Flox propellant

What is Flox?  It is a 70-30 mixture of florine with oxygen--- in liquid form, it is called Flox.

It has a couple of advantages--- it is said to be easier to handle than liquid oxygen, and it has a higher isp when used with kerosene.  A flox/kerosene rocket could have an isp of 316 at sea level, which compares favorably with the Falcon 9.


Speculation alert:

If such a combination were used on a rocket which was airlaunched by a Stratolauncher, it could cut down on the size of the rocket by maybe as much as a third with the same payload.  You could even use a methane/lox combo in the upper stage.  With the weight savings at the first stage, a heavier second stage wouldn't be a show stopper.  Besides, while Musk was still in on Stratolauncher, he was planning to use his standard kersone/lox combo on the second stage.  The methane/lox will be lighter still.  This means an even more capable rocket combination is possible even with SpaceX out of the picture.

The advantage of Stratolaunch is that it can position the first stage so that it can be recovered and reused.  The second stage could be reused as well.  With the additional weight margins, additional capability could be added in without adversely impacting payloads.

An opportunity for SpaceX's replacement for the Stratolauncher?


Update: NASA studied flox rocket fuel possibilites and concluded a methane/flox rocket was feasible

Update:

Orbital Sciences does not appear to be the type of company that would do a flox rocket.  So, fuggedaboutit.

Agreement within reach on ‘fiscal cliff’ deal, officials say

Washington Post

• Threading all the legislative needles now falls to Reid and McConnell, who pledged to work together to craft a package that can win significant bipartisan support.
• the wheels are now in motion for the Senate to vote on New Year’s Eve, Senate aides said. If that vote were successful, the Republican-controlled House would have mere hours to decide whether to approve the legislation or take the blame for letting taxes rise next month for nearly 90 percent of Americans — and for potentially sparking a new recession.
• retiring Rep. Steven C. LaTourette (R-Ohio), a close friend of Boehner’s and a champion of a broad deal, said he could offer his support for a limited deal if the speaker requested it.

Comment:

Pure politics.  The Republicans want spending cuts and they aren't going to get them.  It's like Obama said to Boner--- "you get nothing".  Thus, its all or nothing as far as the Democrats are concerned.  The blame will be cast upon the Republicans if they don't cave.

There shouldn't have been any negotiations to begin with.  It was a mistake.  The Republicans have already approved an extension of the Bush Tax Cuts.  The Senate is now going to take it down to the wire in order to ramp up the pressure for a cave-in.

Why is McConnell dealing with Reid?  He is the Senate's version of the Boner.

Medved: The Liberal God Delusion

Michael Medved

• conservatives want to address the threat of gun violence by giving individuals more power while liberals seek to improve the situation by concentrating more power in the hands of the government
• liberals place a touching and naive faith in the ideal of a higher power—potential world government—while conservatives insist that the United States, like any nation, must ultimately rely only on itself.
• Regarding the great tax-and-spend battles...Republicans trust the private decisions of prosperous people to make the best use of the money that those citizens have generated; Democrats rely on the superior wisdom and broader perspective of a larger, more activist government to distribute rewards
• In selecting strategies for helping the poor and uplifting the downtrodden, the opposed approaches of left and right offer an especially sharp contrast...conservatives at every income level provide disproportionate support for private charities...Liberals, on the other hand, consider such private efforts insufficient and demand governmental initiatives
• At the moment, big-government fundamentalism poses more of a threat to the republic than religious absolutism.  

Yeah.  Lord save us from our saviors.  The savior business is very lucrative, you know

Did you know that slaves had no right to self-defense?

That's right.  When you see the anti-gun people yapping it up, just realize what they are really after.

That's what has happened in England, you can get into trouble if you defend yourself.  What kind of society is it that won't let you defend yourself?  It is an enslaved one, that's what.

What the hell do you think Trayvon Martin case is all about?  They'll do or say anything to get the guns because of what it means.  It means more power for them and less for you.

This one should be the line in the sand that is not going to be allowed to be crossed.

Greatest advance in aviation since the Jet engine

Alan Bond of Reaction Engines Limited, talks about his Sabre Engine technology.

I like it.

Musk goes for methane-burning reusable rockets as step to colonise Mars - Hyperbola

flightglobal.com

Excerpts:

• This plan is to use reusable rockets and along with Mars landing and ascent craft to take mankind to Mars within 15 years. And to do it Musk announced that liquid oxygen (Lox) and Methane would be SpaceX's principal propellants of choice.
• "We are going to do methane." Musk announced as he described his future plans for reusable launch vehicles including those designed to take astronauts to Mars within 15 years, "The energy cost of methane is the lowest and it has a slight Isp (Specific Impulse) advantage over Kerosene," said Musk adding, "And it does not have the pain in the ass factor that hydrogen has". 
• The new Raptor upper stage engine is likely to be only the first engine in a series of lox/methane engines. Larger engines will be derived from this. For all his arguments noting the advantages of having lots of smaller engine for engine-out redundancy, it is known that Musk has long wanted to have a larger sized engine that the current Merlin 1
• Musk envisions using a reusable heavy lift launch vehicle using a multiple of these newly developed large lox/methane engines on its first stage.
• Musk noted that the trick to economic viability was to add the new parts which allow reusability (thermal protection systems, landing legs, new engines etc,) without increasing the structural weight too much so that such a launch vehicle can still carry a useful payload. Musk stated that the payload on a very efficient conventional expendable rocket might be, at best about 4%, and suggested that 2% might be a more realistic figure for a reusable two-stage launch design. 

Comment:  So, now that Musk has ditched the hydrogen fuel way, he's going to use methane.  In order to determine what that does with respect to the amount fuel needed, I ran the numbers through the spreadsheet.

Significant dropoff in isp from hydrogen to methane --- 381 to 299

 If he uses the raptor engine all around, he will have extra fuel available for what he wants to do, but will it be enough?  This explains what Zimmerman was worried about and what I was missing.

Jesse's Café Américain: Report that Russia Has Issued Gold and Silver Coin...

Jesse's Café Américain: Report that Russia Has Issued Gold and Silver Coin...: Unfortunately I do not read Russian so I have not yet completely verified this, but I thought it was interesting enough to pass along on th...

He does have a translation by Google at the bottom of his page.

Reaction?

Frankly, I am suspicious of Russia these days.  Something like this could be significant, but why now?

One can imagine a lot of scary scenarios.  Hopefully, that's all it is--- evil imagining.

Ordinary folks losing faith in stocks

ap.org  via Free Republic

Excerpts:

• "You have to trust your government. You have to trust other governments. You have to trust Wall Street," says Neitlich, 47. "And I don't trust any of these."
• "People don't trust the market anymore," says financial historian Charles Geisst of Manhattan College. He says a "crisis of confidence" similar to one after the Crash of 1929 will keep people away from stocks for a generation or more.
• Instead of stocks, they're putting money into bonds because those are widely perceived as safer investments. [ comment:  !!!]
• On Wall Street, the investor revolt has largely been dismissed as temporary. But doubts are creeping in.
• it's a measure of the psychological blow from the Great Recession that, more than three years since it ended, big institutions, not just amateur investors, are still trimming stocks.[ comment:  It may not be mere psychology, you know]
• Three years after that BusinessWeek story on the "death of equities" ran, in 1982, one of the greatest multi-year stock climbs in history began as the little guys shed their fear and started buying. And so they will surely do again, the bulls argue, and stock prices will really rocket. [ comment:  Guess who was in the White House back then, and who ( or more precisely what )  is in the White House now.]

No mention of Jon Corzine and his MF Global shenanigans.  Corruption may have something to do with all this and the corruption is systemic.  That's why buying bonds isn't necessarily safe.  Holding cash isn't necessarily safe.  The point is that NOTHING IS SAFE.

Corruption wasn't an issue in the recent political campaign.  It should have been.

Our Advocacy-Obsessed Apparatchik MSM

Ed Driscoll via Instapundit

Fortunately, as a new video from Canada’s Sun TV explores, it’s still possible to punch back twice as hard against such tactics. As the Instaprofessor writes, linking to the same column by Byron York that inspired Peter Wehner’s post at Commentary, “Don’t be surprised, journalists, if many Americans view you as the enemy as a result. Don’t blame them. You’ve taken sides. When you act as agents for the apparat, don’t be shocked when people think of you as apparatchiks.” [ links added to quote]

One blogger has come out for media control, which would be the right wing counterpart to gun control.   I have felt the same thing myself.  Something needs to be done about them, no question about that.  They see themselves as the holiest of the holies, though.  Fierce opposition should be expected.

Update:

You can kill with words as well as with guns.

Kirk Sorensen interview WSPD Oct 2012

energyfromthorium.com

Not a whole lot of new stuff here.  At least they're still kicking.  Anybody who has a new idea like this has to go up against the incumbents.  That's as big a challenge as the technology.

Next Big Future: NASA's Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) Project ...

Next Big Future: NASA's Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) Project ...: NASA Glenn has been developing the next generation of ion thrusters for future missions. NASA's Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) Project h...

Comment:

Followed GoatGuy's calcs.  Those may come in handy some day.

British Doctors Call for Ban on Long Kitchen Knives to End Stabbings

front page mag

Instead of gun crime, the UK worries about knife crime. And has been practicing knife control. [ It hasn't worked, so that means, do even more of it!]

Eventually, all knives will be forbidden.  Then people will start using rocks to kill each other.  I suppose there will be rock control.  Even potatoes can be used to kill people.  Ban potatoes.

Eventually, the blessed day will arrive when everything is banned, and everybody will love everybody and there will be a utopia.  /snark

RG III Gets 'Uncle Tom' Treatment

townhall

MSNBC contributor Karen Finney, who said about Republican Herman Cain: "I think he makes that white Republican base of the party feel OK, feel like they are not racist because they can like this guy. I think he is giving that base a free pass, and I think they like him because they think he is a black man who knows his place."

Actually, I liked Herman Cain because I figured he would neutralize Obama's advantange on race.  Silly me.  My view on that subject has changed.

To respond a bit further, I don't give a crap what some stupid leftist says about me being racist or not.  I don't particularly care about getting their stupid approval on anything.  To the contrary, unless I am pissing them off, I'm probably doing something wrong.

This isn't about being black, it is about being anti-white.  If you are a person of color and you don't hate whitey, then you aren't 'authentic'.  They are teaching people to hate other people on the basis of their identity, which is precisely what they accuse others of doing.

Accidentally on purpose

Hey!  The "Most Popular Posts" feature doesn't work properly.  There's one post, "Why problems don't get solved", that should be in sixth place.  But it doesn't make the top ten.  That post is decidedly critical of the government.

Could there be a connection?  That's almost a joke.  Almost.

Update:

I did a full audit of all the posts on this blog.  It appears that the ranking is correct.  My bad.

Spaceballs-When Will Then be Now?

Whenever Who's on First.  Yuk, yuk.

EDITORIAL: Government recalls GM stock

Washington Times

General Motors will no longer be “Government Motors.” The Treasury Department on Wednesday announced its intention to liquidate federal holdings in the automobile company over the next 15 months. The final tally will show this policy has been a disaster for taxpayers.

Under the best case scenario, the public will wind up shelling out more than $13 billion by the close of this unfortunate episode....The end result of this shameful episode was a GM hobbled by political considerations, and an auto industry more beholden than ever to Washington. This is the path to decline, not prosperity.

The name goes from Government Motors to UAW Motors.

The Case Against Public Education

American Thinker

In light of the disaster that is modern public education, the next question should be, "Is a system of near-universal public education of any kind in the best interests of an aspiring free society?" I believe we now have enough evidence to answer, unequivocally, "No."

Comment:

Relying upon memory here, so it could be wrong--- Sam Houston was opposed to public education.  He taught himself the classics.

So, if you want to be educated, your motivation will be the determining factor.

Random thoughts 12/26/12

• Quiet day in the news thus far.   Nothing to post about there. 
•  Googled rocket trajectories and read through some posts on sounding rockets.  Did you know that these rockets return a reusable payload?  A sounding rocket has a parabolic trajectory, which means it goes mostly up and down.  It may go as high as several hundred miles up.  I was thinking of this in terms of a reusable first stage.  Of course it can be done.  It just hasn't been tried.
• Jim Morrison of The Doors didn't think much of space travel, I gather.  He wrote a song called Ship of Fools which seems to ridicule the idea.  Nevertheless, I like The Crystal Ship as a song about space travel, even though that is pretty much not what Morrison intended for the song.
• Barnhardt put up a post which featured Charlie Brown's Christmas.  She mentioned something about 1965 being the end of an era, and she is right.  I lived through that time.  Did you know that prior to that year, there were Public Service Announcements on TV which instructed aliens to get registered with the government?  It was up to them, the aliens, to report themselves.  They had to do this every year.  If they failed to do this, they would be in explicit violation of the law and subject to deportation at any moment.  That would include illegal immigrants from Mexico, if they were here.  There was an act of Congress in 1965 that changed all that.  Ted Kennedy wrote it.  It is an example of Progressivism.  It has wrought a great deal of havoc with this country.  There was a blizzard of legislation that year from a super liberal Congress swept into power by LBJ's landslide victory in 1964 over Goldwater.  Elections have consequences.  That gives me shudders to think what two terms of Obama has done to this country.  We won't see it immediately.  Fifty years from now, it will be in its full bloom.  Like a blooming stench of a rotting carcass dead and eaten up by maggots.

The Doors - The Crystal Ship ( repost from 8/22/11 )

I spent some time with this song this afternoon. Then I studied the lyrics and checked out the web for the song's meaning.

There was a pretty good interpretation, but it fell a little short. Then I came across the idea that he is actually singing to himself and about himself.

Without going too much deeper into it, I'd say, at the very least, that he's singing to an alter ego. It could be himself, while he is high, or to someone he is still in love with. But the last line in the song messes up that interpretation, so I think the song is about himself while he is high and while he is straight.

Well, that is all for today. Thanks for coming by and have a great evening.

Update:

This song must have some type of attraction for me as I went back to it.  Anyhow, the above interpretation astounds me a little.  I'm thinking that it makes a great song for space travel.  You won't get high on drugs, but get high on space instead--- literally.

Update:

Perhaps an explanation is in order for the space travel claim for this song.  One part should be obvious--- the ship part.  There's the part where it says he'd rather fly than cry.  There's the sense of going somewhere exciting and then returning.  He asks "where your freedom lies" and answers "the streets are fields that never die".  The same can be said of space.  Ultimate in freedom and there's no end to it.

The part that may not be so obvious, maybe because it is that way with me, is the "crystal" part.  There's the mystical properties of crystal--- a crystal ball that can tell the future.  That's obvious, but the part that isn't is where the reference to drugs may have come into this.  Perhaps this wasn't the intent at all with the song, but it could be some kind of hip thing that's going over my head.  I'm not into that.  However, if the crystal ship has mystical properties, so could the crystal space ship.  It opens up new possibilities, experiences.  So, that part can work too.

So, there it is.  My interpretation.  Make what you will of it.

Paul Simon --- Kodachrome

This song has not been one of my favorites.  Not that I have anything against it, mind you.  But, it just never struck my fancy.  For some reason, it just popped into my head.  So, I brought up the song on Youtube and decided to have a look at it.



I couldn't make much out of the lyrics, so maybe that's why I never did get to like the song.   To get some help in understanding the song, I went here.   At first, I was confused. Still am, because they had the Sound of Silence lyrics there for some reason.   But the discussion was about Kodachrome.

After awhile, one starts to suspect this is about drugs.  You got "mama" who can take things away that make you feel good.  One may suspect that mind-altering drugs can supposedly improve imagination and creativity, which are better than what is in the real world "crap" that you learn in "high school".

It may be a mistake to get too literal with this song.  But I'm still suspicious.  Too many artists sold out to make their careers.  Somebody once said something to the effect that rock and roll was invented in order to make parents crazy.  So, they sold out in order to make stuff that corrupted the morals of the younger generation.

Just now, a thought just flashed into my mind.  Maybe he's just a kid that doesn't want to grow up.  The high school part is his rebellion.  So is the Kodachrome, whatever Kodachrome actually means.  It could be anything that keeps this guy in a juvenile state of being.  "Mama don't take my Kodachrome away" is the same as saying "Mama let me be a kid forever".  The writer wants to be a kid forever.

Christmas in an Anti-Christian Age

Pat Buchanan, Townhall

Christians believe Christ could raise people from the dead because he is God. That is faith. Atheists believe life came out of non-life. That, too, is faith. They believe in what their god, science, cannot demonstrate, replicate or prove. They believe in miracles but cannot identify, produce or describe the miracle worker.

Mostly agree with that quote.

But the atheists don't claim science as their god.  Maybe scientists can be their gods, especially leftist ones. That may be a bit facetious, but not too far off the mark in the real world of leftist states.  As I've heard it described elsewhere, but somewhat differently than this, the left "worships the creation, not the creator". They deny the creator, which only leaves the creation to worship itself.  Or more precisely, one part of the the creation worshipping another part of the creation-- which has annoited itself as godlike in its powers.

This works out pretty well for you financially if you can be lucky enough to be a God.

Lord, save us from our saviors

Yeah, accept God or be God.

There's something in Instapundit that reminds me of that saying.  There's a "professor" who wants the death penalty for global warming deniers.  No question that this guy is well-educated.  But does he have an ounce of common sense?

I got through about two or three paragraphs of his essay before I began thinking "Just another leftist-liberal jackass."  Should I take his essay apart piece by piece?  That's what used to be called a "fisking" in the old days of blogging.  But to fisk this guy is a waste of time.  He is totally immersed in his own paradigm.  Anybody arguing within his own paradigm cannot even acknowledge that there could be another way of thinking about the problem.  It is like that gun debate with Piers Morgan.  Morgan is obtuse, so is the left in general.

In general, to fisk a liberal is a waste of time because you are not attacking their logic, but their beliefs.  Any who would stray from their belief system is evil.  If you question them, you are a devil.  Fisk them for your own pleasure.  You won't convince them of anything though.  They are God and are totally infallible.

Well, I'd better comment on some of what this bozo says anyway even if it is a waste of time:

• The opinions of everyday GW deniers are evidently being driven by influential GW deniers who have a lot to lose if GW is taken seriously, such as executives in transnational oil corporations. [ comment:  Nobody can be independent enough to think this through on their own without somebody spoon-feeding them their propaganda and talking-points?  Physician, heal thyself.  I have thought this through on my own.  I have researched this on my own.  I don't buy what they are selling.]
• there is simply no money in environmental doomsday stories [ comment: Ever heard of the movie "The Day After Tomorrow"?  Doomsday is very popular and lots of money can be made off of it.  Duh.]
• the cost of reducing GW to a manageable amount (whatever that is) will be enormous[ comment:  Fallacy.  The thinking here is that people must suffer for their sins.  The sin is living too well.  We must return to nature, and in doing so, lose our high standard of living.  The fact is, there is an economical way of eliminating so-called greenhouse gases, but the left is not at all interested in it.  This would enable people to escape judgment for their sins, so that's why the left isn't interested.  Besides, there's a lot of money to be made in cap and trade schemes.]
• GW deniers fall into a completely different category from Behring Breivik. They are already causing the deaths of hundreds of millions of future people. [ comment: This is coming from a university professor.  So, somebody with an honest difference of opinion is worse than a mass murderer?  Deranged.]
• I propose that we limit the death penalty to people whose actions will with a high probability cause millions of future deaths[ comment:  More derangement.  There is such a thing as ex-post facto (punishment for what was legal in the past)  law in this country.  But there is no category for this type of law.  A murder trial for future deaths?  What kind of insanity is this?  You can only have a trial for deeds that have been done in the past that were illegal in the past and still illegal in the present. Not for deeds that may or may not take place in the future.  The only way to enforce this law is to impose a strict censorship on "dangerous" ideas.  Who decides what's dangerous?  Why, the left does, of course.]
• there is a dividing line somewhere between murders for which the death penalty is appropriate and murders for which it is inappropriate[ comment:  Yeah, an imaginary one just like your example, you twit.]
• the Pope and perhaps some of his closest advisers should be sentenced to death[ comment:  Why of course.  Murder the Pope.  That will save the world!  The Pope is so, so dangerous. /sarc]
• The Nazi holocaust was the worst crime in human history[ comment:  The worst?  There have been crimes with greater body counts.  This is hype.]
• I guess that right now there is no existing law, either national or international, under which such a prosecution could be pursued.[ comment: Nor likely to ever be one unless the world goes insane, which is where the left continually is with about every one of their wacko ideas.]
• Right now, in the year 2012, these ideas will seem quite crazy to most people. People will be saying that Parncutt has finally lost it. [ comment:  You said it.  If I read through this much first before commenting this much, I could have saved myself a lot of time.  But I would have lost some pleasure in ridiculing this idiotic rotgut leftist hogwash.]
• Who knows, perhaps the Pope would even turn me into a saint.[ comment:  Too late.  He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in your future world.  Too bad, too sad.  No sainthood for you, numbskull.]

No wonder the young vote for the left.  They are under the influence of these loonies in their formative years.  A good law would be to ban these wackos from our higher schools of learning.  It might save billions of lives.  My ideas might even get me sainted.  Yay, me!

Merry Christmas. ( Hah, bunhug)

There are going to be those out there, though few that they are, who will think I've been partaking a little much of the old eggnog.  But no.  There's a lot of thoughts swimming around in my head and I can't focus on one of them for very. Long. ( yes, I added the "Long" in later.  I forgot to finish the sentence.) The confusion is just that, not drunkenness.

So, with all the confusion and such, I will post something of a stream of consciousness type post again.  What the heck, huh?

Perhaps adding to the confusion is the cold that I've got.  It's disgusting with all this snot.  I'm sure you appreciated that comment.

One thought that recurs from time to time in my confusion is the Amish.  They are perfect Liberals.  They are pacifist, hate guns, and are completely unreasonable about everything.  Their elders want everybody to follow their rules with unquestioning obedience.  If you dare question anything, they will punish you severely.  Yep, perfect Liberals.  I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the left admired them.  Only negative thing in that regard is that they believe in God, or they believe that they believe in God.  The God part is a big no-no with Libs.  For the Libs, the state is God.  And they are the heads of state, which makes them God.

If the Left could rain fire and brimstone on the Right, they'd do it.  Pacifist and peaceable though they may claim to be.

Who's the master and who is the servant?  Is my confusion the beginning of wisdom?  Am I full of crap?

Whatever.  I have some thoughts that are so dangerous that I worry about disclosing them.  Well, maybe not dangerous.   I worry about too much self-disclosure.  Perhaps I shouldn't worry about that.  Did you realize how much surveillance we are under constantly?   Our cell phones can spy on us.  Our computers can spy on us.  Google Earth can spy on us.  We've long had no privacy in financial transactions.   There's no privacy anymore.  Self-disclosure is one of the few areas that you can maintain our own little area of privacy.  Giving that away too gives pause.

But here goes anyway.  I worry about this push to probe into your psychology in order to determine if you are fit to own a firearm.  If you probe far enough into a person, you may find a pathology of some kind or another.  I fear that probe if it were to be applied to myself.  And having found a problem, that the government could take away my freedoms on the basis of it.  You see, the government shouldn't be allowed to decide something like that- arbitrarily.   Our Founding Fathers tried to put some separation between the people and the state.  For example, trial by jury.   I don't want to empower the state any further than it is empowered already.  If people are to be denied access to guns by reasons of mental incompetence, that should be something that is decided in a trial by jury.

I guess that's enough for one post.  I'll pick it up again later.

Grasshopper test

Now up to 130 feet.

Zimmerman has his doubts, so it makes me wonder if I made a mistake with my calculations.  Probably so.  However, it should be kept in mind, though, that the reason for something not having been done before may not be that it is too difficult.  It may be that nobody seriously tried to do it before.

A flyback version of the Saturn V rocket was considered for the Space Shuttle.  It wasn't chosen in favor of another design.  One may think it wasn't chosen because of its lack of merit, but knowing Washington, that may not have had a damn thing to do with it.  Supposedly, the Shuttle was to usher in an era of affordable access to space.  But, Washington isn't interested in that.  Their priorities are elsewhere.

Besides, there was a failure mode for the Shuttle which required a return to launch site.  If the Shuttle was capable to do it, in theory, so should another system be capable of it also.

Societal decay, Part 2

Nothing is planned on this blog.  A second post on this subject certainly wasn't.

The post came together in an most unexpected way.  It began when I searched for a scene that I remembered from the movie Witness,  in which the main character, played by Harrison Ford, was hiding amongst the Amish in Pennsylvania.  I was interested in the scene where the John Book character, played by Ford, punched a bully in the nose.

This led to a long session with a couple series of videos about the Amish.  In particular, it was about a couple of families that left the Amish.  What struck me is how the community is governed.  You see, the Amish are governed by a strict set of rules, which cannot be questioned.   Anyone who deviates from these rules can be excommunicated.  Excommunication is a serious thing.  They are literally thrown out of the community.  No one in the community is allowed to have anything to do with those who are excommunicated.  If anyone does, they too can be excommunicated.

This was interesting to me because I sensed something in common between myself and this fellow Ephraim.  He questioned the teachings of the Amish church, and that got him into trouble with the elders.  As with his case, it seemed that I frequently question everything, and I'm probably in some kind of trouble with just about everybody all the time.  It's like I'm a rebel without a pause or a cause.  But Ephraim wasn't so much different from the the rest of the Amish.  It was just that the Amish tolerate no differences at all.  Ephraim found himself at odds with the Amish church because he was willing to be different.

Being that I think about things, I could also see things from the viewpoint of the church elders.  They have to keep the community together.  How do you do this unless you have a set of rules?

Anyway, you could see Ephraim going down a path which leads him into areas that no Amish tend to go.  The series ends before you can see the end of his quest.  Where does it all end?

The thing to take away from this is that when you deviate from the accepted path, you don't know where it will end up.  There are those that can see trouble ahead.  But you also have others who cheer on the changes.  Some see the changes as "progress", and others who see it as "decay".

There needs to be rules.   I accept that.  But the reason for the rules should be reasonable.  I don't trust unquestioning obedience.  But there are times when authority should not be questioned.

Rather confusing.  Life is a set of contradictions.  Nothing is simple.  Nothing stays the same.

Lopez: "Yes, gay is a choice. Get over it."

American Thinker

Excerpts:

• yet another individual working in higher education has been demolished for saying the wrong thing about homosexuality
• Crystal Dixon of the University of Toledo was fired for writing an editorial in a local newspaper.
• gay sex is a choice. Nobody lacks the power to refrain from having gay sex.
• You will see a roll call of gays and pro-gay supporters, issuing confident testimonials that nobody has ever changed from gay to straight.
• Does anybody who uses the term LGBT remember the "B" in that God-forsaken acronym? Hello? There are bisexuals. I am one of them. Why include us in these categories if you think we don't exist?
• Lastly, I am left with my own life story. I can't change it. I went from being in the gay lifestyle to marrying a woman, having a daughter, and living a happy heterosexual life.
• Crystal Dixon pointed out something that no amount of peer-reviewed research can disprove. Gay is not the new black.

The university system is government financed and is being used to tear down society.   If anyone says anything in contradiction to them, they will be punished.  Time to turn the tables.  Take them on and starve that mangy beast.  Refuse to feed it.   Don't give them any more money.  No more taxes, no more spending.

Arguments won't work anymore.  The truth doesn't matter.

“You get nothing, I get that for free.”

Legal Insurrection

Is It Time For Conservatives To Sit Down In The Snow?

• We can learn a lot about the power of standing on principle from Anatoly Sharansky (see my earlier Post).
• Sharansky spend almost a decade in Soviet prison
• Sharansky notoriously refused to obey even the most mundane orders from his captors.
• Throughout his ordeal, Sharansky kept his spirits alive by reading a small book of psalms.
  
  As Sharansky was being led to the airplane that would take him from the Soviet Union to East Germany for the exchange, the Soviets confiscated his book of psalms.
• In front of reporters covering his departure, Sharansky sat in the snow refusing to move unless the Soviets gave him back his book of psalms.

Turn it around on Obama.  Tell him he gets nothing, and we get something for free.  Then refuse to comply with any of his orders.  Let's see what happens next.

Why does Jaron Lanier hate the idea of “the wisdom of the crowd”?

Jaron Lanier is a smart man, that's why. via Instapundit

If so many people weren't so shallow, and actually read any history, or had sufficient common sense, this question wouldn't be asked.

Societal decay

It's not the school shootings, it's the reaction to it.  The left wants to punish the innocent and reward the guilty.  It isn't unusual for them to do this, for that is what they do.  The media gives the bad guy a name and status as an anti-hero.  Then they blame everybody and everything for what happens except for what actually causes the problem in the first place.  Will a "conversation on guns" ever be a true conversation, or will it be what it always is--- a one-way demand for action that the left favors?  If there was a true conversation, some sort of reasonable policy could be enacted.  But it won't be.  Those who oppose what the left demands will be demonized.

The most recent election was most distressing to many folks.  By all accounts, Obama should have been a one-term president.  He has done nothing to earn a second term, but that is not the way it works anymore.  Evidently, the way it works now is that whoever has the best political machine, wins.  The Republicans could recognize this and begin making adjustments, but don't count on that.  The disease of the Republicans reminds me of ancient Rome.  The Roman Empire fell because of internal weaknesses.  If the same fate of Rome awaits the USA, it won't be because the enemy has grown strong.  Rather, it will be because those who favor the Republic have grown weak.  Our chief weakness has to be our inability to unite.

We are dysfuntional.  Our system is rigged to produce more of the same.  When push comes to shove, what will happen?  A rebellion?  A revolution?  Or will the Republic go out with a whimper and not a bang?  Whatever happens, you can count on one thing.  The left can't get what they want at the ballot box, not even now.  As usual, what they can't get, they will try to get through judicial tyranny.  Obama has a clear road to pack the courts with fellow travelers, who have every intention of continuing their destruction of the American Republic.  Maybe that will be the kickoff to a rebellion, or just a resigned whimper of protest.

The stage is being set for mayhem.  It only needs a spark to set it off.

The media is the enemy

About the video:  Most Americans know the mainstream media manipulates stories, manufactures illusions, and exploits fears. But the reason is more than just liberal bias or sloppy reporting. Behind the Big News exposes a revolutionary agenda -- originating outside the media -- that defines today's headlines. This powerful and fast-paced video examines some of the biggest news stories in recent decades to discover how this subversive agenda is promoted.  Produced in 2003 by The John Birch Society.


Comment:

It was enough, in the old days, when the name "John Birch Society" was mentioned, it meant instant discredit.  For me, anyone who knocks the media is alright by me.   Besides, the Republican party craves something better than what we are getting from the media.  I saw that in the Republican primaries.

Why can't the Republicans get that message?  Perhaps too many of them have been compromised by the machine.

Obama's Party of Nothing in a nutshell

“You get nothing,” the president said. “I get that for free.”

People voted for this?

If Gingrich is right, the machine voted for it.  The Republicans are up against a machine that will deprive you of everything.  That is to say, nothing for you.  Everything for them.

Memo: The Challenge Confronting the Republican Party

gingrichproductions via Free Republic

excerpts:

• To Chairman Reince Priebus
• I was delighted when you became RNC Chairman
• Your creation of the Growth and Opportunity Project chaired by Henry Barbour
• I was delighted when you appointed a distinguished team to lead the analysis for the Republican National Committee.
• After the 1992 defeat Chairman Haley Barbour was decisive in renewing enthusiasm, raising resources, and helping shape and implement strategy. Without Haley’s help we would not have had a Contract with America, would not have won the first House GOP majority in 40 years or re-elected it for the first time since 1928 in 1996.
• Those Republicans who assume bad events will beat the Democrats in 2016 underestimate the power of machines to survive bad performances.
• The Democrats have been building a national machine while the Republicans have been running campaigns
• Exit polling indicated that Obama won the argument over the economy and by a large margin the American people blamed former President George W. Bush rather than his successor for the economic mess.

Comment:

We'll see.  There are getting together some people who have had success in the past.  That's a good sign.

Frankly, I wonder how much the GOP actually wants to win.  They'd rather look good in defeat than ugly in victory.

The major problem, as I see it, is that the GOP is its own worst enemy.  If they can get that turned around, the rest could be relatively simple.

Local gun store owner receives death threat

"Live by the gun. Die by the gun. You will not live to see Easter," reads the typed letter that was mailed Thursday in Houston and arrived Saturday at Jim Pruett's Guns & Ammo.--- chron.com

I didn't recognize the name at first, then a little bell rung when his partner on the radio was mentioned. Stevens and Pruett had their own show on a local radio station, and one of their frequent skits was something called "Uncle Waldo".

Hard to believe that somebody would want to kill the surviving member of this well-liked duo just because he has a gun shop. These people are unhinged.  Frankly, the person responsible for this probably doesn't have the nerve to follow through on his threat.  He'd probably do what these killers usually do--- as soon as they are confronted, they all commit suicide.  Miserable little punks is what they are.

Anyway, here's an example of Stevens and Pruett's work. Their radio show was during drive time in the morning on KLOL, formerly a rock and roll station.

Gun violence in Virginia falls, firearms sales up

Gun violence in Virginia falls, firearms sales up

Virginia Commonwealth University professor Thomas R. Baker compared state crime data from 2006 through 2011 with gun-dealer sales estimates obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Baker's analysis shows the number of gun purchases soared 73 percent in the six-year period, while gun-related violent crimes fell 24 percent.

Baker, who specializes in research methods and criminology theory, said the comparison seems to contradict the premise that more guns lead to more crime in Virginia. [emphasis added, note the weasel word "seems" is added here in order to raise doubt.]

Meanwhile, UK is violent crime capital of Europe.

Analysis of figures from the European Commission showed a 77 per cent increase in murders, robberies, assaults and sexual offences in the UK since Labour came to power.

The total number of violent offences recorded compared to population is higher than any other country in Europe, as well as America, Canada, Australia and South Africa.

Take that, Piers Morgan.