't just bloggers in their pajamas that think what is being proposed is unconstitutional.

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.
--Alexis de Tocqueville

No American Flags Flying in Haiti

We can send our people, our treasure, our doctors and equipment, but not our flag. The current administration decided to strike the colors. Considering the scope of our current efforts in Haiti, you might think this was one time the White House would be proud to see the flag flying, but no, in this case, he is consistent. He seems to be ashamed of the flag and the things it stands for.

If anyone, then, asks me the meaning of our flag, I say to him - it means just what Concord and Lexington meant; what Bunker Hill meant; which was, in short, the rising up of a valiant young people against an old tyranny to establish the most momentous doctrine that the world had ever known - the right of men to their own selves and to their liberties.
--Henry Ward Beecher

Task Force Taffy

The main U.S. fleet had been drawn away. A small group of destroyers, destroyer escorts, and three escort carriers originally tasked to support landing operations faced the 4 battleships, 6 heavy cruisers, and 11 destroyers of the Japanese Combined fleet. Battleships and cruisers so heavily armored that they could take direct hits from the 5 inch guns of the U.S. ships. The only effective weapon the U.S. had were torpedoes. They had to close within 5 miles to fire torpedoes. The Japanese would have them in range of their main gun batteries the entire way.

Just one of the Japanese battleships, the Yamato, had more displacement than all the ships of Task Force Taffy. The Americans could turn and run. This would be a perfectly reasonable reaction to how badly they were out numbered and out gunned, but if they did, there would be nothing between the Japanese fleet and a convoy of troop ships carrying men and supplies to the Philippines. They radioed the fleet, but it didn't matter, they were too distant to respond in time.

It was going to be decided by LCMR Ernest Evans, Commander of Task Force Taffy, and the officers and men under his command. I cannot tell the full story in a blog post. There's a book called The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour if you are really interested.

They turned into the Japanese and attacked. They attacked with such ferocity that the Japanese, at least initially, thought they were the larger ships of the main U.S. fleet. But such heroism has a cost. In the end, Evan's ship, the U.S.S Johnson. was sunk, essentially shot to pieces with armor piercing rounds that passed though without detonating. Robert Copeland, a reservist in command of the U.S.S. Samuel Roberts, followed the Johnson in. They made it in so close that the Japanese cruiser they attacked could not lower their guns far enough to shoot at them. Finally they were hit by another ship and also sunk.

Task Force Taffy fought them at the cost of their ships and their lives, and provided such a attack that as one the U.S. ships sank, the commander of a Japanese destroyer stood on the deck of his ship and saluted. In the end, the Japanese turned and steamed away.

Ernest Evans died in the engagement, and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. But his monument lies under the water off the coast of Leyte, in the lives of the men on those transports that lived to go home, and in the words that went out of his ship's intercom as they turned full rudder and flank speed toward the oncoming battleships.

A large Japanese fleet has been contacted. They are fifteen miles away and headed in our direction. They are believed to have four battleships, eight cruisers, and a number of destroyers. This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can.
--LCDR Ernest Evans, on the morning of 25 October 1944

Looking Back

My friend Borepatch left a comment about the new HBO series The Pacific that said, in part:

Why is it that they feel the need to go back 65 years? Aren't there some more recent examples?

If the topic is individual courage and heroism, my answer is yes, there are examples every day. Even if we are talking about courage and heroism in military combat, there is unbroken line of young Americans that have put themselves in harms way and often paid more than their share of freedom's cost.

But if the topic is war, then my answer is no, there is nothing more recent to compare it to. There may be nothing in history to compare it to.

It was 70 years next December that we, the United States of America entered WWII. We were barely a second rate power. Most of our front line ships in the Pacific were destroyed at Pearl Harbor. Less than five years later, we were the undisputed victor in the Pacific. We built the ships, planes, and weapons. We outfitted the troops and sailors. We moved armies across distances and fought a tenacious enemy all the way back to their home islands and were poised for a land invasion when the atomic bombs were dropped.

Nothing about this was sure or certain. A lot of the men that went never came home, many more came home damaged in body and spirit. They were young men that answered the call and mature, if not old men when they came home. Sailors, Soldiers, and Marines engaged in what must have seemed at the outset to be an impossible task. More than once it seems that luck played a role in pivotal moments, but often it was one man, one squad, or one ship that turned the tide at a critical juncture.

I suspect the finest examples of courage in that war are lost to us because no one lived to bring the story home. But the massive scale of the thing ensured so many stories that many have survived for us to read. I have read extensively, and I have a story or two to retell, but in this post I want to finish answering Borepatch's question. We can ignore this HBO show, and still the question deserves to be considered. It was so long ago, and so much has happened, why look back?

Because in the history of a country, 65 years isn't really even long enough to see the effects of such a event. Because we were never better, never more sure, never more desperate than we were in those years. Because you and I grew up in the world they saved for us. Whatever happens, the history for all of us was made in those years. Because we will look back again, at 100, and 200 years, and historians will continue to consider what it all meant.

And in the end, it helps to look at what they faced, in the early months of that war, on Guadalcanal, in the Japanese POW camps, on those ships that burned and sank in Ironbottom Sound, and consider the war we are engaged in and wonder why we are still fighting almost 10 years after 9-11.

Without courage all virtues lose their meaning
-- Winston Churchill

Health Care Reform Transparency

I knew he was lying when he made these promises. Every politician does. I just want everyone to remember so we elect some different liars politicians in the mid-term election this fall. To give Nancy credit, she was telling the truth in the quote for this post.

But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it...
--Nancy Pelosi

Went to see "The Crazies"

A pretty good zombie movie. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 72%. Tense, you want to root for the good guy with the pretty wife, but you know there not much hope. I suppose I should give all a spoiler warning, but hey, SPOILER WARNING.

Might want to stay together. Might want to thoroughly search a building before completely letting your guard down. Might want to arm up. One deer rifle and two handguns do not make up much of an arsenal when everyone else in the county is trying to kill you.

There. I edited it so it's not much of a spoiler, because those are the problems with every horror movie. You can always say, "Don't go in there, stay together, hey, I said stay together!" But they wander around like kids in a park and get gorked one by one. A little situational awareness, I mean you just saw Aunt Maude get her throat ripped out, c'mon, let's get up to condition red.

It's was something to do with a friend I hadn't seen in a while. It'll be a good rental in a few months.

You know what your problem is, it's that you haven't seen enough movies - all of life's riddles are answered in the movies.
--Steve Martin

Gun Control Can make You Jump Off a Cliff

In Malibu California yesterday, a jogger was attacked. She struggled, broke away, and jumped off a cliff to escape. She tumbled about 100 feet down the steep face and survived to go to a hospital. Her attacker stole her car and left the scene.

I think I can speak for the Brady Campaign when I say thank God she didn't have a gun. Someone might have been hurt. It's time to stop calling it gun control and time to start calling it what it is. Victim Disarmament.

Never forget, even for an instant, that the one and only reason anybody has for taking your gun away is to make you weaker than he is, so he can do something to you that you wouldn't allow him to do if you were equipped to prevent it. This goes for burglars, muggers, and rapists, and even more so for policemen, bureaucrats, and politicians.
--Alexander Hope

Our Freedom Was Bought in Blood

HBO is going to try to tell one part of the story. Here's the trailer.

I don't know how accurate it will be. From what I have read about the production on the U.S. Naval Institute's website, it's clear that they tried to be true to the history. The production is based, in part, on a book by Eugene Sledge titled "With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa". I read the book a few years ago. It is his first hand account of ground combat in the Pacific.

I love the Corps for those intangible possessions that cannot be issued: pride, honor, integrity, and being able to carry on the traditions for generations of warriors past.
--Cpl. Jeff Sornig, USMC

Meanwhile, in Chicago

Why does the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Inspector General, in Chicago, need 27 short barreled combat shotguns? The contract mentions that they want this particular model because it is compatible with existing equipment and combat training protocols. So how many shotguns does the Department of Education currently have? And what for?

If they were planning on teaching trap shooting in high schools, I think that they should have gotten something with a longer barrel and hunting sights. Maybe the plan is to teach room clearing and door breaching. I don't remember that being offered when I was in school, but it is a brave new world.

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
-- H.L. Mencken

Health Care Snark

Hat tip to Ron at the Silent No More Majority.

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.
--Peter Ustinov

Tell Me Again How Medicare is the Model

From Bloomberg.com, December 31th, 2009.

The Mayo Clinic, praised by President Barack Obama as a national model for efficient health care, will stop accepting Medicare patients as of tomorrow (Jan 1, 2010) at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little.

More than 3,000 patients eligible for Medicare, the government’s largest health-insurance program, will be forced to pay cash if they want to continue seeing their doctors at a Mayo family clinic in Glendale, northwest of Phoenix, said Michael Yardley, a Mayo spokesman.

The article continues with this comment from Robert Berenson, a fellow at the Urban Institute’s Health Policy Center in Washington, D.C. ,

"...physicians’ claims of inadequate reimbursement are overstated. Rather, the program faces a lack of medical providers because not enough new doctors are becoming family doctors, internists and pediatricians who oversee patients’ primary care. Some primary care doctors don’t have to see Medicare patients because there is an unlimited demand for their services."

That pesky profit motive where doctors want to get full value for their services , so they specialize, they demand full payment, and they generally act like capitalists. Mr. Berenson made it sound like a bad thing.

I simply cannot afford to keep taking care of Medicare patients. If you truly know your business costs and you are losing money, it doesn’t make sense to do more of it.
--Lori Heim, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians

What Will We Do If The Doctors Shrug?

I had originally written a post around this article at Investor's Business Daily, but decided to just give you the link and let you read the statistics if you're interested. It is a writeup of a survey of doctors, almost half of which said they will consider retirement or closing their practice if Obamacare passes.

I found a lot of other related information, about doctors leaving states with high tax rates, about Massachusetts dealing with the failing experiment with universal health care they have instituted, about doctors quitting specialty practices due to insurance rates, and finally, some direct references to Atlas Shrugged.

Because that's the reality of things. Say I sell and service computers, and decide one day I don't want to do it anymore. Even though I am the only independent store in town, the big-box store that opened up has undercut me on the low end systems and my profit margin is gone. I sell my stock, close the shop, and go hiking off into the sunset. You have money, and you want to buy a computer. You show up at my store, money in hand, and it is closed.

You have options, of course, you can go to the big-box store, you can order on-line, you can drive to the next city, and so on. None of that impacts me, it only impacts you. My skills, my talent, my time, is my own, and it is no longer available to you.

Now say doctors do this. even a percentage of them. If 20% of the doctors currently practicing close up shop, what is the impact? Small towns losing their only family practice center is one, but that isn't the beginning of it. Even in cities it really means is people scrambling to get in to other practices. Doctors that are still in business closing the door to new patients. Waiting lines and scheduling issues at hospital based clinics.

There are a finite number of doctors, and a finite number of medical schools training new doctors. There is already a shortage. Government funding is just money. Even if you have a card that promises to pay for all your health care, what does that card do if there is no one to present it to? When you are standing outside the closed and shuttered office wondering where to go next, whose fault will it be?

Pr. Obama would have you believe the problem is rich people, including rich doctors, insurance companies, big drug companies with fat-cat executives and the like. He's either lying or wrong. Modern health care is expensive because it is complex, one of the pinnacles of human achievement. It takes dedicated, intelligent, highly trained people, not just doctors, but technicians, computer programmers and specialists, nurses, pharmacists, researchers, chemists, and on and on. All of these people work with specialized equipment, diagnostic tools and medicines, in large expensive buildings to provide the services we have come to expect.

What happens when the personal satisfaction of being a doctor is gone? Not just the money, but the sense of worth and meaning, the dignity that lead people to sacrifice to much to become a doctor. What then? When you are reduced to seeing a steady stream of people like cattle passing through the chutes, when your senior colleagues have retired or left, when the government dictates how many patients an hour you must average, and how many hours a day you must work? How long before the good, bright, compassionate ones shrug?

The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see.
--Ayn Rand

Jill Hollis

Jill Hollis has ALS. She also has a loving husband and family, and a depth of Christian faith I can't begin to describe. All of this is being tempered by the fire of the disease that will surely take her life.

I've only met Jill a few times. I worked in the same building with her husband for several years and we crossed paths from time to time. I have been following her blog since I was sent a link a couple of years ago. She is making an appeal for support for the Down East ALS Walk to raise money for research. If you have it to give, consider her request.

If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?
--Rabbi Hille

The XXVIII and XXIX Amendments

Lets take two of the previous Amendments.

AMENDMENT XV
Passed by Congress February 26, 1869. Ratified February 3, 1870.
Section 1.
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude--
Section 2.
The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
AMENDMENT XVI
Passed by Congress July 2, 1909. Ratified February 3, 1913.
Note: Article I, section 9, of the Constitution was modified by Amendment 16.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

From these, we can see what the new Amendments should look like.

AMENDMENT XXVIII
Passed by Congress ???. Ratified ???.
Section 1.
The right of citizens of the United States to health care shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State for any reason.
Section 2.
The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
AMENDMENT XVI
Passed by Congress ???. Ratified ???.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes by any means, for the express purpose of providing health care for all citizens.

Get that passed. Then write the health care reform bill.

As a matter of traditional and sound constitutional doctrine, an amendment to the Constitution should be the last resort when all other measures have proved inadequate.
--Arlen Specter

Amendments

A great deal of thought and effort went into the writing and ratification of the Constitution. It included within itself a means to edit it. It can be amended. Not "reinterpreted" to find things that are not there. Amended. There are two ways in the Constitution to create and pass an amendment. One has never been used.

The first method is for a bill to pass both houses of Congress, by a two-thirds majority in each one. It is then sent to the States. Three-fourths of the States must ratify the Amendment for it to pass.

The other way is for a Constitutional Convention to be called by two-thirds of the States, and for that Convention to propose amendments which are then sent to the States. Again, three-fourths of the States must ratify the Amendment for it to pass. This has never been done.

This was all taken seriously until recently. Words meant what they meant, and if the Constitution needed to be changed or revisited, the process gathered momentum until finally the changes were brought about using the Constitutional process for amendments. I know it can be done. In 1920, this was the process used to give women the right to vote.

If health care is a right, propose a Constitutional Amendment that says so. Pass it in the Senate and the House by a two-thirds majority and get three-fourths of the States to ratify it. That would make it Constitutional. It will still be wrong, it will still wreck the economy and the health care system, but at least it would be Constitutional. We could go down into ruin knowing that three-fourths of the States had supported the disaster.

This one gets two quotes.

Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.
--Daniel Webster

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We'll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.
--Ronald Reagan

Armed on Campus

The bad guy was. Everyone else was not. The police arrived in two minutes. The outcome was predictable. I don't know if Larry Wallington would have chosen to carry a weapon if it was permitted. I do know that it was forbidden and he is dead. The bad guy, who had lied about his police record, failed at his job, and was being fired for cause, had no problem breaking the law to arm himself on campus. He had no problem breaking the law brandishing that weapon. He had no problem breaking the law by murdering Larry Wallington and wounding another man before killing himself. All in all, a very predictable day in one of America's gun free zones.

Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion... in private self-defense.
--John Adams

Two Separate Issues

I know I've said it before, but health care is two separate issues. One is paying for it. The other is the actual delivery of the goods and services.

Paying for it is straightforward. Everything has a cost. Ignore for a moment who might be paying, the cost of a thing is real. Whatever we as a society choose to have as health care will be paid for out of the generated real wealth of the society. It cannot be escaped. It is paid for now. It will be paid for in the future. We can change who pays, we can limit what is provided, but whatever is provided is paid for somehow by someone.

So, what the Democrats are proposing is a radical restructuring of the payment system. A socialist scheme to provide health care as a newly discovered "right" to everyone. What will health care be, how much treatment will be available, who will decide if you can have it? That is undetermined. The issue of the day is creating the huge tax redistribution that will define health care in the future. It will create the framework for all the future changes they have in mind.

This is a naked grab for power and control. It will destroy the current health insurance system over time, leaving the government to collect huge taxes and distribute them to pay for the services. Completely socialized and completely in the hands of bureaucrats. It is a classic case of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

The other half of the question is health care delivery. It requires hospitals, clinics, medicines, research, pharmacies, doctors, nurses, technicians, computer techs, electricians, plumbers, cleaning services, and on and on. A huge, complex industry made up of thousands of businesses employing millions of people.

Deciding that early childhood services and vaccines are important seems straightforward, but which ones? All of them? Who makes the vaccines, who tests them so they are safe? Who should administer them, does it take a doctor, or could lab techs do it at a public clinic? Who decides?

When I'm older, if I need a bypass, I'll want that service. One estimate I found said that operation costs $44,000. At what age should I no longer be allowed to have it? 75? 80? It's a real cost, being paid out of the government tax pool, someone will have to decide. Who is that person? It's no longer my money I'm paying to my insurance company, it's tax dollars being spent for a good.

Apply that to every treatment for every disease. How do you control cost? You cut services, limit the number of hospitals, operating rooms, decide who will get what drugs and what therapies. You will limit services and spend money on the young.

Apply it to research. Why spend millions on research if there is no longer a profit motive for the companies?

Apply it to salaries. The personal profit motive is part of the reason that the medical profession attracts so many intelligent, motivated, people. Cap doctor (and other professional) pay to control costs, and people considering the profession may choose other careers.

Apply it to hospitals. The number of beds, intensive care units, MRI machines, neonatal care facilities, surgical rooms, etc. all have a cost. It can be calculated. You can put it all in a spreadsheet and watch the numbers slide up and down as you adjust them. Who decides?

Every one of these decision, and many more, will have to be made, one by one, by legislation and newly empowered government departments, once the first bill is passed. This is not a slippery slope, it is a precipice. It is not too late to stop, but it is very close to it.

The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.
--Michelle Obama

Dan Rather Said What?

Dan Rather, WTF? Here, just listen to ol' Dan for a minute.

Maybe ice cubes to Eskimos, or beer to NASCAR fans, or Semtex to Al Qaeda. Maybe just about any other metaphor you could have thought of.

Lukewarm acceptance is more bewildering than outright rejection.
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hello Kitty

Hello Kitty is a Japanese cartoon. A stylized white cat with a bright pink background that has spawned any number of products emblazoned with the image and colors. Like this There is no end to what can be done, and even contact lenses have been created with the image. This trend, and the development of gun finishes in a rainbow of colors, inevitably led to this. I assure you that is not Photoshopped. It is a real, California legal AR-15 painted in a Hello Kitty theme. I think it is an abomination. Lacking a pistol grip, forced to use a magazine that only holds ten rounds, with a muzzle brake instead of a flash suppressor, it is a cobbled up echo of what the rifle should be. But the paint job is cute.

This project, as sure as day follows night, lead to the news media deciding that painting a gun pink made it more dangerous.

Eyewitness News obtained an internal intelligence bulletin showing pictures of the new colored guns. Officers could be faced with criminals using Hello Kitty rifles and pink handguns.

Where to start? First, this would a time consuming, expense adding project. Why would you bother unless you did this as a whimsical gift to a female shooter? Next, it would be just as easy to spray paint a gun with whatever color you wanted from Lowe's paint aisle, it wouldn't hold up, but if a colored gun is somehow supposed make crime more efficient, you might as well go cheap and easy. Then, it seems more likely that a criminal would paint a fake gun black and try to use that. Let's follow this up with the idea that confronting police with weapons and threatening them and/or actually shooting at them is already a crime in every jurisdiction I am aware of. It is also a great way to commit suicide.

The truth is, the gun haters hate them all, and a Hello Kitty gun created for a young shooter generates just as much hate as my Evil Black Rifle. Do a search for "colored guns" and see the hysteria for yourself. It's something to remember when they propose a ban on the "assault weapons", and you think your hunting rifles and shotguns are safe.

If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them, Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in, I would have done it.
--Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif,

The Rules of War

The "Rules of War", an oxymoron if there ever was one, includes a rule that combatants wear uniforms. This does nothing to protect them, but it does to some extent protect the civilians that are trying to avoid being swept up in the conflict. Failing to wear any sort of uniform makes you a spy, a saboteur, or in recent parlance, an "enemy combatant". It also allows you to use the civilians around you as camouflage, which is why it is prohibited.

If you were caught in an act of war while not wearing a uniform, up until recently, it was likely you would be executed. Now you get housed for a few years, shuttled back to your home country and then released. Not a bad way to enhance your credibility among the religious fanatics that are sworn to kill us all and make the planet into a theocracy.

Mullah Abdul Qayyum was arrested in 2001, housed at Gitmo, then sent to a prison in Kabul in 2007. Form there, he was released, and is now the number 2 man in the Taliban and the overall military commander in their war with the United States.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
--Albert Einstein

This is the Promise of Government Health Care

He was in for a hip replacement, was denied necessary medication and water and left to die of dehydration. Click the link and read about the death of Kane Gorny in a hospital in London. Then ask yourself how socialized medicine is going to be any different here. Ask yourself if the standard of care at St. George's Hospital is what you want for your children.

It will be no different than the DMV. Once it is a government run bureaucracy, it will run just like all the others. You will stand in line and take what is doled out to you like a good prole. My guess is, right after health care, they will discover we all have a right to eat, and a government takeover of food distribution will be next. It will be done with the best of intentions. Just like the British health care system.

Communism is the corruption of a dream of justice.
--Adlai E. Stevenson

The True Nature of Government

This came to me in email. I cleaned it up a bit, but did not write it. It is almost funny, but it cuts too close to bone, and so, mostly it is sad.

The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
--John Adams

_________________________________________
I think it is very important that we teach our children about the true nature of government. Now, at last, there is a way to give your children a basic civics course right in your own home! In my own experience as a father, I have discovered several simple devices that can illustrate to a child's mind the principles on which the modern state deals with its citizens.

You can teach your child about our tax system in a way that is easy to grasp and will allow him to understand the benefits. Offer him, say, $10 to mow the lawn. When he has mowed it and asks to be paid, withhold $5 and explain that this is income tax. Give $1 of this to his younger brother, who has done nothing to deserve it, and tell him that this is "fair" because the younger brother 'needs money too'. Also, explain that you need the other $4 yourself to cover the administrative costs of dividing the money and for various other things you need.

Make him place his $5 in a savings account over which you have authority. Explain that if he is ever naughty, you will remove the money from the account without asking him. Also explain how you will be taking most of the interest he earns on that money, without his permission. Mention that if he tries to hide the money, this, in itself, will be evidence of wrongdoing and will result in you automatically taking the money from him.

Conduct random searches of his room in the small hours of the morning. Burst in unannounced. Go through all of his drawers and pockets. If he questions this, tell him you are acting on a tip-off from a friend of his who casually mentioned that they had both earned a bit of spare cash last week. If you find it, confiscate all of that money and also take his stereo and television. Tell him you are selling these and keeping the money to compensate you for having to make the raid. Also lock him in his room for a month as further punishment.

When he cries at the injustice of this, tell him he is being "selfish" and "greedy" and only interested in looking after his own happiness. Explain that he should learn to sacrifice his own happiness for other people and that since he cannot be relied upon or trusted to do this voluntarily, you will use force to ensure he complies. Later in life he will thank you.

Make as many rules as possible. Leave the reasons for them obscure. Enforce them arbitrarily. Accuse your child of breaking rules you have never told him about and carefully explain that ignorance of your rules is not an excuse for breaking them. Keep him anxious that he may be violating commands you haven't yet issued. Instill in him the feeling that rules are utterly irrational. This will prepare him for living under our government.

He is too young to understand the benefits of democracy, so explain this wonderful system as follows: You, your wife and his brother get together and vote that your son should have all privileges removed, be caned, and confined to his room for a week. If he protests that you are violating his rights, patiently explain his error and tell him that the majority have voted for this punishment and nothing matters except the will of the majority. When your child has matured sufficiently to understand how the judicial system works, set a bedtime for him of, say, 10 p.m. and then send him to bed at 9 p.m. When he tearfully accuses you of breaking the rules, explain that you made the rules and you can interpret them in any way that seems appropriate to you, according to changing conditions.

Break up any meeting between him and more than three of his friends as being an 'unlawful gathering'.

Mark one designated spot in the yard where he can leave his bike. If he leaves it anywhere else, padlock it and demand $50 to release it. If he offends more than three times, confiscate the bike, sell it, and keep the money.

Install a CCTV system in your son's bedroom and also record all his telephone conversations. If he protests, accuse him of having something to hide. Explain that only criminals seek privacy and that good, dutiful children relinquish their privacy in exchange for the advantages which protective parenthood offers. Remind him of the boy across town who was caught smoking dope in his bedroom by just such a CCTV system, and explain that this case justifies installing CCTV in all teenagers' bedrooms.

Lie to your child constantly. Teach him that words mean nothing - or rather that the meanings of words are continually "evolving", and may be tomorrow the opposite of what they are today.

This is also probably a good time to tell him that his energy, talent and enthusiasm will not secure him a job if the quotas of other people has not yet been filled. Tell him talent stands for nothing - it is fairness and sharing which are important. Remind him that his primary duty is the happiness and welfare of people he does not know, and will never meet.

Issue him with a pass card which he must show before he can enter the house. Stand guard at the front door. When he comes home, politely but firmly take him into the spare room and question him about his movements. Ask him how much cash he has on his person. If in excess of $50, confiscate the lot as it exceeds the house rule for maximum cash allowed. Then search his rucksack and pockets. To keep him guessing, do the occasional strip search. If he protests, detain him for longer and make the search more thorough.

If these methods sound harsh, I am only being cruel to be kind. I think it is important for children to understand the nature of the society in which we live.

Moose Stew

Moose stew, easily the best wild game I've eaten in years. Home made corn bread, and salad. Good company to share it with. It was a meal to slow down and appreciate.
Here is the main ingredient.
There's a loud moment and a series of intermediate steps, but the outcome should looks something like this:

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.
--Voltaire

You Knew It Was Coming

You knew it when he got elected. It's the reason guns and ammo prices skyrocketed. It's the reason that Ar-15s have been so scarce. They let Eric Holder announce it.

The reason this time is going to be that it will help stem the flow of weapons to Mexico. In the article itself it talks about firefights with fully automatic weapons and grenades, items so completely unavailable to U.S. citizens that any suggestion we are supplying Mexican drug gangs with them is laughable. It's to the point where they don't even bother making up a believable lie, they just go with whatever the meme of the day is. I'm surprised they didn't tell us that they were going to ban weapons to reduce the effects of global climate change.

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
--William Pitt

_____________________________________
Update: As my astute commenter, TheUnpaidBill, pointed out, this is old news. I saw February 25th, and thought it was last week. It is actually from February 25th, 2009.

Truth in Reporting

Every rifle or handgun mentioned in any newspaper article is "high-powered". So, we have "high-powered" sniper rifles (any rifle with a scope), "high-powered" assault rifles (any rifle with a magazine), "high-powered" handguns (damn near any handgun at all) and so on.

I propose that a rule be established, for handguns, high-powered will now mean a caliber of .44 magnum or greater. Handguns chambered in .45ACP, .357, .38, etc. will be considered standard powered, and .380 and below will have to called "low-powered".

For rifles, .338 Lapua will now be the minimum standard for high-powered. .308, 30.06, 270, etc. will be considered standard powered, and .223 will have to called "low-powered".

Since accuracy in reporting is important, I offer this suggestion a service to the MSM. They can start printing corrections and retractions at any time.

Accuracy of language is one of the bulwarks of truth.
--Anna Jameson

Not Accidental

A ten year old boy shot and killed his eleven year old brother. Of course, the article says it was accidental. The boys father had left a loaded handgun in his truck after removing it from his holster to go into a post office. The boys later found it, and one shot the other.

One boy is dead. Both the parents and the other boy will live the rest of his life with the events of this day. Still, nothing that happened here is accidental.

The gun was left unsecured. The boy picked it up and pointed the gun at his brother. At that point, even if, as the boy said afterward, "It just went off," he had already broken two of the four rules. I think that vanishingly unlikely, I think he pulled the trigger, making it a clean sweep of all four rules, and moving the likelihood of a negligent discharge to 100%.

The father is legally responsible, and may well face charges. Still, ten years old is old enough to know that life has risks. Don't stick metal forks in electrical sockets, don't run into traffic, don't drink the ammonia under the sink, don't play with a real gun, etc. It's a long list, and people of all ages die every day from all sorts of negligent behaviors.

Guns are not going away. Even if somehow magically it was only the police that had them, they would still be around, and the police leave them in public restrooms, manage to lose them completely, or leave them laying around the house when they get off shift.

Very young children must be protected from the risks of life by adults. Older children must be trained so they can function on their own. Take the time to make sure your children understand what to do if they find a gun. Here's a hint, tell them : DON'T PICK IT UP, then immediately leave the area and tell a responsible adult. All these boys had to know was that it was Dad's gun. They could have gone in the house and said, "Hey Dad, did you know you left a gun in the truck?" The father could have gone out and gotten it.

Here's a link to the NRA's safety program. Read it and take the time to cover it with your children, grandchildren, Scout troop, or any other young people you care about.

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
--George Bernard Shaw

York Beach

The Nubble (Cape Nettick) lighthouse is in York, Maine. My father proposed in the parking lot that looks across at the lighthouse. So, for my parents, York Beach was one of their favorite places. Every summer of my childhood, we went to New Hampshire, and as often as I could cajole them into it, we would go to the beach. I wouldn't have cared, but more often than Hampton Beach, we would go to York.

There are two beaches in York, separated by rocky outcroppings. Long and Short Sands. Short Sands. The water was always so cold that after 10 or 15 minutes you would be shivering uncontrollably. I would climb on the rocks and look for starfish and shells, make sand castles, and hit my dad up for quarters to go visit the Fun-O-Rama arcade.

I bring this up, because if you're ever that far north, and you want to visit an old time beach arcade, the Fun-o-rama is still there. Just get out on Short Sands and look around.
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
--Bertrand Russell

SCOTUS and the 14th Amendment

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will take up another case that on the surface appears to be about gun rights. It is, and it is not. Because the issue before the Court is not the meaning of the 2nd Amendment, it is about the application of the 14th. The 14th Amendment says, in simple, clearly understood words:

“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

This article, from Reason.com, lays out the stakes in tomorrow's case. It is about whether a state, for any reason, can deprive an individual of any of their rights as outlined in the Constitution.

I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted.
--Frederick Douglass