Recap of last weeks posts 6/8 to 6/14/14

The focus was on money.  It may well be the source of our troubles, which is not attributable to the money itself, but the obsession with it.

A solution:  go off the grid?  Is that too radical for this culture?

The "Best of" ranks received a new member this week, it was:

Cal Thomas' New Book: "What Works"

More thoughts on going off the grid ( with some useful links )

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Another in the series about going off the grid.

Did Ann Barnhardt give me the idea for going off the grid?

Not exactly, but she appears to be at war with the culture, which seems to be where I am in a theoretical sort of way.  She went confrontational, I have decided to go another way, which is to find a solution that works.

She is too self destructive.  To protest this culture doesn't require one to destroy oneself.  What is that woman doing to herself?  She gives up a successful business in protest.  She says that she couldn't continue with it and keep her integrity.   Instead of being in a more powerful position ( not broke ) where she could do something useful, she has become a manual laborer.   Okay, maybe you can admire her for her principles and the willingness to uphold them.  Not to fault her for wanting to keep her integrity.  But is what she's doing a good way toward that end of promoting what she believes is right?  Couldn't she do better?  Perhaps she could have gone off the grid as that would keep her from having to pay much in taxes.  She could have sent a message to those money masters in DC.  They couldn't do much about it either, as it would be legal.

With her tax strike, she appears to be at war with the government.  This is a losing strategy.  A needlessly self destructive one that will accomplish nothing except her own destruction.  She may not care about that, but she should.
   
Barnhardt once said that people love their money too much, and she proved that for herself.  But you do need money, and she still needs it, and you do need a government.  You can't fight "city hall".  You have to make some compromises with it in order to live with it in peace.  Therefore, this idea of living off the land is a reasonable solution for someone like her, I would think.  It would accomplish what she said she wants to accomplish without ending up in jail or in a morgue because she decided that violence was the answer.

Clarification:  As far as I know, Barnhardt has not explicitly called for a violent revolution.

However, the $64K question for Barnhardt:  would she rather fight the system, or find a reasonable place within it?  One that wouldn't require big compromises.  Maybe a small one or two, though.  Perhaps the compromises would be too much for this woman.

Indeed, if enough people would do this, the government would have fewer funds and would have to shrink because the people forced it to shrink.  This is a way for the people to get control over their government.  Instead of having the government get in control of us, which is the track we are on right now.

In order to make this concept work NOW for my own self, I would need some cash flow.  I can buy some stuff and get things started, but I cannot live on my capital for all that long.  The property will need to get productive quickly if there's no cash flow.  A cash flow will enable the capital to last longer until the property is self-sustaining.

I was figuring on social security.  But that is more than 3 years away still.  Those 3 years can be used for preparations.  I could still buy the property and make payments on it until I'm ready to move in.

Some extra links ( as if I needed more.  This concept of living off the land can work---even in a near desert condition in West Texas. )  I've compiled these links and others to reassure myself that I could make it out there.  But that doesn't mean that it would be easy.

•   Love Your Home youtube channel has a lot of videos on how to grow stuff.
• Blueberries for Texas
•  A money crop for the farm?  Growing grapes in Texas.
•  How to eat cactus: Opuntia And Prickly Pears
• mesquite beans nutritional value and other useful info  ( this link has a lot of info! ) also: food facts
• The Ubiquitous Mesquite, more about the mesquite, the wonder tree
• Mesquite beans for sale
• rock salt for salting game for storage
• javelina as a game animal
• javelina clays in west texas ( may be useful for making adobe bricks )
• adobe bricks may be possible with the dirt that is available on the land
• practical primitive:  a valuable resource

It has occurred to me that there will have to be some digging.  That would be for a septic tank and possible shade from the hot sun.  Here's some info on what to expect when you start digging--- soils in west texas.

You need a water source.  I have already figured a way to solve that problem.  Collect rainwater.

There is a problem with the hot sun this time of year.  The power requirements would be a killer.  Instead of a conex, maybe I could park an RV in a cool spot that I dug out of the ground?   Why a trench?  It would be cooler in the trench than out there in that relentless sun.   A conex is cheaper, but this is prefab.  Anyway, I found this site here that has used RV's on sale.  Here's one with a shower and a toilet.  What do you do with waste water?  You can "process" the black and gray waters by building the septic tank.  The RV will be home until I can build an adobe hut with all that dirt I would be digging up.  I can dig a septic tank while I'm digging the trench.

nice little trailer you got there

How to dig your little trench so as to park down there with your trailer?  Use a mini excavator.

Maybe I may need a bigger one.

The trench may flood in the rain.  Hmm.  That may be a toughie.  I've got to think about that one.  One possible solution would have the drain field for the septic tank in front of the entrance to the trench.  This would slow down the water as vegetation will grow in the drain fields.  In the case of needing to drive over the drain field, don't.  Drive around it.

Pictures of Matchstick Men ( 1968 )

What does this song mean?  To tell you the truth, I wasn't curious enough to find out until just now.

The best interpretation I saw was that it was a man obsessed with a woman that left him.  He feels conned and ashamed for having been conned.

Update a little while later:

How in the devil did I come up with this?  I read on a blog post that Xtranormal had gone belly up, but I wasn't aware of that.  I made several of those videos in 2011, and one is featured at the top of the page.  As I went through some of those videos, 96 Tears came up and then this song.  I recalled this song, of course, but I never knew what it meant.  So, I looked it up, and voila!  a blog post.

Life and death struggle on a fig

A wasp lays its eggs in a fig while an ant suddenly appears and kills the wasp.

Ain't life grand?  h/t popularmechanics

Liberals are the blind ones blaming you for being blind

Just now perusing the Mahablog again.  Sometimes this woman can almost appear sane, then she loses it.

I once commented from time to time over there, but I was banned.  I've mentioned that story before.

She blamed me for being "in the box" when I wrote about "stepping outside the box".  She accused me of drinking the right wing koolaid.  Perhaps I have my own set of biases, but at least I try to sort through those.

Well, if anybody is drinking any koolaid, it's Maha and her followers.  Of course, she blocked libertarians  who were writing to her, she admitted so; how reminiscent that was of the way in which she blocked me.  The koolaid drinkers just can't debate their ideas openly and honestly.  For if she did, she knows that she would lose, and she cannot bear that.  She is the microcosm of the left.  She pretends to be what she isn't and gets mad when you bring that to her attention.  Like them, she shuts them up and get them fired.  Destroy their opponents, for they cannot honestly debate them.   Defeat her and that brings a furious response.  "Off with their heads" like the Red Queen declaims, as she sips her own brand of koolaid.

She had that story and then she had the story about Iraq.  Sure, even if Bush was wrong to go into Iraq, what kind of sense does it make to leave the Iraqis to the wolves?  We cannot afford it, says she.  Can we afford another 9-11 type attack instead?  The al-Qaeda types are going to have several states thanks to her boy in the White House.  They didn't have ANY when he took over from Bush.  The al Qaeda types brought us 9-11.  So, Obama has them on the run as he claimed in his convention speech in 2012?  That's what he claimed before Benghazi happened mere days later on none other than the anniversary of 9-11.  Those al Qaeda guys seem to have other ideas about who is actually on the run.  They, the liberals, know they were wrong, but needed to cover it up with a claim about a video.

Obama is just pretending to put al Qaeda on the run.  However, there were those on the left said openly that they wanted to lose the War on Terror.  If you lose this war, what happens in the aftermath of that loss?  We may just find out, thanks to them.  They're running the show, but anything bad happens, it's Bush's fault.

Thanks, Maha, for nothing.  I'll keep my head, though, thank you very much.

Pope Francis decries the idolatry of money

via Drudge

The Pope said the economy's flaws had stemmed from humankind's obsession with money.  He said: 'At the centre of all economic systems must be man, man and woman, and everything else must be in service of this man.

'But we have put money at the centre, the god of money.  We have fallen into the sin of idolatry, the idolatry of money.'--- dailymail.co.uk

Couldn't have said it better myself.  In fact, it does seem somewhat familiar...

But I'm no socialist.  However, this Pope...

Socialists like to pretend to serve the people, but they do not.

Practical primitive

This is a site where I read about making clay out of the soil that you have.  This could be an important skill to learn if you are trying to live off the land.  In fact, the site seems dedicated to those who want to live like our ancestors did.

Here's something that should sound familiar to those who read this blog.  This site has a lot of books too.  It is a regular treasure trove for someone like myself who has become interested in this topic.

Signal failures

These are failures to stop without an authority to do so.  The term is used to describe what can happen with trains.  For example, if a train doesn't stop when it should, there probably will be a train wreck.

The term "signal failure" has also been used in reference to events.  I'm a little fuzzy on it because I haven't seen the term used lately.  What I think it means in international events is a failure to recognize danger and heedlessly continuing as if nothing was wrong.

On that last post, I'd say that the bombing of the USS Cole was a signal failure event for the US government.  The signal event spanned two administrations.  The outgoing Clinton administration and the incoming Bush administration both failed to address the event as one of great consequence.  As a result, we saw the 9-11 event.  This was a systemic failure.  It wasn't a partisan failure.  Both parties failed us.  The elites that are running this country failed to realize that the bombing of one of our most advanced ships was an event that could not be ignored.  But it was.

This heedlessness has been building since Vietnam.  The outcome of the war in Vietnam proved one thing if it proved anything at all---- that the US could be beaten in a protracted guerrilla war.  This country will not stick to war like this long enough to get results.  The terrorists of this world took notes and we will see this pattern again and again until such time that this country finally gets it and wins this kind of war decisively.

What I'm saying is that a large terrorist event is now far more likely than before Obama was elected.  But Obama is just part of a pattern, as Bush was.  Nobody is seeing it, that why there is a big danger here.  They're all thinking it's the "other guys", but there's plenty of blame to go around.  There's no accountability in DC, and they are definitely not interested in bringing any of that in.

Iraq falling apart

And the left is blaming Bush for it.  Friggin' typical stuff, people.  This is what you get when you elect a leftist.  Defeatist foreign policy and one debacle after another.  The next debacle could very well be on US soil again, like 9-11.  The left will blame America, as usual.

Will people ever learn?

The GOP doesn't help the people learn either.  They are way, way too accommodating to the left as they usually are.  Get this, they are going to make somebody even worse than Cantor as the new majority leader.  Have these people lost their minds?

Frankly, I don't know what to say about this stuff.  Maybe it really is time to head for the hills!

Update:

This might require a story in order to get the flavor of what's happening.  Remember the bombing of the USS Cole?  That event occurred on Oct 12th, 2000.  In other words, less than a year before 9-11.  Now, the thing I want to bring up was the stock market reaction.,  I was following the markets closely back then, and I remember it well.  The DOW opened at 400 point loss with the news.  The entire day, the market rallied to the unchanged mark.  Now tell me that this insouciance of the markets was not a bad omen.  We are getting a lot of the same kind of reactions to this Iraq situation.

Perhaps it wasn't the best that Bush put the US in there, but once that decision was made, it needed to be seen through to completion and it wasn't.  People need to realize that there are consequences for a failure like this, and the consequences for this failure could well be a very, very bad time ahead.

Of course, nobody will ever figure this out because they won't think for themselves.  They'll believe whatever the left tells them.  It's on TV, so it MUST be true!

Like I said----WTF.

So, money isn't the "mother's milk of politics" after all?

Rush Limbaugh has said it more than once.  He probably hasn't changed his mind, even though he might have without my knowing it since I don't listen very often anymore.  It's very unlikely that Rush changed his mind, so  this article flies right into the face of what Rush said.

Brat’s win is a good illustration of two principles that we should keep in mind when we think about the role of money in politics: Money doesn’t make as big a difference as you think, and if the people who want to get money out of politics succeed, the results might look very different from what they imagine.---Megan McArdle

Brat's win was the exception, not the rule.  As for the immigration angle, Lindsey Graham won.  This article is faulty on both counts.  One win does not make a rule.  McArdle does say that money "helps".  It does more than help.  Who is going to get elected if nobody knows who they are?  What does it take to get someone's name out there?  For example, there was a guy who ran for mayor in Houston that I never heard of before.  A prominent Houstonian, and a wealthy Banker named Ben Love, began an ad campaign to introduce Bill White to Houston,.  Without this, it is doubtful that he ever would have become mayor.

You'll never get me to believe that money doesn't matter in politics.  Money is just about everything, but not everything.  Besides, Rush said it, and he's almost always right.  Cantor's loss was a notable exception to the rule.

Survival rule of 3's

In the end, it's all about staying alive.  You cannot eat your money.  You cannot breathe your money.  You cannot drink your money.  You probably cannot build a shelter with your money.  It is only a medium of exchange.  It's a good thing to have, don't misunderstand.  But it shouldn't be at the core or anyone's existence.  Another way of saying it, you should be able to live without your money.  If you can't, it's too important to you.  Easy for me to say it.  I like my money, too.

In any extreme situation you cannot survive for more than:

3 minutes without air - 3 hours without shelter

3 days without water - 3 weeks without food.--- Administrator

Stepping outside the box

The mind that caused the problem cannot be the mind that solves it.  That's paraphrasing Einstein if I am not mistaken.

In order to step outside the box, you have to learn how to think in terms of concepts and principles.  That's something that is also something of a paraphrasing and a twist of the language just a bit.  The paraphrase comes from an entrepreneur who wrote a book about how to be an entrepreneur.  I read that book, but alas, I did not become an entrepreneur.  Or should I say, not a successful one.  Anyway, the guy said you need to think in terms of concepts.  I added principles to that too.  To put that another way, you have to get on another plane of thinking that goes beyond the mundane.  That's what the man is referring to, in my opinion.  I still have the book somewhere, but it will be hard to find.  I'm not the most organized person around.  Stepping outside the box is getting beyond the mundane, okay?  Got that?

We are too engrossed in our day to day lives that we cannot get beyond the mundane.  But we'd better because the system has gone haywire and we need to get it back in good operating condition.  In order to understand what has gone wrong, you are going to have to get outside the box.

If you want to know why things are on the wrong track

FOLLOW THE MONEY.

Look, this isn't an original idea.  Got it from Ann Barnhardt's story.  She gave up her money to fight this battle.  A little lightbulb went off in my head awhile back.  The left is conquering this country because they continually threaten to take away your money if you don't do what they want.  That's why the rich will never move to save this country.  They can be blackmailed into helping destroy it.  Want an example?  The Ace of Spades blog gives one, but it isn't in the vein that I've just mentioned.  It is how they are "delawyering" conservatives.  Here's how:

A Reuters review of more than 100 court filings during the past year shows that at least 30 of the country's largest firms are representing challengers to state laws banning same-sex marriage. Not a single member of the Am Law 200, a commonly used ranking of the largest U.S. firms by revenue, is defending gay marriage prohibitions.

These numbers and interviews with lawyers on both sides suggest that the legal industry has reached its Mozilla moment. The software company's CEO, Brendan Eich, resigned in April after being denounced by gay marriage supporters for a donation he had made in support of California's since-overturned gay marriage ban. Now in a similar vein, attorneys at major law firms are getting the message that if they want to litigate against gay marriage they should do so elsewhere. ----How Gay Marriage Activists Are Delawyering the Right

It's not an isolated event regarding lawyers only.  They are doing this across the board.  It's a war against your wealth.  The irony is that in order to save it you are going to have to risk losing it.  That's because if they win, they own you and your wealth.  It's your freedom that they are after.  Don't let them have it no matter what they threaten you with.

How?  Learn basic survival tactics and declare a national strike.  Refuse to produce ANYTHING until this war is discontinued.  Starve the beast for funds.  This is not illegal.  That's where Barnhardt went wrong.  A tax strike is illegal.  She lost her wealth because the money power took it away from her.  She might have tried something different that could have gotten better results.  A general strike is more like it.  You are under no obligation to produce an income so that the left can expropriate it for their own use.  A refusal to work isn't illegal.  There is no law saying you have to work for money.

Update:

Another Ace post illustrates the point yet again.  Brat beat Cantor without the help of BIG MONEY.  Even if that money came from National Tea Party.  So, does this mean that the National Tea Party has been co-opted by the BIG MONEY regime?  Could be.

Limbaugh says amnesty not dead

Despite Cantor's loss.

Let me tell you Republicans what you have to lose if you don't get this right, and that's the presidency. That's what you have to lose. Now, maybe they don't care. Maybe all they want is their Senate committee chairmanships. That seems to be one of the prime motivators. I'm not predicting it, but I'm just gonna tell you that I won't be surprised if the behind-the-doors attitude is one of disgust and anger at the people of this country and the voters in Cantor's district and the reaction, "Okay, let's show 'em what's what," and just move this amnesty bill forward.---Limbaugh

The feeling is mutual. Limbaugh says the disconnect is greater than anything he has seen.  It's not GOP v. Democrat, or right v. left, rather it's the rich v. everybody else.  The top echelon of the GOP is run by the rich as it is with the Democrats.  That's so because that's all they care about ---- money.

Limbaugh won't say that because he's rich himself.  He won't break with them.  To break with them would mean to lose his show and there's no way he's ever going to do that.

But I'm not saying Limbaugh is the problem.  But Limbaugh can't be the solution either.  That's because he'd have to risk losing all his money before he could become part of the solution and he isn't going to be able to do that because he loves his money too much.

Polls, polls, and more polls

Obama's job performance hits a new low, says this here poll.  You can probably find a poll that contradicts that.

One of Cantor's internal polls had him up big time, but he lost.

Pollsters can ask what they want and get the results they want.  You have to take polls with a grain of salt.

Actually, for Obama to have a poll number greater than zero is a bit troubling, but I repeat myself too much.

A little music to match the mood


lyrics English:
In a tavern of old London
Where were foreigners
Our voice riddled with joy rose from the shadows
And we listened to our hearts sing

It was the time of flower
Was unknown fear
The aftermath had a taste of honey
Your arm took my arm
Your voice followed my voice
We were young and we thought the sky
La, la, la ...

And then came the days of fog
With strange noises and crying
How I spent moonless nights
A look tavern in my heart

Just as in the time of flowers
Where people lived without fear
Where every day was a taste of honey
Your arm took my arm
Your voice followed my voice
We were young and we thought the sky
La, la, la ......

I imagined chasing the mist
I thought I could turn back time
And I invented moonlight
Where we both sang as before

La, la, la ..
Your arm took my arm
Your voice followed my voice
We were young and we thought the sky
La, la, la ......
We were young and we thought the sky

And tonight I'm at the door
The tavern where you will not come over
And the song brings me the night
My heart already no longer recognizes

It was the time of flower
Was unknown fear
The aftermath was a taste of honey
Your arm took my arm
Your voice followed my voice
We were young and we thought the sky
La la la ...

Original song those were the days lyrics:
Once upon a time, there was a tavern
Where we used to raise a glass or two
Remember how we laughed away the hours,
Think of all the great things we would do

Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we'd choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way

Di di di di di di
Di di di di di di
Di di di di di di di di di di

Then, the busy years went rushing by us
We lost our starry notions on the way
If, by chance, I'd see you in the tavern,
We'd smile at one another and we'd say

Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we'd choose
We'd fight and never lose
Those were the days, oh yes, those were the days

Di di di di di di
Di di di di di di
Di di di di di di di di di di

Just tonight, I stood before the tavern
Nothing seemed the way it used to be
In the glass, I saw a strange reflection
Was that lonely woman really me?

Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we'd choose
We'd fight and never lose
Those were the days, oh yes, those were the days

Di di di di di di
Di di di di di di
Di di di di di di di di di di
Di di di di di di
Di di di di di di
Di di di di di di di di di di

Through the door, there came familiar laughter
I saw your face and heard you call my name
Oh, my friend, we're older but no wiser
For in our hearts, the dreams are still the same

Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we'd choose
We'd fight and never lose
Those were the days, oh yes, those were the days

Di di di di di di
Di di di di di di
Di di di di di di di di di di
Di di di di di di
Di di di di di di
Di di di di di di di di di di

La la la la la la
La la la la la la
La la la la la la

Perspective on Bergdahl deal from a former POW

Exposes Obama's rhetoric as false

Another Administration’s spin on the Bergdahl trade is that America’s policy is to “leave no man behind.” Balderdash! We left men behind in WWII who were taken by the Russians to the gulags in the Soviet Union. We left men behind in the Korean War, as we did in the Vietnam, Gulf and Iraq Wars.--- Michael Benge

Benge points out that they are leaving somebody behind in Afghanistan too.

On the other hand, Lindsey Graham won

After sorting through some of the analysis of Brat's win v Cantor, it doesn't look like a clear Tea Party win.  Lindsey Graham won in South Carolina.  If there was anybody who should have gone home to retire, it was this guy.

Maybe it's the man, not the party.  Dislike Graham if you want, but he must have been a smarter politician than Cantor.  Or perhaps there is another explanation.  Maybe Team Obama wanted Cantor out so that they can run on immigration.  Team Obama wants to divide the country according to race.  It's all about race with the Democrats, but they'll say that about the GOP.

If the GOP lets Obama get away with that, they may lose the House after all.

Not that it matters all that much.  Neither party supports the people anyway.

A small patch of blue

In a cloud filled sky.  Cantor loses in Virginia.  He lost even though he outspent his rival 5 to 1.

Brat teaches at Randolph-Macon College, a small liberal arts school north of Richmond. He raised just over $200,000 for his campaign, while Cantor spent more than $1 million in April and May alone to try to beat back his challenge.--- AP

If the GOP holds the House, there will be a new majority leader in Congress, as Cantor will now be gone.

Maybe the Davids really can beat the Goliaths.  But that's not the way to bet.  ( Paraphrasing Murphy's Law)

About this Remnant

That's also a familiar term.  I saw Bill Whittle use it once--- it was either a blog post or a video.  Sorry, I can't remember which.  Barnhardt has a post up about the Remnant.  Maybe Whittle got it from Barnhardt?

I'm not going to worry if I'm in the remnant or not.

She linked to her economic series on Youtube.  Frankly, it is too long.  Somebody claimed that it was too short or left out something.  Look, I only got as far as money.

Money is nothing but a medium of exchange.  That's all that it is.  She turns it into something more complex.  That's where she lost me.  Does that mean I'm stupid?  I think not.  I know what money is.  Evidently, she is too "civilized".  A ten year knows what money is.  You don't need that much complexity.

I also question her reason why the system must implode.  Not saying that it will or it won't.  I'm thinking it will, but so far it hasn't.  Maybe there's something I don't know.  The truth is slippery.

What's the worse that can happen?  Everybody could go bankrupt.  So what.  Germany got bombed into smithereens, yet it was rebuilt.  Now, if everybody went broke, we could start over.  Frankly, I don't think our problems are with the monetary system.  Not that the monetary system is okay, which I don't believe it to be.  We could survive that kind of collapse.  The real collapse is in the people itself.

On that account, we could be in a lot of trouble.  But it is one thing that is hard to see because the changes take a long time.  Just in my lifetime, I have seen the downward trend in the culture.  There was school prayer.  Take that away in 1963, and now we've got same sex marriage fifty years later.  If you predicted that the ending of school prayer would lead to homosexual marriage and they'd a said you were paranoid.  But look what happened.  What will be the case in 50 years?  I shudder to think.  But if I predicted that it would lead to a societal collapse, they'll say I'm paranoid.

You ain't paranoid if it really does happen.

The Remnant could be anybody.  If nobody knows who the Remnant is, then why worry about it?  I think Barnhardt worries about it.  She thinks she's preaching to it.  Maybe she is and maybe she isn't.  Maybe she's in it and maybe she isn't.  But she sure is sure that she is.

There is a way to do this

Can you get money out of politics? Sure. You could have a constitutional convention, and literally prohibit money in politics. But are people really serious about doing that? Probably not. As for conservatives, do any of them really believe that the current political trajectory is going to be altered in any other way? Why not have the con con, and just go ahead and find out. What do you have to lose?

How Bush Beat Kerry In 2004 – Dick Morris TV: History Video!

How Bush Beat Kerry In 2004 – Dick Morris TV: History Video!



This is rather fascinating, especially at the end where Morris says that the Democrats were trying to influence the outcomes of the states further west.  They were doing this with a flawed exit poll, which asserted that Kerry had won.  Morris points this out at the very end of the video.



Now, correlate this with the early call of Florida in 2000.  Was this done so as to influence voting in the western states?  In other words, since Gore won the popular vote, could it have been the other way around if Florida had not been called early like it was?  Could it have made that much of a difference?  I say yes it could have and probably did.



For if Gore had lost the popular vote, he couldn't have contested Florida like he did.  He needed that early call, and I think that is why he got it.  They tried to repeat this in 2004, but it didn't work.  I said so in my original blog back in 2004.  Very proud of that.

Putting things together ( repost )

NOTE:

Why do you suppose that people just don't get it?  It's the love of money, especially of those at the top, that is going to bring us all down.  We cannot go forward with new technologies because of what I dubbed as the Tiberius Syndrome.  What the syndrome is exemplified by what what the Emperor Tiberius did to an inventor who brought to him an new way to mine aluminum, which was a threat to Tiberius' fortunes.  Tiberius had the man beheaded.  Do you see?  What we have been taught is that if you invent a new and better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door.  But the Tiberius Syndrome ends all that.  Henceforth, there shall no such thing as the better mousetrap theory.  New ways of doing things will be suppressed in favor of the old ways because the old ways are what keeps the rich guys rich.  Consequently, we end up fighting wars of decreasing resources that should never be.  

How to get back to where we once were?  Stop worshipping the money-God.  This is how the Tiberiuses of the world keep us in chains.



The original post follows:

This blog is an intellectual exercise, if nothing else.  It hasn't been a commercial enterprise, but that would be nice if it could support itself.  But it doesn't, alas.

There are over 3100 posts now and the blog is reasonably organized.  If anyone wanted an answer to a question, it could be found, I would hope.

I do this myself in order to test that.  For example, I remember reading about envy.  So, I wanted to find this again.  How to do that?  I put the word "envy" in the search box at the top of the page and the top post from the search produced this post.   This post was fascinating for me to read.  I hope that others may have had the same experience.  Now, if you wanted to, you could do the counterpart to that with "Tiberius" as the search word.  This produced another concept which I think is important if one wants to understand where we are, meaning the human race.

There's a theory percolating that I want to explore further: so I put in "Us v Them" in the search box.  It returned this post at the top.   I fear that this mentality could destroy us all.  It's part of what I wanted to communicate with this blog.  There are solutions to problems, but I suspect that the Us v Them approach is not a constructive way to solve problems.  It's not the 99% v the 1%.  There's plenty of blame to go around.  I figure that envy is a problem for the 99%, while the Tiberius syndrone is a problem for the 1%.  The refusal to recognize each one's part in the problem will not get us to a solution.  Instead it will lead to strife and an unsatisfactory outcome.


There's a question that pops up from time to time when a new technology is being discussed.  The question goes something like this:  "If it is so good, why isn't it being done?"  I think the answer to that question has been provided here in this blog, provided that an answer is really desired.  I suspect that the question is being posed as a way to discredit new ideas.  A sort of Tiberius syndrome attitude.  The question presumes that we live in a perfect world   It should be obvious that this isn't the case.

This blog isn't about despair, but at times, it can be discouraging.

Obama's War on America

That is a phrase I'm noticing more and more on Barnhardt's site.  It seemed familiar to me, so I looked it up on this blog.  Yes, that phrase was used on this blog right here.

What I meant by the phrase is probably more a war on what has been traditional America.  But Barnhardt takes it further.  She has a lot to say about how modern AMERICAN missiles got into the hands of the Taliban.  How those missiles have already been used on Americans and the intention to use them in the future.

I speculated in another post that part of the reason that no help was given in Benghazi was the fear that these manpads would be used in downing American aircraft.  Obama just couldn't afford to have that happen right in the middle of an election season.  So he stood down our forces, including a Spectre gunship that could have ended the attack on the spot.  There were two deployed in the region just prior to the attack.

Actually what she is saying now isn't too far from what I suspected when this guy ran for President back in 2008.  Why would people vote for a guy with an Islamic name?  Because they have been browbeaten into rejecting their own common sense, and therefore will vote for the guy because they don't want to appear racist.

My opposition was partly based upon the suspicion that Obama could be a Trojan horse.  Barnhardt is saying that explicitly.  If she's right, Obama will have to be ousted from the office by force, just as she has been saying.

But also according to what she has been saying, there's nobody up to the job of doing that.  Nobody will do anything, especially the people in office who are supposed to be guarding the Constitution and the country.
Those in office won't do it because they love their money too much.  They have bowed down and are worshipping the money-God.   BTW, I got that idea from Barhardt, too.

Will force be necessary, or can another way be found?  Going off the grid could be an alternative.  Or perhaps not.

Machines getting smart

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2361220/computer-said-to-pass-turing-test-by-posing-as-a-teenager.html

When do we see terminators?

Town rat, country rat equal Codevilla's ruling class and country class

It is amusing to compare that Aesop fable to the ruling class and the country class that Codevilla wrote about.  The ruling class controls the money.  The country class would simply like the country to succeed, but the ruling class isn't interested in what the country class wants.

You can also see the comparison with Hank Williams Jr.'s song A country boy can survive.

Town-rat country-rat has a long history.

Update:

This fits in with my series about going off the grid, but I won't make it a part of the series because I have a post on it early on in the series.

Where does that power come from?

As I read this article about the rising progressive clerisy, I ask:  where did they get all that power?  The article says that this clerisy has good relations with "... the power structure in Washington, Silicon Valley, Hollywood and Wall Street. …".  In other words, money and government.  Both of which boils down to money.  Their power comes from money.  As for the clerisy itself, it is "An alliance of upper level bureaucrats and cultural elites".  They are one and the same.

Update:

The progressives blamed Bush for everything, including 9-11.  But for a few years there, during the Bush Era, there seemed to be some sanity.  If I may, let me state what I think happened.  During the Clinton years, the nation's security (and economy) was undermined and this set the stage for 9-11.  Then Bush assumed office and 9-11 happened.  For a brief time, the country was with Bush, but the "clerisy" began to undermine him.  Finally, his political support collapsed and then there was the economic meltdown.  The economic meltdown guaranteed Obama's presidency.  What caused the economic meltdown?  Policies that were enacted during the Clinton years.  Those policies enabled easy mortgages to people who couldn't pay them back.  This led to the credit crunch that brought on the Great Recession.  In other words, the "clerisy" blamed Bush for what was in fact, their own fault.  Now that this blame-shifting has succeeded, they are bringing on the next crisis, which they will blame on others once again.  Bottom line: there is no accountability for the clerisy because they control the culture.

Love of money is the root of all evil

Message:

The fiat money regime must fail and the failure will be epic.

Published on Zero Hedge (http://www.zerohedge.com)

Home > The Madness Of Crowds And The Great Insanity

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The Madness Of Crowds And The Great Insanity

By Tyler Durden

Created 06/07/2014 - 20:32

The central banks have created moral hazard on a scale which is simply unbelievable and set a stage for a bonfire of the vanities seldom, if ever, seen in history. Professional Investors who have spent a lifetime playing these contrarian opportunities offered by human behavior are being carried out on stretchers as historic market behaviors fail to materialize. "Never in my 30+ year career as a market observer have I seen so many out on a limb which is about to be sawed off." Those who live within the matrix are fully loaded for a recovery which is not and will not appear. But when the leverage fails, the world's developed economies will be thrust into the next leg of the cleansing process of deleveraging and the destruction of it will be equally bigger. This conclusion is firmly on the horizon; let's call it the great insanity.

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Source URL: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-07/madness-crowds-and-great-insanity

American Thinker: 'The City of Covetousness'

It is written that the totality of the Law and the Prophets is contained within the following: to love the Lord God with an unwavering zeal and to hold the love of one's fellow men in similar, albeit lesser esteem.

Charlton Heston, where art thou?

Upon further review...

On one of yesterday's posts, I rated the purchase of the property in W. Texas as 50-50 probability.  I can't say if the odds have changed, but something has changed.  The more I look into this, the more I see the risks.  The risks have to be managed and that will require further study.

The main risk here is financial.  At my age, I cannot afford a screw up.  It would be hard, if not impossible to recover from a ruinous mistake.  The financials of this deal look iffy, to put it mildly.

Surviving on the land may not be the biggest problem, oddly enough.

Lost in Space

Two part series written by Eric Berger of the Houston Chronicle--- aka The Science Guy.

There's a Russian troll in the comment section.  Nice fella  /sarc.

Danger, Will Robinson!

Average weather for Marfa Texas and other places

How's the weather in West Texas?  Surprising data here.  I've heard of a drought out there.  Sure enough, there hasn't been much rain.  When it does fall, there seems to be a lot more than expected.  In other words, the averages aren't very useful.  Feast or famine.

• Marfa
• Alpine
• Sierra Blanca
• Van Horn

Next Big Future: Bussard EMC2 Fusion Project Publishes on Arxiv Wit...

Next Big Future: Bussard EMC2 Fusion Project Publishes on Arxiv Wit...: EMC2 Fusion reports experimental results validating the concept that plasma confinement is enhanced in a magnetic cusp configuration when b...

comment:

I've been kinda sorta watching Polywell for at least 7 years.  As with everything else that seems promising, it gets little support.

No man can serve two masters

Free Republic

"The Key to Failure"--- you can't please everyone.  As Sam Houston once said --- do right and face the consequences.

Jedi mind-trick

Move along!  That's the subliminal message the left is putting out now about this Bergdahl thing.

• When Will Fury Start to Grow Over Growing Fury?  --- It's all so crazy that I'm just bored, says he.
• Obama is bored too, that's why they sympathize with him.
•  One fella used to have something called the Outrage of the Day, but it bored him so much that he quit.

Maybe they're bored cause they know nothing is going to happen to them over this.  Nothing to see here, move along!