Pumping In IA 2012

Being retired means not having any good excuses for being "late", so I won't offer any. I'm not late! I got to it when I got to it and that is just the way it is!

Here is a slideshow of the pictures I took during my 5 weeks of learning a lot more respect for the guys that make sure we can keep having bacon, ham, ribs and sausage for our pizza!




Here are a few movies of pumping and application operations shot during the fall.

Proudly Gun Free!

Not quite that proud… | Power Line:

Hmmm, OK, maybe not. Is it REALLY surprising that although the left wants to tell everyone else that THEY ought to be "gun free", they aren't so keen on the idea themselves??

I'm CERTAIN that criminals will obey the laws. Look how good a job they do on drugs, drunk driving, tax evasion, etc.

If Democrats demanded that their cabinet folks paid their taxes, a Democrat president could never field a cabinet at all!

'via Blog this'

Why "Fake Founders Gun Quotes Matter"

Did Jefferson really say that? Why bogus quotations matter in gun debate - CNN.com

Why does the MSM do this type of a column? I can think of no other reason that to have the headline give the impression that many quotes from the Founders on guns are fake and DO matter.

However, if you actually read it, it only really tries to debunk a single quote, and even for that one it points out that there is conflicting information and that he quote is in fact in line with Jefferson's clear position on guns. It also points out:

Stephen Halbrook, an attorney and author of the book "The Founders' Second Amendment," said he doesn't understand why someone would want to use a fake quotation.
"For years I've seen bogus quotes on gun issues in the Internet," he said. "Since the Founding Fathers were so positive on Second Amendment rights, I couldn't understand why anyone would feel compelled to invent quotes."
Halbrook said Jefferson was a big supporter of the right to own firearms.

OK, so most of the "fake quotes" are in line with the Founders thinking, and for the supposed "many" fakes (one possible "fake" is listed), there are many more available than are real. 

So is the conclusion of the article that fake quotes don't really matter because they in  fact convey what the founders said, only in a shorter version? Maybe, that would be a logical conclusions of just reading the whole thing. They just don't say. 

So my view is that the purpose is to make it seem that there are a lot of REALLY fake quotes out there that mislead people on what the intent of the Founders actually was, when in fact by their own admission the supposed fakes are NOT misleading, and the ONE they point out is very accurate in actual meaning. 

So the article is simply a head fake. 

'via Blog this'

"Assault Rifle" NOT used in Newtown Shooting!!!

TODAY: Investigation is very complex

OK, this has been known since the middle of December???!!!  Wouldn't one think that it might get just a BIT more coverage if there was ANY interest in FACTS vs PROPAGANDA???

Day by day I become more and more amazed at just how mislead we are as a people. Without some tiny shred of objective reporting, it is completely impossible for us to govern ourselves, and it becomes more and more clear that that is the agenda of the BO government and the MSM.

The Truth Is Eternal

We are raising a generation of deluded narcissists | Fox News

Good column, unfortunately it is RAISED, not "raising" -- we are neck and neck with Europe on kids living at home,  depression, suicide and general meaninglessness in life. There is plenty of research that shows that Western Culture had it right for at least 500 years, but we decided to blow it and "start over" in the 20th Century and especially post WWII.

The train to oblivion runs on -- but after the crash, as in after the Dark Ages, there will be a decent chance that the requirement for Religion, Philosophy, Dialectic, Rhetoric ... manners, culture, responsibility and actual vs imagined personal growth. Probably only a few hundred or at worst few thousand years of despair to get back on our feet. The next Ice Age will pretty much guarantee a "reset" on a lot of "modern wisdom".

Distractions, however, are temporary, and the truth is eternal. Watch for an epidemic of depression and suicidality, not to mention homicidality, as the real self-loathing and hatred of others that lies beneath all this narcissism rises to the surface. I see it happening and, no doubt, many of you do, too.

Frog of Freedom Boils On

We Are the 98 Percent — The American Magazine

Good article on the continuing slide to greater bankruptcy and socialism. The election is over, some folks from the left are starting to make noises that it is time to move to a wee bit more reality based approach. We are broke, taxing the rich won't do anything to fix it, and if you are a "Progressive", you don't believe that government can spend less -- thus, sharpen up those tax knives and start going after the rest of the folks!

Surprisingly, many progressive pundits are moving away from their traditional complaint that America’s tax code is too regressive, favoring the rich. They are starting to tell us, albeit only after an election mainly contested on these issues, the truth: to fund the European-style social welfare state which they advocate, we must tax everyone more.

I'd argue that we are already at the point discussed in the next paragraph -- people have been suitably brainwashed to believe that there is really no potential for anything but a european style socialist system in the "modern world". "Give us our STUFF!!". 

What happens historically when benefits are bestowed without a bill also coming due is that we get hooked on them. Then, even when they become disasters not worth their cost, people are terrified to change them, as giving something up is indeed quite frightening

Political Storms

Mona Charen: Democrat Hurricanes versus Republican Hurricanes | WashingtonExaminer.com

Why is everything so political? Mostly because the MSM makes it so -- each "event" is a chance to create the mood in the public that the MSM feels is "right".

It turns out that big storms are ALWAYS bad if you are in the path of the storm -- Katrina, Sandy, etc.  BUT, for those that don't experience the storm, how it is viewed is more a function of how it is reported that the reality that "storms always suck".

So, for Katrina .... in a city below sea level, hit with an ACTUAL Cat 5 hurricane, with terrible local and state preparedness, ANY level of problem was INSTANTLY "Bush's fault".  Fighting 2 wars after 9-11 didn't really take Bush down, it was actually the reporting of Katrina that did him in.

Sandy wasn't even a hurricane technically, it dropped below Cat 1 before it came ashore, and the Feds were no better than they were in Katrina -- staging foul ups, red tape, looting, etc. Same stuff as Katrina, **BUT** the reporting was all positive -- INSTANTLY. Bloomberg apparently believed the press and thought he would just run the NY Marathon anyway, until his folks let him know that bodies still needed to be recovered and millions were still without power, heat, water etc. Who knew??? Wasn't a story worthy to be reported.

So the vast majority of the people just listen to the MSM story and the country continues to sail to destruction while whistling happily.

Des Moines Register Threatens NRA, Republicans, Gun Owners

Kaul: Nation needs a new agenda on guns | The Des Moines Register | desmoinesregister.com

Let's call this what it is, a direct threat of violence. The Register decides who to publish and who not to publish. If these statements were made relative to Blacks, Gays, Muslims or Democrats, they would be PROSECUTABLE HATE SPEECH! Gun owners, white men, Republicans, "the rich", and Christians are groups in the US that can be attacked like this without legal action.

Here is one of his "proposals":

Declare the NRA a terrorist organization and make membership illegal. Hey! We did it to the Communist Party, and the NRA has led to the deaths of more of us than American Commies ever did. (I would also raze the organization’s headquarters, clear the rubble and salt the earth, but that’s optional.) Make ownership of unlicensed assault rifles a felony. If some people refused to give up their guns, that “prying the guns from their cold, dead hands” thing works for me.

Here is another:

Then I would tie Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, our esteemed Republican leaders, to the back of a Chevy pickup truck and drag them around a parking lot until they saw the light on gun control.

Oh yes, I'm sure it is "all in good fun". Right?  If Rush Limbaugh said this? If this was on Fox News? and the targets were any of those mentioned above?? Come on, we know the truth. 

If you are a member of any of the targeted groups ... white male, Christian, gun owner, NRA, Republican, etc. ARM YOURSELF!!! You are being warned sternly and directly by the Statists that they want to take you down and they are VERY willing to use violent means. Your ONLY small defense is to be armed, prepared, trained and hopefully organized. The time that this can be written and communicated openly in this country is fading VERY fast. The guy that did a video that was less critical of Islam then this column is of it's target groups IS IN JAIL! 

If you are an "undesirable" as I list above, how direct must threats and selective treatment of groups be before you ACT! 

Selective Justice

MILLER: Two systems of justice - Washington Times

This is how Totalarian Statist systems work. First countless laws are passed, then they are SELECTIVELY ENFORCED. If you "support the right people", "say the right things", then the laws won't be enforced on you. Get on the other side of "the ruling powers" though and you must be punished.

This is why it is nearly impossible to find a Democrat that has a clean record with the IRS. Today, that still counts before they are going to take a high ranking position in an administration (witness Daschle and Geitner), but it won't be long until the payment of tax and many other things will be optional for the  ruling Statists.

Hating the Constitution

A Liberal Comes Clean: We Hate the Constitution | Power Line

The PL summary is good. Lots of folks are ready to just throw Rule of Law away and go the way of the French Revolution or worse -- GIVE US OUR STUFF!!!

Once you try to take all the "rich" have via semi-legal means, why not just kill them and take ALL that have!!

When the golden goose is dead, it is dead -- and we are very intent on killing it COMPLETELY dead -- and eviscerating the body in search of "the secret".

Underway On Raspberry Pi

http://www.raspberrypi.org/ Welcome to the world of a $35 computer!! This post is being done on the Midori browser on the machine seen here. Not blazing speed, but for those of us that lived with machine with K of memory and speeds in K instructions per second, it is pretty amazing!!

My Raspberry Pi

Tax Fairness

Soak the Rich? | Power Line

The chart shows it well. We have no fairness when the top 1% of the people pay in much in taxes as "the bottom" 95%!!!

There needs to be SOME more connection between voting and amount of taxes paid!

The World Is A Beautiful Place

The great divide: Little common ground with pro- and anti-gun forces - CNN.com

This article in CNN was less biased than some, but I was struck when I hit this paragraph:

"I think that people are hard wired differently. If you look at the world as a beautiful place and I'm in the arts, I'm a composer, I write music, I write poetry, if you believe the world's a beautiful place, your viewpoint is different than if you feel 'I have to have my guns to protect myself,' " said Hollis Thoms, 64, from Annapolis, Maryland, as he protested outside of the Willard InterContinental Hotel just after the NRA's press conference.

Huh? Don't ALL sane people agree the world is BOTH beautiful and ugly? I love music, poetry, natural beauty, etc as much as the next guy, but doesn't this guy shit? Was he on another planet for 9-11? Hasn't he ever seen Michael Moore? 

So unlike the supposed "divide" in this article created by the "progressive mindset" that believes that all need, want, violence, waste, ugliness, sweat and fallen arches can be removed from the world with just a little more regulation, taxing the wealthy, borrowed money, or some other elixer, there are people that believe that the world has a bit of "Ying and Yang". Evil exists and has to be controlled by force, life ends in death, party nights lead to hangovers, producing things requires that SOMEONE works ... sometimes at something that isn't even "pristine". That IS life for some folks -- I guess the Troglodytes in this guys universe, but Earthlings in mine!!

BUT, we DO have a HUGE divide in this country because CNN and the vast bulk of people going berserk over the NRA suggestion (also made by Billy C in 2k) believe in a world where beauty can be legislated, rather than created by God and the sweat of man's brow, and evil can be "cured" by drugs, education, laws, or some other human mechanism. 

We have a gulf because we ALL used to accept that man was flawed and needed written and unchanging legal and moral codes in order to survive, but that the "Leviathan" (government) was also managed by man, so therefore had to be LIMITED, thus the Constitution, Checks and Balances, and the final check, the 2nd Amendment. 

Yes, Hollis, there ARE people "wired differently" from you, and for that you ought be grateful, lest you die. While music and poetry are great, they are ONLY great when we are a few notches up the needs hierarchy from food, clothing, shelter and safety. 

Cornball Brothers Racism, RGIII

RGIII, ‘Cornball Brothers,’ and the Blackness Code - National Review Online

When these two articles showed up on the web within a couple of days of each other it was nearly more than my old brain could handle. Seems that RGIII turns out "not to be black"!!! Thanks to the Web ESPN and Urban Dictionaries, we can learn that "Cornball Brothers" are guys that look black, but "act white" ,.. as in date or marry white women, live with no "street cred", dress and act "white", and in the lowest of the low situations, dare I say it?? Vote Republican!!

Does that sound at all racist ?

Try this http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/19/opinion/the-puzzle-of-black-republicans.html?_r=0

He doesn't say "Uncle Tom", but it is pretty clear. Tim Scott just isn't allowed to think the way he does --- that is leaving the "Democrat Thought Plantation"!! The Democrats used to keep the blacks on a real plantation, then they moved them to the more virtual "Segregation Plantation", but now they are locked up solidly in the "Thought Plantation".

Guys like Thomas Sowell, one of my intellectual heroes? Well, they just don't exist -- or they doing nothing but "serving as sop to a white man's racist guilt". Sowell has more intelligence in his little toe than this columnist could muster in a year of good days.

A little quote from the end, but it needs to be read to be truly sickened. If you don't sign up for "advancing black interests", then you simply aren't black. Got it?? Get out there and commit a couple crimes for "street cred", wear your pants around your ankles, join a gang and for Gods sake, get on welfare! THOSE are "black interests"! Enough of this stupid white man's education, talking like a white person, staying out of prison, etc -- that isn't being "authentically black"!

The trope of the black conservative has retained a man-bites-dog newsworthiness that is long past its shelf life. Clichés about fallen barriers are increasingly meaningless; symbols don’t make for coherent policies. Republicans will not gain significant black support unless they take policy positions that advance black interests. No number of Tim Scotts — or other cynical tokens — will change that.

Facts About Mass Shootings

The Facts about Mass Shootings - John Fund - National Review Online

Just read it. If we ever return to being a rational nation where people are capable of governing themselves, this is the kind of analysis that will be demanded of our media.