Saturday, November 7, 2015

Another reason why you must not give up your guns

Reading over this, I see how men could be reduced to animals if they had no means of defense against something that is so evil that it is unspeakable.   If just a handful of men were armed and on that bus, the outcome could have been quite different.

The only reason we are relatively free right now is that we have guns.  Without these, we are like Mexico.  And what is that?  Read the article and see.  Those people had no guns and no hope against what they had to face.

The people calling for gun control are either stupid or evil or both.

Update:

There was something in the news about Ben Carson saying that Hitler couldn't have exterminated the Jews if they were armed.  In the View program segment here, I think that is what is being referred to, but you wouldn't know it by the way it was handled.  There is an element in the media that wants to keep people ignorant of such threats to our own country.  Hitler disarmed his people.  No doubt that the people in Mexico are also disarmed.  They have little defense against the drug gangs as this story reveals.

Here's another segment in which Joy Behar says that she doesn't want to live like that, meaning having people who are armed who are in the schools.  This is the kind of naivete that leads to the kind of outcome witnessed with that bus being hijacked.   The people were friggin' helpless.  The cops weren't around.  Sometimes your only option is to help yourself.   There's not always going to be somebody around to protect you.


The end of the aluminum industry in America? (corrected)

American Thinker



The article accuses China of dumping cheap aluminum on our markets, and Obama makes it hard to compete because of his hostility to fossil fuels, especially coal.



comment:



I don't think that coal has to be dirty.  You can separate out the carbon by using only a part of it for energy production through oxidation, and that energy would be applied to producing hydrogen.  The hydrogen can go into making ammonia, which can be used directly in automobile engines.  Or it can be used to transport hydrogen for fuel cell cars.



( Ammonia from ) Coal is said to be 20 times cheaper per BTU than oil.  Assuming that that's true, ( and why doubt it?) it seems a no-brainer to use it to convert to ammonia.



Why isn't it done then?  Excessive influence of people like Obama doesn't help.




The Environmentalist Church

As described by this article.  It can confirm at least one thing:  that the effort to remove carbon from the atmosphere is not grounded in a desire to help people, but to expiate guilt.

The left feels guilty, super guilty, for its wealth.  To make themselves feel better, they want to kill you.  All for your own good, of course.


Why Bathrooms Matter | The Weekly Standard

Why Bathrooms Matter | The Weekly Standard



comment:



They say it matters because it is a winning political issue.  Good.  At least on this issue, the GOP can be an opposition party.  I mean, if it takes stuff like this to get them to stand up to the left, then go for it.



Frankly, I think the response needs to be more aggressive.




Ben Carson: Politico “blatantly lied” about West Point story

Legal Insurrection



comment:



I find Carson more credible than Politico.  It was predicted that Carson would be politically destroyed after becoming a front runner.  Here's the first attempt.  No doubt that there will be more.



Disappointing that Trump piled on.  Wait and see what develops with stories like these. Especially be careful when it is a partisan source like this one apparently is.




Friday, November 6, 2015

If you think things are bad here

Go over to Al Fin's blog and take a look at the rest of the world.  We are doing relatively well here in the USA.  Even Europe is doing well, relatively speaking.  The rest of the world is in the dumps, or heading in that direction.

People who come to this blog who hail from other parts of the world may get the impression that the USA is a hellhole.  But by many measurements, the US is still the best, and by a lot.

Just a quick thought here:  if the USA is the best that the world can offer, then mankind is in one heck of a lot of trouble.


Health care decisions

Since the enrollment period has begun, I decided to have a look.  It seems that costs have gone up, quite a bit, actually.

It may be simpler and easier to pay the penalty and for my own care.  As for the cost sharing thing I wrote about earlier, they require that you be healthy.  Since that is not really the case ( or could be claimed honestly to be the case), that leaves me out of that option.

The other options don't look so good.  Looks like I can get an el cheapo deluxe plan for a minimal cost.  But that may require me to spend the money anyway.  What's the advantage?


Obligatory, 11.6.15; Things are a mess

If anyone thinks I'm referring to the Big Picture, you may be partly right.  But this is about me.  It seems that I'm suffering a malady which may be hard to overcome.  I'm hopeful that I can deal with it, but what if I can't?  If I can't, it's not good.

One thing for sure, I won't be able to do deliveries anymore.  I may be able to do the Uber thing, so things are not in crisis mode...yet.

It's funny, this thing I'm dealing with.  It doesn't incapacitate me.  It just complicates matters because I have to deal with it.

For example, I was able to move out the old computers I was writing about before.  It was quite an effort required, but the job is now done.  There are other things I can do, and should do.  But I'm not very productive.  As for blogging, even though I didn't work the last couple days, I have not blogged much either.

Anyway, I may have to make more changes and these changes are a bit ahead of schedule.

 

Thursday, November 5, 2015

Does God really hate fags?

If you check out Revelation, which is written by the Apostle John, who is the Apostle that Jesus loved, you will find that the word "hate" is there.  Perhaps not in reference to "fags", but all the same, the word "hate" is there.

Supposedly, hatred isn't Christian.  But you can't get no more Christian than John, and there it is.  ( Revelation 2:6)

The New York Times accuses Houston of "hatred".  But who cares?  If God says it's okay to hate, then why not?  By the way, there is no approval of homosexuality in the Bible.  So, does that make the Bible "hate speech"?

Actually, this is a bit provocative, but why not be provocative?  Why has the West become the home of so much pusillanimity?


Amen to this

In Houston the voters are the real HEROes

gay "rights" and the socially liberal agenda in general advance because the courts do an end run around the people and impose them

Here's an idea:  An Article V convention can add recall and referendum to the ballot.  If something like "gay rights" gets implemented in the courts, it can be shot down, and the judges removed from office.

 Here's a thought:  If the Constitution and Bill of Rights are to survive, it must be defended by the people themselves.  The political class won't do it.  The political class is actually the enemy of the Constitution.  The Constitution was expressly written in order to restrain politicians.  That's why they don't like it.


Dave Mason Band - Feelin' Alright w/Mark Farner, Rick Derringer & More 9/2/2011 HIPPIEFEST 2011

Feelin' Alright?  Not feeling too good myself.





Wednesday, November 4, 2015

We are all spoiled rotten

Just watching the extra features that come with the DVD Revenge of the Sith.  I've had this DVD for years, but never watched these extra features before now.  It does give you an appreciation of what goes into one of these films.  It is a reminder that these things are not cheap.  It cost millions of dollars to make that movie.  It took a lot of technical skill.  All the same, my criticism of the film remains, although I am somewhat humbled by the enormity of the enterprise that produced it.  We are all spoiled, because we expect that.  But to produce it is not something that should be taken for granted.

Although it is humbling to consider how much it took to produce the film, it is also discouraging to consider how much of that was wasted in producing a somewhat flawed product.  The flaws are always remembered more than the quality.  Think of it this way:  you buy a luxury auto, and it has the slightest imperfection in it, you are likely to be incensed.  Never mind that the vehicle is state of the art in many ways, that imperfection is likely to gain more attention that the wizardry that went into the making of the vehicle itself.

It is also discouraging to consider that this blog cannot be first class because it cannot command the money that it would take into to make it into what people take for granted.  Just to produce one post like this could take hours.  Yet it can be read in a minute or less.  Try to get an audience on your own efforts alone is an exercise in futility, I am beginning to suspect.


Dick Morris: Carson cannot win

He gives a number of reasons, among which is their debating styles.  He says that Hillary would eat him alive.  One reason that he gave was that Carson said that he would not have used force after 911.  Morris claims that comment pretty much disqualifies Carson.

But that is what the leftists proposed back then.  Why would they vote for Hillary?  Are these people really that cynical?  I do not know, but out of dislike, I am tempted to say that they would vote for Hillary no matter what.

However, I agree with Morris that something had to be done militarily.  The question is what and how.

I agree with Carson that an optimal response would include energy independence.  But Morris says that this is being achieved anyway.  Morris is wrong.  Fracking is a good thing, in my opinion.  But it is not immune to market forces.  Saudi Arabia is still the low cost producer.  Fracking does not change that.  Therefore, Carson has to show why he can overcome that advantage.

Morris is unconvincing, but so is everyone else.  Nobody in politics has come up with a solution to the energy problem.


Star Wars, Episode III

I've always had a problem with this episode.  I don't really believe Anakin could turn that easily to the dark side.  It turns out that the deleted scenes show more of the plot that could have made the story a bit more believable.  There were a couple, maybe three scenes, in which Padme was conferring with the budding Rebel Alliance.  Instead of showing the lovey dovey stuff in the beginning, they could have shown the rift developing between them.  A lot of that first part of the movie could have been cut out, because it was way too lengthy, and didn't add anything to the development of the story.

I've wondered, then and now, if the episode wasn't a shot at the Bush Administration, which was in office at the  time of the release.  If you watch it now, it could just as easily be against the Obama regime.  Were the scenes cut out to keep the politics out?  Then why keep some of them, and not all of them?

The story was about how the Empire was born.  The same kind of thing is developing for real right now in our own government.  Too much power is invested in the presidency, and in the Courts.

The Congress should act to regain its powers.

Perhaps a return to sanity?

It may be a bit of wishful thinking here.  The outcome of the Houston election has me feeling a bit more optimistic than I was yesterday at this time.

When I read the news, one word pops up into my mind--- insanity.  You have a professor who shreds the Constitution, and calls it "oppressive" as justification.  Just exactly what this fellow had in mind as a replacement wasn't mentioned in the headline.  Nor could it be.  The Constitution is the organizing document for an entire nation.  If you get rid of it, you must have something to replace it.  Just exactly what is that?  Anarchy?  Dictatorship?  That's nuts.

That's two things.  The third thing is the markets.  There's nothing real there.  It has gone into cloud cuckoo land.  If you can't normalize rates because the market will crash, then what does that mean?  It doesn't mean prosperity has returned, but that is what is being reported.  Nuts.

Of course, you've got catastrophe in foreign policy.  The Middle East has gone berserk.  The refugees are spilling into Europe, and they are being welcomed by another leftist guided polity that is almost as crazy as the Mohammedans.   The left admires Europe so much that they want us to be more like them.  For the last nearly 7 years, we have been moving in that direction.  Not looking good.

Houston: an island of sanity in an insane world?  How long can it last?  Outgoing mayor and lesbian Annise Parker says Houston will be punished for its vote yesterday.  Who will do the punishing?  You ought to ask that question if you get the chance.


Pareto Principle in politics

After the defeat of homosexual lobby in Houston yesterday, I was reminded of the so-called 80-20 principle, and I thought it might have a counterpart in politics.  Newt Gingrich liked to talk about getting 80 percent on an issue as a campaign strategy. The margin of victory was not that high in this election, but what if it could be?  This is thinking like Gingrich.

Gingrich could not pull it off in 2012, but that is because he could not find a way.  What way, then?  It could come from finding a way to link a lot of conservative issues together in such a way as to give the kind of result seen in Houston.

The left has gained a lot of ground this way.  They do it through trickery.  The  average person does not support the madness that so often typifies the left wing agenda.  The failed ordinance in Houston is an example of the madness that was decidedly shot down.  If you can show the madness is not just isolated to this issue, but the entire left wing agenda, you could have the makings of a landslide.  That is what Gingrich was after.




Markets are in a manic phase

Looks like the markets are headed to new highs.  There's not any reason for it except for the easy money policy of the Fed.  The GDP numbers weren't all that good, or so I hear.  Job numbers aren't that good, either.  In fact, the numbers are bad enough to keep the interest rate increases down.  It's that kind of news that drives the markets.  Then, political spinmeisters point to the markets as evidence of a good economy.  If it is so good, then why doesn't the Fed normalize rates?  The answer is that they can't.  Eventually, something has to give.

The markets are going up only because the Fed is blowing bubbles.  That's all they've got.


Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Home again, 11.3.15, Election Day and what not

Today is a local election being followed nationwide, or so I hear.  It hardly matters.  The cities are Democrat strongholds.  What they want, they'll likely get around here.  I pay little attention anymore.

That said, I'm thinking the national scene isn't much better.  The conservatives, if they exist, had better get moving before it is too late.  It may already be.

The political situation is really bad, but there's still a chance ( don't laugh ) that people may finally see the light.

I didn't vote, as you may guess.  It makes little difference here.

Update:

The homosexual ordinance failed.  ( No men in women's restrooms.)  Thank goodness for miracles.  The mayor's race will require a runoff.  Another black mayoral candidate is in it, so Houston is still following the pattern set by failed rust belt cities.


He was really talking about Washington DC






You can still say something like that in this country, but for how much longer?

Before you know it, they'll declare themselves God, and require that you worship them.



Obligatory, 11.3.15; Skylon update

Skylon is the Single Stage To Orbit Spaceplane concept developed by Alan Bond.  It's one of the technologies that I like for space travel.  It looks like it got a big boost when BAE decided to invest into it.

Frankly, I think they should go "balls to the wall" on the development of it.

Here's a comment on the development at NextBigFuture.


Monday, November 2, 2015

Being rich isn't evidence of anything except the ability to make money

The title of this post is a reaction to what Bill Gates is quoted to have said about the subject of climate change.

The trouble here is that a guy who is as rich as Gates is viewed as an authority on any subject just because he is rich.  Yet, in my estimation, I am not impressed by Gates' initiatives with respect to energy.  For instance, he has a program called TerraPower or something like that.  It sounds really impressive, but what Gates may not realize is that everything that TerraPower is trying to do has already been done.  It was done with molten-salt reactors forty years ago.  Basically, he is just reinventing the wheel.  Not only that, but he's not even making as good of a wheel as the original.

I think Gates is really smart about how to make money in selling software.  Outside of that core area, he may not be nearly as smart.  Maybe not even smart at all.

Throwing money at a problem isn't necessarily an answer either.  Once heard a story about how the Americans had spent a lot of money trying to get a pen to write in space.  A Russian solved that problem rather easily by giving the American astronaut a pencil.  See?  Sometimes a problem that seems really hard isn't hard after all.  It could be the assumptions underlying the problem.  In this example, there wasn't necessarily a need for an ink pen to work, just needed something that would write in space.  Didn't matter whether it was an ink pen or not.  That wasn't the problem.  The problem was in getting something that would write.  America has a lot more money than Gates, but the solution to that problem took a pencil that would cost less than a buck.

There was a recent post here about Gates making a new toilet.  But you don't need anything high tech in order to improve sanitation.  Off-the-grid "solarcabin" LeMar Alexander came up with a solution that uses very simple technology and works.  Just don't use water!   Or not much of it.  Then, let the sun dry it out.  Finally, bacteria will break down the waste naturally.  No need for anything fancy.

Gates cannot solve these types of problems because he's really not very good at these kinds of problems.  If he had to do this for a living, he'd starve.  The kinds of problems that Gates is good at is making money with software.  This doesn't make him an expert at anything else unless he can demonstrate otherwise.


Obligatory, 11.2.15; Computer is down

This post is being composed off-line.  It is quite the experience now when there's no internet.  It is like being without electricity, in a sense.  You really feel the loss when it occurs.

Not that I'm without internet access.  I can use my phone in order to access the net, but for these purposes, I won't be doing that now.

Nothing's wrong with the internet connection.  I'm just updating the desktop.  While I'm doing that, the internet connection is turned off.  Don't know if this helps, but it cannot hurt.

The desktop goes idle for weeks at a time sometimes, so it is a big deal to get it going again.  I need to use it for something, but in order to use it, it has to be updated.

What to write about?  Well, that business about Sierra Blanca pretty much tells the story about the USA.  Here you have a great opportunity, and the people there aren't able to see it, and respond negatively to it.  There was also plans to use the area for a nuclear waste dump.

That would also be an opportunity.  A HUGE opportunity.  In  combination with the sewage dump, you could use a molten-salt reactor to make ammonia fuel.  Ship that ammonia to California, which could use it in its hydrogen highway program.  The Japanese are set to begin producing hydrogen fuel cell cars, which can use the hydrogen that could be easily obtained from the ammonia.

Beginning in California, you could build out to the entire nation.

But what if the Californians refuse to accept the ammonia?  You could burn the ammonia and collect the water.  The area would have a large water supply which could be used to grow crops.

This is all a possibility even now, but people will find ways to block it, which is unfortunate.  We are wondering why the economy won't grow.  It is stuff like this that holds the economy back.

Here I am wondering how to make a living out there when the chance of a lifetime exists, but you can't take advantage of it.

All of that big time stuff will have to be set aside.  What my problem is is to make a living out there, and my plan is to drive for Uber in El Paso, and come back out there to farm some crops.

With some research over the weekend, I was able to find a place I could rent for about $350 month, utilities included.  I could buy a trailer for $3800, set it up out there, and move out there as early as April first of next year.  There's some uncertainty involved, and some risk that things won't work out as planned.

But you don't know until you try.  It has been over six months since my last visit.  Who knows what condition the shack is in.  This month, I could go out there on the Thanksgiving weekend and check it all out.


Sunday, November 1, 2015

Did the people in Sierra Blanca Tx screw up?

This is with respect to the sewage sludge dump situation that they had not too long ago.  To me, this looked like an opportunity, not a liability.  Here's a place that could really use an opportunity, because if there's one thing that town needs is an economic base.  Outside of government, there's nothing there.  It's the county seat and it is close to the border checkpoint.  That's it.

If you google the town and check out the pics that they have, then you will easily see.  I know the town a little having visited there several times.  That's basically what the town looks like.  Old, dilapidated, abandoned buildings, and no businesses.  What a difference it would make to have a thriving business in the area.

The sewage dump was handled wrong, I suspect.  They just wanted to use the place to dump the sewage on the ground.  Instead of doing that, they could have turned it into power and products.

I looked into trying it myself, but that's too big of a risk for me.  If I were to do it, first I would try a pilot project to show that it can be done.  Then, I'd scale it up so that it can take sewage sludge from any place that wanted to use the facility.

One thing that you may be able to make is some building aggregate.  You can use it for improving roads in the area.  That place needs some good roads.  You could use the syngas for energy, or to make ammonia for use in agriculture in the area, or to make energy to sell.  They could convert vehicles to ammonia use and virtually have free fuel.

Looks to me like an opportunity lost.


Obligatory, 11.1.15; Liberty Healthshare

Probably about 3 years ago, I read about something like this.  It isn't a traditional health insurance type setup.  What you do is pay for somebody else's health care; and when you need it, somebody else will pay for yours.  It's banding together for the common good of all, without the government.  It is also good enough to exempt you from ObamaCare, which I dislike very much.  I could opt for something like this.