The "We Are The 99" Sign Holders

You may recall during protests against evildisgustingrichassrichpeople a few years ago, some of the smelly hippy protesters were holding signs declaring themselves to be "the 99%" of America that for some reason resents the people who got to the top of the heap by their own effort.

Well here's a fun factoid for you: the people holding those signs are, in fact, the 1%.  If you have a few minutes, read this fine piece by Willis Eschenbach and then come back and tell me how not getting 99 weeks of unemployment benefits is some kind of hardship.

We have met the 1%, and he is us 

Kudos to Watts Up With That for hosting this fine writing!

Global Non-Warming Getting Harder to Deny!

The temperature plot for the last decade is a solid no-change ZERO increase/decrease average. But you don't get research grant money to continue to "study" anthropogenic global warming when the globe is neither warming nor cooling.


Image from WUWT

If you are still on the fence with regard to AGW, here are a few more points to ponder:

• If hurricanes increase in warm times, why were they worse a hundred years ago?
• Do plants contribute less of one greenhouse gas then there is more of the other?
• If the models are wrong, you get new models . . . and the models can't replicate the activity from polar vortices well at all!

We Don't Need No Stinking Badges!

I had never read this before. I had heard the word Areopagitica before a few times in reference to the freedom of the Press, but never took the time to track down what it meant.

It took me an hour and a half to read, but it was worth the time. Set aside two or three hours (I can read pretty quickly) and read this speech. Then, the next time somebody mentions this smart idea they have of licensing bloggers, reporters, &c., you will understand that they are either ignorant or malignant. In either case, they are wrong.

A couple of quotes from Areopagitica to make a couple of points. The recent discussion about licensing bloggers does indeed come from people who think you are stupid.

"Nor is it to the common people less than a reproach; for if we be so jealous over them, as that we dare not trust them with an English pamphlet, what do we but censure them for a giddy, vicious, and ungrounded people; in such a sick and weak state of faith and discretion, as to be able to take nothing down but through the pipe of a licenser."

The argument that you people must have guardians over your information sources is as weak now as it was at the time of the Inquisition. Truth stands the test of time, and unless the proponents of licensure suspect they themselves are on the wrong side of the line, there is no reason for them to try to pursue this idea.

"And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?"
...
"For who knows not that Truth is strong, next to the Almighty? She needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings to make her victorious; those are the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power."

The very first Amendment to the Constitution for the United States of America established the freedom of the Press. For those unfamiliar with the concept: requiring approval from the government to speak or to publish ideas is something only the worst of tyrants would seek to do. To quote one of the worse tyrants of modern times:

"Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?" - Joseph Stalin

You Will Read This:

The departed Bane told a story he claimed was true. I believe it. You may not. Set aside a few minutes and read it for yourself. You might try not to read these where it is dark and cold.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven

The links are to Google's cache of the pages, in case you are behind a server that blocks Blogger. Plus, if you click through his archives be warned that some of Bane Rants is/was VERY not safe for work.

Shell Games and Open Secrets

zOMG CHINA DUMPING US TREASURIES Oh Noes!!!1!

So went the hysteria in certain circles. Then some cooler heads followed a bouncing ball and recently figured out that China never stopped buying US treasuries, they just stopped buying them from us.

That the USA runs a trade deficit with China means China will buy something from us with our dollars. The money runs in a great big circle across the Pacific Ocean, because they don't put it all into capital investments in China. If we run a trade deficit, they will buy our dollars, or someone else will, and pass the value of them on to China some way. That you didn't understand this paragraph means you were cheated of an education, but trust me: trade deficits mean we sell them bonds when we buy their plastic crap toys.

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NP asked me about this today and I gave him an explanation somewhat as follows. He was uncomfortable at the idea of the Chinese buying our debt, and wondered what would happen if they stopped . . . what would we do if nobody financed our deficit spending anymore? The answer is we would cut spending to the point that we would not spend more than we took (at gunpoint) from taxpayers. What then happens to the national debt? It continues to go away.

Yes, continues. What we have right now is a credit card with a $14.2T limit and a $14T balance. What the big spenders in Congress would like to do is increase our line of credit to $15T or $16T and keep right on spending money we don't have. This, by the way, will be what happens (and then some) if Obamacare is not repealed. What the right-thinking small-government types would like to have happen is that we NOT increase our maximum credit limit anymore.

If you have a credit card with a $14,000 limit and a $14,000 balance, and they won't increase the limit for you, what do you do? You stop charging it up, is what. You stop going out to restaurants and movies on the credit card. I imagine we would start shedding Federal agencies left and right, if we stopped running trillion-dollar annual deficits. This would lead to massive unemployment for government workers, but everyone else would have an effective pay rise, long-term.

But what about the debt? Aren't we in big trouble there?

Not yet, not really. If you can make the $340 minimum monthly payment on your credit card, you can "afford" to have the $14,000 balance carry over month-to-month. If you can ONLY afford the $340 minimum payment, and you charge up more debt, and then you COULDN'T afford the $400 minimum payment on a $16,000 balance, you would be in trouble. But we can afford it still. Every year, we sell more bonds to finance the operation of our national government. Every year, we have to pay a little more on the minimum payment, to satisfy the bond holders.

Eventually, we could charge up so much debt on our T-Bill credit card that we would be unable to make the minimum payments. At THAT point, we would be 100% screwed, and would have to default and cut back on our spending. If we were to cut back so much that we ran a balanced budget starting today, nothing bad would happen with the national debt.

If you continue to make the minimum payments on your credit card, in 30 years it will be paid off. If we continue to make minimum payments on the bonds we issue, the bond holders will be made whole as their bonds mature. In 30 years we will be 100% debt-free as a nation.

Whether this is a Good Thing is a separate argument.

Contact Shots and DARs: Things to Think About

I'd heard of officer-mounted video cameras before and I think they're a good idea if small/unobtrusive enough that they don't interfere with normal locomotion. What I hadn't really given much thought to is a supplemental digital audio recorder. I mean, the officer can key up a hot-mic on his radio and he has a recorder in his car, right? Well let me tell you, I've heard with my own ears what happens when an officer's arm or (fill in the blank) is blocking the radio mic: no audio recording.

Assuming your radio mic is in a different location than your DAR, this is a huge bonus when the feces has hit the impeller and Internal Affairs would like to know what, exactly, was going on when it happened. A personal digital audio recorder should be on your person if you are on patrol.

Also something I had almost-thought about: contact shots (shots fired when your gun is actually touching the target). Most pistols won't fire out of battery, and pushing a pistol into a Bad Guy during a struggle (or having him pull it in to himself, or if he lands on top of you with the gun pointing into him) might just render a pistol unable to fire. I think the Springfield XD has a protruding guide rod for the recoil spring, so it's harder to push it out of battery against a Goblin, but it could still happen. I hadn't gotten any further in my thinking than "gee, that would suck if you needed to make a shot just then" but the people who think about use-of-force for a living figured it out for us. You push that puppy back into battery. It works and it won't destroy your non-firing hand to do it, as shown in the short, worthwhile video, here.

In case you didn't click through, both of those links are to Spartan Cops. If you are in law enforcement or are some other type of person who may have to use force on another person, you should be picking up what they are laying down, at least every once in a while.

Spotting Frauds In Martial Arts

~or~ I Can't Believe I Read The Whole Thing!

At the things worth believing in, you may go and read a (very) long article on the subject of discovering a fraudulent martial art instructor. It is also valuable for the thinking man, as a source of wisdom in dealing with people generally. Go read the whole thing. It is long. It is worth it.

Nothing Important Happened Then Anyway.

I mean, they didn't even have electricity during the first 100 years of the history of the United States. Why should North Carolina make an attempt to teach your high-school children about the reasons for the struggle for independence, or the war between the states, or any of that old rubbish?

I mean, it's not like anything bad happens if we, as a nation, forget our history, right? Surely the kindergarteners' lessons about the relative merits of independence versus tyranny were sufficient. There shouldn't be any problem with picking right up in high school at oh, about 1950, eh?

As Neal Boortz tries to convince people who listen to his radio show:

WHY would you expect a school that is funded by, attendance to which is mandated by, where the curriculum is chosen by, and whose employees are paid by, the State to teach your children the value of independence and small government?

Rachel Lucas Visited Oswiecim. Read This.

You will read this. It is mandatory.

Be sitting down, by yourself, in a quiet place, when you read it.

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In 60 years, if you want people to read about your hometown in posts like that, stop arguing about politics and just go along with what the President wants. He is the President after all, and it could never happen here.

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with apologies to the author of the blog where I found this, I was just blogrollwandering and this blew your name right of my mind.

Colonel Cooper On The Color Code

I think this goes a long way toward explaining why I am the way I am, and the thoughts I sometimes think that other people (who live in Condition White) do not think.

In the January 2005 Cooper's Commentaries, to clarify (again) what he means by the Color Code, he wrote:

The Color Code refers not to a condition of peril, but rather to a condition of readiness to take life. Fortunately most people are very reluctant to take lethal action against another human being. Most people are reluctant to shoot for blood on a harmless game animal, until they become used to it. To press the trigger on a human adversary calls for a wrenching effort of will which is always difficult to achieve and sometimes apparently impossible. Thus we live our days in Condition White, which may or may not have anything to do with our danger, since quite frequently we are in deadly danger and do not realize it. Any time you cross directions out on a two-lane highway you are at the mercy of that character coming towards you in the opposite direction. Usually he is okay, but when he is under some sort of chemical influence, or is psychologically upset, he may only twitch his wheel to produce a multiple fatal accident. Most of us would prefer to live in Condition White permanently, and many do, but those who are more aware of the nature of things are often in Yellow, which is a condition in which we are aware that the world is full of hazards which are human, and some of which may be obviated by our own defensive action. When one is in Condition Yellow he is aware that today may be the day. He is not in a combat mood, nor is he aware of any specific situation which may call for action on his part. There is a vital difference between White and Yellow, and it has to do not with any specific enemy or a set of circumstances, but rather with your awareness that you individually may have to take decisive action on this very day. If you are attacked in Condition White, you will probably die, or at least need a stretcher. If you are attacked in Condition Yellow, you will probably win, assuming that you are armed, awake and aware. The difference does not lie in the deadliness of the hazard facing you, but rather in your willingness to take a very unusual action.

If in the course of events you become aware of the possible existence in your presence of a lethal adversary, you switch from Yellow to Orange. The difference lies in the specific nature of your presumed antagonist, not in his evident competence or attitude. In Yellow you say to yourself, "I may have to shoot today." I may actually have to press my trigger on a human adversary, but I don't know who or where.

When you detect the presence of a target who may be the one you will have to engage, you shift from Yellow to Orange. In Yellow your mind-set is "I may have to shoot today." In Orange it is "I may have to shoot him today." At this point your normal reluctance becomes easier to overcome. Legal and moral aspects of the conflict are lowered and have been dismissed from your mind. Your attitude is dictated by the presence of that enemy standing there. You may have to shoot him, now, today. What is needed is a trigger. The trigger is the act establishing that the situation is indeed a matter of lethal conflict. This is Condition Red, and in Red you have solved the psychological problem and have no further concerns beyond the technical. In Red you are go, and your mind is concerned only with front-sight and surprise.

Moving from the various Conditions into each other is easy to accomplish once it is understood. If you are attacked in White you will lose the fight. In Yellow you will have the advantage of initiative response over your antagonist. In Orange you are pretty safe, provided you are armed, alert and aware. In Red you win. Simple, isn't it? Clearly you cannot go any further than Red because in Red you have already made the lethal decision. Complications are unproductive.

That last bit about complications is in part a reference to the USMC adding "Condition Black" which they describe as being in active contact with the enemy. The Color Code invented and preached by Col. Cooper for 30 years has no higher condition of readiness to kill a man than Red (I will kill him, NOW). It is a means to help a peaceable person to cross the psychological barrier, and the colors do not describe action but rather willingness. Therefore, Black is a silly and useless addition.

I further note for those unfamiliar with the Color Code that people in Condition White are the ones who say "he just came out of nowhere" when they are mugged. They are the ones surprised when the danger that floats around all of us lands on them. Those who live in Condition Yellow are merely not-oblivious, and paying attention.

Changing between Conditions is not difficult and, once you are used to it, it happens automatically. This color code is about a mindset that prepares you to act in an unusual fashion. Even on the highway, you can use it. Yellow is the baseline, and when you see a car weaving in its lane, go to Orange. Red is slamming the brakes as the other driver swerves toward you. A book could be written about examples, but that would be beside the point. Try it, you'll see what I mean.