Immigration

A newly-elected state senator,Kent Lambert will be introducing an Arizona 1070-type bill in the upcoming session. I applaud the sentiment, although I have doubts it will get very far. The senate here is still controlled by the Dems, and the new Governor is the former mayor of a sanctuary city.

Still, it won't hurt to call your Senator, as soon as the new batch gets seated, and ask for their support on this.

Thanksgiving

Stuff your gut with tons of food,
Then collapse while muscles pound.
Don't say Thanksgiving is the reason,
You eat this way all year 'round.

Mad Magazine, late 50's

Mad Magazine, a major literary influence on many of us when we were impressionable kids, published the above bit of doggerel as part of a longer piece, sort of a set of calendar headings, minus the actual calendar. Today I remember only two of them, October and November. The rest must have been less inspiring.

The Decline of Western Civilization

Or as goes Egypt, so goes everybody else. Found this piece at Sandmonkey some time back, and just re-discovered it.

I for one think it’s the worst thing that ever happend to us, because it deprived us of a whole generation of “Old wise men”. You see, men go through life thinking with their penis, and when they hit a certain age where their “drill sargent” doesn’t “stand at attention”, they start using their other brain, you know, the one above their necks. That’s why we used to have old wise men to counsel us; and now we have Viagra dads.

The drug that destroys the wise men whom we used to rely on for leadership and, well, wisdom.

Sandmonkey is a great source of observed wisdom about the middle east.

North v South

Before the dustup starts, here are the pre-game statistics.
Found at conservativerefocus.com

Not mentioned here are artillery tubes. I have been led to believe that the Norks have a large number of them, dug in to hardened positions, and many of them aimed at Seoul.

Be a shame if some of those 63 subs started not coming back from missions though.

All The World Is Crazy...

Saving only Thee and Me, and of thee I have some misgivings. As the saying goes.

I'm sure you've all seen the article decrying that one in five of American citizens has a mental disorder. Of course when you read the article, it turns out the definition of "mental disorder" is pretty darn broad, to the point you wonder how anyone escapes the stigma.

Now here's a study that gets a bit more narrowly focused, specifically on sociopathy.

…Four percent of the global population is made up of sociopaths, Dr. Martha Stout, psychologist and clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, tells us in her book "The Sociopath Next Door." That means one out of every 25 human beings has no conscience, no sense of right or wrong, no empathy, no ability to understand emotion – no soul. Worse, while they can mimic emotion, they see other humans as mere pawns or saps, to be used for their benefit or amusement, or both. Add that to the fact that science now is questioning whether there is any difference at all between sociopaths and psychopaths, and that those with narcissistic personality disorder also have some of the same characteristics (an inability to care about anyone but themselves), it means that "evil" is all around us, even at work…

There's a support group for people like this. To join, look in the phone book under "Government"

H/T RKBA DUF Daily mailing.

Getting On The List

As easy as it is to get on to a government "list" of suspect people, I would think that anyone who hasn't by now has no call at all to call himself a "free thinker", or whatever people who disagree with the government call themselves nowadays.

Reputedly, a memo has come down, from J-Nap herself stating:

It labels any person who “interferes” with TSA airport security screening procedure protocol and operations by actively objecting to the established screening process, “including but not limited to the anticipated national opt-out day” as a “domestic extremist.” The label is then broadened to include “any person, group or alternative media source” that actively objects to, causes others to object to, supports and/or elicits support for anyone who engages in such travel disruptions at U.S. airports in response to the enhanced security procedures.

So quit complaining, drop your pants, and do the antler dance* through the gate.

*An SNL reference. Look it up.

I Was Right

Since forever I've been telling people that they should let their kids go out and play in the dirt. In the case of very young kids, this will likely include ingesting some of it. My position is that the immune system is like any other system in that you either use it or you lose it, which manifests itself in the form of asthma and other diseases of the habitually sterile.

Now there's a research study from Australia suggesting that a bacteria commonly found in dirt can actually make you smarter as well.

Little girl: "Have one of these cookies I just baked."

Little boy:" This cookie tastes like dried mud."

Older child, to boy: "See, you're getting smarter."


H/T to Bayou Renaissance Man for this one. The rest of his article describes a technique from Africa to 'replant the garden' as it were, of a depleted supply of intestinal flora.

Global Warming

Scientific American has run a survey on global warming among its readers.

Most of them think it's bunk.

The survey has disappeared from S.A.'s pages, but it's here.

Gun Fun 5

If you could only have one gun, and you wanted to be sure it was the right gun for everything from plinking tin cans to dealing with rabid zombie elephants on crack, what would you choose.

Stymied? Fret no more, Smith and Wesson has the answer to your problem here.
Click the link and get the whole skinny. Then go get your eyes checked.

Turkey Day

Here's a bunch of Mad Scientists out to cook a turkey in record short time. 30 seconds to be exact.

And what do you know? Parts of the bird were, in fact, edible. It's important to know just how much thermite to use.

Korea

So the North Koreans shelled a South Korean island, for no apparent reason and are declaring this to be a great victory. As there is no actual response from the South, I guess it is. The usual reason for the irregular fits of childlike behavior from the Norks is that they're out of food and/or fuel. The multi-nation conference that inevitably follows such an outrage usually ends with the Norks promising not to do whatever it was again without provocation, and everybody else giving them large quantities of food and fuel.

In the somewhat further distant past, having your neighbor lob artillery shells over your border was the clarion call to call up your reserves and break out the plans for rectification of the border. I distinctly remember the ROK marines in Viet-Nam as being among the baddest bears in the woods there to the point that the Cong went out of their way to avoid them.

The current leadership in South Korea has announced official outrage and has promised quick and harsh retribution.

If the North does this again.

The current leadership in the South is evidently not an ex-ROK marine.

Constitutional Amendment

Yet another one is proposed, and to make sure it goes nowhere, it's being proposed in the lame-duck session. This one would allow the states to repeal federal legislation bu having 2/3 of the state legislatures pass a resolution calling for the repeal of the legislation in question.

The proposed amendment reads: “Any provision of law or regulation of the United States may be repealed by the several states, and such repeal shall be effective when the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states approve resolutions for this purpose that particularly describe the same provision or provisions of law or regulation to be repealed.”

This one is particularly innocuous in that getting 2/3 of the state legislatures to agree that the sun rises in the east is difficult enough.

I believe I can see another problem. Let's say the congress passes the Onerous Imposition Act of 2011, and the people begin a run on pitchforks, torches and rope. The state legislatures immediately begin passing resolutions: Be it resolved; the OIA of 2011 should be repealed. When the count gets close to 30 states, the Act's sponsor introduces legislation amending the Act called the Onerous Imposition Act Reform bill of 2012 which replaces the 2011 act with the 2012 act, and the states efforts are back to square one.

The efforts of conservatives would be better spent circulating petitions at the state levels to get an amendment limiting congressional terms enacted.

Ethanol

You know the policy's bad when it's principal supporter finally admits it. In an era when the obvious solution to failure of a government policy is to raise taxes and try it again, only harder, here's no less a celebrity than pope Al admitting defeat:

* U.S. ethanol consumes about 40 pct corn crop

* Impact on food prices "real"

U.S. blending tax breaks for ethanol make it profitable for refiners to use the fuel even when it is more expensive than gasoline. The credits are up for renewal on Dec. 31.

Total U.S. ethanol subsidies reached $7.7 billion last year according to the International Energy Industry, which said biofuels worldwide received more subsidies than any other form of renewable energy.

"It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for (U.S.) first generation ethanol," said Gore, speaking at a green energy business conference in Athens sponsored by Marfin Popular Bank.

Sure ethanol has only about half the energy content as refined petroleum, and sure, diverting 40% of a basic food staple to produce it causes food prices to skyrocket ( about 8%/year depending on what it is) and taking money away from people to subsidize this leaves people with even less money to spend on increasingly expensive groceries, but if it keeps a politician in office, it's worth it, no?

Had Enough Yet?

Ambrose Bierce defined grapeshot as the only proper counter argument to socialism, and this was a long while back. He was right then, and is right now. Here's a rant, a shout to the heavens of "Enough!", that should be an inspiration to us all, complete with links and references.

I am tired of being told to sit down and shut up.

I am tired of being told what I can and can not say.

What is “acceptable”, while my ideas and values are mocked and trampled.

Enough. I have had enough.

It goes on at some length, and is well worth reading. Remember this one the next time the left demands discourse or compromise. Remember too that when a socialist is down is when you get the best leverage from your foot when you kick him.

Pope Condones Condoms

Under certain narrowly defined circumstances, the details of which I have no interest in.

Way back when, following the introduction of the birth control pill the Pope opined that it would be forbidden under some strict reading of the official Vatican party line. A woman of Italian extraction was interviewed, on the streets of New York about this, and was quoted as saying "He's-a no play-a da game, he's-a no make-a da rules!"

I could have the details wrong, but I remember the line quite clearly.