Libertarian Commentary on the News #13-19A: Distractions

Posted on 2013-05-14 by TPOL Nathan

The weekend (and much of last week) seems to have had a lot of news that is not THAT important politically or economically, but makes a very fine distraction from more important news and issues.  We have the IRS 2012 thuggery (STILL going on), the Benghazi “revelations” and proof of what we knew WAS actually the case:  the White House and Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon all lied.  We have the jury out on “Doctor” Gosnell, whose name deserves to be up there with Josef Mengele, and supposedly deadlocked.  We have more and more less-public attempts to steal gun rights in various states and the nation, and we have more attacks on real conservatives, christians, and other groups.  So, here is some of the news:

The “messiah’s” minions/corruption – Theft by government
Internal IRS Mandate: ‘Be on the Lookout’ for ‘Organizations Involved In … Educating on Constitution and Bill of Rights’
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Well, well, more scum floats to the top.  Last week and weekend’s major topic – and latest distraction from the continuing loss of liberty.  Stupid of them to put it in writing, but then… if they weren’t stupid and cruel, they would be making a living some other way.

The “messiah’s” minions/corruption – Theft by government
Ways and Means Committee: When Did WH Know IRS Targeted Groups Based on Political Philosophy?
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Probably a few minutes before they told the IRS to do so.  I am sure that there is nothing in writing, of course.  But the thugs who float to the top in the IRS enjoy this sort of thing.  It gives them something to do in the winter when flies are hard to find (to pull the wings off of).

The “messiah’s” minions – Islamic wars: Arab street revolt
Pickering: No Need to Ask Clinton About Benghazi, Because He Questioned People Who ‘Attended Meetings With Her’
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: And a one… and a two…  How much do you love to see these folks tap-dancing like this?  This attitude is disgusting, the dodging is stupid.  But more than just disgusting, what is sick about this is that most Americans will buy it.

The “messiah’s” minions – Islamic wars: Arab street revolt
Slain Benghazi Officer’s Mom: Obama, Clinton, Rice All Blamed the Video As ‘They Were Hugging Me’
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Gasp!  You mean – they LIED?  No, your son died for a bunch of lying thugs that we have elected to high office or have been appointed by those who were elected?  Probably because they LIED to us?

The “messiah’s” minions – Islamic wars: Arab street revolt
Rep. Blackburn: ‘People Are Beginning to Use the Term ‘Cover-Up” Regarding Benghazi
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan:  BEGINNING?  What a stupid man: this accusation started about as soon as the Administration claimed the attack was due to a silly YouTube movie.

The “messiah’s” minions – Islamic wars: Arab street revolt
Gates Suggests Americans Have a ‘Cartoonish Impression’ of U.S. Military Might
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Any excuse for the failure of the Administration to have come to the rescue of those in Benghazi?  Probably.  He intentionally missed the point:  an attempt – even a failed attempt – would not have resulted in this outcry (however belated).  But of course, this is just one more distraction.

Fox News: Colorado Democrats Face Recall Efforts for New Gun Laws
(Fox News)  Four members of the General Assembly face attempts to recall them from office because of their votes and support of the array of gun laws passed and signed by the governor.

Nathan: This is good – but it is shutting the barn door after the cows get out.  It was the disarray and weakness of the Colorado GOP (mostly the establishment refusing to accept the Tea Party movement and true conservative (and libertarian-leaning) grassroots) that LET these idiots get into the Assembly in the first place – that and gerrymandering which knocked out some of the best that the GOP had (somehow) gotten into the Assembly three years ago.  But I don’t think that they will be able to recall them – or even bring the recall to an election:  you have to have TWENTY-FIVE percent of the people who voted in the last election in the district sign the recall petition, and they only have until the 20th of May to do so.  That means that the people doing this could be wasting time and money that could have been spent to get the laws they passed to the ballot on a referendum, or saved their money to challenge them in court or try at the polls in 2014.  So: too little, too late, and not counting the cost.  Colorado remains a growing police state.  Frankly, massive civil disobedience (as the sheriffs are already doing) seems to be the best option for now, followed by armed resistance when Hickenlooper, his thuggish comrades in the Assembly, and the FedGov decide to take action.

New religions: global warming/environists
Gore: ‘Our Very Way of Life’ Is at Stake
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Yeah, Massa Gore, it IS, but from you and your ilk, NOT from your ghost stories.

Stupid government tricks – Crash of 2009
1/3 Population of Puerto Rico Gets Food Stamps from U.S. Gov’t — $2 Billion in 2012
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Not nearly as bad as Indian Country, of course.  but what do we expect?  Is it any wonder that the Administration encourages admitting PR as a state?

The “messiah” – Abominable Act (ObummerCare)
Obama Hails Health Care Law, Contraception Mandate in Women’s Health Proclamation
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Good grief, can’t he understand how this ticks off even many of his supporters, like the majority of the black voters and the majority of the Hispanic voters?  He believes that his charisma can overcome this – sickeningly.  The real reason this might not matter is because he has no real opponents who are willing to spell out the truth about this and so much else.

Islamic wars: South Asian front
Sharif’s Election Victory in Pakistan May Further Strain Relationship With U.S.
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: This, of course, is a GOOD thing.  The US should have as little to do with Pakistan as we do with Switzerland: no alliance, no foreign aid, no carrot-and-stick routine.  We don’t need a “strained relationship,” we need NO relationship.  Just a tacit understanding that any threat – any DIRECT threat – to Americans or American interests will result in fire and thunder, but that otherwise, they do whatever they want to whomever they want.  AND anyone else can do whatever they want to Pakistan… especially India, Iran, and Britain and Israel.

Islamic wars: Southwest Asian front
Syria Denies Role in Turkey Bombings, As Turkey Seeks ‘Joint’ World Response
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Okay, Turkey is an American ally, which is NOT in general a good thing.  Seems the best thing would be to let Turkey and Israel do whatever they want to Syrians (on whichever side) until the Syrians stop attacking Turkey and Israel.  Let US (and NATO) stay out of it.

Stupid people – Hoplophobes and Hoploclasts
NRA Teams up With Beau Biden on Delaware’s Mental Illness Reporting Bill
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Oh, dear, and here a few of us thought that the NRA was cleaning up its act.  You are known by the company you keep, and Beau is pretty scummy company.

Islamic wars: Home front
Lieberman: Boston Bombing Suspects: ‘Motivated by Violent Islamic Extremism’
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Duh.  You think?  Of course, the usual Chechen bloodthirstiness is a major factor too – kind of like Khymer Rouge murder rage versus the more “typical” Communist rages and killing.

Theft by government – Environists
Unproven U.S. Oil Reserves Far Greater than Originally Thought
(National Journal) The United States Geological Survey estimates that the Bakken and Three Forks shale formations hold more than 7.4 billion barrels of oil and gas that is undiscovered, but could theoretically be extracted in the future…

Nathan: But NOT, of course, if this administration and its Tranzi backers and controllers get their way.  This oil will NEVER be touched, but saved for the “future” and the “elite.”

Posted in Commentary on the News | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Libertarian Commentary on the News #13-17C: Environists and Culture Wars

Posted on 2013-05-12 by TPOL Nathan

Environists – Theft by Government
Indiana: Biodiesel from Corn Residue Economical?
(Technology Review) Within a year, a pilot plant in Indiana will start converting the stalks and leaves of corn plants into diesel and jet fuel. The plant will use a novel approach involving acid as well as processes borrowed from the oil and chemical industry, which its developers hope will make fuel at prices cheap enough to compete with petroleum. The plant, which will have the capacity to process about 10 tons of biomass a day—enough for about 800 gallons (3,000 liters) of fuel per day, will be built by Mercurius Biofuels of Ferndale, Washington, with the help of a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy of up to $4.3 million.

Nathan: There are several aspects to this that are important.  First, and obvious, this is yet another boondoggle: a trashcan down which to throw taxpayers’ money.  IF this were that good a risk, private investors would be willing to shell out IF government hadn’t already tampered with the market.  Second, the “novelty” of it is highly questionable: various similar techniques have been used and tried for years.  This may be a “novel” way of putting it all together.  Third, anything out of Washington state these days is highly suspicious as to whether it is legit or just a scam – and we KNOW that Solandra and others have scammed the government big time.  Fourth, 10 tons and 800 gallons is PITIFUL.  10 tons solids (admittedly, high moisture content) produces 2.6 tons of diesel? Enough for about 4,000 miles on a semi-truck.  But how much water will be used?  And what about the remaining 7.4 tons of residue?  Some will surely go away as gases (water vapor or CO2, particularly).  But how much goes back to the field to nourish soil for the next crops?

Mama’s Note: Regular unleaded here was $3.19 this morning in town… so, just how is this economical? Not to mention that ethanol is very destructive to most engines.

Home front – Hoplophiles
US gun homicide rate down 49% since 1993 peak; public unaware
(Pew Research) “National rates of gun homicide and other violent gun crimes are strikingly lower now than during their peak in the mid-1990s, paralleling a general decline in violent crime, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of government data. Beneath the long-term trend, though, are big differences by decade: Violence plunged through the 1990s, but has declined less dramatically since 2000.” (05/07/13)

Nathan: Well, if it is Pew claiming this, with THEIR progressive agenda, it must be true.  So, with the massive increase in gun ownership in the past two decades, gun crimes are going DOWN.  Gee, I wonder just why THAT is?  And why has the decline slowed?  Is it for the same reason that military sexual assaults are up?  For the same reason that productivity of the work force is down?  For the same reason that politicians are getting sleazier and sleazier?  Because SOCIETY is decaying?  Because “public education” is a joke?  Because there is less and less responsibility taught and expected?  The question for the future is WHEN will the immorality of society – and the desire for the profits and pleasures of crime – tip over the balance against an armed “I’m not going to be a victim” populace?

Mama’s Note: I think that ship has already sailed… the cities have the greatest population of helpless victims… whether willing or not. The predators are much more prevalent in these places, which is only natural. The predators will eventually eliminate the victims… and each other. Those of us elsewhere, well armed and ready… not so much.

Theft by government – Stupid people
Argentina: Government offers tax amnesty for undeclared cash
(Biloxi Sun Herald) “Argentina’s government announced new measures on Tuesday intended to suck up undeclared dollars in response to growing pressure to abruptly devalue the nation’s currency. Economy Minister Hernan Lorenzino said the new tax-free bonds and certificates of deposit will pull into the banking system the foreign currencies that Argentines have hidden under mattresses and spirited out to illegal tax havens.” (05/07/13)

Mama’s Note: Wonder how many will be stupid enough to fall for this one… Once the government knows about the assets… a tax or confiscation later is just so much easier.

Nathan: Since anyone over age 30 should remember going through this once, and anyone over fifty going through it twice, I expect that very few people will be taken in by this ruse – certainly not more than 50 percent of them.  If there were more smart ones, this wouldn’t even be happening.

Culture wars: Society and military
Military Sexual Assaults Increasing
(Godfather Politics (Commentary) …L.A. Times headline …: “The military’s sexual assault problem: An alarming increase in sexual attacks shows that the culture in the armed forces must change.” The L. A. Times is in denial. The culture in the armed forces is not going to change unless they start recruiting from some culture other than what they find in North America. “Rape culture” isn’t unique to the military. It is getting more and more attention as a high school phenomenon. Recent news examples are found in Torrington, CT, Cleveland, TX, Steubenville, OH, and over the border in Nova Scotia (which I think is relevant since Canada shares modern liberal values about sexual freedom with the US).

Nathan: The Godfather Politics writer is only partially right:  the root of the solution is that American Society – as a whole – has changed, and especially that society found in the urban areas.  The attitude towards women, towards rape and other sexual assaults, towards casual sex that USED to be limited primarily to the upper classes and the elites (remember the Kennedy clan and all the rapes and related things – even the way they treated JFK’s own sister?  To say nothing of Hollywood) and the urban ghettos with their degraded “black” culture, the homosexual districts like Castro in San Francisco, and the debauchery of seaport’s redlight districts and military post’s hogtown or “strip.”  But even those places (for good or bad) distinguished between the women who worked there and other women of good repute.  Today, that is NOT the case, and in the one-size-fits-all military, women are fair game: just as they are in the night clubs and bars and many other places.  Meanwhile, the media popularize the free and easy sex, encourage men and women to do whatever they want, and – then blame the military for being tainted by the popular culture.  Where are the similar attacks on Big Sports and Hollywood?

Posted in Commentary on the News | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Impeach?

Posted on 2013-05-11 by TPOL Nathan

Today I received a forwarded e-mail, via a relative, from a Tea Party movement group entitled “Impeach Obama.”  As I was waiting for a meeting, I had time to hammer out a brief response, which I want to share with readers.  Here is the original e-mail, in part (no need to waste electrons by posting the whole thing – we are running OUT of natural resources, don’t you know?).

Dear Patriot,

America is under attack from within. Over the last 4 ½ years, our nation has been transformed for the worse so much that one would hardly recognize it. We have a corrupt, Chicago politician in the White House who is bleeding our nation to death. Since he won re-election, with the help of low information voters and a compliant media, the details of even further corruption has been revealed. The time has come and we must not relent until we…….. IMPEACH OBAMA and REMOVE HIM FROM OFFICE …

We are demanding that Congress move to impeach President Obama. However, we will not be satisfied with simply impeachment. He must be impeached and removed from the Office of the Presidency! If not, then we will not recognize our republic within the next few years. The great experiment of America will be over. Are you willing to have that happen during your lifetime? Are you willing to leave a shell of our great nation for future generations? We’re not! … President Obama is the most corrupt president in U.S. history. His actions are against everything this country was founded upon and stands for. Obama is a danger to America. That is why we are calling for his impeachment and removal from office. We urge you to stand with us in this call for impeachment for the good of our nation and to keep the legacy of our Founding Fathers alive.

How can I NOT respond to something as misguided as this?

Dear XXXXX, thank you very much for sharing this.  It is important to see people at least trying to do something.

We must admit and understand that the “Great American Experiment” is over – finished.  The Republic is DEAD.  We ARE that shell they refer to: your grandchildren are being born into a police state, in which there is less and less freedom, less and less liberty of any kind with each passing day.  Some states (like South Dakota and Texas) are LESS-tyrannical and cruel police states than others (like Colorado and New York and California), but the liberty that we… grew up with in the 60s and 70s is GONE.  The Constitution is a dead-letter, used only for procedures and to give a false impression that we are still a republic, still a land of freedom.

The chances of impeaching and convicting the man currently living at 1600 PA are virtually ZERO.  Even if the majority in the House of Representatives that claim to be “Republicans” or “Conservatives” were NOT statist, thieving, corrupt, venal, and power hungry, AND cowardly, no matter how many charges and specifications they put on a Bill of Impeachment (and you can be sure that MOST of his crimes would never show up), the Senate is controlled by “Democrats” (“Liberals” who are really Transnational Progressives or Socialists, TRANZIs instead of NAZIs (National Socialists)) who will in no way convict him of the high crimes and misdemeanors he has committed and ordered his minions to commit, much less his breaking of his oath to preserve and defend the Constitution, or his moral crimes.

Rather than contribute to this effort, use your money to buy supplies and tools to prepare for the worst, even in places like your hometown:  food and first-aid/medical, and weapons and ammunition.  If you think it can’t and won’t happen in West Texas, read this article:
Bosnia preppers survival strategies

What SHOULD we do?

  • First, pray – pray for the State of Texas, and maybe for the  nation as a whole (it probably isn’t totally a waste of prayer time to pray for what once was, that it might be restored).  Pray for your congregation and your family and  your community.
  • Second, prepare:  get what you can to live on (food, water or ways to purify water, rough-wear clothing, tools, things to trade) and to defend yourself and your neighborhood: weapons, tools, ammunition, batteries, etc.
  • Third, reach out to other people in your congregation and your community and your work place, and get them to also pray and prepare.  Even if only 1 in 100 does, there is a better chance of survival.
  • Fourth, reach out to those elsewhere with the Gospel.

The rest of my e-mail is more based on religious arguments than non-religious ones, and I will leave that portion out in deference to our site policies.  But the point is clear:  hoping that some miracle will come because we use the right words and demand things that just are not going to happen is a waste of time and opportunity to be prepared for worse times ahead.  The more people fool themselves into thinking that yet another petition, yet another round of e-mail or snail-mail or phone calls or faxes to the politicians in your state capital or DC, the more people will find themselves unprepared and either enslaved or dead.  There is little time left to prepare, and resources ARE limited:  it is YOUR choice and MINE.  I choose not to waste time and effort to replace one mad tyrant with another.

Mama’s Note: Amen, Nathan. I came to that conclusion many long years ago, and it always makes me sad when otherwise smart and good people insist that this begging and pleading with our tormentors and would be masters is the ONLY way to be “doing something,” and that our quiet preparations and refusal to live in fear is somehow cowardly or even helping the controllers.

Each person must be free, of course, to take the actions he or she feels worthy and necessary, but nothing will be gained unless everyone has the same liberty to choose for themselves.

Posted in Nathan's Rants | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-17B: Quick perviews of the news

Posted on 2013-05-09 by TPOL Nathan

Environists – Stupid government – War on the West
Cedar City, Utah: Prairie Dogs Destroying Town with Govt Help
(Godfather Politics) …One local businessman, Bruce Hughes, purchased 3.4 acres of land that he was going to develop into some type of rental property to help provide income for his retirement.  Before he could do anything with the land, prairie dogs moved in and now he is not allowed to do anything with his land except let it sit there.

Mark Bradshaw bought a piece land to build a car dealership on, but like Hughes, the prairie dogs moved in and now the land is useless and worthless. …The same thing has happened to real estate developers and new subdivisions that now have empty lots that were worth $100,000, but are now worthless plots full of prairie dog burrows.  They have taken over the local cemeteries leaving grieving family members upset about what they’ll do the graves of their loved ones that paid dearly for.

Nathan: Every day in the West, we see this happening.  Sometimes it is “just” a single farmer or rancher or landowner: other times it is a whole city (Cedar City) or a whole county (Dolores County, Colorado – where the sage grouse is the “victim” that the FWS is “protecting.”  How long will we allow this to continue?

Mama’s Note: Prairie dogs are about as “endangered” as house flies, for starters. And, if anyone is truly worried about prairie dogs, or sage grouse, or any other animal, all they have to do is collect some and start to breed them – or let them roam at will – on their own property, and with their own money. Just wonder how they’d fence them in.

Here in Wyoming we shoot the darn things. They are a pest and a danger to both humans and livestock.

War on religion
Army: No more preaching by anyone to anyone in uniform
(Godfather Politics) Ken Klukowski writes: …“[Weinstein] says Christians — including chaplains — sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ in the military are guilty of ‘treason,’ and of committing an act of ‘spiritual rape’ as serious a crime as ‘sexual assault.’ He also asserted that Christians sharing their faith in the military are ‘enemies of the Constitution.’”

Nathan: The military forces have had protections in place to keep a senior officer or enlisted personnel from pressuring junior personal, but that is NOT what Weinstein is after: he wants to and is continuing to degrade the quality, morale, and moral foundations of American military forces.  Weinstein’s defense? He doesn’t do it just to christians: all religions must follow these rules.

Europe’s collapse
Why have the Spanish people not revolted?
(Infolibre via Europress) Five years of crisis, 6 million unemployed and thousands driven from their homes: Despite the heavy social toll, Spaniards suffer their fate without rebelling against the government or against the EU because they fear losing what little they have left, argues a sociologist.

Nathan: Why indeed?  But we have to ask the same of Americans – for forty-plus years I’ve heard people say “if this happens…” or “if this goes on any longer…” that they would revolt or that SOMEone would revolt.  But it doesn’t happen, and the reason is probably the same as in Spain: we are too afraid of losing what we have left… possessions, money, liberty, health, family, etc.

Home front – Stupid government and stupid people
Maryland: Baltimore Jail a corrupt culture
(Washington Post)

Nathan: Read this and throw up.  Multiple prison guards knocked up by the same prisoner, and arguing over who the inmate likes most and what they shall name the children.  Trading of drugs, liquor, cell phones, sexual favors, and anything else.  Sounds like medieval Europe or some banana republic, but it happens in Maryland.  Just like murdering tens of thousands of babies happens in Pennsylvania and enslaving women for a decade happens in Ohio.

Mama’s Note: The really telling thing is that this story was no particular surprise. The American INJustice system has been horribly corrupt for a very, very long time.

Home front – Stupid government
Northern Virginia: 83-year woman who disappeared is found: dead.
(Washington Post)

Nathan: She’d dead, Jim.  Who killed her?  The story says the family is blaming American Airlines, the Airlines blames Washington National Airport.  As you can imagine, I blame the government.  Why?  Because our worthless security system does not allow families to meet their loved ones at the ramp or gate any more, because the security thugs (TSA) are more interested in abusing and groping elders (and children) than they are in helping them, and because more and more people “leave it to government” instead of caring for and looking out for each other, because that is what government is teaching them.

Mama’s Note: I wonder why the family didn’t have someone travel with her. That would certainly have been a better plan. Sad… but with the rapid onset of dementia, she may have had a fatal condition and died in any case. God rest her soul.

Our right to self-defense
JFPO/GOA:  New Executive Orders Steal Liberty

Nathan: This is a GOA/JPFO advocacy article but has reportable news:  once more the “messiah” is shoving large rude objects into our bodies.

Home front – Slavery
Ohio:  Three slaves get freedom
(Yahoo.com) Three women who went missing separately about a decade ago, when they were in their teens or early 20s, had been tied up but were found alive Monday in a residential area just south of downtown, and three brothers were arrested, police said. … One of those arrested is a 52-year-old man, police say. The women were being treated at the hospital. A 6-year-old also was found in the home.  One of the women, Amanda Berry, was last heard from in 2003, when she called her sister to say she was getting a ride home from the Burger King restaurant where she worked, reported the Cleveland TV station WEWS. She was to turn 17 the day after she disappeared. Another of the women, Gina DeJesus, was 14 when she went missing on April 2, 2004. She was walking home from school. The third woman, Michelle Knight, 32, had been missing since 2002.

Nathan: Imagine: slaves for a decade and more.  And a child raised in slavery.  Not in Saudi Arabia, not in Afghanistan, not in Serbia.  The Castro brothers are, of course, innocent and anyone who thought something was fishy was a nut case, or so the cops said.  Talk about a long response time for a 9-1-1 call!  But the real issue is how many more people are like this?  Held in slavery (no, this is NOT kidnapping: these men are SLAVERS), abused and having their money and labor stolen, fearful that their friends or family are hostage to their abusers for their good behavior.  Actually, this kind of sounds like the way people are treated in the Fifty States, doesn’t it?  Not by three brothers, but by the combined forces of local and state and federal government.

Posted in Commentary on the News | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Stolen Liberty – American Government in 2013

Posted on 2013-05-08 by TPOL Nathan

Once upon a time, there was a group of small, struggling, newly-freed nations that decided their wartime alliance should be made stronger and closer, and more enduring.

They created an organization to be, in essence, the small nation’s employee to coordinate and help them do together what would be very difficult to do separately.  A bit more than two centuries later, that organization has become a monster, one-by-one stealing the liberties, the freedoms, the very identity of those first few nations and the many others that joined them.  One by one, while paying lip service to those liberties, it steals them away, turning the nations which it was supposed to serve and protect into its own arms of oppression and tyranny, and turning their citizens into slaves.  Slaves having the appearance of free men and women, but constantly robbed, monitored, regulated, controlled, and treated like felons, whose every move is increasingly watched and limited for their own ‘good’ and ‘freedom.’

This quote was one sent in a regular subscription, for today, 8 May 2013:

“[A] public policy of simply discouraging people from owning or using firearms is not, in and of itself, a constitutionally permissible objective, any more than discouraging people from religious observance would be permissible to some oh-so-progressive government that considered religion as hopelessly declassé as progressives nowadays consider the right to keep and bear arms …. And any statute or regulation that burdens the right to keep and bear arms on the ground that guns are a public health hazard should enjoy the same frosty reception in court that would be given a statute or regulation that burdened the free exercise of religion as a mental hazard.”
— Daniel D. Polsby (1945-) Dean of the Law School and Professor of Law at George Mason University (Source: Treating the Second Amendment Like Normal Constitutional Law, REASON, March 1996, at 36.)

He wrote these words in 1996, apparently never dreaming that less than a generation later, an American administrator would be openly stating that free exercise of religion (such as telling someone else in uniform about your faith) would be considered an “act of terrorism” and a form of “mental rape,” which should be prevented or punished by court-martial.  Nor that in true Soviet-style, mental health treatments and evaluations, unsupported by second opinions or any other control, would be grounds for stealing weapons from law-abiding and peaceful people who had (mistakenly, it seems) served their nation to protect those very freedoms.

A recent editorial in a European newspaper asked why the good people of Spain did not revolt, with six million of them unemployed, with taxes and spending and borrowing by their supposed “democratic” government climbing higher and higher, with the rest of Europe demanding more and more to punish the people, whose greatest crime seems to be that they let their government run amuck, for the evils that government committed against those very people.

My question, which I ask more and more, is why the good people of those fifty small nations which once banded together to voluntarily cooperate and make liberty and prosperity a reality for the people of those nations, why THEY do not revolt.  Not just against the rogue employee of the small nations, but against the petty and daily tyranny of their individual governments and the governments in those fifty states.  Is it not time to admit that a ghastly mistake was made and that enough is enough, that the system has failed after 226 years, and that it must be either restored (completely and in one move, and not “reformed” a part at a time) or put in its grave and replaced by a new system protecting the liberties of the people and the freedom of their societies and economies – recognizing that government, like those other institutions such as slavery and state churches (and human sacrifice and absolute monarchies and empires), that are so evil in their ends AND means as to be repugnant to all civilized peoples.

But instead of rebellion, we get horror.  None of these ancient evils have been done away with.  Slavery exists even in our own land: not just the slavery of taxation and prison industries and government-run education, but actual slavery in the harem and the home and workshop – ignored by government.  Absolute monarchies still rule much of the world: some hereditary but most elective.  Empires, in effect if not title, still exercise their power: whether the “Russian Republic” or the “People’s Republic of China” or the “French Community” or the “European Union” or the far-flung “defense forces” of the United States.  State churches now promote the doctrines of humanism and evolution and political correctness, failure to accept such punished as vigorously as theological heresy once was.  And human sacrifice continues and even grows; in our land alone more than one in every three hundred people is killed in bizarre ritual every year.

Yet not even one in three Americans is willing (according to polls) to say that rebellion or revolution may be necessary.  Only a minority of Americans are armed – and far fewer are willing to take up those arms in the cause of liberty for themselves and others.  And too many have been sucked into the trap that military service for the greatest empire in world history is “defending our liberty.”

Is it not time to simply say, “No, I won’t” and when someone TRIES to make you do it, take up your weapon to defend your family, your business, your employees, your livelihood and even your own life against those who do not themselves carry weapons (or other tools of tyranny) but still threaten you with those things and will gladly deploy petty or not so petty criminals in the guise of servants of the law and the people WITH weapons to force you to submit to MORE chains of slavery?

Until the time is right and defense – armed defense – is upon us, we must pray to Almighty God for His blessings of liberty to be restored to this land, and prepare ourselves to take advantage of the opportunity which He WILL provide.

Posted in Nathan's Rants | Leave a comment

Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-17A: Crash of 2009 still with us

Posted on 2013-05-06 by TPOL Nathan

A short column to remind us that the economy is STILL bad, no matter what lies the government is telling us and no matter what lies Wall Street is telling itself.

Crash of 2009 – Stupid government – Stupid people (Three stories)
More ‘Discouraged Workers’ in April, Says Labor Dept.

Government Unemployment Rate Improved Again in April

9.5 Million People Have Left the Workforce Under Obama
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Three stories all related to the fact that once again, the government is lying, but unable to hide the real numbers.  Sadly, the  markets (at least as I write this on Friday morning) are so stupid that they believe the government. (And the media, who crow about the “reduced unemployment” without explaining why.)

Mama’s Note: If just one mainstream media entity reported the real “employment” numbers – MINUS all government paid/subsidized and mandated positions, including every kind of government “grant” and tax supported institution… the small number of actual “jobs” left in the country would stagger all but the most dedicated statists. The fact is that the true state of business, especially small business, is artfully hidden from almost everyone. The miracle is that such theft and fraud has gone on so long, relatively unnoticed.

Crash of 2009 – Stupid government
Feds Dish Out $4 Million to Increase Food Stamp Usage at Farmers Markets
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Of course, most farmers (and the other vendors) will cheerfully take them:  they want entitlements just as much as the ones WITH the food stamps, because it lines their pockets.  Just like school lunch programs are financed because the vendors get the money.  I am sure that restaurants are next (fast-food places need not apply, of course: the nanny state usually overrides the “papa-pays” state.)

Mama’s Note: Just talked to someone who has a “convenience store” and he was monumentally pissed that he had to take the welfare “debit card” whether he liked it or not. But he was especially upset that those who use the cards buy soda and all manner of fast food with them now. Finally convinced him that the real problem was the theft from taxpayers, not what was bought with the loot.

Abominable Act – Congress in action
Obamacare Already ‘Hurting Jobs and Paychecks,’ Republican Senator Says
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Sorry, Senator, it has already been happening: people CAN read the handwriting on the wall and have taken the actions they need to, in order to avoid this fiasco.

Mama’s Note: Well, some have and many have not. Many have little choice but to pay for Obummercare. The bottom line will be fewer jobs, less real health care, fewer and fewer competent health care providers – and the great disaster that was actually planned all along. People will riot to have government institute “national,” single payer socialist medicine, simply because Obummercare was intended to fail in order to facilitate exactly that. The wise will find alternative medicine and establish healthy lifestyles now instead.

Congress in action – Faux conservatives
Rep. Paul Ryan Now Backs Adoption of Children by Homosexuals
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Ah, a “conservative,” eh? Ryan is a scheming and opportunistic and very ambitious man, with no real principles, but then, that means he is like most of the rest of the Senate.

Theft by government – Stupid government
$7.9 Billion in Improper Social Security Payments in FY 2012
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: More theft?  Or just corruption?

Stupid government – Guvmint-ruined, theft-funded schools
Education Dept. Awards $48,000 to Help Vermont School Recover From a Teen Suicide
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Well!  If the US DOE gives this kind of money to an Anglo school, then why aren’t they paying out millions to schools with majority AmerInd students and their sickening suicide rate?

Mama’s Note: Because the AmerInd schools don’t have an effective legislator in their pockets. Or enough of them.

Posted in Commentary on the News | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-16D: Home front

Posted on 2013-05-04 by TPOL Nathan

Home Front – TSA Thuggery
Airline, Airport Employees Caught Abusing Security Badges
(NBC)

Nathan: Argh!!! Journalists – don’t have the foggiest idea about grammar or the truth.  First off, it is TSA employees that are mostly discussed in the article.  Second, they were “misusing” the badges, not beating them up or keeping them locked in a closet, or raping them.  But the point is still clear:  for every REAL “terrorist” or threat to air travel, there are hundreds of crimes caused by the very agents “trying to prevent” those threats.  Government and the airlines themselves are the threat.

Mama’s Note: Aye… the “cure” is so often worse than the disease.

Home front: California versus Texas – Politics 2013
Myths vs. Facts: California’s Claims about Texas’ Economy
(Daily Policy Digest) Texas Governor Rick Perry recently began radio advertising in California encouraging California businesses to move to Texas for its pro-business environment.  The radio ads sparked a tiff between the Lone Star State governor and Californians, who have levied a number of claims about Texas’ economic success, all of which are inaccurate, says Chuck DeVore, vice president of policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

Nathan: I am shocked, SHOCKED that the People’s Republic of California is attacking the Republic of Texas and making all these claims: twisting statistics to prove that the million people who got jobs in Texas in the last year are nuts and that the 300,000 people that abandoned California for freedom (even a little bit more) last year apparently don’t exist.

Government-run, tax-funded schools – Home front – Self defense
Gunfire and moments of fear as a rural Oregon school tests its readiness
(Oregon Live) “Two masked men wearing hoodies and wielding handguns burst into the Pine Eagle Charter School in this tiny rural community on Friday. Students were at home for an in-service day, so the gunmen headed into a meeting room full of teachers and opened fire. … Principal Cammie DeCastro said it became clear very quickly just how many of the school’s 15 teachers would have survived. The answer: ‘Not many,’ she said. … Armed teachers is one possible outcome, she said. Or the district may get armed and trained volunteers from the community to watch over the school in shifts, she said. Tougher doors and better locks are other options. Gover said the teachers tend to favor having one or two armed teachers in the building at all times.” (04/29/13)

Nathan:  This stupid little incident brought home some blunt truths – and their liberalism seems to be somewhat weakened, no?  Unlike the next school.

Mama’s Note: A good thing none of those “teachers” were carrying “illegally.’ The bogus attackers might well have been killed. What a stupid stunt.

Government-run, tax-funded schools – Hoplophobes
North Carolina: Scholarship for Eagle Scout arrested for shotgun in truck
(The Blaze) Withrow, a high school senior and Eagle Scout, had been skeet shooting the day before the incident and inadvertently neglected to store his firearm. Once he realized his error, he immediately locked the gun in his truck and went inside the school to call his mom so she could come pick it up.  But a Princeton High School official overhead Withrow’s phone call to his mother and the school promptly called the police. … he was arrested and charged with a felony. The school is not allowing Withrow to return to school of the rest of the year, however, an attorney for Johnston County Schools on Thursday said he will still be allowed to graduate on time by attending an alternative school, WTVD-TV reports. Now, Liberty University is stepping in to make sure that the high school senior will be able to continue on to college.

Nathan: First off, this Eagle was a stupid kid.  There were three or four different ways he could have avoided this, but he seems to have panicked. (He could have driven his truck off campus, he could have been a WHOLE lot more discrete in talking to his mom on a public phone, etc.)  And his mom and dad, frankly, are stupid in letting him go to a “public” school. And despite the generosity of Liberty University, he is STILL facing felony charges and the costs – even if the jury uses its collective common sense (ain’t holdin’ my breath) and refuses to find him guilty.  This may affect him for years – until the Collapse.

Culture wars – Politics 2013
Boy Scouts of America Survey: 61% Support Current Policy of Excluding Homosexuals
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: But the leadership has already decided to “compromise” and there are too many in the national council who WANT the immorality to be permitted.  So what Scouters and Scouts and sponsoring organizations want is going to be ignored.  And the homosexual activists and Tranzis will STILL not be satisfied and will STILL attack the BSA.

Mama’s Note: Trying to think just how anyone’s sexual orientation is anyone else’s business. Any more than one’s gun ownership, religion or gardening method. When the BSA decides to give up all theft funded perks (sponsorship by government schools, etc.) then they may have a better handle on the problem. The theft is, as always, the root of it.

Abominable Act – War on some drugs
Poll: 54% would repeal healthcare law, 85% for medical marijuana
(Fox News) “By a 54-41 percent margin, American voters would get rid of the sweeping 2010 health care law if given the option, according to a new Fox News poll. The poll, released Wednesday, also shows most voters — 71 percent — think the more than 15,000 pages of regulations that implement the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, are ‘way over the top.’ Some 19 percent say that number of pages ‘seems about right.’ The concern about the small mountain of health care rules is bipartisan.” (05/01/13)

Nathan: This public opinion will matter as much as the 61% of the BSA in the story above.  Congress is greedy, stupid, and power-mad, and facilitates the administration’s lawlessness and immorality.  BOTH the Abominable Act (ObummerCare) and the war on some drugs – especially the war on medical marijuana – are immoral AND unconstitutional, but the Nazgul are no more going to change them or rule against them than Holder and his capo will change.

War on religion – Stupid government
Pentagon Threatens Courts Martial for Preaching Gospel
(Breitbart)

Nathan:  Weinstein is supported by the bootlicking political generals in charge, the political appointees and minions of the “messiah” and their Tranzi overlords.  Like forcing open homosexuality, open adultery, so-called “marriage” and dozens of other less noticeable actions, this damages the military. It drives more and more good (and even neutral) people OUT, to allow more trash – gangbangers and such – to be not just in the service, but promoted rapidly.  The only way is downhill.

Posted in Commentary on the News | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-16C: Gun backlogs, stealing babies, more

Posted on 2013-05-03 by TPOL Nathan

Home front – Self defense
Weaponized America: Sturm-Ruger backlog despite doubling of gun production and shipments
(Zero Hedge)

Nathan: YES, we are “weaponizing” (real English: arming) Americans more and more:  I know of people who have NEVER owned a weapon other than a bb gun who have gone out and purchased one or several.  Sturm-Ruger has TWO MILLION orders backlogged, and other companies are facing similar situations.  People are expecting the worst:  government seizures (ala New York, Connecticut, and Californai), societal breakdown, governmental breakdown, increased crime, reduced response to real crime by cops, and more. This is no more “irrational fear” that buying a fire extinguisher or a tire flat repair kit means we are fearful of a house fire or a flat tire: these things happen and good people, smart, rational people, prepare.  Are you?

Home front – Stupid people and government
Offended hospital has baby seized from parents

and Russian couple seeking answers
(Political Outcast – Russia Today) Evidently the doctors and staff at Sutter were offended that Anna wanted to seek a second opinion because the day after the two hospital visits, police and Child Protective Services showed up at their house.  Alex met them outside the door and says that the police pushed him against the house and then smacked him down to the ground.  The police then opened the door without asking permission and entered the house.  Anna, who was frightened to death, turned her camera on to record what was happening. … Anna was allowed to visit Sammy in the hospital for 1 hour since his kidnapping and that visit was supervised.  They hope to be able to get everything straightened up with a judge in the next few days, according to their attorney.

Nathan: The interpretation seems to be that Sutter Hospital treated the parents’ decision to have a second opinion from doctors at another hospital as an insult, to which they responded by first calling the cops (which didn’t work out) and then calling the thugs at CPS (and their own pet cops) who then illegally invaded the home and snatched the child out of his mother’s arms.  And here we thought that was only done to the children of Cuba Communists…  But at least SOME resolution:

Update: Baby returned to parents after mixup

Nathan: “Mixup.” Right. After ONLY six days they let the parents have their child back.  Any reason for the father to NOT compare California’s regime to Soviet Russia?  But never mind, Governor Moonbeam just signed a law to use $24 million to help steal 40,000 weapons from 20,000 Californias – adding insult to injury by using gun fees to pay the goons to go steal.  Can the Western States absorb another 50-100,000 refugees (families of the gun-owners)?

Hoplophobes and Hoploclasts – Losing Liberty
California governor signs gun seizure bill
(Los Angeles Times)

Nathan: Will any of these people decide that enough is enough, and fight back?  How many will move out of state before they get caught?  How many will die?  Will California pursue these “felons” out of state?

Stupid environists
Norway: Oslo running out of garbage
(Popular Science)

Nathan: Gee, the environists do it again.  The more they cut waste, the less they have to supply their power plants.  Stupid is as stupid does.

Home front – Techology
Can this device protect you from drones?
(Popular Science) Drone Shield is a pager-sized device (remember pagers?), with the incredibly cheap Raspberry Pi computer at its core. It detects drones by sound, using a microphone to pick up the noise before human ears can. It then uses the processing capacity of the computer to understand the signal, screens it against an internal database, before sending an alert out over text message or email.

Nathan: THIS IS IMPORTANT. One more major “advantage” of US military forces operating against indigenous forces – whether “freedom fighters” or “terrorists” is starting to go away.  And through the efforts of private business, not some enemy government or organization (unless you consider most American civilians (“unorganized militia” and reserve/retired military) to be enemy combatants).  As usual, the people who do this and publicize this don’t understand the difference between “shield” and “warning.”  This is a WARNING system – and very useful, especially if it is already available for under $100 – and IF it has the algorithms to avoid confusing an airliner at 30,000 feet from a drone.

Stupid government – Islamic wars: Arab street revolt
Militia Hired by State Dept. Warned It Wouldn’t Protect Stevens’ Movements in Benghazi
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Militia are evil, according to the feds, right?  So why this?  Ah, Islamic mafia – excuse me, militia is GOOD.  Only AMERICAN militia is bad.  And what about writing contracts in a place where a ferengi can’t expect to have help enforcing the contract?  STUPID.

The “messiah’s” minions – Theft by government
New Obamacare Challenge Says IRS Is Flouting the Law As Written by Congress
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: And we are supposed to be surprised and shocked that the IRS is just another bunch of government criminals who not only violate the Constitution and moral law, but the very law that their capos put in place.

Theft – Tranzis
Gallup Poll: Americans Want Employers to Help Pay Their Tuitiom
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Americans want a free lunch.  And a lot of government will work to force the businesses to provide it.  Guess what, folks?  Your employers DO help pay your tuition: they pay you for your work and you use the money for anything that you want.  Including tuition.  But something for nothing?  Why?  It will STILL come from their profits and reduce what they can pay you.

Posted in Commentary on the News | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-16B: Politically incorrect truth

Posted on 2013-05-02 by TPOL Nathan

Well, once more, global warming is dumping snow – a May Day blizzard on the Front Range of Colorado.  Yesterday’s rainy mists and clouds here in West River of South Dakota have been replaced by partly cloudy but cold skies: barely above 40 after several days of 50-80F weather.  We are all gonna die:  the May Day blizzard here in the Black Hills will no doubt be an Ides of May blizzard on the 4-8 inches of grass grown up from LAST week’s 15+ inch snow.

Politics 2013 – Politically incorrect and  truth (2 stories)
Tennessee County Commissioner in trouble for Facebook photo
(The Tennessean) West played no active role in any of those incidents. He just put an image on his Facebook page, which shows a man aiming a shotgun under the phrase “How to wink at a Muslim.” But even that put a chill through Muslims in Middle Tennessee. Muslim groups tweeted a screen grab of his post and it went viral.

Nathan: Thanks to Steve C for this one.  Truth is hard to swallow: if all these Muslims in Tennessee think this is insulting them, perhaps they should make it clear that they do NOT support their co-religionists’ constant aggressive killing and passing of fatwas and all the rest.

Colorado: Greeley Billboards anger
(Denver Post (taken from Greeley Tribune)) Two billboards in which images of American Indians are used to make a gun-rights argument are causing a stir with some residents, who say the image is offensive and insensitive. The billboards show three men dressed in traditional American Indian attire and the words: “Turn in your arms. The government will take care of you.”

Mama’s Note: I’m sure you’ve seen this. The controversy isn’t a surprise. Objections by “indians” is a bit of a surprise.

Nathan: All I’ve heard are favorable comments, from both AmerInd, Anglos, and Hispanics.  (Haven’t gotten any feedback from blacks, orientals, or small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.) I think it is great, and these idiots who find it offensive are – offensive.

Theft by government – New religions: environism (2 stories)
Green Jobs: Illusive and Costly
(Texas Public Policy Foundation) Solar generation accounts for only 500 jobs and wind technologies account for only 2,700 jobs…

Nathan: Once more, people with serious number crunching ability and analytical skills point out that this scam is still running strong  – as a scam.  Solar and wind are nice, in their place.  But government subsidies just provide opportunities for graft and other sorts of theft of money already stolen!

New Tax on Hybrid Vehicles to Support Highway Maintenance
(USA Today) A new law in Virginia will require hybrid and electric car owners to pay a $64-per-year fee to make up for what taxes these owners aren’t paying at the pump…

Nathan: Which (according to several studies I’ve glanced through) steals away most if not all of the “savings” over the life of the car.  Never mind: it is power and influence, and again, government subsidies with all their wonderful opportunities.

Mama’s Note: I know my niece despises her “Prius,” but will have to drive the stupid thing another five years to break even. A new tax or fee on the thing will be a deal breaker for sure and she’d probably unload it – even if she had to drive it off a cliff. She’d never buy another such vehicle again anyway.

War against religion – Politically-correct military
Military Consultant: Tolerance doesn’t extend to “christian monsters”
(American Vision News) Weinstein, who heads up the cross-crushing, prayer-prosecuting Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), is the same man who just published a blistering rant calling evangelicals “fundamentalist Christian monsters.” (And that’s the nice part!) “We must,” he writes, “vigorously support the continuing efforts to expose pathologically anti-gay, Islamophobic, and rabidly intolerant agitators for what they are: die-hard enemies of the United States Constitution. Monsters, one and all. To do any less would be to roll out a red carpet to those who would usher in a blood-drenched, draconian era of persecutions, nationalistic militarism, and superstitious theocracy.” . . .

Nathan: These draft regulations will drive more and more people out of the military, and allow the ranks to be filled with amoral worshippers of the almighty State, who will gleefully carry out their “duties” to trod the people of these United States under their boots.

Stupid people tricks
Shock Value vs. Moral Courage
(Acton Institute) Salman Rushdie, the British Indian novelist, has a piece in The New York Times entitled “Wither Moral Courage?” He is saddened that we have “no Gandhis, no Lincolns anymore” and that those who do stand up to the “abuses of power and dogma” are quickly imprisoned or vilified.

Nathan: Rushdie is a brave man, and has said a lot of good things.  But ANYONE who considers that Abraham Lincoln, “Abe the Tyrant,” stood up to abuses of power and dogma must have every word he says or writes examined extremely carefully.

The “messiah”
Obama: ‘Maybe I Should Just Pack Up and Go Home
(CNS News)

Nathan: We could only hope… But he and his gang would do more than steal the “w” keys off the keyboards, wouldn’t they?

Theft by government – Government-run/Tax-funded schools
Bill Bennett: Mistake for So Many People to Go to Four-Year Colleges
(CNS News)

 

Nathan: True indeed, but interesting to come from him in particular.  Colleges have, for the most part, become worthless money drains that have incompetents teach incompetents, whether in brick and mortar or virtual space.  For some professions, you need the degree (thanks to government and its collusion with too many special interests for the most part) and you need the knowledge and training available in a formal setting.  But for most of life?  Not hardly.

Home front – Stupid government tricks?
Three additional people arrested in Boston Marathon bombings
(Boston Globe ) Three college students have been arrested by federal authorities in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings, a law enforcement official familar with the case said this morning.

Nathan: And the media is having a field day with it:  three more useful idiots trying to keep a friend out of trouble.  Very STUPIDLY trying to, apparently.  But you can be sure the FBI is busy tracing out everything they can, and will rope more friends and acquaintances into their net.  Show trials just ahead, no doubt.

Islamic wars: Mesopotamian front
Iraq: Government takes 10 TV stations off air for “incitement”
(Christian Science Monitor via  rationalreview.news-digests.com”  “Iraqi authorities have suspended 10 television networks in response to their coverage of the killing of dozens of Sunni demonstrators by the Iraqi Army last week.

Nathan: Nice to know that all those Arabs and Kurds and such in Mesopotamia learned how to do democracy and protect liberties from DC, huh?

Posted in Commentary on the News | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-16A: Spam and magic incantations

Posted on 2013-04-30 by TPOL Nathan

Nathan: I got another one of those spams from the “Grassfire Coalition” urging me to sign a petition to “Stop the Internet Tax” that will go to “my” senators.  Here it is, in part:

We’ve confirmed that at least one of your South Dakota Senators supports a massive $24-billion-a-year tax mandate that’s coming up for a vote next Monday, May 6.
The so-called Marketplace Fairness Act (S. 743) would mandate Internet retailers to collect sales taxes on all purchases and then send the revenue to the appropriate state and municipal taxing authorities. In theory, that money would be used for local roads, bridges, police and fire departments.

An open response from Nathan: Hey, they are not MY senators: I voted and worked hard to keep BOTH of them from getting elected.  And Johnson is nothing but a ventriloquist’s dummy since his tumor/stroke.  As for Thune, he has known for years that HIS way to power was by supporting big business and hanging smallholders out to dry. This bill will make it nearly impossible for small businesses to do any retail sales outside a very short list of states, because of the recordkeeping and all those little checks to all the parasites.  The big businesses – the ones with pull – will win more and more. But this is perfect for both of the so-called “Senators from South Dakota”: $24 billion more stolen from people in the name of “fairness” – kind of like the “Fair Share Law” in Atlas Shrugged.  Stop wasting your time and money thinking that the right magic words on enough “petitions” to the thugs in DC will fix things: buy food and ammo…

Energy and the future
Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough?
(Independent, UK) One giant leap for mankind: £13bn Iter project makes breakthrough in the quest for nuclear fusion, a solution to climate change and an age of clean, cheap energy. It may be the most ambitious scientific venture ever: a global collaboration to create an unlimited supply of clean, cheap energy. And this week it took a crucial step forward. Steve Connor reports…

Mama’s Note: This fusion thing just never made any sense to me. Far, FAR too complex, and this “hotter than the sun” thing really seems nuts. Building multi-billion dollar central plants is just wrong anyway. Seems to me that decentralization of energy production is as important as decentralization of power structures. If you put all your eggs in one basket…

Nathan: There is just so MUCH wrong with this thing that I could pontificate for a whole 1000+ words about it.  First, I think that Steve Connor used the right word when compared the entire project and its troubles to Babel.  This entire project strikes me as incredibly arrogant on the part of the sponsors and the people doing the work:  more than a decade and nearly $20 billion to produce something that has already been demonstrated to work on a much smaller scale, and without the costs and risks associated with this monster.  As Mama Liberty pointed out, central plants are bad.  R. A. Heinlein wrote about one major problem in “Blowups Happen” way back in the infancy of nuclear power. But there are many other reasons.  Centralization is bad – for those who love liberty.  But for tyrants, all this is just another variation on “water empires.”  Back in ancient times, the god-kings did best in those regions where they could control the essentials of life.  The best was water:  you controlled the irrigation canals and dams and such, and all the people not only obeyed you and served you and let you steal from them, they also WORSHIPED you because YOU were the god who controlled the water: Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China.  Today, POWER – electrical especially – is the “water” that an “energy empire” controls to, in turn, control the land and the people.  So they work feverishly (remember, they are GOVERNMENT employees: bureaucrats in FRANCE:  another 10 years is par for the course), to have a centralized power plant that is vulnerable to terrorism attack to justify more cops, more security, more troops, more restrictions.  Meanwhile, there are others, not all friends of liberty, but still: they are working on things like the Hyperion Power Module:  a truck sized nuclear reactor that burns the nasty byproducts of the big old dinosaur nuclear power stations:  a truck-size “battery” that fits into a nice concrete vault in a park or by a water tower or something.  And a dozen people working on basement or garage sized fusion and fission:  not just to let a small city have their own power, but a single block or even a single family.    And something like that is likely to be able to heat up enough reaction mass to get enough Delta-V to make it to the Asteroids, or beyond.  This thing, this monster is too poorly designed and built to handle a small earthquake.  But – that’s government for you!

Stupid people – Home front
Massachusetts:  Clergy reportedly banned from bombing scene
A new report in the Wall Street Journal claims that faith leaders were very literally banned from the trauma scene. As individuals lay on the ground maimed and suffering from unimaginably-dire wounds, nearby clergy were not allowed to enter to give last rights or even to comfort the victims.

Nathan: Surprised?  Don’t be:  The war on religion takes priority over whether an eight-year-old is able to worship as he wanted.  And after all, these priests and others would just fill the victims with nonsense, and probably kill just as much as the jihadis do – after all, didn’t some Army training identify Roman Catholics as extremists and likely terrorists?

Mama’s Note: The idea that these clerics would “just be in the way” is stupid, to say the least. In my long nursing career, I dealt with chaplains and clergy constantly – both in the ER and in many other settings. The very LAST thing they would do was get in the way, or interfere with treatments. They were, however, often instrumental in helping the patients  cooperate with the medical people as they struggled to control pain and bleeding. A priest would be one of the last people I’d bar from any medical emergency. And cops would be the first… they are the ones who stand in the road and gum up the works all too often.

Self-defense – Helping others
Utah: Samurai sword-wielding Mormon bishop comes to aid of woman being attacked
(Fox News) “A Samurai sword-wielding Mormon bishop helped a neighbor woman escape a Tuesday morning attack by a man who had been stalking her. Kent Hendrix woke up Tuesday to his teenage son pounding on his bedroom door and telling him somebody was being mugged in front of their house. The 47-year-old father of six rushed out the door and grabbed the weapon closest to him — a 29-inch high carbon steel Samurai sword. He came upon what he describes as a melee between a woman and a man. His son stayed inside to call 911 while he approached the man along with other neighbors who came to help. The martial arts instructor didn’t hesitate in drawing the sword and yelling at him to get on the ground.” (04/23/13)

Nathan: Whatever works, but a smart man (even an LDS bishop) would have a pistol also handy for home defense: even in Deseret.  Good for him.

Self-defense
Pennsylvania: AR15 used in home defense
(Philly.com) “Jasper Brisbon, 32, wandered up to a couple late Friday at the Lynnewood Apartments as the pair spoke outside their unit. Brisbon, they told police, appeared to be on drugs. He stared at the pair for several minutes before the couple decided to go into their apartment, police said. But as they entered their home Brisbon jumped between them, forcing his way in. The male of the couple ran to get a semi- automatic AR-15 rifle and insisted Brisbon leave. Brisbon refused. Instead, as the man yelled ‘Stop! Stop Stop!’ Brisbon moved menacingly toward the man, police said. The man fired a shot striking Brisbon in the torso and immediately called 911.” (04/22/13)

Nathan: Well, he could have done it with a shotgun, right?  Or a baseball bat.  Or 9-1-1 calls and screams: he could have thrown up on the guy or wet himself or just died.  But he DID have a useful weapon to defend himself and his wife.  Good for him.

Mama’s Note: Indeed, and I’m glad he did what he needed to do. Unfortunately, running to get the gun is not always an option. I much prefer to have that gun on my belt while I’m awake, or on the nightstand beside my bed when I sleep. It’s never more than a foot or so from my hand, and that’s far enough.  Oh, and the wife needs one close too…

Posted in Commentary on the News | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment