By Nathan Barton

Good morning.  Sanity seems to be a rarer and rarer commodity these days, doesn’t it?  Consider some of the stories in today’s news.

Man shoots bullet through his neighbor’s window, reportedly for this astounding reason: because he didn’t know how to unload it?

Mama’s Note: Now, here’s someone who should definitely NOT be handling any gun, and I’m not sure any amount of training would change that. It is hard to believe that he actually thought that pointing the gun at the neighbor’s house and pulling the trigger was an acceptable way to unload it. I smell a rat… there is more to this story, I’ll bet.

Nathan: There are some people who are so stupid that you wonder how they found their way out of the womb…

Mama’s Note: Unfortunately, they don’t need to find their own way out. Nature takes care of it. In any case, this guy seems to be a “Darwin Award” in the making – one way nature manages to correct past mistakes.

The German shift to renewable power sources that started in 2000 has brought the green share of German electricity up to around 25%. But the rest of the energy mix has become more heavily concentrated on coal, which now accounts for some 45% of power generation and growing, according to the Wall Street Journal.  With Germany outlawing fracking (and therefore dependent on Russia for natural gas instead of their own plentiful shale gas) and in the process of eliminating nuclear power, that leaves German consumers footing BILLIONS of Euros of excess costs and seeing other problems, including the use of cheap and often dirty coal plants: MORE cost and LESS environmental and safety factors.  Sane?  You decide.

Doug French, commenting on the revelation by the Fuehrer’s “other” Emmanuel that he wants to die at 75 for the good of society, says “Instead of calling it suicide, it would euphemistically be known as ‘Voluntary Transitioning.'”  Well, assisted suicide would be “Aided Voluntary Transitioning” or AVT, and euthanasia would therefore be “Involuntary Transitioning.”  Sounds much better.  “They took old Widow Cartwright to Denver for IT. She’s much happier now, I am sure.”  Doug’s article is worth reading, and is found on Lew Rockwell.com.  His key point is simple: “Why the societal breakdown? … As a nation, we live for the moment because our money is constantly degraded and our politicians steal from us continuously.” We ARE, he says, a nation of children, of people who have never grown up.  In other words, we are not sane, by common definition, because we have been raised and treated as abnormal humans, incapable of deciding and acting for ourselves.  It is a horrific and damning assessment.

Mama’s Note: And not true of everyone, by any means. Eventually, even these overage “children” can learn to control their own lives. It may require the breakdown of the whole economy, and most of society as we know it, and many will not survive at all. But those who do will have another chance to grow up and become responsible adults. I just don’t see any other way it’s going to happen.

Politics 2014: Facing tough races, incumbent governors feel the heat from the voters.  With little over a month left before voting is finished, and with many states allowing early voting, the WaPo says that the most embattled collection of politicians this fall are neither members of the Senate nor the House. That distinction falls upon the nation’s governors. Compared with elected officials in Washington, incumbent governors are struggling disproportionately. My heart bleeds for them so much: they so often think of themselves as little tin gods who don’t have to worry about foreign affairs too much, don’t have to worry about huge debts, and can smile and kiss babies and get campaign contributions for just being “nice” (in appearance, at least).  In reality, 99% of them need to be tossed out on their ears if they are incumbents and haven’t been impeached and imprisoned yet.  I’ve said it before and will quote Mark Twain again: all politicians should be limited to two terms: one in office and one in jail.  Sane voters would do that.

The same thing goes for those poltroons who want to turn a few terms in the Congress or Senate into a term or two in the White House.  Example, Ted Cruz, who again wins Values Voter straw poll. The Texas-Canadian Republican has come in first in the Values Voter Summit presidential straw poll for the second year running. Receiving 25 percent of the votes cast, down from 42 percent in 2013, Cruz was the favorite for the 2016 Republican president nomination among the 2,000 social conservative activists at the conference last Saturday.  People, LISTEN to the man and see if he is any better than the last three Texans in the White House.  Please!  Again, sane voters would realize that they are ALL scumbags and vote for very few, IF ANY.

The US Forest Service continues to push its license requirement for photography, with the fees and fines, but has backpeddled somewhat, claiming that they will not apply the requirement to media covering breaking news stories: just the Discover channel type stuff (and of course, they still have not answered questions about non-commercial still photography: that is, you or me taking pictures of our family or animals or lovely forest scenes without a permit).  But several point out that this is just digging the regime in deeper:  that photography is generally considered to be part of the freedom of speech protected in the First Amendment, but the USFS seems to limit that to “media.”  My, sounds as insane as what the cops try to do by busting and beating up people who photograph them!

It seems that TWO police officers were shot at Ferguson this weekend: neither killed nor apparently seriously injured.  It is claimed by police that neither of the shootings were related to the freshly renewed protests over the killing by a cop of a black man, but that seems to be a kneejerk reaction to keep tensions down.  Sanity?  Not in that town, not in the St. Louis area, and probably not in Missouri.