Category Archives: Obsessions

Passive resistence

Posted on January 30, 2014 | 2 comments

The flaw in all those new Democrat anti-gun and “high-capacity” magazine registration laws? Ninety percent of gun owners refuse to cooperate, and the state doesn’t have the manpower to do anything about it.

“I’ve seen estimates of 1,000,000 firearm magazines that should have been registered under the law, but the state reports registering only 40,000… just 4 percent.

“Against this backdrop of failure, the anti-gun government of Connecticut is contemplating an ‘amnesty’ to encourage those who haven’t registered to do so…”

Oh, yeah, that’ll work. You bet. Heh.

Never mind revolution, riots, etc. Passive resistance to government overreach is much more effective.

Via Instapundit.

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Posted in Guns, Obamalot, Obsessions, The Culture

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Why are hard facts always cold?

Posted on January 29, 2014 | 2 comments

Ditherton Wiggleroom (as Vodkapundit calls Wormtongue) in his SOTU:

“The cold, hard fact is that even in the midst of recovery, too many Americans are working more than ever just to get by…”

Recovery? In his dreams. Obamacare has taken care of the recovery by effectively putting a cap on middle class income.

But why, I ask, must the hard facts always be cold? For that matter why must the facts be hard? (Other than that the “genuis” public speaker DW always speaks in cliches and platitudes?) A lot of his “facts” are pretty squishy. Like this one:

“Every four minutes, another American home or business goes solar…”

And this beaut: “…the debate is settled.  Climate change is a fact.”

Just once I’d like to hear Wiggleroom speak of the hot, soft facts. It would certainly be more original. And the soft part more honest.

Naw. Never happen.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Obsessions, The Economy, Weather/Climate

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Ninety million idle Americans

Posted on January 23, 2014 | 2 comments

I’m older than Victor Davis Hanson but he’s far more pessimistic. He has his reasons. He works in a university bloated with administrators enforcing petty rules, and tenured professors who don’t teach while low-paid lecturers do the actual work of so-called “higher” education.

Some commenters called me out for ageism for doubting the intelligence of a generation defying the thermometer to walk around in basketball shorts in the snow. I suppose they would apply the same to Hanson’s negative views of modern culture. But he has better access to statistics than the rest of us and he’s come up with a whopper.

“Over 90 million Americans who could work are not working (the “non-institutionalized” over 16). What we take for granted — our electrical power, fuel, building materials, food, health care, and communications — all hinge on just 144 million getting up in the morning to produce what about 160-170 million others (the sick, the young, and the retired who need assistance along with the 90 million idle) consume.

“Every three working Americans provide sustenance for two who are not ill, enfeebled, or too young. The former help the disabled, the latter take resources from them…Given that the number of non-working is growing (an additional 10 million were idled in the Obama ‘recovery’ alone), it is likely to keep growing. At some point, we will hit a 50/50 ratio of idle versus active. Then things will get interesting. The percentage of workers’ pay deducted to pay for the non-working will soar even higher.”

The claims of these entitled idle already are impacting the few Americans willing to serve in the military. But they’re easy pickings in a society that increasingly neither understands nor values them. When it gets around to robbing civilian Alphonse to pay civilian Aloysius, however, things could get messy.

Glad I won’t (probably) be around to see that. One of the advantages of age.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Obsessions, The Culture, The Economy

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The “Dream Speech” set the Kennedys off

Posted on January 20, 2014 | Comments Off on The “Dream Speech” set the Kennedys off

Later it would be claimed that it was Dr. King’s opposition to the Vietnam War that got him wire-tapped, microphoned and tailed by Fart, Barf & Itch.

“’The FBI’s program to destroy Dr. King as the leader of the civil rights movement entailed efforts to discredit him with churches, universities and the press,’ the report said.”

It was the Dream Speech, in 1963, that set off the Kennedys, the Democrats in the White House and cabinet (whose party enforced segregation throughout the South) who ordered the surveillance. Their reasons have been buried under so much official and unofficial nonsense over the years that it would be impossible to sort it out.

Officially, however, they suspected Dr. King was a communist, although it wasn’t illegal to be one.

Comments Off on The “Dream Speech” set the Kennedys off

Posted in Obsessions, Viet Nam

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“Forgetting” segregation

Posted on January 12, 2014 | 5 comments

I’m sure most of us get email forwardings at one time or another, especially from low-IT relatives and, sometimes, from old friends. They tend to be smarmy at best, ridiculous at worst, and deserve to be deleted as soon as possible.

But the recent forwarding of 1950s-early 60s nostalgia pieces for Baby Boomers are more than ridiculous. They also are dishonest. One I got recently was all hymns to early rock-n-roll songs and TV shows, with kitschy artwork of store fronts and ’57 Chevies in pastel colors—all minus one historical feature.

Nowhere in the windows of those Norman Rockwell stores was the then-ubiquitous sign: Whites Only.

5 Comments

Posted in Evolution, Obsessions, The Culture

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The Stronghorns

Posted on January 6, 2014 | 2 comments

Catchy moniker, yes? Now we’ll see what Mr. Charlie Strong can do with Mack’s recruited talent. Whether, in fact, he wants them all. Or will find a way to unload some. He surely needs a much better QB, with no history of concussions.

Strong being black will definitely be a factor in his recruiting in Texas and out, given that, what, two-thirds of college players are black. At least two thirds of most teams. Sez commenter SW M at Forbes:

“One important reason to hire Charlie Strong is [black coach] Kevin Sumlin. Sumlin has generated enormous interest among high school players, especially African Americans, in playing at Texas A&M. Charlie Strong is the best possible response to this very serious threat to the Texas program going forward.”

Sure looks that way. But it remains to be seen how Strong, whom some sports writers say is a thin-skinned disciplinarian, will work out with players who are used to pampering. Being called “kids,” among other things. Not to mention how Strong will scheme to beat OU (which just beat Alabama), OK State, Baylor, etc. Four years of whooping up on Rutgers, East Kentucky and Florida International are not much training for the Big 12.

It was a liberal U’s PC hire, obviously, whatever they say and they certainly won’t admit it, but even though the guy coached football at a basketball school in a second tier conference, he did help Florida win two titles. It might turn out really well. If he can handle the off-field hassles: the occasionally-nasty local media, always whiny fan base, and a few backstabbing big donors.

For now the new nickname, Stronghorns, is a success. Just win, Charlie, just win. Do that and everything else will take care of itself. Hook ‘Em!

2 Comments

Posted in Obsessions, Texana, Texas Football

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Where is the environmental benefit?

Posted on December 29, 2013 | 1 comment

So ask Native American groups angry at the White House’s continued push for more wind turbines which despoil natural beauty and kill millions of bats and birds.

“Wind farms must be located where the wind blows fairly constantly, and such locations are prime travel routes for migratory birds, including protected species such as bald eagles and golden eagles. Exacerbating the problem, wind farms act as both bait and executioner—rodents taking shelter at the base of turbines multiply with the protection from raptors, and their greater numbers then attract more raptors to the turbines.”

Meanwhile the turbines are a political shuck, providing only small amounts of intermittent electricity, generally at times when a utility doesn’t need it. Ah, but they fill the pockets of lobbyists, politicians, and wind turbine companies with subsidies, i.e. tax money. That’s the “environmental benefit” the White House really is interested in.

“Wind cannot satisfy the demand requirements of a utility unless it is backed up with fossil fuel plants and/or energy storage projects. This results in duplication of resources and additional costs, with little, if any, carbon mitigation. Further, the steep increases and declines in power delivery of wind put the reliability of the grid in question.”

All in the name of another, bigger shuck: stopping so-called man-made global warming, the warming which hasn’t been occurring for 17 years now. Except in federal press releases. Health insurance isn’t the only thing they lie about.

It’s lose-lose, all around, unless you’re one of Wormtongue’s cronies with your paw in the trough.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Obamalot, Obsessions, Science/Engineering, Weather/Climate

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