Good morning, thirty five days into 2014. Everyone seems to be getting more excited, or is that just me? We are finally getting some much needed snow in the Rockies and the Black Hills, and it is nasty cold, but if that helps the moisture, good for it!
Arizona legislators join Florida in effort to virtually nullify all federal gun laws , or at least they both are trying to: these are bills introduced into the legislatures, but I am not as confident as the writer of this article or those he interviewed that these will even make it to the respective governors to sign. It is interesting that I read this article just minutes after a friend shared reports that the BATFE and other government agencies are in a panic about hundreds of 3D-printed M-16/M-4 clones showing up, using metal barrels (and presumably some of the screws) but otherwise completely 3D-printed with some polymer (the firing pin supposedly has metal bits in the polymer). Again, this would seem to be exactly what my friend says: the beginning of the end of gun control. But I suspect the game is not even to half-time. Even if these DO pass, there is the same issue as has arisen over Colorado and Washington legalizing marijuana: the feds will try to force compliance, and I expect that would get ugly.
Mama’s Note: I suspect the same people who followed/obeyed the nonsense before will continue to do so… and the same for those who ignored the nonsense.
The DIA Director claims that Snowden potentially put the lives of U.S. troops at risk; and the DNI claimed that the ‘Lives of members or assets of the intelligence community are at risk.’ My first thought is the “Loose Lips Sink Ships,” from WW2. “Potentially” every Congressman is putting US troops at risk. So is every telephone or e-mail call home or to headquarters from a US base somewhere. And with the NSA and that garbage, I’m not exactly hyper about protecting “members” OR “assets of the US intel community. Snowden had to make a hard decision, and I think he made the right one: better to risk some people’s lives in the field, or their covers, than allow the thugs in charge to strip away the liberty of every American in the cause of “security.”
Apparently the FDA has launched an ad campaign telling children that ‘Cigarettes Are Bullies’. This seems to me, to be a total waste of time. Teddy Bears and stuffed tigers have been saying things like this for a long time, and what good has it done? Now, maybe if they did some PSAs featuring Smokey and Tony the Tiger??? This current “anti-bullying” fad in the schools and pushed by government is pretty lame. I saw that Office Depot jumped on it for a while, but then one weekend, wham! All the anti-bullying merchandise (which was pretty blah) was on the clearance table. As for the bullying, well, the next story shows who really are the bullies.
A Wisconsin school has “played a game” in which children were instructed to rat out their parents to help build better relationships and stop bullying. They were asked questions, in front of classmates, teachers, and administrators about whether they or their parents drank, used drugs, thought about suicide and other fun, highly-educational stuff. Readers know that one of my continuing themes in writing commentary has been “get your children OUT of these government-ruined, theft-funded schools, and this really shows that it MUST be done. Meanwhile, with lots of western states having their traditional winter legislative sessions, the statists and nannies are all filing bills to weaken protection for homeschooling and private schools so that you don’t have any choice on how to educate your children.
Mama’s Note: Oh, they’ll still have a choice. It might be more difficult, and it might involve some forceful self defense… but it will still be a choice. They just can’t think they can continue to milk the public cow for other things if they want to regain control of their own life.
An example from HSDLA is from South Dakota: “This bill would empower school boards to refuse to grant an excuse if a truancy complaint is merely pending against a child. In other words, even if the person is totally innocent, the school board could prevent them from homeschooling just because a complaint was filed.” Even I was surprised by the list of sponsors: people who seemed to be friendly to home-schooling in the past.
Mama’s Note: STOP asking for permission!
Back to economics and national politics, MarketWatch reports Obamacare plans to exceed $1 trillion, create reluctant workers (a cost of two million FTE jobs). Thanks to Freedom Outpost for this great news! This is much higher than previous estimates, because we know now just how the system is supposed to work, expanding welfare into yet another part of life. And pushing total collapse that much closer.
LA governor Jindal Calls for ‘High Walls and a Broad Gate’ in regards to immigration. Well, I’ve heard worse. Indeed, it makes sense: indeed, a mark of hospitality: a good fence and wide gates. Walls or gates to protect against those who want to sneak in to rob and steal and behave as parasites, and open, broad gates for people to come visit and shop and sell and even settle. Indeed, I’d be willing to trade two or three honest, hard-working Mexican or Honduran or Columbian folks for just one of the political scumbags that occupy the halls of the Capitol and the bureaucratic offices in DC.
White House Will ‘Make Sure’ Syria Meets Its Chemical Weapons Obligations right after the guy in 1600 PA fulfills all his campaign promises from 2008 and 2012. Priorities are important. Notice, NOTHING was said (or is being done) about the rebels and their chemical weapons, or about anything else. If anything, the FedGov today is selective on what it is going to “make sure” of.
Russia, US Face New Strains Over Missile Defense but it seems to me that we could solve this by some good old-fashioned friendly competition: maybe a contest to see who can knock down a North Korean missile faster? I see this conflict over missile defense to be as stupid as the attempt to disarm people so that they cannot defend themselves. Missile defense systems are not really able to be used offensively, but they CAN make it harder for aggressive or just insane governments to do nasty things to your people. They may not be able to take out a massive attack but can make even the nutjobs stop and think.
The National Agricultural Statistics Service reports that the U.S. inventory of cattle and calves totaled 87.7 million animals as of Jan. 1. That was down by about 1.6 million cattle, or 2 percent, compared with this time last year. The agency says this is the lowest January inventory since 1951. 1951 (I’m told, wasn’t around then) was also a bad drought year, but still: US population was less than half in 1951 as compared to 2014. Yes, people are eating less beef today, and the average cow produces a LOT more beef than in 1951, but I am glad, drought and all, that I do live in the West where most of the cows are – instead of at the end of the food chain in NYC or Miami or DC. A typical cow has a live weight of about 1200 pounds, and dresses out at about 650 pounds of meat, or enough to allow 7 people to have a quarter-pound of meat every day for a year. That’s not too bad; it is the COST of that quarter-pound that has us concerned. But if things collapse, nobody going to be running freezer-trailers full of beef from Texas or Montana or Wyoming to the Rust Belt or to inside the Beltway.
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About TPOL Nathan
Follower of Christ Jesus (a christian), Pahasapan (resident of the Black Hills), Westerner, Lover of Liberty, Free-Market Anarchist, Engineer, Army Officer, Husband, Father, Historian, Writer, Evangelist. Successor to Lady Susan (Mama Liberty) at TPOL.
The Price of Liberty 
Libertarian Commentary on the News, #14-06C: Guns, schools, and governments
Good morning, thirty five days into 2014. Everyone seems to be getting more excited, or is that just me? We are finally getting some much needed snow in the Rockies and the Black Hills, and it is nasty cold, but if that helps the moisture, good for it!
Arizona legislators join Florida in effort to virtually nullify all federal gun laws , or at least they both are trying to: these are bills introduced into the legislatures, but I am not as confident as the writer of this article or those he interviewed that these will even make it to the respective governors to sign. It is interesting that I read this article just minutes after a friend shared reports that the BATFE and other government agencies are in a panic about hundreds of 3D-printed M-16/M-4 clones showing up, using metal barrels (and presumably some of the screws) but otherwise completely 3D-printed with some polymer (the firing pin supposedly has metal bits in the polymer). Again, this would seem to be exactly what my friend says: the beginning of the end of gun control. But I suspect the game is not even to half-time. Even if these DO pass, there is the same issue as has arisen over Colorado and Washington legalizing marijuana: the feds will try to force compliance, and I expect that would get ugly.
Mama’s Note: I suspect the same people who followed/obeyed the nonsense before will continue to do so… and the same for those who ignored the nonsense.
The DIA Director claims that Snowden potentially put the lives of U.S. troops at risk; and the DNI claimed that the ‘Lives of members or assets of the intelligence community are at risk.’ My first thought is the “Loose Lips Sink Ships,” from WW2. “Potentially” every Congressman is putting US troops at risk. So is every telephone or e-mail call home or to headquarters from a US base somewhere. And with the NSA and that garbage, I’m not exactly hyper about protecting “members” OR “assets of the US intel community. Snowden had to make a hard decision, and I think he made the right one: better to risk some people’s lives in the field, or their covers, than allow the thugs in charge to strip away the liberty of every American in the cause of “security.”
Apparently the FDA has launched an ad campaign telling children that ‘Cigarettes Are Bullies’. This seems to me, to be a total waste of time. Teddy Bears and stuffed tigers have been saying things like this for a long time, and what good has it done? Now, maybe if they did some PSAs featuring Smokey and Tony the Tiger??? This current “anti-bullying” fad in the schools and pushed by government is pretty lame. I saw that Office Depot jumped on it for a while, but then one weekend, wham! All the anti-bullying merchandise (which was pretty blah) was on the clearance table. As for the bullying, well, the next story shows who really are the bullies.
A Wisconsin school has “played a game” in which children were instructed to rat out their parents to help build better relationships and stop bullying. They were asked questions, in front of classmates, teachers, and administrators about whether they or their parents drank, used drugs, thought about suicide and other fun, highly-educational stuff. Readers know that one of my continuing themes in writing commentary has been “get your children OUT of these government-ruined, theft-funded schools, and this really shows that it MUST be done. Meanwhile, with lots of western states having their traditional winter legislative sessions, the statists and nannies are all filing bills to weaken protection for homeschooling and private schools so that you don’t have any choice on how to educate your children.
Mama’s Note: Oh, they’ll still have a choice. It might be more difficult, and it might involve some forceful self defense… but it will still be a choice. They just can’t think they can continue to milk the public cow for other things if they want to regain control of their own life.
An example from HSDLA is from South Dakota: “This bill would empower school boards to refuse to grant an excuse if a truancy complaint is merely pending against a child. In other words, even if the person is totally innocent, the school board could prevent them from homeschooling just because a complaint was filed.” Even I was surprised by the list of sponsors: people who seemed to be friendly to home-schooling in the past.
Mama’s Note: STOP asking for permission!
Back to economics and national politics, MarketWatch reports Obamacare plans to exceed $1 trillion, create reluctant workers (a cost of two million FTE jobs). Thanks to Freedom Outpost for this great news! This is much higher than previous estimates, because we know now just how the system is supposed to work, expanding welfare into yet another part of life. And pushing total collapse that much closer.
LA governor Jindal Calls for ‘High Walls and a Broad Gate’ in regards to immigration. Well, I’ve heard worse. Indeed, it makes sense: indeed, a mark of hospitality: a good fence and wide gates. Walls or gates to protect against those who want to sneak in to rob and steal and behave as parasites, and open, broad gates for people to come visit and shop and sell and even settle. Indeed, I’d be willing to trade two or three honest, hard-working Mexican or Honduran or Columbian folks for just one of the political scumbags that occupy the halls of the Capitol and the bureaucratic offices in DC.
White House Will ‘Make Sure’ Syria Meets Its Chemical Weapons Obligations right after the guy in 1600 PA fulfills all his campaign promises from 2008 and 2012. Priorities are important. Notice, NOTHING was said (or is being done) about the rebels and their chemical weapons, or about anything else. If anything, the FedGov today is selective on what it is going to “make sure” of.
Russia, US Face New Strains Over Missile Defense but it seems to me that we could solve this by some good old-fashioned friendly competition: maybe a contest to see who can knock down a North Korean missile faster? I see this conflict over missile defense to be as stupid as the attempt to disarm people so that they cannot defend themselves. Missile defense systems are not really able to be used offensively, but they CAN make it harder for aggressive or just insane governments to do nasty things to your people. They may not be able to take out a massive attack but can make even the nutjobs stop and think.
The National Agricultural Statistics Service reports that the U.S. inventory of cattle and calves totaled 87.7 million animals as of Jan. 1. That was down by about 1.6 million cattle, or 2 percent, compared with this time last year. The agency says this is the lowest January inventory since 1951. 1951 (I’m told, wasn’t around then) was also a bad drought year, but still: US population was less than half in 1951 as compared to 2014. Yes, people are eating less beef today, and the average cow produces a LOT more beef than in 1951, but I am glad, drought and all, that I do live in the West where most of the cows are – instead of at the end of the food chain in NYC or Miami or DC. A typical cow has a live weight of about 1200 pounds, and dresses out at about 650 pounds of meat, or enough to allow 7 people to have a quarter-pound of meat every day for a year. That’s not too bad; it is the COST of that quarter-pound that has us concerned. But if things collapse, nobody going to be running freezer-trailers full of beef from Texas or Montana or Wyoming to the Rust Belt or to inside the Beltway.
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About TPOL Nathan
Follower of Christ Jesus (a christian), Pahasapan (resident of the Black Hills), Westerner, Lover of Liberty, Free-Market Anarchist, Engineer, Army Officer, Husband, Father, Historian, Writer, Evangelist. Successor to Lady Susan (Mama Liberty) at TPOL.