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Sunday, October 24, 2010
Didn't See That Coming.
sundaySundaySUNDAY!!!!
Required reading:
"These are good men who just happen to hold different beliefs. Like, for instance, you believe in free enterprise and unalienable rights, while they believe you should be their bitch."
Now that's some wisdom.
Jeff Goldstein has been a daily read for me since my earliest days on the web.
If you have ever witnessed or been a participant in an important public event and then found the subsequent reportage to be not quite on the mark... then you might consider following Mr. Goldstein around, too.
Language, intent, control, and what tomorrow may look like. Depending on who controls who gets to think and what they think, of course.
"These are good men who just happen to hold different beliefs. Like, for instance, you believe in free enterprise and unalienable rights, while they believe you should be their bitch."
Now that's some wisdom.
Jeff Goldstein has been a daily read for me since my earliest days on the web.
If you have ever witnessed or been a participant in an important public event and then found the subsequent reportage to be not quite on the mark... then you might consider following Mr. Goldstein around, too.
Language, intent, control, and what tomorrow may look like. Depending on who controls who gets to think and what they think, of course.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Have You Noticed?
Reloading powders are suddenly very expensive. Or maybe I just noticed. I knew that black powder was already way past silly as far as cost goes.
I'm in the middle of working up some Mosin food, using projectiles pulled from some truly horrible Pakistani production milsurp .303. I have arrived at the end of an inherited can of H4895 and went out to pick up another pound and found they wanted $25.00.
The election hasn't even been stolen yet. Sheesh.
I'm in the middle of working up some Mosin food, using projectiles pulled from some truly horrible Pakistani production milsurp .303. I have arrived at the end of an inherited can of H4895 and went out to pick up another pound and found they wanted $25.00.
The election hasn't even been stolen yet. Sheesh.
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
Thursday, September 09, 2010
Oh My Goodness!
What kind of outfit lets a drunk monopolize a microphone at a public event?
"Later in his impromptu speech Mr. Sha turned to an American colleague, singling out Bob Orr, from the executive office of the secretary-general.
"I really don't like him: he's an American and I really don't like Americans," he said.
A second senior UN official who was at the dinner said: "It went on for about ten or fifteen minutes but it felt like an hour.""
Mr. Sha needs himself a cold beer in the Rose Garden. That would set him right up.
(via Instapundit)
"Later in his impromptu speech Mr. Sha turned to an American colleague, singling out Bob Orr, from the executive office of the secretary-general.
"I really don't like him: he's an American and I really don't like Americans," he said.
A second senior UN official who was at the dinner said: "It went on for about ten or fifteen minutes but it felt like an hour.""
Mr. Sha needs himself a cold beer in the Rose Garden. That would set him right up.
(via Instapundit)
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
School is Back in Session
Prepare and eat a light meal, refill your glass, then open your philosophy book to:
"That is, the Founding Fathers took the English constitutional principles, the institutional forms that already existed in the colonies, and set them down on paper. They were not inventing a new society. They only unified and systematized already existing principles. So this is not a revolutionary movement in any way. As a counterbalance to this, some movements which, in the Brazilian popular culture, in the Brazilian mass media, and school textbooks, are regarded as reactionary and anti-revolutionary, such as the Italian Fascism, or even Nazism, are obviously revolutionary. Why? Because they raised the proposition of a radically new society: they would destroy all existing institutions and rebuild everything from scratch. In the German case, this was an even more radically revolutionary because the foundations of the new society to be created were derived from a recent science, evolutionist biology."
You may need to break this up over a few sittings. It's worth your time.
What makes a revolutionary a revolutionary? Just where did the movement of "movements" origniate? I never really gave it much thought.
(via protein wisdom)
"That is, the Founding Fathers took the English constitutional principles, the institutional forms that already existed in the colonies, and set them down on paper. They were not inventing a new society. They only unified and systematized already existing principles. So this is not a revolutionary movement in any way. As a counterbalance to this, some movements which, in the Brazilian popular culture, in the Brazilian mass media, and school textbooks, are regarded as reactionary and anti-revolutionary, such as the Italian Fascism, or even Nazism, are obviously revolutionary. Why? Because they raised the proposition of a radically new society: they would destroy all existing institutions and rebuild everything from scratch. In the German case, this was an even more radically revolutionary because the foundations of the new society to be created were derived from a recent science, evolutionist biology."
You may need to break this up over a few sittings. It's worth your time.
What makes a revolutionary a revolutionary? Just where did the movement of "movements" origniate? I never really gave it much thought.
(via protein wisdom)
Saturday, September 04, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
It's a Circle. (Updated)
Tyrants fear those they rule and they will go to great lengths to keep them unarmed.
Sometimes it works.
Sometimes not.
It's about ... 1936 again, give or take a season. No Olympics, of course. But the stage has certainly filled with quite a few interesting players. Who will step out of the shadows now that the cop has officially left the beat?
UPDATE 2000 8/28:
EPA decides to lay back on this one. For now.
Sometimes it works.
Sometimes not.
It's about ... 1936 again, give or take a season. No Olympics, of course. But the stage has certainly filled with quite a few interesting players. Who will step out of the shadows now that the cop has officially left the beat?
UPDATE 2000 8/28:
EPA decides to lay back on this one. For now.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Monday, August 09, 2010
Coin Toss
Read the essay here: Borepatch: The Bonfire of the Vanities.
Then go check out the essay and comments I linked to in Positive Waves.
I'm done with the philosophy for a while. About two years back I undertook a short study of litcrit, semantics, and rhetoric using books recommended by Jeff Goldstein. Time well spent, but not an education by any means.
I think it's better for me just to go out and build some big stuff. Foucalt, Gramsci, and company just piss me off, anyway.
Have a fine one.
(H/T American Digest)
Then go check out the essay and comments I linked to in Positive Waves.
I'm done with the philosophy for a while. About two years back I undertook a short study of litcrit, semantics, and rhetoric using books recommended by Jeff Goldstein. Time well spent, but not an education by any means.
I think it's better for me just to go out and build some big stuff. Foucalt, Gramsci, and company just piss me off, anyway.
Have a fine one.
(H/T American Digest)
Sunday, August 08, 2010
Positive Waves
From time to time, Mrs. Utah chides me for being cynical. Everyone gets an opinion, and I value hers most among the people I know.
But she might be just wide of the mark.
The following is a comment left here, in response to a question about cultural evolution:
Have a fine week. Smile. It's contagious!
But she might be just wide of the mark.
The following is a comment left here, in response to a question about cultural evolution:
TmjUtah said...
The essential unit of human advancement is the individual.
Societies that nurture healthy, responsible individuals who are able to realize the benefits of their labors, inventions, or art... those societies leave the others behind.
Free men, in free markets, change worlds for the better. For themselves and their neighbors.
Until they forget that it is the individual that counts first.
Our FOUNDING PRINCIPLES pivot on the absolutely radical idea that before any strongman, before any chief, before any apparatus of The State, stands The Individual, who PERMITS the State to exist, and only exist to perform specific, enumerated duties.
But the individual must be of stern enough stuff to handle the responsibility inherent with being responsible for his own governance. Franklin and Jefferson and to a lesser extent Adams were all right; it would be failure of citizenship, not conscious machination of tyrants, that most threatened the Republic. They were simply off in their time frame.
Principles are just goals, and the absolute very best a mere human can ever hope to accomplish in pursuit of individual achievement is to make progress in the right direction. The pursuit of perfection to the absence of any other standard is always fatal. We are only men.
We are all expendable. But it was expendable men who built the pyramids, harnessed steam, and walked on the moon, too... so there is always that level of "just men" to aim for.
Have a fine week. Smile. It's contagious!
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act...
...isn't that like a Dillinger-Kelly-Floyd-Barker Bank Security Act?
Message for Mr. Cloward and Mr. Piven:
Your train is in the station.
Message for Mr. Cloward and Mr. Piven:
Your train is in the station.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
How Did THAT Happen???
Via Instapundit, John Hindraker opines that some folks might be catching on that the President might not be who he was represented to be...
... which indicates that a lot of them just might not notice being raped until the baby was delivered, as well.
In the words of the great tech support gurus: you must RTFB.
... which indicates that a lot of them just might not notice being raped until the baby was delivered, as well.
In the words of the great tech support gurus: you must RTFB.
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Summer Half Past
Still here. Still kicking the survey and layout gig up in Salt Lake.
I can't wait to see what happens next.
I can't wait to see what happens next.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Easy Call To Make. No Good Outcome.
General McChrystal should be relieved, immediately.
Failure to do so is just icing on the cake of incompetence and and ineptness that is this administration.
The President of the United States has never hesitated to exercise civilian control over the military when the need was clear and present. Gen. McChrystal's public statements are disloyal to a degree that makes it necessary to relieve and retire him immediately. That the general's staff was poorly led enough to become ammunition in the same article is merely additional proof of the lack of leadership and absence of character that permeates the organization.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are lost. They are over as was the American involvement in Vietnam ended with the ink wet on the paper of the Paris Peace accords. No Democrat congress/Socialis Marxist administration has any interest in dealing with resurgent Islam; less even than in defending our sovereignty or our borders. All that remains where (UPDATE) Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran (END UPDATE) is concerned is to see where the political and human costs will be ultimately levied. A military leader in McChrystal's position, knowing this reality, had two options: push for militarily efficient retreat, and call it what it was, or to resign.
I have no clue what McChrystal thought whining to the Rolling Stone would do for himself, or for the military he thought he might be helping...
His actions make MacArthur's insubordination to Truman look like a class move.
Fire him, or just cement the accurate perception by the world that Obama is incapable of executive command.
Failure to do so is just icing on the cake of incompetence and and ineptness that is this administration.
The President of the United States has never hesitated to exercise civilian control over the military when the need was clear and present. Gen. McChrystal's public statements are disloyal to a degree that makes it necessary to relieve and retire him immediately. That the general's staff was poorly led enough to become ammunition in the same article is merely additional proof of the lack of leadership and absence of character that permeates the organization.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are lost. They are over as was the American involvement in Vietnam ended with the ink wet on the paper of the Paris Peace accords. No Democrat congress/Socialis Marxist administration has any interest in dealing with resurgent Islam; less even than in defending our sovereignty or our borders. All that remains where (UPDATE) Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran (END UPDATE) is concerned is to see where the political and human costs will be ultimately levied. A military leader in McChrystal's position, knowing this reality, had two options: push for militarily efficient retreat, and call it what it was, or to resign.
I have no clue what McChrystal thought whining to the Rolling Stone would do for himself, or for the military he thought he might be helping...
His actions make MacArthur's insubordination to Truman look like a class move.
Fire him, or just cement the accurate perception by the world that Obama is incapable of executive command.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Poorly Yet Honestly Presented
I believe the relationship that now exists between the citizenry and our government - state and local - has evolved to a situation strongly akin to the policy known as mercantilism that was in large part the proximal cause of our original revolution.
Our contemporary political class behaves more as rulers than representatives. Their observed conduct in economic matters defies logic; is it simple corruption, or merely ideological fantasy, that drives their agendas?
The incumbency rate of legislators coupled with the rise of power of public employee unions explains the vicious circle of payoffs to the latter in return for donations to the former. Yes, that's a quid for the pro...
I know the analogy is weak, but at bottom we have a ruling class that has defined the good of the nation as what is best for itself, right now. The elite act as if they are managers of a static environment, and the world is anything but. Something (more) is going to give, and soon.
Our contemporary political class behaves more as rulers than representatives. Their observed conduct in economic matters defies logic; is it simple corruption, or merely ideological fantasy, that drives their agendas?
The incumbency rate of legislators coupled with the rise of power of public employee unions explains the vicious circle of payoffs to the latter in return for donations to the former. Yes, that's a quid for the pro...
I know the analogy is weak, but at bottom we have a ruling class that has defined the good of the nation as what is best for itself, right now. The elite act as if they are managers of a static environment, and the world is anything but. Something (more) is going to give, and soon.
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