In this case locusts named “power outage” and “Time Warner.”
Expect something resembling more normal blogging (or at least as normal as it gets around here) next week.
This Day Eaten by Locusts
December 28th, 2012General Norman Schwarzkopf, RIP
December 27th, 2012News outlets are reporting that retired four-star General Norman Schwarzkopf has died at age 78.
Schwarzkopf oversaw the liberation of Kuwait from Saddam Hussein during Desert Storm, crushing Iraqi forces in a mere four days. American forces were comprehensively better equipped and better trained than their opponents, and enjoyed unquestioned air superiority, but Schwarzkopf’s plan for liberating Kuwait, including the “left hook” into Iraq, was cleverly conceived and well-executed. If George H. W. Bush had only let him take Baghdad in 1991, much deadly and expensive unpleasantness could probably been avoided.
More Gun Control Follies Fallout
December 24th, 2012The tide of “you must enact liberal knee-jerk gun control legislation now!” editorials from the usual suspects in the MSM seems to have ebbed for now, but the fallout from the Sandy Hook spree continues. Here’s a roundup of some of the more interesting and informative
The Real Apocalypse
December 21st, 2012I hope you’ve been enjoying your mythical Mayan Apocalypse.
But there’s a real, slow motion apocalypse that’s been going on all around you, and nobody is panicking about it, at least not in the open. I’m not talking specifically about the fiscal cliff, which is only a symptom of the problem rather than the problem itself.
The real apocalypse is out-of-control federal spending, and the tsunami of debt it’s creating. And I don’t feel “apocalypse” is too strong a word. Excessive debt destroys economies. When the money printing presses run unchecked for years on end, hyperinflation is the inevitable result.
The only reason we’re not suffering from hyperinflation right now is that Europe is sucking worse than we are. The Spanish economy is failing. The Greek economy has already failed. Were it not for that, it’s likely our huge budget deficits and the Fed’s printing presses would have already caused the Euro to replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. And, as Mark Steyn is fond of pointing out, Germany’s economy is big enough to bail out Greece and Spain. No one’s economy is big enough to bail us out.
Obama and the Democratic Party has wagered our future on the proposition that they can run trillion dollar deficits for years on end without destroying the value of the American dollar. If they’re right, they deserve to win, since everything we know about economics is wrong, and we can just print dollars until we’re all rich.
But the fundamental laws of economics haven’t been repealed. A reckoning is coming, and it’s going to destroy savings, economies and lives. And professional politicians, the Democratic Party, lobbyists and their mainstream media enablers would prefer to talk about anything else but the looming catastrophe. No wonder they want to talk about gun control and “the war on women.” Anything to keep the con game going until they’ve sucked the body politics dry. Just keep that deficit spending heroin coming.
The only question about that reckoning is exactly when it’s coming, and exactly how bad it will be. If we’re lucky, it will only be as bad as Argentina 2001. If we’re not, then we’re talking Weimer Germany 1921-23.
Get ready.
Suggestion: Offer Texas Enterprise Fund Money to Blue State Gun Manufacturers Who Relocate to Texas
December 20th, 2012I’m not a fan of the Texas Enterprise Fund, because I don’t think government should be picking economic winners and losers; let them succeed or fail on their own merits rather than getting a boost from the Aristocracy of Pull. Some liberal critics have accused the Enterprise Fund of being Rick Perry’s slush fund for donors, but in truth all federal business subsidies are slush funds, and I think the Texas Enterprise Fund is markedly less corrupt than the Obama Administration’s green energy pork for contributors, or its $25 billion Government Motors bailout gift to the United Auto Workers.
Given that the Texas Enterprise Fund does exit, I can think of at least one good use for it: Helping gun manufacturers relocate from Blue States to Texas.
After all, it’s obvious that Blue State sentiment is running (at least right now) against legal gun ownership by law-abiding Americans, and that pressure (legal and otherwise) will be brought to bear on them to stop manufacturing certain types of perfectly legal weapons, or to cease business entirely.
So why not invite them to relocate to Texas? We have a skilled and highly educated non-union workforce, a broad and deep manufacturing base, a thriving economy, a culture that appreciates firearms ownership and their place in American history, stautory protection against frivolous lawsuits against firearms manufacturers, and no state income tax. While it’s a pain in the ass to move a manufacturing facility, doing so now could both increase a firearms manufacturer’s profit and prevent political pressure and legal harassment further down the line.
Companies that might be targeted include:
Among many, many others.
Texas could gain millions of dollars worth of economic boost at the expense of state that don’t appreciate firearms manufacturers anyway.
Worth considering.
Robert Bork, RIP
December 19th, 2012On the plus side of him not being on the Supreme Court, Obama doesn’t get to pick his replacement…
Democrats Can’t Help Wanting to Ban Guns. It’s What They Do.
December 18th, 2012Like a foolish dog returning to eat its own sick, liberals can’t stay away from expressing their long pent-up desire to disarm law-abiding Americans. Their central governing principle is to give more money and power to the federal government (or the UN, when they can get away with it), and independent gun owners stand in their way. The Sandy Hook shooting victims weren’t even in the ground before Democratic lawmakers were calling on Obama to “exploit” (their words) the tragedy to push for more gun control.
Liberals seem to regard guns like Sauron’s One Ring: as an evil object of magical power that automatically warps and corrupts the user. Frequently, they also seem to see people disagreeing with them as a sign of mental illness. (Check Twitter for how many call 2nd Amendment activists “sick” or “insane.”) I suspect that makes it harder for them to recognize real mental illness. And when they say they want a “dialog” over guns, what they really mean is “Shut up and hand over your guns and I’ll temporarily stop calling you deranged, bloodthirsty killers.”
When the plan to deter gun use by the criminal and insane starts out “Step 1: Disarm the Sane and Law-Abiding,” I think I see a flaw in their brilliant scheme. It’s as if there were a rash of food poisonings from unlicensed food carts, and the liberal solution was to ban an all food carts.
Two years ago I said that when push comes to shove, there’s no such thing as a pro-gun Democrat, and this week West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin is the prime example, “A” rating from the NRA notwithstanding. Expect any pro-gun Democrats to either undergo a mysterious conversion to the gun-grabbing cause, or get pushed out of the party, just like nominally “pro-life Democrats” either caved (Bart Stupak and his bloc) or were pushed out (pretty much every national election over the last 20 years).
Other Sandy Hook shooting fallout:
Step 1: Stop the Hispanicing
December 17th, 2012I’ve held off on offering up immediate judgment on the election because I’m incredibly lazy to get past the panic and knee-jerk reactions. The world hasn’t ended, Republicans are not doomed to permanent minority status, and the cause of smaller government is not lost forever. Go over that list of bright spots again. Republicans did not do as badly as they did in 1932, 1964, 2006 or 2008. And we survived those elections, just as the Democrats survived 1994, 2004, and 2010. We’ll survive this one.
One persistent theme in a lot of recaps is how badly Republicans did among Hispanic voters, and that Republicans must immediately cave on the issue of illegal alien amnesty to have any chance of courting Hispanic votes. Though no one can dispute that Republicans need to do better among Hispanics, much of the panic over the 2012 Hispanic vote (and the resulting predictable knee-jerk push for amnesty among prominent RINOs) has been overblown, for a number of reasons:
So take a deep breath. Republicans are far better off trying to pitch the ideas of freedom and limited government to Hispanics, and running conservative Republican candidates who happen to be Hispanic like Ted Cruz, than transparent and incompetent pandering via illegal alien amnesty.
Firearm Releated Homicides Have Declined for Five Straight Years
December 15th, 2012They may have declined for longer than that, but the table only goes back to 2007, and the 2012 data period obviously hasn’t ended yet.
Between concealed carry laws and DC. vs. Heller, more law-abiding citizens are carrying guns than ever before, but gun violence isn’t up, it’s down.
I guess John Lott was right.
LinkSwarm for 12/14/12
December 14th, 2012A quick LinkSwarm for a Friday night: