We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Got home too late last nite to accumulate the usual stack or to peruse all the links sent to my inbox.Mechanical flight delays. Isn't air travel fun?Try amusing yourself sometime for 8 hours in the Columbus airport while remaining sober in a cigar-free zone with nothing but fat women to look at and no laptop. Like jail. Got frisked, too. The rest of my family drove home quicker than I flew home to Yankeeland.
BD's in the delightful midwestern hamlet of Ohio this weekend, so I'll be doing today's morning links. He didn't tell me where he was going, but I'm guessing it's that big Two-Seed-In-The-Spirit Predestinarian Baptist revival they're having when they ordain the new ministers. Given all the pomp and circumstance, I think you'll admit, a two-day visit would be hard to turn down.
Interesting News
In the old days, an article on how to avoid an IRS audit would be titled, "How To Avoid An IRS Audit".
Much like drone technology and printed guns, Glass will be used in both directions, good and bad. A number of casinos and bars have already banned them — and they're not even on the market yet. At some point, sure enough some Congressman is going to have his career ruined because someone innocently wearing Glass accidentally caught him using a hideous, derogatory word like macaca. It was on YouTube a minute later and that was that.
On the other hand, picture a fireman fighting inside a massive blaze and having his Glass direct him to the room the children are cowering in. So it'll be interesting to see what springs forth.
I mentioned in my little diatribe on marijuana that, while D.C. Congress has been dragging its feet, individual states have been taking the initiative.
Individual states like the one D.C. Congress is actually in:
The movement to legalize marijuana has arrived at Congress' back door.
Later this month the first medical cannabis dispensaries are expected to open in the nation's capital, including one just eight blocks from the Capitol dome.
Which isn't to say that D.C. is the only one joining in the fun:
For two decades, progressives have castigated those questioning global warming as "deniers."
But the Economist, once firmly in the alarmist camp, recently acknowledged that global temperatures have remained stagnant for 15 years even as greenhouse-gas emissions have soared.
This may be because existing models have overestimated the planet's sensitivity. Or because the heat generated is sinking to the ocean bottom. Or because of something else completely.
How should a scientifically inclined liberal react to this trend? By inhaling deeply and backing off on economy-busting mitigation measures till science offers clearer answers.
And how have liberals reacted? By sticking their fingers in their ears and chanting la-la-la.
Uh-yup. We've shown this over and over again on this site. Even when these same great scientific minds claim that global colding is the real menace here, they turn a blind eye and continue their hearty endeavors.
Under the heading of "Damn!", I was hoping the new Star Trek 'prequel' would be as good as the first. But it ain't worth dogshit according to this reviewer:
On the other end of the spectrum, I thought 'Django Unchained' was the best movie I'd seen in a year. I'll do a review on it sometime. There's an interesting connection to make between it and 'Blazing Saddles'. Any guesses?
On the 'NCIS' front, I watched the last five episodes of the season the other day. I sat there petrified the entire time, worrying that they'd dig up (not literally this time) good ol' Pedro Hernandez — Gibbs' nemesis from his NIS past. They did, but thankfully moved on, and I was left just as bewildered at the end as anyone.
One thing I didn't think through were the other three team members. I would have half-figured they'd picked their badges back up when Gibbs went rogue (?), but the article indicates that they held true and resigned en masse, so we should get some interesting background stories about their 4-month escapades this fall. There's a recent interview with Mark Harmon here.
I have a number of articles about this great show here.
Political News
Politically, I thought the most touchingly poignant moment of the week was when renown historian James Douglas Muir Leno recalled the Obama early years and our fondness for Joe Biden at the time, and how sad it is how V.P. Biden's glory has faded over the years.
We all remember how presidential candidate Barack Obama promised that his government would be the 'most transparent' in history.
Well, while there have been a few instances in recent years where it could be argued that total transparency was not forthcoming, here we are on the edge of three major political scandals where transparency must be forthcoming: the IRS targeting the Tea Party and specific Republican donors, the Justice Department illegally wiretapping AP reporters, and the shame of Benghazi and claiming the violence was merely a YouTube video review gone bad, a story they perpetrated for three weeks.
But there's good news on the horizon.
Because, with the incredible public scrutiny these stories are garnering — at least, after the press, itself, was targeted — it seems fairly obvious that key players like Department of Justice head Eric Holder and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney will open up to the American public and finally tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help them God.
Here's Mr. Holder finally putting to rest some of the key questions that arose at the recent congressional hearing:
Mr. Carney also elaborated on a number of details in a stalwart effort to clean the slate:
What's that? You think they seemed a bit "evasive"?
You're obviously missing the point.
Compared to the past five years, this is being transparent!
The only thing new about Obamacare is its mandatory nature, its lack of choice, and its one-size-fits-all. It's antiquated thinking, like subsidizing mandatory buggy whips.
Government programs like this inhibit change, innovation, flexibility, and creativity, and hand control to government bureaucrats. When Prof. Mead discusses evolving alternatives to the old fee-for-service model of primary care, he might be forgetting that Obamacare has set it in stone just as Medicare did for the over-65.
Left alone, medical care would evolve according to markets and peoples' choices. As we have surmised before, Obamacare was designed to fail and to bring in single payer, also a blast from the past which would inhibit innovation.
For some reason, these guys never followed up on all the stories about Obama hanging out in gay bars in Chicago. Not that there's anything wrong with that...
The Feds are always eager to stick their hands into places where they do not belong. I disagree with Mead that the intentions are good, but I agree that it's a nutty idea. For one thing, college is not job training. For another, the data would be meaningless.
By the way, what is Rubio's name doing on this idea?
For five years, this president has been making the case that a growing and activist government has good intentions and can carry these intentions out with competence. Conservatives have warned that government is dangerous, and even good intentions get bungled in the execution. In different ways, the IRS uproar, the Justice Department leak investigations, the Benghazi tragedy and the misleading attempts to explain it, and the growing problems with implementation of health care reform all bolster the conservative worldview.
As you've no doubt heard, despite mankind's best efforts to fight off the peril of Natural Global Colding, at this point the relentless advance of ice continues:
BISMARCK, ND (AP) Mrs. Emma Dodson of Flatbush simply doesn't understand. "I gave to them Greenpeace folks over and over agin' and they said they'd take care of ever'thin'!," she exclaimed.
Despite such claims, the impending menace of global colding is right now happening in our own back yard as the relentless wall of ice advances. Below is a video as the Schwartz family of Flatbush gives their beloved home a final farewell. "I just can't believe it," said Mr. Schwartz. "I gave a buncha money to them Sierra Club folks and they promised me they'd fix the dang thing!"
Despite such claims, the video evidence simply cannot be refuted. Viewer discretion is advised.
Here, now, is the peril that you, too, will one day face.
And, given that this allows anyone with access to a 3-D printer the ability to produce a lethal, non-detectable weapon, it's no surprise that people are wondering Should Congress Impose a Ban on 3D Printed Guns?
Well! You can bet the conservative blog sites didn't take too kindly to that. After all, the word "gun" is involved, which means it's a good thing — whatever the actual specific subject is.
Speaking for all of right-wing blogdom, here's Mary Katharine Ham from Hot Air:
...are the ways liberals are already dreaming up to thwart the 3-D gun.
Because, as everyone knows, anyone who opposes any aspect of guns is a dirty, rotten, scumdog liberal.
The battle over these plans touches on the Second Amendment, of course
Because, as everyone knows, what the Second Amendment is really saying is that every American has an equal right to kill any other American.
but the distribution of 3-D printing plans is a First Amendment issue
In other words, if I want to post plans on how to produce a dirty nuclear bomb in the comfort of your own kitchen, that's a First Amendment issue??
John in the comments enhanced the point:
It should also be noted that this isn't what is commonly referred to as a "gun control" issue, because those guns are detectable. A lethal, non-detectable weapon more properly comes under the heading of 'public safety', like your dirty bomb scenario.
Which is how the bloggers are viewing it, as just another gun control issue. But it's clearly not.
As long-time readers of this site know, I'm famous notorious for reducing complex issues down to a single question or two, and this subject is no different.
1. Would you trust your family's health to a printed plastic gun?
2. Okay, then who would use these things?
I can tell you who wouldn't:
— You, because, come that desperate moment, you're going to want a good, solid metal gun that you know will work.
— Me, because as much as the average geek would love to play with the technology, the exorbitant price of the printer puts it far out of reach.
— Common criminals, because the store owner they're trying to rob would just laugh in their face.
And who does that leave?
Really bad guys.
Bad guys who will somehow get hold of a 3-D printer because they desperately need a gun that evades metal detectors.
You know. Those types of bad guys.
As of last Friday, the CAD (Computer-Assisted Drawing) file had been downloaded over 100,000 times. In typical Internet fashion, it was on such notorious pirate sites as Pirate Bay by the time the boys from State pulled on their pants that morning, so removing it from the home site obviously didn't do much good at that point.
Nor can you blame the guy, as he's been publicly working on it for over a year, so the Feds certainly had plenty of advance notice. And he certainly wasn't the only one tinkering with the idea. His was just the first to successfully fire a bullet without also blowing off the hand of the shooter.
So, it's kind of a sticky wicket, isn't it? It appears to boil down to that old confrontation, principle versus practicality. If we assume this is, by far, a bigger boon to airline hijackers than common homeowners, then the right-wing bloggers are standing by the principle that all guns, no matter what the situation, are good.
My question is, is that really what conservatism is all about?
Big storms are on the horizon, headed towards Washington DC.
The mainstream media, after over five years of protecting, insulating, glorifying, romanticizing Obama and his administration, is beginning to realize that, if they continue on that same path, they will be left behind. With the MSM running interference for the admin., perhaps they felt invulnerable in Washington.
I recall Michelle Obama once bragging about that. No longer. Now the election is over.
I suspect the MSM and talking heads feel torn between doing their job and protecting their political hero and Leftist ambitions in general. Probably many Dems in Washington are feeling the same way this week.
This administration is dead in the water, will need to be towed to harbor, will not recover even with MSM help. Too many problems, with maybe more to come, and the MSM has already focused on constructing a Hillary narrative as the next savior.
But how likely is it that Americans would elect two Chicago Alinskyites in a row?
Only gummint could be this stupid. Last I heard, Spotted Owl is just a subspecies of Barred Owl. So they are killing the Barred Owls? I like Barred Owls.
We are seeing the greatest wave of economic transition since the mechanization of agriculture reduced the percentage of the labor force engaged in farming from more than half the American labor force in 1890 to less than two percent today.
On Jan, 25, 2012, the criteria for flagging suspect groups was changed to, "political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform/movement," the report says.
So, by implication those who still believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are if not enemies of the US, then certainly subject to far more scrutiny by the country's tax collectors?
Educating on the Constitution seems very dangerous. Subversive. The populace can not be trusted to read it because they won't understand that it doesn't mean what it says. Something like that.
The IRS never got to auditing Maggie's Farm's accounts as far as I know. Whew. Under the radar. We're just a bird-watching site, anyway. We hide our vast advertising income in the Caymans, like everybody else, and it is delivered to the contributors to Swiss accounts, in gold bullion carried on private sailboats to the port at Zurich and thence by courier to our private bank.
Posting for Maggie's is a good, tax-free gig if you don't mind spending the income overseas. But who would mind doing that, as long as it's done quietly at the craps tables in Monte Carlo?
Going after the Jews too? To get serious for a moment, political corruption of the IRS is about as bad as it gets in America. Criminal at the least. Not funny.Heads must roll for this. I will assume that smart lawyers are on top of this already because it is an outrageous abuse of power in a free country.
Unlike Watergate, an unremarkable political dirty trick with a dumb and unnecessary White House cover-up (if a handful of people had been fired it would have been a big nothing), in this case American public servants died seemingly because of State Dept and possibly White House incompetence or indifference, and both may have been complicit in an attempted cover-up a few weeks before a national election. Possibly the CIA too. People have been intimidated about speaking out, but maybe no longer.
If this is the way it smells, this is a big problem for Washington. One more from Jim Hoft:
In a week in which the IRS finally admits that they were harassing Conservative organizations prior to the elections, the administration is looking terribly corrupt. Whatever happens, I think this Chicago administration has blown itself up and lost whatever credibility it ever had. Plus, with the low-life Putin making John Kerry wait three hours to meet with him, it's looking sort of pitiful too.
Buddy suggested that I add the tar and feathers image to this post. Seems right.Even though we disagree with the administration on most policies, we take no pleasure in seeing our USgovt in this position.An embarassment for all of us. Respect must be earned, and these people thought they could easily fool us low-information citizens.
Benghazi occurred seven weeks before election day. The administration's strategy was simple: Downplay the terror attack, change the narrative, and run out the clock. And that's what it did.
But now the dam has burst. Carney's "here at the White House" comment has essentially thrown Clinton under the bus. Republicans, who leaked the edited emails to Karl and Hayes, have succeeded on two fronts: They've got the administration on the defensive over Benghazi, and they've weakened the Democrat's most formidable 2016 candidate.
I think Peggy Noonan has it right: The Inconvenient Truth About Benghazi - Did the Obama administration's politically expedient story cost American lives?
I hate bubbles. I am 100% out of equities right now. My self-directed IRA. Market is just floating on hot air. Just my humble opinion, of course. Time will tell whether I was lucky or unlucky.
What sorts of nervous nellys would worry about a little warmth anyway? Myself, I worry constantly about the coming Ice Age.Visions of an advancing glacier towering over ye olde cabin.It keeps me up at night.The science is definite on this.It's just a matter of time.
Hillary Clinton has been an utter disaster as Secretary of State. Syria
is awash in mass murder, chemical weapons, and Iranian missiles. Egypt
is under the control of the Nazi-esque Muslim Brotherhood. Libya is a
cauldron of terrorist activity. And Iran has -- or is about to --
acquire nuclear weapons. At the same time, North Korea and the People's
Republic of China are seemingly at a tipping point.
Maybe some guy on the internet will break it eventually. But you realize Woodward and Bernstein became Woodward and Bernstein because what they did to Nixon. The key thing in that equation was Nixon. You had a free rein on him.
You can't go after this guy. You won't get Woodward and Bernstein status. You’ll be out of the game. If you’re the one who brings down Barack Obama, you will be out of the game. And if you go after Hillary, who’s going to run the next eight years, you’ll be more out of the game. So, in this case, it’s, you know, it's not going to happen. The press isn't going to dig on on this.
The Indians came here from somewhere else too, Mongolia or something, and totally screwed up the ecology, killed off all of the big animalsand set fires to the prairies
Got home too late last nite to accumulate the usual stack or to peruse all the links sent to my inbox. Mechanical flight delays. Isn't air travel fun? Try amusing yourself sometime for 8 hours in the Columbus airport while remaining sober in a cigar-free zone with nothing but fat women to look at and no laptop. Like jail. Got frisked, too. The rest of my family drove home quicker than I flew home to Yankeeland.
BD's in the delightful midwestern hamlet of Ohio this weekend, so I'll be doing today's morning links. He didn't tell me where he was going, but I'm guessing it's that big Two-Seed-In-The-Spirit Predestinarian Baptist revival they're having when they ordain the new ministers. Given all the pomp and circumstance, I think you'll admit, a two-day visit would be hard to turn down.
3-D printed dress, 
Well, you might have been wondering about 
Big storms are on the horizon, headed towards Washington DC.
It is, indeed, looking much worse than Watergate. 
23 
Hollywood "Script Evaluators" Now Being