Perserverance without apparent reward. What do you make of this song?
Al Fin: "Cowboy Commentary", aka "Eat your veggies" The Flag banner is posted in order to defy those who would make patriotic symbols illegal or disreputable.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Liberalism dominates the zeitgeist, which is a death cult
A thought that's been rumbling around my cranium today. The spirit of the time favors bad thinking which is destroying the nation and the culture. Liberalism dominates the culture and therefore dominates the zeitgeist.
The zeitgeist favors movements like environmentalism, abortion, pacifism, multiculturalism, amongst other vile notions that promise good things, but deliver evil---and underlying it all is the philosophy of postmodernism. That philosophy holds that there are no truths, and that truths only serve to bind a society into chains. Meanwhile, real chains are being forged that will replace the supposed ones from which postmodernism seeks to "free" us. The real chains will be the abandonment of our freedoms and imposition of an authoritarian, totalitarian state dominated by a cult of personality. Our lives--- down to the most minute details--- will be controlled by the state in the name of freedom. Such Orwellian contradictions will become the rule of the mind-control state the postmodernists seek to impose upon us.
Real freedom requires that we get back to basics. That means postmodernism has to go---and take with it the cradle-to-grave welfare state. The basics means constitutional law and real freedom which used to be the norm, not the exception.
The failure to do this will lead to the extinction of Western Civilization as we have known it. Postmodernism is akin to the poisioned Kool-Aid that the Death Cult of Reverend Jim Jones forced upon his followers---which resulted in mass death. Political correctness is that Kool-Aid in the wider civilizational enforcement mechanism that can be witnessed today. For example, anybody who deviates from the favored thought process is punished---but that punishment should be a badge of honor amongst those who intend not to drink that liberal, leftist Kool-Aid mind-control. The Kool-Aid must be avoided at all possible at as many locations and persons as possible. If that is done, a recovery might be possible. Turn off your TV. Stop educating your kids at leftist mind-control universities. Eschew the Kool-Aid and take the red pill of reality. Step out of the Matrix and into the real world.
The zeitgeist favors movements like environmentalism, abortion, pacifism, multiculturalism, amongst other vile notions that promise good things, but deliver evil---and underlying it all is the philosophy of postmodernism. That philosophy holds that there are no truths, and that truths only serve to bind a society into chains. Meanwhile, real chains are being forged that will replace the supposed ones from which postmodernism seeks to "free" us. The real chains will be the abandonment of our freedoms and imposition of an authoritarian, totalitarian state dominated by a cult of personality. Our lives--- down to the most minute details--- will be controlled by the state in the name of freedom. Such Orwellian contradictions will become the rule of the mind-control state the postmodernists seek to impose upon us.
Real freedom requires that we get back to basics. That means postmodernism has to go---and take with it the cradle-to-grave welfare state. The basics means constitutional law and real freedom which used to be the norm, not the exception.
The failure to do this will lead to the extinction of Western Civilization as we have known it. Postmodernism is akin to the poisioned Kool-Aid that the Death Cult of Reverend Jim Jones forced upon his followers---which resulted in mass death. Political correctness is that Kool-Aid in the wider civilizational enforcement mechanism that can be witnessed today. For example, anybody who deviates from the favored thought process is punished---but that punishment should be a badge of honor amongst those who intend not to drink that liberal, leftist Kool-Aid mind-control. The Kool-Aid must be avoided at all possible at as many locations and persons as possible. If that is done, a recovery might be possible. Turn off your TV. Stop educating your kids at leftist mind-control universities. Eschew the Kool-Aid and take the red pill of reality. Step out of the Matrix and into the real world.
The Feds Want Your Retirement Accounts
american thinker
Oh, yeah. Ms.Ghilarducci. I posted on that before.
On Nov. 20, 2007, Theresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, presented a paper proposing that the feds eliminate the tax deferral for private retirement accounts, confiscate the balance of those accounts, give each worker a $600 annual "contribution," assess a mandatory savings tax on every worker and guarantee a 3 percent rate of return on the newly titled "Guaranteed Retirement Accounts," or GRAs.
Oh, yeah. Ms.Ghilarducci. I posted on that before.
Video: The battery that might change everything
It looks pretty promising.
Lots of negative comments. Are people becoming too cynical about everything?
Lots of negative comments. Are people becoming too cynical about everything?
Characteristics of Postmodernism
Philosophy
If you want to know about the schism in today's society, you need not look any further than this. Post modernism runs counter to the philosophy of Ayn Rand, which she called Objectivism.
Thus, Objectivism is the antidote to what ails modern society, which is the postmodern philosophy and its communistic tendencies.
If you want to know about the schism in today's society, you need not look any further than this. Post modernism runs counter to the philosophy of Ayn Rand, which she called Objectivism.
Thus, Objectivism is the antidote to what ails modern society, which is the postmodern philosophy and its communistic tendencies.
Texas History Links
For anybody interested, the following links provide fascinating reading about Texas history.
Fannin's Fight & The Massacre at La Bahia (Goliad)
The Generalship of Sam Houston
Survivor Accounts at Goliad
Battle of Coleto Creek and Massacre at Goliad by Herman Ehrenberg
Massacre at Goliad--Captain Jack Shackelford's Account Commander Alabama Red Rovers
Fannin's Fight & The Massacre at La Bahia (Goliad)
The Generalship of Sam Houston
Survivor Accounts at Goliad
Battle of Coleto Creek and Massacre at Goliad by Herman Ehrenberg
Massacre at Goliad--Captain Jack Shackelford's Account Commander Alabama Red Rovers
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What "green" means and what I'd do with a billion bucks
I offer my thoughts on a topic of interest in this blog.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Why did Mexico lose Texas?
The official Mexican line is that it was because of American aggression.
However, I'd like to postulate that the real reason is that Mexico's leaders at that time did not trust their own people. ( and still don't )
As Santa Anna marched through Texas in 1836, it appeared all too inevitable that the Texan Revolution was doomed. But there's one detail that may have made the difference. What was that? Readiness. The Mexicans weren't ready for the attack. They were denied their weapons because their commanders didn't trust them with their rifles. In a quick moving scenario, such as the attack at San Jacinto, there simply wasn't enough time to get rifles to all the men. They were overwhelmed quickly. Now, if they had their weapons on them at all times, this wouldn't have been possible. Their lines would have held and the attack would have been stalemated, most likely. This would have been tantamount to defeat for the Texans, who desperately needed a victory.
A well-heeled and arrogant ruling class does not trust its people. It is weak and can be defeated easily by a much more determined yet smaller attacking force.
This is why you need a 2nd Amendment. A country of free men is much stronger than a country of mice.
However, I'd like to postulate that the real reason is that Mexico's leaders at that time did not trust their own people. ( and still don't )
As Santa Anna marched through Texas in 1836, it appeared all too inevitable that the Texan Revolution was doomed. But there's one detail that may have made the difference. What was that? Readiness. The Mexicans weren't ready for the attack. They were denied their weapons because their commanders didn't trust them with their rifles. In a quick moving scenario, such as the attack at San Jacinto, there simply wasn't enough time to get rifles to all the men. They were overwhelmed quickly. Now, if they had their weapons on them at all times, this wouldn't have been possible. Their lines would have held and the attack would have been stalemated, most likely. This would have been tantamount to defeat for the Texans, who desperately needed a victory.
A well-heeled and arrogant ruling class does not trust its people. It is weak and can be defeated easily by a much more determined yet smaller attacking force.
This is why you need a 2nd Amendment. A country of free men is much stronger than a country of mice.
What Exactly Is… The Militia?
TeaPartyTribune
Here's a thought: If the Country Club Republicans have taken over the GOP, what does that mean? It means that money is driving politics, I would say. Now, correlate this with the above definition, and ask this question---If money drives politics, can the absence of money mean anything useful resulting from the organization of the "whole people"? Another way of putting it is this--- is a country by the people, of the people, and for the people even possible today? We seem to be a country by the powerful, of the powerful, and for the powerful---the rest of the country be damned.
Here’s the definitive quote from one of our founding fathers: ”I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials.” — George Mason, in Debates in the Virginia Convention.
Here's a thought: If the Country Club Republicans have taken over the GOP, what does that mean? It means that money is driving politics, I would say. Now, correlate this with the above definition, and ask this question---If money drives politics, can the absence of money mean anything useful resulting from the organization of the "whole people"? Another way of putting it is this--- is a country by the people, of the people, and for the people even possible today? We seem to be a country by the powerful, of the powerful, and for the powerful---the rest of the country be damned.
Global Leading Indicator Shows Slowdown Dead-Ahead
Zero Hedge
The "Swirlogram" is divided into four quadrants: Recovery and Expansion on the topside, Contraction and Slowdown on the bottom side. If the points are plotted, they tend to swirl around from the topside to the bottomside and back again in a cycle.
But there's been talk about a slowdown for a while now. Who do you believe? Me or your lying eyes? ( joking )
Seriously, this looks like the real deal. And it was created by Goldman Sachs, so there you are.
the drivers of the weakness are the Baltic Dry Index, Global PMIs, Global New Orders Less Inventories, and Goldman's Aussie and Canadian Dollar TWI. ( see Swirlogram post )
The "Swirlogram" is divided into four quadrants: Recovery and Expansion on the topside, Contraction and Slowdown on the bottom side. If the points are plotted, they tend to swirl around from the topside to the bottomside and back again in a cycle.
But there's been talk about a slowdown for a while now. Who do you believe? Me or your lying eyes? ( joking )
Seriously, this looks like the real deal. And it was created by Goldman Sachs, so there you are.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Let's Balance the Budget
John Stossel
Stossel shows how it could be done. It wouldn't be that hard, either.
The Republicans won't do it, though. They'll fiddle while Rome burns and then they'll wonder how they lost the people.
Stossel shows how it could be done. It wouldn't be that hard, either.
The Republicans won't do it, though. They'll fiddle while Rome burns and then they'll wonder how they lost the people.
There... Are... Four... Lights! ( reposted)
We have a metaphor here. The tormentor of Picard was trying to get him to say something false in order to demonstrate his power, control, and victory over Picard's spirit. It is a perfect metaphor for liberalism's way of tormenting the people the with their lies in order to get the people to accept as truth the utter falsity of their ideas.
No matter what the lying liberal media says, or what the lying liberal politicians say, or what they lying mindless sycophants say, just remember this video as inspiration.
There are four lights!
No matter what the lying liberal media says, or what the lying liberal politicians say, or what they lying mindless sycophants say, just remember this video as inspiration.
There are four lights!
Don't fight the Fed
That's one of the cardinal rules of trading. It appears to me that the Fed is manipulating the markets now, so any trade that goes against that is violating the rule.
One of those trades is to go long on precious metals, like gold. Gold took another beating yesterday.
But, nothing has convinced me though that the fundamentals have changed. There's no effort to reign in the money printing. All the Fed is doing is managing perceptions. However, that's enough to move the markets. So, if you are on the wrong side of that, you can get burned.
Sometimes, you have to take a little pain in order to get some gain. In this case, if the management of perceptions fail at any point, the bull market will return with a vengeance. So far, the Fed's perception manipulation is working. Gold is taking a beating. How much longer, well, who knows?
One of those trades is to go long on precious metals, like gold. Gold took another beating yesterday.
But, nothing has convinced me though that the fundamentals have changed. There's no effort to reign in the money printing. All the Fed is doing is managing perceptions. However, that's enough to move the markets. So, if you are on the wrong side of that, you can get burned.
Sometimes, you have to take a little pain in order to get some gain. In this case, if the management of perceptions fail at any point, the bull market will return with a vengeance. So far, the Fed's perception manipulation is working. Gold is taking a beating. How much longer, well, who knows?
Gregg Easterbrook on defending against asteroid impacts.
via Instapundit
Easterbrook's column referenced here was from the late Bush Administration era. What struck me about it was his assertion that spending money on a moonbase was a waste.
Evidently, Easterbrook is not considering how much it costs to lift everything from the Earth's surface. You literally have to re-invent the wheel with every launch. Now, if you obtain your rocket fuel from the moon, or elsewhere, this will no longer be necessary. Consequently, each launch will become much cheaper. The key is to build infrastructure in space, as opposed to having everything on the ground. This requires an investment. If investments are waste, well, we may as well quit.
Easterbrook's column referenced here was from the late Bush Administration era. What struck me about it was his assertion that spending money on a moonbase was a waste.
Evidently, Easterbrook is not considering how much it costs to lift everything from the Earth's surface. You literally have to re-invent the wheel with every launch. Now, if you obtain your rocket fuel from the moon, or elsewhere, this will no longer be necessary. Consequently, each launch will become much cheaper. The key is to build infrastructure in space, as opposed to having everything on the ground. This requires an investment. If investments are waste, well, we may as well quit.
Making use of smartphone
What the heck? Might as well use the darned thing.
Update: Oops! It was set as a private video, which means you couldn't watch it if you wanted to. Now, that has been fixed. Sorry.
Update: Oops! It was set as a private video, which means you couldn't watch it if you wanted to. Now, that has been fixed. Sorry.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Obama’s No-Growth State of the Union
By Larry Kudlow
I put this in here because of an opposite viewpoint I saw on Kitco:
Is this administration really interested in growth? Frankly, I don't think so.
He could have proposed lowering business tax rates from 35 percent (really 40 percent when you figure in the states) to 25 percent. He could have suggested that small businesses, now paying 40 percent, be made eligible to become C-corps, so that their tax rates also drop to 25 percent. He could have proposed repatriating roughly $1.5 trillion of corporate profits overseas, bringing them back home with a tax holiday, or even better, a permanently lower rate. Doing so would be like putting free money into our domestic economy for new investment and job creation.
I put this in here because of an opposite viewpoint I saw on Kitco:
In summary, as long as central banks remain accommodative and policymakers pursue pro-growth policies, the uptrend in global stocks will probably continue.
Is this administration really interested in growth? Frankly, I don't think so.
Kitco Commentary:What Will Happen to the PM Sector if the Broad Market Tanks...
Maund
Excerpts:
For the stock markets to move down makes sense. The rally never made sense to me. But the fall of precious metals does not make sense.
If there's hyperinflation, how does that affect the charts? You can throw all the charts out the window in that case. But the charts don't indicate hyperinflation. They indicate the reverse.
What to make of this?
Excerpts:
- the market has arrived at a zone of massive resistance approaching its 2000 and 2007 highs, which is as good a point as any for it to turn down.
- the index has arrived at two synchronous trend channel targets and is in an overbought state. Thus it looks like we are on the cusp of a significant reversal.
- If the market is about to go into reverse, can we see signs of it in recent candlesticks? We certainly can.
- One sure indication that a top is close at hand is the appearance of increasingly absurd and outlandish justifications for higher prices.
- Our 6-year chart for the HUI index shows a massive completing Head-and-Shoulders top. We have observed this menacing pattern for some considerable time, but for a while thought it would abort because of the negative extremes of sentiment already afflicting the sector.
For the stock markets to move down makes sense. The rally never made sense to me. But the fall of precious metals does not make sense.
If there's hyperinflation, how does that affect the charts? You can throw all the charts out the window in that case. But the charts don't indicate hyperinflation. They indicate the reverse.
What to make of this?
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Review Of ObamaCare Survival Guide
dick morris
You mean I don't get a free lunch? Aw, shucks! Now I am disillusioned. /sarc
Looks like we are about the enter the full-fledged real-life version of Idiocracy. A bunch of dumbed-down dipshits watching TV programs like "Ow, my balls!" And putting Gatorade on crops expecting them to grow. Yup, that sounds like the direction we are heading.
The fundamental element of ObamaCare is that it disempowers doctors, hospitals, patients, and even insurance companies and transfers the power to the federal government.
You mean I don't get a free lunch? Aw, shucks! Now I am disillusioned. /sarc
Looks like we are about the enter the full-fledged real-life version of Idiocracy. A bunch of dumbed-down dipshits watching TV programs like "Ow, my balls!" And putting Gatorade on crops expecting them to grow. Yup, that sounds like the direction we are heading.
Robert Ringer: On the TV Wagon Again
I decided to come clean and admit that late last October I made the decision to get back on the TV wagon again right after the November 6 election. It was the second time over the past three-plus decades that I made such a decision. During the Jimmy Carter era, I had also given my brain cells a chance to get sober by striking TV news from my life, cold turkey.
I credit Dr. Andrew Weil with both of my decisions. Weil said that if you refrain from turning on the television set for a week or two at a time, it will dramatically reduce your stress. Since I’ve had considerable firsthand experience trying it, I can assure you he was right.
My current abstinence includes the once last refuge of serious television journalism, Fox News. It’s very sad what has happened to Fox over the years. The network that started out as a genuine alternative to America’s socialist media is but a shadow of its former self.
Much of the airtime at Fox is now filled with boring or irrelevant shows, anchors who are careful not to rock the boat (You do remember Glenn Beck and Judge Napolitano, don’t you?), guests who religiously cling to establishment talking points, and automaton contributors whose chief function is to act as sleeping aids for bleary-eyed viewers.
In a spirit of full disclosure, I feel obliged to admit that I’m not 100 percent on the wagon. I do still catch a few minutes of Fox here and there, but more often than not I go several days at a time without subjecting myself to any TV-brewed “news” at all.
(No, I did not watch a single minute of the Duplicitous Despot’s state-of-the-propaganda address. But I did watch Marco Rubio’s rebuttal, and when he began by congratulating Barack Obama “on the start of his second term,” I knew it was going to be a really bad presentation — but not nearly as bad as it turned out to be.)
In case you’ve been contemplating mimicking “Chief” Bromden, the giant Indian in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (who threw a sink through a window and escaped from the insane asylum, leaving fellow inmate Jack Nicholson behind), but are concerned about whether you could handle the withdrawal symptoms, I have good news for you: Cutting back on Fox by 95 percent has been the most cathartic experience of my life. I now have more time to pick and choose from genuine news sources on the Internet, without being subjected to all the silly stuff that is the heart and soul of television programming.
That’s right, I no longer waste valuable time being inundated with “culture-warrior” nonsense, Sean Hannity’s welcoming RINOs to his show night in and night out, or Megyn Kelly’s shrieking at the camera about a horse stuck in a mud hole in Amarillo or a cocker spaniel that found his way back to his home in Tulsa after suffering a three-year bout with amnesia.
If I’m in a mood to get a quick and heavy dose of truth, I listen to Mark Levin on the radio. I don’t give a damn what the purist libertarian crowd says about Levin, at least he has the guts to call the far left a gang of liars, Marxists, and frauds — i.e., the guts to tell the truth. Sure, it’s unfortunate that he doesn’t understand Ron Paul — or libertarians in general — but he does understand the difference between liberty and tyranny, and the number of media commentators who share that understanding is shrinking daily.
This past Sunday, I took a break from my writing, picked up the remote and unthinkingly clicked channel 32 — Fox News. Yikes! Fair-and-balanced Chris Wallace’s guest on Fox News Sunday was none other than the ever hot, aging queen of political theater, Nancy Pelosi. It was fortunate that I caught the last couple of minutes of Wallace’s interview with Pelosi, because it reminded me just how good it feels not to be hitting myself over the head with the “fair and balanced” hammer day in and day out.
As I listened to the former House speaker close out the interview with the usual left-wing babble about the need for the rich to pay their fair share, I once again pondered the question about nefarious Nancy: Is she truly a bad human being or is she simply an idiot? And, as always, I came down on the side of “a great deal of both.”
The coup de grace came when, seconds after the Pelosi interview ended, Chris Wallace, barely able to contain his excitement, announced that “coming up next” was the one and only John McCain. No, I’m not kidding — Nancy Pelosi, followed by Mush McCain, on one of Fox News’ premier shows! With a lineup like that, who needs NBC’s Meet the Press? It reminded me once again why I had gotten on the wagon and elected to get my news online.
As our outlaw government continues to ignore the Constitution, kill American citizens at will, move ever more rapidly toward banning all guns, and borrow and print the country into financial oblivion, most Americans remain stubbornly focused on college and professional sports, let’s-pretend TV shows, and the latest electronic gadgets. With their soma-saturated brains, they are not able to comprehend that their remaining liberty is rapidly evaporating from their lives.
Time is running short for Americans to break through their denial bubble and realize that the vast majority of nail-biting issues that dominate the airwaves are nothing more than purposeful distractions — distractions intended to take their minds off their loss of liberty, their children’s and grandchildren’s inherited indebtedness, and their rapidly sinking financial prospects.
The most important news issue of the day is that we are moving headlong toward a showdown between liberty and tyranny, and you won’t hear anything about that on TV — not even from Fox News.
You have permission to reprint this article so long as you place the following wording at the end of the article:
Copyright © 2013 Robert Ringer
ROBERT RINGER is a New York Times #1 bestselling author and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. He has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, The Tonight Show, Today, The Dennis Miller Show, Good Morning America, The Lars Larson Show, ABC Nightline, and The Charlie Rose Show, and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron's, and The New York Times.
To sign up for his one-of-a-kind, pro-liberty e-letter, A Voice of Sanity, Click Here.
Comment:
The Tortoise expresses my sentiments cogently. Here, here.
I credit Dr. Andrew Weil with both of my decisions. Weil said that if you refrain from turning on the television set for a week or two at a time, it will dramatically reduce your stress. Since I’ve had considerable firsthand experience trying it, I can assure you he was right.
My current abstinence includes the once last refuge of serious television journalism, Fox News. It’s very sad what has happened to Fox over the years. The network that started out as a genuine alternative to America’s socialist media is but a shadow of its former self.
Much of the airtime at Fox is now filled with boring or irrelevant shows, anchors who are careful not to rock the boat (You do remember Glenn Beck and Judge Napolitano, don’t you?), guests who religiously cling to establishment talking points, and automaton contributors whose chief function is to act as sleeping aids for bleary-eyed viewers.
In a spirit of full disclosure, I feel obliged to admit that I’m not 100 percent on the wagon. I do still catch a few minutes of Fox here and there, but more often than not I go several days at a time without subjecting myself to any TV-brewed “news” at all.
(No, I did not watch a single minute of the Duplicitous Despot’s state-of-the-propaganda address. But I did watch Marco Rubio’s rebuttal, and when he began by congratulating Barack Obama “on the start of his second term,” I knew it was going to be a really bad presentation — but not nearly as bad as it turned out to be.)
In case you’ve been contemplating mimicking “Chief” Bromden, the giant Indian in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (who threw a sink through a window and escaped from the insane asylum, leaving fellow inmate Jack Nicholson behind), but are concerned about whether you could handle the withdrawal symptoms, I have good news for you: Cutting back on Fox by 95 percent has been the most cathartic experience of my life. I now have more time to pick and choose from genuine news sources on the Internet, without being subjected to all the silly stuff that is the heart and soul of television programming.
That’s right, I no longer waste valuable time being inundated with “culture-warrior” nonsense, Sean Hannity’s welcoming RINOs to his show night in and night out, or Megyn Kelly’s shrieking at the camera about a horse stuck in a mud hole in Amarillo or a cocker spaniel that found his way back to his home in Tulsa after suffering a three-year bout with amnesia.
If I’m in a mood to get a quick and heavy dose of truth, I listen to Mark Levin on the radio. I don’t give a damn what the purist libertarian crowd says about Levin, at least he has the guts to call the far left a gang of liars, Marxists, and frauds — i.e., the guts to tell the truth. Sure, it’s unfortunate that he doesn’t understand Ron Paul — or libertarians in general — but he does understand the difference between liberty and tyranny, and the number of media commentators who share that understanding is shrinking daily.
This past Sunday, I took a break from my writing, picked up the remote and unthinkingly clicked channel 32 — Fox News. Yikes! Fair-and-balanced Chris Wallace’s guest on Fox News Sunday was none other than the ever hot, aging queen of political theater, Nancy Pelosi. It was fortunate that I caught the last couple of minutes of Wallace’s interview with Pelosi, because it reminded me just how good it feels not to be hitting myself over the head with the “fair and balanced” hammer day in and day out.
As I listened to the former House speaker close out the interview with the usual left-wing babble about the need for the rich to pay their fair share, I once again pondered the question about nefarious Nancy: Is she truly a bad human being or is she simply an idiot? And, as always, I came down on the side of “a great deal of both.”
The coup de grace came when, seconds after the Pelosi interview ended, Chris Wallace, barely able to contain his excitement, announced that “coming up next” was the one and only John McCain. No, I’m not kidding — Nancy Pelosi, followed by Mush McCain, on one of Fox News’ premier shows! With a lineup like that, who needs NBC’s Meet the Press? It reminded me once again why I had gotten on the wagon and elected to get my news online.
As our outlaw government continues to ignore the Constitution, kill American citizens at will, move ever more rapidly toward banning all guns, and borrow and print the country into financial oblivion, most Americans remain stubbornly focused on college and professional sports, let’s-pretend TV shows, and the latest electronic gadgets. With their soma-saturated brains, they are not able to comprehend that their remaining liberty is rapidly evaporating from their lives.
Time is running short for Americans to break through their denial bubble and realize that the vast majority of nail-biting issues that dominate the airwaves are nothing more than purposeful distractions — distractions intended to take their minds off their loss of liberty, their children’s and grandchildren’s inherited indebtedness, and their rapidly sinking financial prospects.
The most important news issue of the day is that we are moving headlong toward a showdown between liberty and tyranny, and you won’t hear anything about that on TV — not even from Fox News.
You have permission to reprint this article so long as you place the following wording at the end of the article:
Copyright © 2013 Robert Ringer
ROBERT RINGER is a New York Times #1 bestselling author and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. He has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, The Tonight Show, Today, The Dennis Miller Show, Good Morning America, The Lars Larson Show, ABC Nightline, and The Charlie Rose Show, and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron's, and The New York Times.
To sign up for his one-of-a-kind, pro-liberty e-letter, A Voice of Sanity, Click Here.
Comment:
The Tortoise expresses my sentiments cogently. Here, here.
Zero Hedge: The Fed's D-Rate: 4.5% At Dec 31, 2013... And Dropping Fast
Submitted by Tyler Durden
Excerpts:
You may end up with the spectacle of the Fed having to bail itself out. I'm sure Paul Krugman will have an explanation of why this is not a problem.
Update:
Another great article here:
Excerpts:
- In April of 2010, Zero Hedge first brought up the topic of the Fed's DV01, or the implicit duration risk borne by the Fed's burgeoning balance sheet
- slowly but surely they are coming to the inevitable conclusion (which our readers knew two years ago), that the Fed has no way out? Why?
- Further asset purchases would compromise the Fed's longer run profitability in two ways.
- First, because the securities have been purchased during a period of economic distress the yields on these securities are unusually low.
- In other words, at Dec. 31, 2013, a 4.5% interest rate (or, as we call it, the D-Rate) is where the Fed starts losing money.
- In other words, while QE4EVA may be unlimited in the eye of the beholding Chairman, it is very much limited by the amount of reserves pumped into the system, and the amount of cash that Ben will have to pay banks as interest on their excess reserves.
You may end up with the spectacle of the Fed having to bail itself out. I'm sure Paul Krugman will have an explanation of why this is not a problem.
Update:
Another great article here:
The Real Reason Boomers Buy BondsFunny thing: a lot of people are starting to believe the hype of the recovery. There is no recovery. The Fed is running out of ammo and the bond market is in a bubble. Interest rates must rise, and with it goes the Fed!
Monday, February 18, 2013
About Paul Ehrlich and ‘The Most Spectacularly Wrong Book Ever Written’
the other McCain via Ace of Spades blog
Maybe this class warfare thingie the left likes to do is on to something. It's these rich guys...
Jonathan Last is incorrect to say that “one guy, Paul Ehrlich” was responsible for all this disinformation about demographics.
No, ultimately, that “one guy” is John D. (David) Rockfeller III, who became obsessed with neo-Malthusian worries about overpopulation in the 1930s. Ehrlich was merely one of the chief propagandists who helped popularize bad ideas Rockefeller promoted for decades
Maybe this class warfare thingie the left likes to do is on to something. It's these rich guys...
Green groups rally on climate, urge Obama to reject Keystone project - The Hill's E2-Wire
the Hill
“They’ve got the lobbyists. They’ve got the super-PACs. They made the campaign contributions. They’ve got this town in their pockets — they have got the situation under control. And then you show up. And then we show up. And we change the game,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) told the crowd not long before it marched on the White House.Isn't it funny how Obama likes to play both sides of the fence? He tries to claim that he's the one responsible for the boom in the energy field, yet here he is, in the position to block this pipeline. Nothing shows the hostility towards energy like blocking Keystone does, so it should be a slam dunk to block the pipeline, or so you would think. He's playing this out for as long as possible, trying to get as much out of it as he can get, but he has to decide sometime. In the end, I think he goes against the pipeline while continuing to claim that he is the one responsible for the boom in the oil patch. Why do people believe his BS?
Upworthy — or, How we are losing the internet to lowest of low information young liberals
legalinsurrection
Comment:
This comment may not be related, yet it is similar enough that I suppose I could include it:
With respect to my book reviews, there seemed to be an effort to discredit them by voting negative. Supposedly, the large number of negative votes are supposed to influence opinion negatively towards what I had to say. This seemed to be an organized activity, something like a bot. So, from time to time, I refer to lefties as Obamabots. They don't think, they just react. They see what's out there, and they respond to that, not to what is being said, but how it is being spun.
I learned what millions of very low-information young liberals already knew — there is this website called Upworthy which is one giant liberal activist social media machine which creates viral social media memes in the cause of liberal political activism.
Comment:
This comment may not be related, yet it is similar enough that I suppose I could include it:
With respect to my book reviews, there seemed to be an effort to discredit them by voting negative. Supposedly, the large number of negative votes are supposed to influence opinion negatively towards what I had to say. This seemed to be an organized activity, something like a bot. So, from time to time, I refer to lefties as Obamabots. They don't think, they just react. They see what's out there, and they respond to that, not to what is being said, but how it is being spun.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Next Big Future: Converting Municipal Waste to Energy at industrial...
Next Big Future: Converting Municipal Waste to Energy at industrial...: Problem: Global annual production of municipal solid waste (MSW) is expected to grow from 1.3 billion tonnes today to 9.8 billion tonnes in ...
Great stuff.
Great stuff.
Tesla road test
Didn't go so well.
One thing about battery powered cars, it's a bit of a problem if you run out of juice. I read the New York Time guy's story who had those problems. It might have been solved differently than what he did. Still, it's not a feather in the cap for Tesla.
Shortened range in cold weather seems to have been the culprit.
One thing about battery powered cars, it's a bit of a problem if you run out of juice. I read the New York Time guy's story who had those problems. It might have been solved differently than what he did. Still, it's not a feather in the cap for Tesla.
Shortened range in cold weather seems to have been the culprit.
Building a Space Station
Let's say you wanted to build a space station--- a big one. How big? Let's say one which would enable you to generate 1 g of artificial gravity. The size would be 1000 yards radius, and it would spin at 1 RPM. This would yield 1 earth gravity.
That only answers part of how big it should be. It is 2000 yards in diameter, since it has a 1000 yard radius. That doesn't tell us how big the livable part of it should be.
Let's imagine contructing one of these things before trying to answer that question. Let's start with a model to work with, such as a spoked bicycle wheel.
You could have spokes leading from the axle to the rim. On the rim is where you would build the livable part. It would correspond to the tire part of a bicycle wheel. Rather than a rubber tire, you would build your living quarters on top of the rim. It would be as large as the materials would support, if that is desired. It should be kept in mind that the weight of the thing would be massive considering that it would be over 3 miles in circumference. Perhaps it would be best to keep it as small as possible. Let's say enough for two levels--- a living level and a transit level. Thus, the structure could be kept simple, like a square. These could be welded together piece by piece as you construct your space station. I guesstimate about 14 feet in height would do for the two levels. If it is a square, then 14 by 14 will set the dimensions.
But how many spokes? In order to keep it even, let's say 1 spoke for every 10 degrees around the rim. That would make 36 spokes times two, as there would be two attached to the axle as per bicycle model.
But that may not be enough. As they rim will be over 3 miles in circumference, each spoke would be covering too much territory. We have 2000 yards diameter times pi, which yields a circumference of 6280 yards. That would yield 174.44 yards for each spoke. We are going to need many more spokes. If you divide by 10, then you would have 17 yards for each spoke, which is close to the size of the living space we are shooting for. That would mean 1 spoke for each degree of movement, or 360 spokes. Two spokes attach to the axle, so there would be 720 spokes total.
You could set the spokes side by side along the axle. Not exactly the same as in a bicycle, which are offset a bit from each other. That way, you attach the two together to make a rectangular living enclosure which would be 34 yards wide at the rim. Keeping it square, we could extend the size to 17 yards all around. It would thus be 17 yards tall, not just under 5. The idea is to make it as uniform as possible. Then everything could be taken up together in sheets of metal that could be welded into place as we build around the base of the rim.
I'm a little concerned about weight as this is a lot of metal.
But there's a lot of space now. Enough for four levels, not just two.
Back to the weight concern. I've done some calculations and the weight of the metal could get prohibitive. If we cut the thickness down to a minimum, the weight may be manageable ( let's suppose so, anyway).
Where would we get all the material? I'm thinking from the moon. It could be iron, which is freed of its oxygen and fashioned into the size sheets we want. It would be launched from the surface of the moon.
Since we need so much of the stuff, that means a lot of launches. You could use a mass driver that would fling it into cislunar space, which then be retrieved and taken to the construction site. Let's say you can do each node for about 50k pounds. That would mean about 360 launches for these alone. You would need a way to manage all this, of course. You would need a way to fabricate the sheets of iron, too. That implies a moon manufacturing site, plus capability to launch.
But back to the station: There would be six pieces for each node. Three for each spoke, as there are two spokes per degree, and welded together into three sides in turn welded together as mentioned above. As each spoke is constructed, it carries along its 3 pieces which are welded into place at its designated spot. That will leave an open area 17 yards tall, 34 yards wide along the rim and the roof. It would be open ended, as each are butted up against the next spoke's node.
Of course, this is all highly simplified. There are plenty of details to work out. One of these would be how would these pieces would fit in a circular object? You would have to compensate for the angles, somehow. I'd figure some kind of interface joint which would allow for the circularity to be compensated and keep to the rectangular modular design, which keeps the main pieces simple to make in a uniform way. It wouldn't be as pretty, but who cares?
What about other factors, like lighting? Could the roof be partly glass to let in the light? That would entail some additional engineering details for the other levels. Keep in mind that the metal is pretty thin in order to keep down weight. Maybe no natural light be used at all. This implies a maintenance schedule to keep replacing burned out lighting.
The inside living quarters and storage areas need to be built out once the superstructure is installed. These details can take care of those other matters just mentioned.
The weight of the space station would be be over 18 million pounds just for the nodes. The axle wasn't discussed.
The axle is where the interface with the outside takes place. It serves as the anchor for the revolving nodes as well. It must be very sturdy as a lot of force is being placed upon it.
A transit tube between the axle and the nodes will allow transport of supplies and personnel as needed. The transit tube could itself be a specially designed spoke.
Update:
More thought about those spokes. What would they be made of? I was thinking that they would be made of the stronger materials. It would be sent up in spools and unwound as it was being installed. However, how to keep it taut when the station wasn't spinning? The idea was to pay out the cable a few yards at a time through a metal sleeve. Each sleeve would attach the next sleeve and then pay out more cable. This would repeat until all 1000 yards are deployed. The metal sleeve keeps the cable taut until the station is spun up. The sleeves could be held in a compact way until ready to be used for deploying the cable. That's so you don't have to figure out a way to make 1000 yard long spokes.
How would these work in practice? I'm thinking the sleeves keep everything in place until the station is spun up. Then the forces will tend to pull apart from the center and that will tighten up the cables inside the sleeves.
Update:
Such a station as this could hold thousands of people. Would it need to be that big? Perhaps it could be made differently than what I've outlined here. There could be some sections that are lighted and used to grow plants, for example.
The more people, the more capability.
Update:
A bit more thought applied to this yields a more realistic design. It may be able to house 720 people. Instead of it being as big as I indicated, I had to downsize it considerably. It would be the same length around the rim, but the nodes would be pyamidal, thus saving materials. It would also be much smaller, saving weight. Even so, the weight would still be 50k lbs or so for each node. I made a drawing for a node to give an idea of what I'm thinking.
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