Only a potato-cannon could make it better

Fun for the whole family:


Remember kids, emergency-preparedness can be fun and educational! Nothing says "Keep your grimy claws off of my foodstuffs!" like a 7.62x51mm round to the forehead!

Is it just me, or is it more than a coincidence that Halloween is very near to Election Day?

The Nature of the Beast

Evidently, BBC is an acronym for Big Brother Communications:

"Using a television without an appropriate licence is a criminal offence. Every day we catch an average of 1,200 people using a TV without a licence. There is no valid excuse for using a television and not having a TV Licence, but some people still try - sometimes with the most ridiculous stories ever heard. Our detection equipment will track down your TV. The fact that our enquiry officers are now so well equipped with the latest technology means that there is virtually no way to avoid detection."

-- from the official website of the British Television Licensing Authority, May 2003

...

In an email, Bennett wrote that "living without a television in the UK is not as simple as getting rid of the TV set. In the UK the licensing authority operates under legal statute giving them wide powers. The licensing authority have no real concept of the non-viewer and class them as suspect licence-dodgers. Thus, we are subject threats and other manner of persecution. Considering we are only refusing an entertainment service it is a ridiculous situation."

I suspect in the not-too-distant future that the wards of the United Faildom can expect to have daily dosings of antidepressants with mandatory viewings of State programming for several hours a day. "You're watching BBC... watching you."

If nothing else, the situation highlights the danger that stems from government involvement in the marketplace. Protectionism creates a symbiotic relationship between the protected and the government, and like any bureaucratic entity will seek to perpetuate itself by any means necessary and at the expense of the governed. Britain-That-Was carries a long history of mercantilist behavior; in this case, the entity has been subsumed into the government, empowering said entity by means of regulatory powers with little oversight or self-discipline.

And if you think this is outrageous, realize that this is precisely the relationship that exists between the government and the banks in any nation that utilizes a central-banking philosophy.

I'm not going to quibble about the minutiae regarding the nature of the philosophy that would best establish a governing entity (or lack thereof), but attempts at interventionism in recent history by governments to guide the economic activity of the people in the long-term have been ineffective at best, monstrously destructive at worst. Indeed, the only proven correlation has been that involvement acts as a damper for market change, often to the detriment of those being governed.

Tragically, this country has forgotten that government is a primitive, impulsive, ravenous beast. It has no morals, no remorse, no sympathy. It does not sleep, it does not rest, it does not relent. Only through constant vigilance can it be chained and its will subdued, and we have let the chains rust from neglect. Now, with the election around the corner, rhetoric hangs thick in the air over the choice of deaths we are offered: the beast is unchained, and we presume to choose someone that will use the reigns to lead it to captivity rather than to gorge itself on the unwary. Both of them have sworn in front of millions, live, that they will feed it and in so doing bind it to their will.

The majority are fools, the minority helpless, and all of us doomed if we cannot put away childish things and speak with one voice, a voice of reason. We are a nation of laws, a people with inviolate rights and an extremely-limited government, or we are no better than that which we struggle against... Beasts.

Reality check, please

Pointing and laughing is all fun and games until it happens at home. For those who hadn't guessed, the above is a check from a Zimbabwean restaurant, courtesy of central banking and Marxist policy.

I would like to take this moment to formally condemn McCain and Obama for their policies, and chastise anyone that would think of supporting them or their sponsoring parties. The only gamble in this election is between supporting a candidate for personal liberty, fiscal responsibility and the restraint of government under its former chains of law, or withdrawing consent from the system that seeks to legitimize itself under the pretense that the electorate, by virtue of the act of voting, has provided a mandate.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I refresh your bailout?

Caturday Night Special, Episode XV

Cry Havoc!

Smithers! Release the hounds!

Steve Wright of Leeds Metropolitan University is an expert on police and military technologies, and last year correctly predicted this pack-hunting mode of operation would happen. "The giveaway here is the phrase 'a non-cooperative human subject'," he told me:

"What we have here are the beginnings of something designed to enable robots to hunt down humans like a pack of dogs. Once the software is perfected we can reasonably anticipate that they will become autonomous and become armed.

We can also expect such systems to be equipped with human detection and tracking devices including sensors which detect human breath and the radio waves associated with a human heart beat. These are technologies already developed."

Here's a related video of the same model of the robot in the photo in the article, developed by Boston Dynamics for DARPA:



It's a tired old line, but it's been true for the last century, and will remain true for the foreseeable future: our ability to manufacture devices to pursue our ends invariably outstrips our capability to control ourselves, our pride, and lust for power. Sadly, there is more than one horrific outcome possible for this particular project: the Sarah Conner Chronicles ending, and the totalitarian oppression that occurs while the former path is in development.

At this point, I'm welcoming a zombie-style apocalypse. It's equal-opportunity, a very egalitarian way to usher out mankind. And that's what we're all about here in America, equality. Just ask any of the two Politburo-approved candidates for Supreme Commander...

And people ask me why I drink.

On the bright side, I'm almost positive it will be more difficult to disable a tank than a Big-Dog. And, for all the technologically-gifted individuals out there, remember Rule #1: Everything can be hacked. No exceptions.

Have we learned nothing?

So much for entertaining any ideas about immigrating to Switzerland:

Recently, the Swiss Parliament asked a panel of philosophers, lawyers, geneticists and theologians to determine the meaning of dignity when it pertains to plants.

Lo and Behold, the team published a treatise on “the moral consideration of plants for their own sake.” The treatise established that vegetation has innate value and that it is morally wrong to partake in activities such as the “decapitation of wildflowers at the roadside without rational reason.”

I wonder if they've banned the importation and development of bonsai yet. Surely, it's the horticultural equivalent of foot-binding, a cruel and unusual practice to say the least.

On the bright side, either the law will be ignored, nullified, or Switzerland will be ripe for resettling within a few months.

Caturday Night Special, Episode XIV

When in doubt, empty the clip: United Faildom Edition

- Yet another reason a nationalized health-care system would be disastrous: "Stand aside, plebeians, we are on Imperial business!"

- It's for your own protection, and for the sake of the children:

"Ministers claim the database will only be used in terrorist cases, but there is now a long list of cases, from the arrest of Walter Wolfgang for heckling at a Labour conference to the freezing of Icelandic assets, where anti-terrorism law has been used for purposes for which it was not intended."

- Oops! We almost forgot about your encrypted data. We'll be needing that too.

- Yet another example that the behavior exhibited is symptomatic of a larger problem, not the problem itself. Proposed solutions include throwing more money at the problem, mandatory limbing of trees within 15' of ground-level, and a background check with a 30-day waiting-period on gravel and landscaping boulders.

Reported!

This is so incredibly stupid... Refer to the post below this one.

I'm glad I've kicked the habit: a filthy-rich Tauren hunter gets a triple-whammy with new punative tax-brackets, mad-cow satellite tracking, and BATFE enforcement of those scary "military-style assault weapons".

When words fail to descibe the dismay

Considering the state of the economy, stock-market and the solutions proposed for fixing them (think "veterinarian"), this seemed like an appropriate time for this post.

I read the news today, oh boy

Courtesy of the bleak genii that produce A Softer World.

Ah well, at least the pulled pork should be ready by dinner-time.

Ah, it all becomes clear now

Lew Rockwell on Krugman's official recognition for fatuous pontification:

Unlike all the real Nobel prizes, which were established and funded by Alfred Nobel, the economics prize was established and funded by the Swedish central bank. With the sole and shining exception of F.A Hayek, who was forced to share his prize with a Swedish communist, every other Nobel econ winner has been a shill for central banking. This year especially, the central bankers wanted a loyal propagandist for endless currency depreciation.

While not as farcical as the award of the Peace Prize to Arafat, considering the timing and the nature of the accolade, it comes close.

UPDATE:

Well, small wonder now:

Europe put $2.3 trillion on the line Monday to protect the continent's banks, a figure that dwarfs the Bush administration's $700 billion rescue program, in its most unified response yet to the global financial crisis after a stumbling start.

Maybe if we push the string harder...

I expect a plan to develop next week that involves the application of the Large Hadron Collider.

Caturday Night Special, Episode XIII

A curious sort of libertarianism

According to Christopher Buckley, an overt Marxist will, upon taking the oath of office, magically transform into Captain America by virtue of an above-average intelligence and sense of social responsibility:

I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books. Imagine. He is also a lefty. I am not. I am a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets. On abortion, gay marriage, et al, I’m libertarian. I believe with my sage and epigrammatic friend P.J. O’Rourke that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.

But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves. If he raises taxes and throws up tariff walls and opens the coffers of the DNC to bribe-money from the special interest groups against whom he has (somewhat disingenuously) railed during the campaign trail, then he will almost certainly reap a whirlwind that will make Katrina look like a balmy summer zephyr.

The Daily Beast. How appropriate. (Yes, I slipped that link into his blockquote.)

There won't be a backlash, blow-back or anything except the mild breeze of adulate praise to the Obamassiah if when he does accept the landslides of worthless American dollars into the war-chest. Special-interests will magically metamorphose into "groups of concerned citizens", and a crippling tax-rate will be instituted as "a necessary step towards economic equality".

Lick the jack-boots of your overlords if you must, Buckley, but do it honestly.

Fun -and- educational

10/10. This presentation is pure win.

In all seriousness, though, there are some valuable lessons here in situational/environmental awareness (potentially life-saving skills), protecting oneself from information-gleaning miscreants, and the fundamental problem of technology frequently outstripping the ability of the general public to use it in such a way that does not circumvent the reason for developing said technology.

And an additional +5 Internets for having actual Bujinkan training.

(Get comfortable, go to the restroom, whatever you need to do. The video is almost an hour.)

Some days, the bear eats you...

Some days, you eat the bear:

The five-foot-nine man eventually crushed the bear's skull with the stick, killing it.

West then walked a kilometre and a half to a local lodge, where he was transported to hospital. The gashes in his body took 60 stitches to sew up.

This guy has a fight with a mother-bear, and kills it with a stick.

Jim West, my hat is off to you. From a distance, where I hope I do not resemble a bear.

(Also, an interview after the fact.)

Failout Flame-out

The next "big idea": Congress will forbid adding the additional place-values, causing an overflow-error in the display and instantly creating a massive multi-trillion dollar surplus.

Problem solved.

Why settle for a Lesser Evil?

Thoughts regarding a weekend on the road

- I need a trip to the city every so often, as it reminds me just how much I dislike the urban mindset, sprawl, tide, consumption, and abject self-worship.

- Even in the city, Nature finds a way to remind mankind that those of us that live in the concrete jungle are just deluding ourselves about a sterilized isolation from the outside world. In this particular case, a wood-spider on the back porch (EVERYONE PANIC). Yeah, it's nightmarish-looking little critter, but the web was beautiful. The girlfriend gets the shakes when she thinks about it, though.

- The girlfriend's cousin's wedding is tomorrow. I know about three, maybe four people there, and we're now approximately eleven hours away from home, all of which must be made up on Monday so that I can be back in the lecture-hall Tuesday. Whee. Fortunately, I'm not driving, and judging from what I've heard, no expense was spared, which likely means an open-bar. Which might make up for the high probability of family-related drama rolling this way with all the amiable intentions of a pack of famished hyenas.

- Speaking of the girlfriend, I will now publicly acknowledge her patience while we drove an extra two hours in commuter-traffic to a particular firearms shop, where I spent another hour-and-a-half gabbing and filling out forms. This will have its own post when it arrives. Yes, I'm being intentionally vague. Yes, it is a sexy beast of a weapon.

- I had intended to purchase a copy of Waiter Rant in hardcover, but lack of agreeable material for the car-ride led us to agree on purchasing this on CD (9 hours, unabridged). I've been following his blog since before I had been waiting to cover expenses while living in the eastern San Francisco area (I have since moved to finish my degree), and it is an excellent read, particularly for anyone who has had to deal with John and Jane Q. Public in a service-related profession.

Caturday Night Special, Episode XII

True story. But for one caffeine-infused acrobatic flip, I would have had a panic-flung spider in my lap this evening.

Regarding the Senate

There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.

– Robert Heinlein

When in doubt, empty the clip

- Wonderful. That's just great... More gas on the fire.

- "Sound" monetary policy explained in terms even Congress could understand, and possibly an unusual hat-tip to Von Mises.

- High-Priestess Pelosi asserts that the Unwashed are to do as they are told (#1, #2; CAUTION: Contains blasphemous untruths) and that the elected elite are not subject to the laws of the serfs.

- “It’s not at the resolution where you can look in windows, or read license plates,” said Kenneth M. Wilkinson, the property assessor of Lee County in Florida. “The system preserves privacy.”

More on this here and here.