While it is yummy, its ballistic properties leave something to be desired.
Monday, October 17, 2011
What's in your Bug Out Bag for your pets?
What, not taking them with you? Elly May Clampett isn't.
Donna Douglass is still alive, and still likes her critters. Well done, ma'am.
Donna Douglass is still alive, and still likes her critters. Well done, ma'am.
"I don't think it’s right for people to carry all these guns."
Says customer saved from a store robbery by a concealed carry permit holder:
It seems that no charges are being filed against our hero. For now.
INDIANAPOLIS -- A customer standing in line at an east side Indianapolis auto parts store shot a suspected armed robber demanding cash, police said.The would-be robber is, of course, a choir boy:
Investigators said John Perry fired his handgun and struck Carlos Ortiz, 21, in the leg at the Auto Zone in the 1100 block of North Arlington Avenue Saturday.
Saturday’s incident wasn’t Ortiz’s first run-in with the law. He was charged with robbery before in 2008, police said.But what really has me doing a face palm is the reaction of the customers:
Customer Sharon Mabeeward was in the store just prior to the robbery and had a hard time believing how Perry reacted.Sharon Mabeeward is as dumb as a rock. Good grief. What is it with yankees?
"(Perry) should have called the police. I don't think it’s right for people to carry all these guns. It's a crazy world," Mabreeward said.
It seems that no charges are being filed against our hero. For now.
Wreckers are disrupting the Glorious Five Year Plan, Comerades!
The Obama Administration is keen on High Speed Rail, and is dumping money into California's "Train to Nowhere". So why is is Department of Transportation killing High Speed Rail?
Observe the blinking, uncomprehending, cow-eyed return gaze of our Intellectual Betters. Philosopher Kings.
Guys, it's bad for the engine, brakes, and transmission when you floor both the gas pedal and the brake at the same time. You wonder why we don't have great High Speed Rail like Europe? Government regulation.
That popping noise you just heard is the sound of Progressive's heads exploding.
The Federal Railroad Administration was created in 1966 to set and enforce railway safety standards. And certainly in terms of safety, the FRA has been wildly successful passenger rail is perhaps the safest mode of transport in the US. But many rail advocates argue that the FRA regulations have not only come at too high a price (by making rail prohibitively expensive) but in many cases are completely nonsensical.It's an old saw of the Left that the Railroads went out of business because they thought that they were in the railroad business, when in fact they were in the transportation business. OK, so which Progressives are willing to tell the Obama Administration that the FRA isn't in the Passenger Rail Safety business, but in the Transportation Safety business?
...
Then, in 1999 with Acela planning fully underway, the FRA pulled the rug out by issuing regulations for high-speed rail service requiring trains to withstand 800,000 pounds force without deformation. The 800,000 figure is an arbitrary number dating back to the 1920s; this mandate has since been increased to 1 million pounds.
The buffering requirement confounded Bombadier. Train weight is of crucial importance as it affects the amount of track wear, noise, and energy costs. To meet the buffering regulation, the train would have to be significantly bulked-up. The result was a highspeed train nearly twice as heavy as its European counterparts. As such, the Acela has been described variously as a tank-on-wheels and a bank-vault-on-wheels. Indeed, an overweight train like Acela would be banned from the European high speed rail network.
Because the extra weight put so much strain on the train body (which was never designed to handle suchloads) trainsets suffered excessive wheel wear, cracks in the yaw damper and brake rotors, and other problems which can probably never be completely fixed. Whereas the original contract called for trains to run 400,000 miles between equipment failures, the Acela can barely manage 20,000 miles.
...
And heaver trains are a lot more expensive to operate, which means higher fares and fewer trains running to fewer places. This in turn means travelers often resort to driving cars, which is 10-100 times more dangerous than rail travel. In other words, even if one accepts the premise that the excessive US buffering standards make train travel safer, they may in fact be counterproductive by diverting potential train riders to automobiles, causing many times more highway fatalities.
Observe the blinking, uncomprehending, cow-eyed return gaze of our Intellectual Betters. Philosopher Kings.
Guys, it's bad for the engine, brakes, and transmission when you floor both the gas pedal and the brake at the same time. You wonder why we don't have great High Speed Rail like Europe? Government regulation.
That popping noise you just heard is the sound of Progressive's heads exploding.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Pedobear smiles
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| (Image source) |
On September 22, 2011, H.R. 3011 was introduced in the House. It is entitled the “Transportation Security Administration Authorization Act of 2011” and it contains some curious language.And who is the Statist Prick introducing legislation making a felon of someone mocking the unionized gropers and clock watchers who are killing our air travel industry? Republican Mike Rogers.
...
In other words, if you print a t-shirt or produce a publication with a TSA logo, the government may soon be able to arrest and prosecute you.The language states that it would be illegal to “convey the impression” that you are representing the TSA, but this interpretation would likely be left to federal prosecutors.In the past, satire was protected under the First Amendment, but it may soon be illegal to poke fun at the TSA or use its logo or even utter its name. Notice there is no exception in the above language for parody.
When I become King, I shall take pleasure in exiling Legislators who make it a crime to mock pedophiles in uniform.
Alabama GOP Representative Mike Rogers, you are an idiot - thinking that you can repeal the First Amendment ("Let the courts decide"). You are also an evil man, protecting the people who do this when you should be calling for them to be prosecuted.
Remember, folks, there are statist pricks like Rep. Rogers in both parties. The Democrats aren't the problem, and Republicans aren't the solution.
Markets in everything - even terrible art
While looking for today's Stravinski, I ran across some of the seemingly perennial wondering that "people don't like classical music":
The market in modern classical music is ticking right along, producing large amounts of very ugly music that nobody wants to listen to. It produces this because a small elite controls the funding sources - basically, they are the customer, and they're buying what they want. There's no "market failure" here at all. The paying customers are demanding terrible art, which they're getting.
You and I are quite besides the point here. Sadly, the entire community of classical music lovers are besides the point, too. The elite who run things are destroying something beautiful in their pursuit of a snobbish vacuum.
But I'm sure that it will be quite different when a small elite runs our health care. Entirely different.
Me, I love classical music, but have to say that modern classical music is simply wretched. All of it. Robert Blumen almost gets to the heart of the matter:
As a lover of classical music for decades, I have been dismayed by its gradual decline in our society. In most record stores today (at least in north Texas), it is increasingly difficult to find a section of the store dedicated to classical music, or even new age music for that matter. Instead, I find our culture swamped constantly by rock, country, and even rap music. Not that there is anything necessarily wrong with those genres, since I listen to plenty of rock and even some country myself (indeed, I grew up only with country since that was all my parents would listen to). OK, I don’t like most rap. Want to call me elitist for that? Be my pest [sic]!
Still, I find the situation very unbalanced and unjust. Once a form of music becomes unpopular, it tends to remain so since radio and TV stations ignore it, resulting in few people hearing it. That creates a barrier to musical diversity. Ironic considering that free market systems supposedly promote innovation and diversity. But when maximizing profit is the only real issue, popularity and the willingness of people to spend money on what is popular and easily accessible are what counts, literally. And that is where free market economics fails, because many people find more to their lives than making lots of money or being popular. Instead of thinking freely, children are encouraged to blindly follow the crowd by such pressures.
This is correct, but not quite all the way there. We should recognize that there is a market for modern classical music, and it's quite well funded - by foundations and corporate sponsorships, mainly. Proceeds from audience ticket sales are relatively minor. The commenters taking Blumen to task for describing the problem in market terms are quite mistaken.
Ross — a tireless advocate of the audience-blaming agenda — admits that “modern classical music remains an unattractive proposition for many concertgoers” and in the next paragraph refers to it as a “problem” (Ross later uses the word “unappreciative” to describe concert-goers who do not like the new music). Mr. Ross, why is it a “problem” if people don’t like something? This happens all the time in markets – consumers do not like something; a product is not commercially successful. This is, from the point of view of the producer of the product a problem if he takes a loss, but it is not a systemic problem for the industry as such. It is a market signal indicating that the classical music industry is producing poor quality music.
Ross — taking the agenda of the managerial elites as a given and the preferences of listeners as changeable — argues that classical music is an acquired taste and that it is the audiences who should, well, just go about acquiring it, as distasteful as that might be.
The market in modern classical music is ticking right along, producing large amounts of very ugly music that nobody wants to listen to. It produces this because a small elite controls the funding sources - basically, they are the customer, and they're buying what they want. There's no "market failure" here at all. The paying customers are demanding terrible art, which they're getting.
You and I are quite besides the point here. Sadly, the entire community of classical music lovers are besides the point, too. The elite who run things are destroying something beautiful in their pursuit of a snobbish vacuum.
But I'm sure that it will be quite different when a small elite runs our health care. Entirely different.
Igor Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring
A lot of people think of Classical Music as completely SWPL. Aristocratically commissioned, it's the the type of concert you go to in white tie and tails, or your most elegant evening gown and jewels.
Not the sort of thing where you expect the local Po-Po show up by the Intermission.
That's what happened on opening night for this piece. Stravinsky, inspired by the rhythms of heavy industry, created a ballet using entirely unconventional music, and then sprung it on an unsuspecting Parisian public in 1913. Fistfights between supporters and detractors broke out in the aisles, during the performance. The police (sort of) restored order by the Intermission.
Composer Camille Saint-Saƫns is said to have stormed out in the middle. Forget the music; I'd have paid cash money just to watch theSoccer Ballet Hooligans.
A generation later, this was mainstream, used in Disney's Fantasia.
I loved the Dinosaur battle, even if they were in a swamp. But it was the 1940s, after all, and that was the current "Science is Settled" "consensus".
Their visual effects are impaired by the distinct lack of Parisian Gentlemen, in full white tie and tails, engaged in fisticuffs.
Awesome.
That's what happened on opening night for this piece. Stravinsky, inspired by the rhythms of heavy industry, created a ballet using entirely unconventional music, and then sprung it on an unsuspecting Parisian public in 1913. Fistfights between supporters and detractors broke out in the aisles, during the performance. The police (sort of) restored order by the Intermission.
Composer Camille Saint-Saƫns is said to have stormed out in the middle. Forget the music; I'd have paid cash money just to watch the
A generation later, this was mainstream, used in Disney's Fantasia.
I loved the Dinosaur battle, even if they were in a swamp. But it was the 1940s, after all, and that was the current "Science is Settled" "consensus".
Their visual effects are impaired by the distinct lack of Parisian Gentlemen, in full white tie and tails, engaged in fisticuffs.
Awesome.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Texas blogmeet
Southern Belle is organizing a November blog meet, and here's your chance to vote on where you'd like it. There are a bunch of you in Dallas, and some in Austin, and some on the coast, and a few in between.
Me, I drive 14 hours along I-20, and so I'll go wherever all y'all like.
Stop by Belle's place and leave your vote in the comments. Austin folks, I'm happy to drive, and the Wrangler can take 3 of you. And enough guns to invade Canada.
Me, I drive 14 hours along I-20, and so I'll go wherever all y'all like.
Stop by Belle's place and leave your vote in the comments. Austin folks, I'm happy to drive, and the Wrangler can take 3 of you. And enough guns to invade Canada.
Pre hoc, ergo propter hoc
One of the known logical fallacies - ways of thinking known to be simply wrong - is post hoc, ergo propter hoc: after it, therefore caused by it. It describes a wrong-headed assignment of causality. I set up FOB Borepatch in Austin, and Austin has the worst drought in memory. Under this way of thinking, I caused the drought.
Well, Climate "Scientists" have an innovative new approach to this: before it, therefore caused by it.
The problem with this sciency hypothesis is that the Little Ice Age is generally held to have begun in the second decade of the 14th Century, especially with the Great Famine of 1315-1317. Where the summers had been predictably mild and harvests reliable, cold rain throughout the spring and summer caused crops to rot int he field. Millions died.
The population expansion that had led to clearing of much of the European wilderness reversed, and in Europe of this day many places that had been occupied in the Thirteenth Century have reverted back to wilderness. You see, the weather stayed cold, and harvests unreliable for centuries.
Columbus caused this? Nothing could so illustrate the emptiness of Climate "Science" than the fact that not only did nobody seem to say "Dude, WTF?", not only did the study even got funded, it passed peer-review.
I guess it's possible that I somehow missed the tie-in to faster-than-light neutrinos*.
But remember, you're an idiot if you don't think that we're all going to burn for eternity in CO2 fire. Because the Scienciness is Settled™
Via Slashdot where as always, the comments deliver:
* ObJoke: The bartender says "We don't serve neutrinos". A neutrino walks into a bar.
Well, Climate "Scientists" have an innovative new approach to this: before it, therefore caused by it.
MINNEAPOLIS — By sailing to the New World, Christopher Columbus and the other explorers who followed may have set off a chain of events that cooled Europe’s climate for centuries.You, there in the back - stop giggling. It's terribly disrespectful to Very Smart Scientists™
The European conquest of the Americas decimated the people living there, leaving large areas of cleared land untended. Trees that filled in this territory pulled billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, diminishing the heat-trapping capacity of the atmosphere and cooling climate, says Richard Nevle, a geochemist at Stanford University.
The problem with this sciency hypothesis is that the Little Ice Age is generally held to have begun in the second decade of the 14th Century, especially with the Great Famine of 1315-1317. Where the summers had been predictably mild and harvests reliable, cold rain throughout the spring and summer caused crops to rot int he field. Millions died.
The population expansion that had led to clearing of much of the European wilderness reversed, and in Europe of this day many places that had been occupied in the Thirteenth Century have reverted back to wilderness. You see, the weather stayed cold, and harvests unreliable for centuries.
Columbus caused this? Nothing could so illustrate the emptiness of Climate "Science" than the fact that not only did nobody seem to say "Dude, WTF?", not only did the study even got funded, it passed peer-review.
I guess it's possible that I somehow missed the tie-in to faster-than-light neutrinos*.
But remember, you're an idiot if you don't think that we're all going to burn for eternity in CO2 fire. Because the Scienciness is Settled™
Via Slashdot where as always, the comments deliver:
* ObJoke: The bartender says "We don't serve neutrinos". A neutrino walks into a bar.
Obligatory "What was your first car" meme video
This goes out to Old NFO who, as you'd expect, has an awesome story:
But man, I sure wish I'd tagged Tam ...
This meme is the awesomest meme, ever.
But man, I sure wish I'd tagged Tam ...
This meme is the awesomest meme, ever.
Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers - Cotton Eye Joe
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| Image credit: Wikipedia |
He was known as one of the musical prodigies in Georgia, having taught himself to play the fiddle when he was a child. He formed a band, and recorded in the 1920s, both songs of his own creation as well as traditional numbers already well known in his day.
While he gave up recording in the 1930s, he continued to perform until his old age. I was astonished to find that he didn't die until a couple years after my birth. The roots go deep indeed.
Cotton Eye Joe is one of the Ur-songs of Country/Bluegrass/Americana, dating certainly back to the War Between The States, and possibly earlier. It was a mainstay of the types of venues that Tanner and the Skillet Lickers would have played.
Well known to all his audiences back then. And while we've fast forwarded 80 years, it's still well known to audiences. Not just audiences in the United States, but in Europe as well. Rednex is a marketing-manufactured Swedish Techno Country group from the last decade. The updated this for the modern European, err, "Revival Medicine Show." If their grotesque stereotyping of the Appalachia Hill Folk gets under your skin, feel free to leave a lutefisk joke in the comments.
Well known indeed.
Friday, October 14, 2011
1080p
I work for a company that builds corporate class videoconferencing devices. Ones that let you join conference rooms of people in different locations, in high definition and high frame rate. 1080p at 30 frames per second. Prople buy them because they find that they don't have to fly people across the country to have productive meetings. Even with the bad economy ("Flat is the new up!"), business is booming.
Now imagine what it means to connect Camp Borepatch with FOB Borepatch, at 1080p, 30 fps.
No, it's not like being home. But it's a world different from calling home with the cell phone. Like when they scoop up Crash the Wonder Cat and sit him on their lap, there in front of the video unit. Or when Ivan the Terrier wanders in, wagging his tail. Or when the boys are smacking each other, as teenage boys will do.
No, it's not like being home. But it's a cool drink of water, when you've been in the desert.
We're living in the future. Sadly, I don't have a flying car parked here inside the wire at FOB Borepatch. Because it would cut my drive home next weekend to 7 or 8 hours. But for now, we're there, without being there. Man, technology sure is something.
Now imagine what it means to connect Camp Borepatch with FOB Borepatch, at 1080p, 30 fps.
No, it's not like being home. But it's a world different from calling home with the cell phone. Like when they scoop up Crash the Wonder Cat and sit him on their lap, there in front of the video unit. Or when Ivan the Terrier wanders in, wagging his tail. Or when the boys are smacking each other, as teenage boys will do.
No, it's not like being home. But it's a cool drink of water, when you've been in the desert.
We're living in the future. Sadly, I don't have a flying car parked here inside the wire at FOB Borepatch. Because it would cut my drive home next weekend to 7 or 8 hours. But for now, we're there, without being there. Man, technology sure is something.
A musical interlude, for Mitt Romney
A year ago or more I pointed out that Pat Buchanan (not my favorite Pol by a long stretch) had summed up the Republican Establishment:
Sorry, Mitt. I'm going with divided government, not with you.
Good enough to hire, not good enough to marry:Mitt Romney tells us of how awesome things will be when he's President, and busy all implementing his 427 point Plan. Just don't think that the likes of you or I can sit at the master's table. We're good enough to hire, not good enough to marry.
Pat and I don't see eye to eye on a bunch of things, but this is God's own truth. When you go to vote for that Republican, just remember what they think of you.To the Republican Establishment, Tea Party people are field hands. Their labors are to be recognized and rewarded, but they are to stay off the porch and not presume to sit at the master's table.
And what O'Donnell did, with her amazing victory, is to imperil that Establishment's return to power. That is why these Republicans went ballistic.
Standing like a stone on the old plantation
The rich old man would have never let him in
Good enough to hire not good enough to marry
When it all happens nobody wins
Walk on, walk on alone
Walk on, walk on, walk on alone
Sorry, Mitt. I'm going with divided government, not with you.
It's BBQ for dinner
I've heard about Memphis style, and Carolina style, and even Texas Brisket. But I hadn't known there is Russian-style BBQ:
Well, FPS Russia* style BBQ. Easy on that kerosene based sauce there, Tovarisch*.
* He's not a real Russian, his name is Kyle. But he has 250,000,000 page views on Youtube, and does this for a living. Gun manufacturers send him guns to shoot on his videos. I'm guessing that JayG and Robb could do something funnier. Hey Robb, Youtube is "pants Optional"!
** That's Russian for "Bubba".
Well, FPS Russia* style BBQ. Easy on that kerosene based sauce there, Tovarisch*.
* He's not a real Russian, his name is Kyle. But he has 250,000,000 page views on Youtube, and does this for a living. Gun manufacturers send him guns to shoot on his videos. I'm guessing that JayG and Robb could do something funnier. Hey Robb, Youtube is "pants Optional"!
** That's Russian for "Bubba".
Peter Rabbit, Tank Killer
KnottedProp emails to point out this little beauty:
Yeah, it has the whole story. The only thing better would be if he had been shooting at President Romney's Newly Efficient™ Rabbit Regulatory Agency.
Yeah, it has the whole story. The only thing better would be if he had been shooting at President Romney's Newly Efficient™ Rabbit Regulatory Agency.
Once more, with feeling: Why I will not vote for Mitt Romney
I kicked a hornet's nest yesterday - 17 comments so far, with no less an Internet luminary as the Czar of Muscovy himself stopping by (twice!) to tell me that I was wrong.
The gist of the objections is that you don't get to vote for your ideal candidate, you get to vote for the candidate who wins the nomination. And most commenters point out that Romney will be seriously less obnoxious that the second helping of Barack Obama. Of course, they're entirely correct in this.
But at the risk of kicking the hornet's nest a second time, it's not the key issue to me. Sure, Obama will try to get by regulatory fiat what he cannot hope to get passed into statute. Here's the thing - he'll fail miserably.
So long as the Republicans control Congress - which seems like a decent bet, with 23 Democratic Senators up for re-election compared to only 10 Republicans, and the Democratic Party entering full panic mode, a second Obama Administration will be like the old Bourbon monarchs, restored to the Throne after the fall of Napoleon: they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
And so with Obama. He will continue to appoint ideologues to Cabinet positions, who will fill the top Department positions with fellow ideologues. These will continue to be disproportionately academics, drunk on theory and in a hurry. In short, the Scandal-o-matic will run non-stop throughout Obama's next term, with him ending up known as the most corrupt Administration since Harding.
All that's needed is a Republican Congress, and joint committees issuing subpoenas not just for the Attorney General, but for the Secretary of Energy, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security. Sure the running dog lackeys in the Press will try to cover for him, but they're already tired of their Lightbringer, and financial scandals (at the least) will no longer be anothing they can successfully prevent from being published. Their delay tactics will only prove to drag out the scandals, keeping them in front of the Nation.
Congress will know that they have to stop the Administration, and as we've seen from the current House (and Republican Senators), they will actively step up to this. The single danger is Obama appointing a Supreme Court Justice or two, but a little obstruction (not to mention hearings of Elena Kagan's tenure in Justice) will give plenty of time for Rope-a-Dope.
So what's the advantage of a President Romney? We know that Romney is a policy wonk and administrator's administrator, which means that he's itching to do something. And a Republican Senate would feel obligated to let him.
The last two decades have given me about as much of that as I can stomach.
What Romney won't do is scale back government, in any meaningful sense. He won't get rid of Rabbit Inspectors, or any of the other myriad of governmental intrusions that are an affront to the free citizens of this Republic. Instead, he'd work to make government work better. So what if he succeeds?
We will have a well-oiled, efficient Rabbit Inspection department.
And Congress will let him, because they'll feel obligated to support a Republican President. No thank'ee.
Here's the kicker: if Mitt Romney goes down in flames because of guys like me, that will be the final nail in the coffin of the Republican Establishment. It will say, go ahead and nominate another one. We'll vote for Obama before we'll vote for you lot.
I keep saying that the Democrats aren't the problem, and the Republicans aren't the solution. The problem is that an institutionalized elite holds the rest of us in contempt, and rules for their own benefit. Mitt Romney is the embodiment of that elite. Crushing him is not just prudent, it's a damned categorical imperative - it is both required and justified in and of itself.
Defeating Obama is short term, tactical thinking. Reducing the size, cost, and intrusiveness of government is what this Republic so desperately needs. That's the prize. We'll be closer to that prize after eight years of Obama than after eight years of Romney.
Strategic, not tactical. Our children depend on us to see clearly, and to make the needed - if unpleasant - choices. Obama is not to be feared, as I've been saying for some time. The Republican Establishment needs us more than we need them. We can break them to our will, if we don't let them panic us. But this is the moment, and if we do not seize it, we shall not see another like it in our lifetimes.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
E'en now, the tide is turning. Cast off, or risk spending the remainder of our days bound in shallows and miseries imposed on us by our "Betters". Like Mitt Romney.
The gist of the objections is that you don't get to vote for your ideal candidate, you get to vote for the candidate who wins the nomination. And most commenters point out that Romney will be seriously less obnoxious that the second helping of Barack Obama. Of course, they're entirely correct in this.
But at the risk of kicking the hornet's nest a second time, it's not the key issue to me. Sure, Obama will try to get by regulatory fiat what he cannot hope to get passed into statute. Here's the thing - he'll fail miserably.
So long as the Republicans control Congress - which seems like a decent bet, with 23 Democratic Senators up for re-election compared to only 10 Republicans, and the Democratic Party entering full panic mode, a second Obama Administration will be like the old Bourbon monarchs, restored to the Throne after the fall of Napoleon: they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
And so with Obama. He will continue to appoint ideologues to Cabinet positions, who will fill the top Department positions with fellow ideologues. These will continue to be disproportionately academics, drunk on theory and in a hurry. In short, the Scandal-o-matic will run non-stop throughout Obama's next term, with him ending up known as the most corrupt Administration since Harding.
All that's needed is a Republican Congress, and joint committees issuing subpoenas not just for the Attorney General, but for the Secretary of Energy, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security. Sure the running dog lackeys in the Press will try to cover for him, but they're already tired of their Lightbringer, and financial scandals (at the least) will no longer be anothing they can successfully prevent from being published. Their delay tactics will only prove to drag out the scandals, keeping them in front of the Nation.
Congress will know that they have to stop the Administration, and as we've seen from the current House (and Republican Senators), they will actively step up to this. The single danger is Obama appointing a Supreme Court Justice or two, but a little obstruction (not to mention hearings of Elena Kagan's tenure in Justice) will give plenty of time for Rope-a-Dope.
So what's the advantage of a President Romney? We know that Romney is a policy wonk and administrator's administrator, which means that he's itching to do something. And a Republican Senate would feel obligated to let him.
The last two decades have given me about as much of that as I can stomach.
What Romney won't do is scale back government, in any meaningful sense. He won't get rid of Rabbit Inspectors, or any of the other myriad of governmental intrusions that are an affront to the free citizens of this Republic. Instead, he'd work to make government work better. So what if he succeeds?
We will have a well-oiled, efficient Rabbit Inspection department.
And Congress will let him, because they'll feel obligated to support a Republican President. No thank'ee.
Here's the kicker: if Mitt Romney goes down in flames because of guys like me, that will be the final nail in the coffin of the Republican Establishment. It will say, go ahead and nominate another one. We'll vote for Obama before we'll vote for you lot.
I keep saying that the Democrats aren't the problem, and the Republicans aren't the solution. The problem is that an institutionalized elite holds the rest of us in contempt, and rules for their own benefit. Mitt Romney is the embodiment of that elite. Crushing him is not just prudent, it's a damned categorical imperative - it is both required and justified in and of itself.
Defeating Obama is short term, tactical thinking. Reducing the size, cost, and intrusiveness of government is what this Republic so desperately needs. That's the prize. We'll be closer to that prize after eight years of Obama than after eight years of Romney.
Strategic, not tactical. Our children depend on us to see clearly, and to make the needed - if unpleasant - choices. Obama is not to be feared, as I've been saying for some time. The Republican Establishment needs us more than we need them. We can break them to our will, if we don't let them panic us. But this is the moment, and if we do not seize it, we shall not see another like it in our lifetimes.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
E'en now, the tide is turning. Cast off, or risk spending the remainder of our days bound in shallows and miseries imposed on us by our "Betters". Like Mitt Romney.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
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Indians deforested continent.
Columbus comes.
Indians die.
Forests grow back.
Temperature plummets.
Little Ice Age appears.
The only logical conclusion is that we're supposed to start slaughtering indigenous peoples again?
I mean, sure, if science says we have to.