A cowboy is driving down a back road in Texas.
A sign in front of a restaurant reads, "Happy Hour Special: Lobster Tail and Beer."
"Hot damn," the cowboy says to himself.”
"My three favorite things!"
*.*
My girlfriend is temperamental.
90% temper and 10% mental.
*.*
Upon entering the little country store, the stranger noticed a sign posted on the glass door saying, "Danger! Beware of Dog!"
Inside, he noticed a harmless old hound dog asleep on the floor beside the cash register.
He asked the store manager, "Is that the dog folks are supposed to beware of?"
"Yep, that's him," he replied.
The stranger couldn't help but be amused.
"That certainly doesn't look like a dangerous dog to me. Why in the world would you post that sign?"
"Because," the owner replied, "before I posted that sign, people kept tripping over him."
*.*
What's the difference between a poorly dressed man on a unicycle and a well-dressed man on a bicycle?
Attire.
*.*
What's E.T. short for?
Because he's got little legs."
Issue of the Times;
To All Young Americans by Karl Denninger
You have to wonder, really, whether we have any hope for the future in this country.
Deficit spending is often said to be a way to make generations to come pay for the things that people want today. It's actually not quite that complicated, and yet it's more complicated.
It's a way to make the young believe they're getting a free lunch - whether it be health care, a college education or similar - when in fact they're being told they have to pay twice or more for the same thing.
Consider the so-called women's equality screed. The alleged "pay gap." It doesn't exist once you do multivariate analysis. That is, while it is true that women earn less than men as a sex when you look at, for example, nurses both women and men earn almost exactly the same amount.
It's just that there are more women nurses than men, just as there are more women teachers than men.
Among the non-college degree folks there are vastly more male welders than women. Welding isn't a profession that requires an immense amount of upper-body strength, for example; indeed, it's a fairly precise thing, and women are perfectly capable of doing it. It's a job that can easily make you $100,000 or more a year, but you have to be willing to go where the work is, which is often welding things like oil pipelines. More men than women choose that job; ergo, there is a skew in earnings.
Vocation, I remind you, is a choice.
Then there is all the screaming about "family leave" and similar.
But let's face facts, shall we: Putting your kid(s) in daycare is a crock. And that in turn means that one of the parents should choose to stay home and raise them. Maybe they alternate or not, but the entire "invention" of daycare came about because we squeezed people to the point that one person couldn't earn enough for a decent living to be had by a family of four.
That is where the real problem lies, and it's all centered in a handful of areas. Health care, education and housing.
Housing is not just the price of houses it's also property taxes. A decent house in a major metro area often comes with a $5,000, $6,000, $10,000 or even higher property tax bill - every single year. Then you put a $1,500 health insurance policy premium on that for a family of four (if you're lucky it's that low) and suddenly just the operating cost of your household has reached $30,000 for invariant and "mandated" costs.
Note that you haven't actually paid for the house yet. Nor have you paid for the power, heating and water bills, or bought a single pound of ground beef or bunch of broccoli to eat.
Nor have we talked about that college yet. College that used to have a per-semester tuition and fee cost in the hundreds - to just over a thousand - dollar cost rather than five or ten times as much in inflation-adjusted money.
All of this has happened because of Washington and its money-printing, along with their allegiance to so-called "Free Trade" and "free immigration" which is nothing of the sort. No, it's not the Fed. It's Congress and the President, both of whom have run up $20 trillion on the nation's credit card. That has in turn forced prices higher and in the places where there is zero enforcement of the rule of law on monopolies and anti-trust it has gone up fastest, along with those places where you are forced to participate in some way. When it comes to so-called "free trade" go ahead and try to explain how you compete making cars for $30/hour when the Mexican guy gets paid under $5 for the same thing. The alternative to putting to a stop to that crap is that you either accept getting paid $5 (which you can't live on due to the above) or you get $0 because the job isn't here any more!
All of medical, property tax (mostly schools, if you look at your bill), and education are in this category.
Tell me why, if you're a young person, you accept this? Why do you allow Washington DC to run up the credit card like this and destroy you and your ability to have and raise a family on one income?
If you killed the medical monopolies and school property tax abuses, along with the educational game-playing with loans, forcing all three of these down by 80% (and yes, that is very achievable where the market is allowed to work) then you could have a family with one earning party, one staying at home to raise the kids, and a couple of kids. You'd be comfortable. We'd have a good economy. And you would prosper.
Instead we have 30 people grifting off every doctor or nurse in the local hospital - all of them collecting a paycheck but never providing a single second of care to a single patient. You probably know some of them. They're stealing from you, Junior!
Your local high school? It's full of non-teaching administrators, and the teacher pensions and costs that are driving up not teacher wages but operating expenses (and thus property taxes by a factor of four or more) are all stealing from you, Junior! What's worse is that they intentionally don't teach you how exponents work in math class because they know you'd broil and eat everyone in there in a day were you to learn how it is an inherent mathematical truth that deficit spending is not actually free and always is put back on SOMEONE, and the SOMEONE is YOU.
Your local university? How much has Calculus changed in the last 50 years? NOT ALL ALL! What has changed is technology (e.g. computer programming) -- it's gotten much, much cheaper. The old mainframe the college used to need to teach programming cost millions. The Raspberry Pi you can learn to program on today costs $35 and fits in your pocket. Circuit-design and layout software that used to require $50,000 computers to run on now works perfectly well on a $1,000 laptop or desktop computer! The cost of education, especially computer and technology-related education, should have fallen like a stone but instead it has gone up on an inflation-adjusted basis by 500% or more.
There are 536 people responsible for all of this and more. There are over 300 million Americans and millions of young adults who are being forced to pay for these handouts, never mind the "wink-wink-nod-nod" thefts.
Don't start with the "tax the rich" nonsense run by Bernie Sanders and others. That won't work because it can't. The rich don't have enough money, in short; if you taxed them at 100% you'd close the budget gap and get what you want for one year. How many of the rich would work the second year when they got to keep nothing? None. Then what do you do?
There is one - and only one - way to stop this. Stop the scams. Put an end to the medical monopolists - break them up and throw the executives in prison and health care costs will fall to the point that you will be able to pay cash for nearly everything. Get rid of cost-shifting and "loans" in education - all of it - and college prices will fall like a stone, to 1/5th of what they are today. Do the above two and extend it to local and county governments and your property taxes will fall by 80% as well.
Suddenly you will be able to live comfortably and raise a family on one income again!
Why should you, as a young person, tolerate the current situation? It's theft and it's all aimed at you, the young people of this nation. For what - so your next door neighbor can make $60,000 sitting in a chair in a hospital never providing a single second of care to a single person and force you to cover his or her salary?
When will you stop tolerating this and demand it all end, here and now, "or else"?
You've already had the ability to work hard, find someone you want to be with and then have and raise a family with one of you working to make some money and the other raising the kids in a decent but not extravagant home stolen from you by these 536 thieves.
Will you demand it stop - and mean it - before or after you're left starving in the streets?
Exactly how much further does it go, in short before you remove the pink pussy hats and replace them with something more-useful?
Quote of the Times;
…Peterson’s claim that identity politics is “genocidal in its ultimate expression” is no exaggeration. Hitler’s military invasions and death camps were the ultimate expression of the racialist and nationalist identity politics that spiritually drove Nazism. And Stalin’s weaponized famines and “gulag archipelago” were the ultimate expression of the class warfare identity politics that spiritually drove Soviet communism. - Sanchez
Link of the Times;
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2018/01/joseph-mercola/eliminate-google-from-your-life/
Family?
Athletes?
Now that they are retired, my mother and father are
discussing all aspects of their future. "What will you
do if I die before you do?" Dad asked Mom.
After some thought, she said that she'd probably look
for a house sharing situation with three other single or
widowed women who might be a little younger than herself,
since she is so active for her age.
Then Mom asked Dad, "What will you do if I die first?"
He replied, "Probably the same thing."
*.*
Oneliners:
I just realized capslock can be an anagram for cockslap. Which makes me wonder if that's how should feel after getting "yelled" at on the internet.
I wonder if we'll ever run out of dinosaurs to dig up.
There 492 billionaires in the United States, and not one of those goddamned losers has decided to become Batman or Iron Man.
Hands have four fingers and fore fingers.
Shoe stores should keep a slightly used pair of each of their shoes so people can see how they will fit after it's been broken in.
The word plebian isn't plebian.
*.*
Morty Applebaum had a very unpleasant appointment scheduled with an IRS auditor who had come to review his records.
At one point the auditor exclaimed, "Mr. Applabaum, we feel that it is a great privilege to be allowed to live and work in the USA. As a citizen you have an obligation to pay taxes, and we expect you to eagerly pay them with a smile."
"Oy, thank God," said Morty with a sigh of relief. "I thought you were going to want cash."
*.*
Army struggling to come up with more offensive cadences
FORT BENNING, Ga. – Given the current American craze of getting and staying offended, key leaders in the Army are worried that Jody calls are losing their offensive edge by not keeping up with new offensive words and concepts, sources confirmed today.
“In my day, Jody calls were the most offensive fucking words I could wheeze out during a 10-minute mile platoon run,” said Army Drill Sgt. Bert Michaels. “These new recruits have a completely different tolerance for offense.”
Michaels explained that new recruits aren’t automatically offended by the kind of swearing and sexual talk they’ve been hearing on TV since they were kids. He says that now the best new cadences focus on liberals, cucks, income inequality, and vaccines.
“Drill Sgt. Called out ‘Eskimo Pussy’ just to see what we’d do,” one recruit told reporters, on condition of anonymity. “We were all like, ‘is that one of the President’s songs? I wasn’t offended at all.”
“To get a group really heated up, I used to call their mothers transvestites,” Michaels said. “The last time I did that, the recruit just asked me what her preferred pronoun would be and if she was pre- or post-op. He asked for permission to send her a goddamn card congratulating her. Now, if I really want to cause some emotional stress, I tell them that some of their peers want free college.”
The most popular new cadence of the year includes, “The Army Colors,” which now includes verses for red “to show the world we’re conservative,” blue “to show the world we’re gender fluid too” and green “to just say no to refugees.”
When one Special Troops Battalion tried the new cadence, three equal opportunity complaints were filed within 24 hours — the highest in two decades.
Meanwhile at Fort Bragg, the 75th Ranger Regiment is trying out “I hate women and so should you/especially the ones that can do what we do.” The only female assigned to the unit yawned and expressed that it wasn’t the worst micro-aggression she’d seen that day.
“I just called this whole basic training platoon snowflakes,” said Michaels. “They were fuming. It was the angriest I’ve ever seen them. Half of them were upset for being called liberals, and the other half were upset because I appropriated a term that originated during the abolitionist movement for my own modern agenda. I’d say it was a win-win.”
*.*
The worst part about working at the tattoo parlor?
It's way too easy to put off looking for Post-Its.
Issue of the Times;
Ending Gender Discrimination in Professional Sports by Jim Goad
The current year is 2018, people, so why are we still segregating male and female athletes? Don’t they know that gender is a social construct and everyone’s equal?
Legendarily ill-tempered tennis champ John McEnroe outraged gender-deniers across the planet when he said that black female tennis champeen Serena Williams was not the world’s best tennis player. He said she’s the best female tennis player of all time, but that was not enough to appease the rabid egalitotalitarian hordes.
The now-infamous (if entirely reasonable) exchange happened between McEnroe and Lulu Garcia-Navarro of NPR:
Garcia-Navarro: Let’s talk about Serena Williams. You say she is the best female player in the world in the book.
McEnroe: Best female player ever—no question.
Garcia-Navarro: Some wouldn’t qualify it, some would say she’s the best player in the world. Why qualify it?
McEnroe: Oh! Uh, she’s not, you mean, the best player in the world, period?
Garcia-Navarro: Yeah, the best tennis player in the world. You know, why say female player?
McEnroe: Well because if she was in, if she played the men’s circuit she’d be like 700 in the world.
Naturally, the pro-fem harpies began yipping like the spoiled Chihuahuas that they are. This was a horrible comment, they said—undeniably “sexist,” and also probably at the very least a little bit racist.
Never mind whether it was factual or not.
In 2015 at age 56, McEnroe told talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel that he could possibly still beat Williams, who was then 33, in a tennis match but added that she’d cream him in a boxing ring. He also said that around the year 2000, Donald Trump offered him money to play Williams in a “Battle of the Sexes,” but he balked because it wasn’t enough money.
Four years ago, Williams told David Letterman that she wouldn’t play an exhibition match against male champion Andy Murray because he’s a boy and she’s a girl:
For me, men’s tennis and women’s tennis are completely, almost, two separate sports. If I were to play Andy Murray, I would lose 6-0, 6-0 in five to six minutes, maybe 10 minutes. No, it’s true. It’s a completely different sport. The men are a lot faster and they serve harder, they hit harder, it’s just a different game. I love to play women’s tennis. I only want to play girls, because I don’t want to be embarrassed.
Perhaps she’d learned her lesson when she and her sister Venus—both of whom have been repeated world champions—bragged back in 1998 that they could beat any male player ranked under the world’s top 200. At the Australian Open, a male German player named Karsten Braasch—who was ranked #203 in the world at the time—took the bait and challenged both sisters. He allegedly played them after finishing a round of golf and drinking two beers. He beat Serena Williams 6-1 and her sister Venus 6-2. The Williams sisters then downgraded their boast and claimed they could beat any man ranked outside the top 350.
But late-stage egalitarianism is a form of mass insanity, and there still remain true believers and nutjob misfits who insist that women can do everything a man can do except when it comes to being innately evil. In that case, men corner the market.
In the 2009 book Playing with the Boys: Why Separate is not Equal in Sports, two female authors argue that the only reason women appear to be athletically inferior to men is that society unfairly segregates them due to outmoded patriarchal beliefs. An exceedingly dumb 2013 article in VICE magazine says the idea that boys are better athletes than girls is “fucking bullshit” and that the “games are rigged.” Naturally, there is no statistical evidence to buttress this non-argument, only the usual frothing about sexism and patriarchy and what impenitent assholes men are.
In a 2005 book called Genetic Technology and Sport, authors Claudio Tamburrini and Torbjorn Tannsjo make a bold and potentially humiliating proposition for the gender-equality fanatics:
The present authors have questioned the practise of sexual discrimination in sport. We have argued that it should be abolished. Women and men should compete against one another on equal terms on sport arenas. The reasons for giving up sexual discrimination within sports, and for allowing individuals of both sexes to compete with each other is simple. In sports it is crucial that the best person wins. Then sexual differences are simply irrelevant.
Hmm, what might happen if the Athletic Gender Wall were to be razed?
Seeing as how the women’s world record for the 100M dash—which has held steady for 29 years as of this writing—is routinely bested by high-school boys, it wouldn’t be pretty for the ladies. When it comes to running or swimming or any athletic feat that is timed, “the mean ratio from men’s over women’s world records was .90.” This is why the women’s world record for the 400M swimming medley is a pitiful 26 seconds beyond Michael Phelps’s world record for men. It’s also why female marathon winners plod behind male winners at anywhere from 12 to 15 minutes on average.
When one considers that average female upper-body strength is about 52% of men’s and 66% when it comes to lower-body strength, it doesn’t bode well for any female athlete wishing to compete against males in tasks that require brute force.
In a desperately flailing attempt to compensate, the equality loons will toss “trans women”—in other words, men who pretend they’re women—into the mix. There are multiple cases of “trans women” destroying natural-born women in sporting events, but I’ve never heard of a “trans man” coming anywhere close to setting a men’s world record in sports.
To my knowledge, the only sports where female athletes achieve something resembling parity with men are equestrian events—but that’s cheating, since the main “athlete” is the horse.
Late-stage leftist egalitarianism is a psychosis and must be mocked as such. Leftists pretend as if “self-esteem” is all that’s needed to trump biology. But if female athletes wish to maintain even a semblance of self-esteem, they should only compete against other girls. Otherwise, expect a lot of crying.
Even Serena Williams realizes this, despite all the pearl-clutching, vapor-sniffing dupes who get offended on her behalf.
This leaves everyone with a choice—you can either believe in equality, or you can believe in reality.
Quote of the Times;
You want to know who is enslaved in society, look at who’s not allowed to get angry.
Link of the Times;
https://therationalmale.com/
discussing all aspects of their future. "What will you
do if I die before you do?" Dad asked Mom.
After some thought, she said that she'd probably look
for a house sharing situation with three other single or
widowed women who might be a little younger than herself,
since she is so active for her age.
Then Mom asked Dad, "What will you do if I die first?"
He replied, "Probably the same thing."
*.*
Oneliners:
I just realized capslock can be an anagram for cockslap. Which makes me wonder if that's how should feel after getting "yelled" at on the internet.
I wonder if we'll ever run out of dinosaurs to dig up.
There 492 billionaires in the United States, and not one of those goddamned losers has decided to become Batman or Iron Man.
Hands have four fingers and fore fingers.
Shoe stores should keep a slightly used pair of each of their shoes so people can see how they will fit after it's been broken in.
The word plebian isn't plebian.
*.*
Morty Applebaum had a very unpleasant appointment scheduled with an IRS auditor who had come to review his records.
At one point the auditor exclaimed, "Mr. Applabaum, we feel that it is a great privilege to be allowed to live and work in the USA. As a citizen you have an obligation to pay taxes, and we expect you to eagerly pay them with a smile."
"Oy, thank God," said Morty with a sigh of relief. "I thought you were going to want cash."
*.*
Army struggling to come up with more offensive cadences
FORT BENNING, Ga. – Given the current American craze of getting and staying offended, key leaders in the Army are worried that Jody calls are losing their offensive edge by not keeping up with new offensive words and concepts, sources confirmed today.
“In my day, Jody calls were the most offensive fucking words I could wheeze out during a 10-minute mile platoon run,” said Army Drill Sgt. Bert Michaels. “These new recruits have a completely different tolerance for offense.”
Michaels explained that new recruits aren’t automatically offended by the kind of swearing and sexual talk they’ve been hearing on TV since they were kids. He says that now the best new cadences focus on liberals, cucks, income inequality, and vaccines.
“Drill Sgt. Called out ‘Eskimo Pussy’ just to see what we’d do,” one recruit told reporters, on condition of anonymity. “We were all like, ‘is that one of the President’s songs? I wasn’t offended at all.”
“To get a group really heated up, I used to call their mothers transvestites,” Michaels said. “The last time I did that, the recruit just asked me what her preferred pronoun would be and if she was pre- or post-op. He asked for permission to send her a goddamn card congratulating her. Now, if I really want to cause some emotional stress, I tell them that some of their peers want free college.”
The most popular new cadence of the year includes, “The Army Colors,” which now includes verses for red “to show the world we’re conservative,” blue “to show the world we’re gender fluid too” and green “to just say no to refugees.”
When one Special Troops Battalion tried the new cadence, three equal opportunity complaints were filed within 24 hours — the highest in two decades.
Meanwhile at Fort Bragg, the 75th Ranger Regiment is trying out “I hate women and so should you/especially the ones that can do what we do.” The only female assigned to the unit yawned and expressed that it wasn’t the worst micro-aggression she’d seen that day.
“I just called this whole basic training platoon snowflakes,” said Michaels. “They were fuming. It was the angriest I’ve ever seen them. Half of them were upset for being called liberals, and the other half were upset because I appropriated a term that originated during the abolitionist movement for my own modern agenda. I’d say it was a win-win.”
*.*
The worst part about working at the tattoo parlor?
It's way too easy to put off looking for Post-Its.
Issue of the Times;
Ending Gender Discrimination in Professional Sports by Jim Goad
The current year is 2018, people, so why are we still segregating male and female athletes? Don’t they know that gender is a social construct and everyone’s equal?
Legendarily ill-tempered tennis champ John McEnroe outraged gender-deniers across the planet when he said that black female tennis champeen Serena Williams was not the world’s best tennis player. He said she’s the best female tennis player of all time, but that was not enough to appease the rabid egalitotalitarian hordes.
The now-infamous (if entirely reasonable) exchange happened between McEnroe and Lulu Garcia-Navarro of NPR:
Garcia-Navarro: Let’s talk about Serena Williams. You say she is the best female player in the world in the book.
McEnroe: Best female player ever—no question.
Garcia-Navarro: Some wouldn’t qualify it, some would say she’s the best player in the world. Why qualify it?
McEnroe: Oh! Uh, she’s not, you mean, the best player in the world, period?
Garcia-Navarro: Yeah, the best tennis player in the world. You know, why say female player?
McEnroe: Well because if she was in, if she played the men’s circuit she’d be like 700 in the world.
Naturally, the pro-fem harpies began yipping like the spoiled Chihuahuas that they are. This was a horrible comment, they said—undeniably “sexist,” and also probably at the very least a little bit racist.
Never mind whether it was factual or not.
In 2015 at age 56, McEnroe told talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel that he could possibly still beat Williams, who was then 33, in a tennis match but added that she’d cream him in a boxing ring. He also said that around the year 2000, Donald Trump offered him money to play Williams in a “Battle of the Sexes,” but he balked because it wasn’t enough money.
Four years ago, Williams told David Letterman that she wouldn’t play an exhibition match against male champion Andy Murray because he’s a boy and she’s a girl:
For me, men’s tennis and women’s tennis are completely, almost, two separate sports. If I were to play Andy Murray, I would lose 6-0, 6-0 in five to six minutes, maybe 10 minutes. No, it’s true. It’s a completely different sport. The men are a lot faster and they serve harder, they hit harder, it’s just a different game. I love to play women’s tennis. I only want to play girls, because I don’t want to be embarrassed.
Perhaps she’d learned her lesson when she and her sister Venus—both of whom have been repeated world champions—bragged back in 1998 that they could beat any male player ranked under the world’s top 200. At the Australian Open, a male German player named Karsten Braasch—who was ranked #203 in the world at the time—took the bait and challenged both sisters. He allegedly played them after finishing a round of golf and drinking two beers. He beat Serena Williams 6-1 and her sister Venus 6-2. The Williams sisters then downgraded their boast and claimed they could beat any man ranked outside the top 350.
But late-stage egalitarianism is a form of mass insanity, and there still remain true believers and nutjob misfits who insist that women can do everything a man can do except when it comes to being innately evil. In that case, men corner the market.
In the 2009 book Playing with the Boys: Why Separate is not Equal in Sports, two female authors argue that the only reason women appear to be athletically inferior to men is that society unfairly segregates them due to outmoded patriarchal beliefs. An exceedingly dumb 2013 article in VICE magazine says the idea that boys are better athletes than girls is “fucking bullshit” and that the “games are rigged.” Naturally, there is no statistical evidence to buttress this non-argument, only the usual frothing about sexism and patriarchy and what impenitent assholes men are.
In a 2005 book called Genetic Technology and Sport, authors Claudio Tamburrini and Torbjorn Tannsjo make a bold and potentially humiliating proposition for the gender-equality fanatics:
The present authors have questioned the practise of sexual discrimination in sport. We have argued that it should be abolished. Women and men should compete against one another on equal terms on sport arenas. The reasons for giving up sexual discrimination within sports, and for allowing individuals of both sexes to compete with each other is simple. In sports it is crucial that the best person wins. Then sexual differences are simply irrelevant.
Hmm, what might happen if the Athletic Gender Wall were to be razed?
Seeing as how the women’s world record for the 100M dash—which has held steady for 29 years as of this writing—is routinely bested by high-school boys, it wouldn’t be pretty for the ladies. When it comes to running or swimming or any athletic feat that is timed, “the mean ratio from men’s over women’s world records was .90.” This is why the women’s world record for the 400M swimming medley is a pitiful 26 seconds beyond Michael Phelps’s world record for men. It’s also why female marathon winners plod behind male winners at anywhere from 12 to 15 minutes on average.
When one considers that average female upper-body strength is about 52% of men’s and 66% when it comes to lower-body strength, it doesn’t bode well for any female athlete wishing to compete against males in tasks that require brute force.
In a desperately flailing attempt to compensate, the equality loons will toss “trans women”—in other words, men who pretend they’re women—into the mix. There are multiple cases of “trans women” destroying natural-born women in sporting events, but I’ve never heard of a “trans man” coming anywhere close to setting a men’s world record in sports.
To my knowledge, the only sports where female athletes achieve something resembling parity with men are equestrian events—but that’s cheating, since the main “athlete” is the horse.
Late-stage leftist egalitarianism is a psychosis and must be mocked as such. Leftists pretend as if “self-esteem” is all that’s needed to trump biology. But if female athletes wish to maintain even a semblance of self-esteem, they should only compete against other girls. Otherwise, expect a lot of crying.
Even Serena Williams realizes this, despite all the pearl-clutching, vapor-sniffing dupes who get offended on her behalf.
This leaves everyone with a choice—you can either believe in equality, or you can believe in reality.
Quote of the Times;
You want to know who is enslaved in society, look at who’s not allowed to get angry.
Link of the Times;
https://therationalmale.com/
Wall?
I asked my mum "How much is a couple?"
"2 or 3" she replied.
Probably explains why her marriage collapsed.
*.*
PORTLAND, OR—Immediately after losing a pickup basketball game at a park Friday, local liberal and unemployed man Rayne Wendell took to his iPhone in order to submit a piece to Slate.com in which he argues that the rules of basketball are “fundamentally flawed and unjust.”
Slate quickly published the piece.
“The three-point rule seems particularly imbalanced toward people who are good at shooting the basketball from far away, while the rule that the team with the most points wins is systemic bias at its worst,” he wrote. “Since the other team had more points, the outdated scoring system favored their winning.” He was quick to point out that although the other team did score more points, his team took more shots, and so should have been awarded the victory.
He then argued that the rules of basketball need to be “constantly evolving,” until they arrive at a place where he wins more often, and his opponents don’t win as often.
“And can we talk about the problematic height bias?” he wrote in the 17th paragraph of the piece. “Why should an incredibly tall, skilled, athletic player’s presence on the court count for at least two of me?”
Wendell concluded the piece by suggesting a radical new scoring system for basketball, where he walks on the court and is granted the win, no matter how well the other team plays.
*.*
21 Phrases You Use Without Realizing You're Quoting Shakespeare
William Shakespeare devised new words and countless plot tropes that still appear in everyday life. Famous quotes from his plays are easily recognizable; phrases like "To be or not to be," "wherefore art thou, Romeo," and "et tu, Brute?" instantly evoke images of wooden stages and Elizabethan costumes. But an incredible number of lines from his plays have become so ingrained into modern vernacular that we no longer recognize them as lines from plays at all.
1. "WILD GOOSE CHASE" // ROMEO AND JULIET, ACT II, SCENE IV
"Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five. Was I with you there for the goose?" — Mercutio
2. "GREEN-EYED MONSTER" // OTHELLO, ACT III, SCENE III
"O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on." — Iago
3. "PURE AS THE DRIVEN SNOW" // HAMLET, ACT III, SCENE I AND THE WINTER'S TALE, ACT IV, SCENE IV
"Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go." — Hamlet
4. "SEEN BETTER DAYS" // AS YOU LIKE IT, ACT II, SCENE VII
"True is it that we have seen better days and have with holy bell been knolled to church, and sat at good men's feasts and wiped our eyes of drops that sacred pity hath engendered." — Duke Senior
5. "OFF WITH HIS HEAD" // RICHARD III, ACT III, SCENE IV
"If? Thou protector of this damnèd strumpet, talk'st thou to me of "ifs"? Thou art a traitor—Off with his head." — Richard III
6. "FOREVER AND A DAY" // AS YOU LIKE IT, ACT IV, SCENE I
"Now tell me how long you would have her after you have possessed her." — Rosalind
"Forever and a day" — Orlando
7. "GOOD RIDDANCE" // TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, ACT II, SCENE I
[Thersites exits]
"A good riddance." — Patroclus
8. "FAIR PLAY" // THE TEMPEST, ACT V, SCENE I
"Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle, and I would call it fair play." — Miranda
9. "LIE LOW" // MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, ACT V, SCENE I
"If he could right himself with quarreling, some of us would lie low." — Antonio
10. "IT'S GREEK TO ME" // JULIUS CAESAR, ACT I, SCENE II
"Nay, an I tell you that, Ill ne'er look you i' the face again: but those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me." — Casca
11. "AS GOOD LUCK WOULD HAVE IT" // THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, ACT III, SCENE V
“As good luck would have it, comes in one Mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford's approach; and, in her invention and Ford's wife's distraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket.” — Falstaff
12. "YOU'VE GOT TO BE CRUEL TO BE KIND" // HAMLET, ACT III, SCENE IV
"So, again, good night. I must be cruel only to be kind. Thus bad begins and worse remains behind." — Hamlet
13. "LOVE IS BLIND" // THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, ACT II, SCENE VI
"But love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit, for if they could Cupid himself would blush to see me thus transformèd to a boy." — Jessica
14. "BE-ALL, END-ALL" // MACBETH, ACT I, SCENE VII
"If the assassination could trammel up the consequence, and catch with his surcease success; that but this blow might be the be-all and the end-all here, but here, upon this bank and shoal of time, we’d jump the life to come." — Macbeth
15. "BREAK THE ICE" // THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, ACT I, SCENE II
"If it be so, sir, that you are the man must stead us all, and me amongst the rest, and if you break the ice and do this feat, achieve the elder, set the younger free for our access, whose hap shall be to have her will not so graceless be to be ingrate." — Tranio (as Lucentio)
16. "HEART OF GOLD" // HENRY V, ACT IV, SCENE I
"The king's a bawcock, and a heart of gold, a lad of life, an imp of fame, of parents good, of fist most valiant." — Pistol.
17. "KILL WITH KINDNESS" // THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, ACT IV, SCENE 1
"This is a way to kill a wife with kindness, and thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humor." — Petruchio
18. "KNOCK, KNOCK! WHO'S THERE?" // MACBETH, ACT II, SCENE III
"Knock, knock! Who's there, in th' other devil’s name?" — Porter
19. "LIVE LONG DAY" // JULIUS CAESAR, ACT I, SCENE I
"To towers and windows, yea, to chimney tops, your infants in your arms, and there have sat the livelong day with patient expectation to see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome." — Mureless
20. "YOU CAN HAVE TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING" // AS YOU LIKE IT, ACT IV, SCENE I
"Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?— Come, sister, you shall be the priest and marry us.—Give me your hand, Orlando.—What do you say, sister?" — Rosalind
21. "THE GAME IS AFOOT" // HENRY V, ACT III, SCENE I
"The game's afoot: follow your spirit, and upon this charge cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'" — King Henry V
*.*
A man was eating a meal at a restaurant. He checks his pockets and leaves his tip -- three pennies. As he strides toward the door, his waitress muses, only half to herself, "You know, you can tell a lot about a man by the tip he leaves."
The man turns around, curiosity getting the better of him. "Oh, really? Tell me, what does my tip say?"
"Well, this penny tells me you're a thrifty man."
Barely able to conceal his pride, the man utters, "Hmm, true enough."
"And this penny, it tells me you're a bachelor."
Surprised at her perception, he says, "Well, that's true, too."
"And the third penny tells me that your father was one, too."
*.*
My wife and I went back to the hotel where we spent our wedding night for our 30 year anniversary.
Only this time I stayed in the bathroom and cried.
Issue of the Times;
Off the Wall by Sharon Freeman to Mike Rowe
Mike Rowe, I’m curious as to your opinion on the tragic death of the Boy Scouts of America?! I have several cousins that are Eagle Scouts, and I know that you are one also, so I feel you have somewhat of a vested interest in this matter. I didn’t have a problem with entire families going on Boy Scout camping trips, but to force them to become co-ed...I think that’s sad.
Hi Sharon.
In 1974, I was a painfully shy twelve-year-old kid with an annoying stammer and a deep fear of trying anything new. I was also very awkward around girls. I dreamed of being near them, but in real life, their proximity made me sweaty and nauseous. So one evening, my father dragged me to the basement of Kenwood Presbyterian Church, where the boys of Troop 16 were in the midst of an organized brawl called British Bulldog. The rules were simple.
One kid stood alone in the middle of the room. On the far end, 25 boys waited for the scoutmaster to blow a whistle, at which point they’d bolt to the other end. During the charge, the kid in the middle would attempt to tackle somebody and lift him in the air long enough to yell, “1,2,3, British Bulldog!” That kid, if successfully lifted, would join the other kid in the middle of the room, and together, they’d go about the business of tackling and lifting other kids during each subsequent charge. In the end, the last one to be lifted was declared the winner – the British Bulldog.
I was immediately thrust into this pandemonium and hoisted into the air, despite my best efforts to remain grounded. Somewhere along the way I got a bloody nose. Others sustained busted lips, black eyes, and sprained fingers. Happily, the game was followed by a course in First Aid, taught by a local paramedic who showed us how to apply a tourniquet and administer CPR. It was awesome.
In the coming weeks, I learned how to tie a sheepshank, throw a boomerang, build a fire, and make a lean-to. I was given a Boy Scout Handbook, and told to memorize the Scout Law and The Scout Oath. I did, and a week later, after another round of organized violence and hands on learning, I was summoned to the stage in the basement. There, I stood by the flag, raised my right hand, and promised to “do my duty to God and my country, obey the Scout Law, help other people at all times, and to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.”
The Scout Oath was the first promise I ever made, and I tried my best to keep it. I also got busy earning Skill Awards and Merit Badges, a consistently frustrating pursuit that always seemed to highlight my chronic incompetence. The Scoutmaster, a retired Army Colonel named Mr. Huntington – often said, “I know you're uncomfortable, Mike. Might as well find a way to enjoy it.”
In Troop 16, merit badges reflected merit. There was a boxing ring, where differences were often settled, monthly camping trips, frequent visits to the shooting range, weekly fitness tests, poetry readings from memory, and many other activities tailor-made to pull every kid out of his particular comfort zone. It was often humbling, but never humiliating. Failure was simply viewed as the most common symptom of trying. Consequently, the more I tried, the more I failed. The more I failed, the more I succeeded. The more I succeeded, the more confident I became. My grades improved in school. My stammer vanished, as did my awkwardness around girls.
One year at summer camp, I was called upon to sing a song of my choice at the evening campfire. It was parent’s night, and several hundred people from multiple troops were on hand. None were expecting me to belt out a tune from Tom Lehrer called “Be Prepared,” but that’s precisely what I did.
If you’re not familiar with this little gem, give it a listen. It is without question the most inappropriate song a Boy Scout could ever sing in public, but I thought it was hysterical, and packed with excellent advice. Afterward, Mr. Huntington offered a general apology to the parents in attendance, and gave me latrine duty for the duration of the encampment. Later though, he pulled me aside and said, “Mike, that was the funniest damn thing I’ve ever heard. Great job!”
Six years and two-dozen merit badges later, I was an Eagle Scout. Thirty-five years after that, I became a “Distinguished” Eagle Scout. I’m still not sure what I did to “distinguish” myself, but I accepted the award with gratitude, and I’ve tried ever since to give something back to the organization that gave me so much. Which brings us to what you've called “the tragic death" of The Boy Scouts, and the frightful prospects of “forced co-ed camping.”
According to their official statement, https://cnn.it/2HOv7gY, the Boy Scouts are welcoming girls because that’s what the overwhelming majority of parents want. From what I can tell, no one is being “forced” to do anything. Nothing in their statement talks about “co-ed” camping or even co-ed Troop Meetings.
As I read it, The Boy Scouts are launching a separate program that serves girls. Yes, The Girl Scouts are pissed, and the reason is clear - they don’t want the competition. But respectfully, is that argument even remotely persuasive? Competition is good, even among organizations that have similar goals. Especially now, with 90 million kids in this country unaffiliated with any youth-based organization. So I’m not opposed to building a program within Scouting for girls. But I am very worried about the future of Scouting in general.
When I left the organization in 1979, there were 5 million active members. Today, there are 2.3 million. With the recent departure of the Mormon community, that number will soon drop to under two million. Clearly, something is wrong. The question is what? Is it the past sexual scandals? Is it the more recent admission of gay and transgender members? I would imagine those are factors. But a 60% decline? That seems very unlikely. Besides, the drop-off started long before all that. Likewise, girls have always been excluded from The Boy Scouts, so I’m skeptical that welcoming them now, will fix whatever’s broken.
In my opinion, this kind of attrition can only explained by an increasing lack of relevance, or, the perception of irrelevance. Unfortunately, in situations like this, there's no difference between perception and reality. And right now, there's a perception that The Boy Scouts have gone soft. That's the real tragedy, Sharon, because I can’t think of anything more needed in our country today, than a youth organization that offers kids the same experience I underwent in the basement of Kenwood Church. Why? Because our country’s current obsession with “safe spaces” is destroying character faster than the Boy Scouts of today can build it.
Obviously, we want our kids protected from the hazards of a dangerous world. And clearly, the world we live it is a dangerous place. But safety is not the purpose of our existence, and this whole idea that kids need to be protected from fear, distress, discomfort, and disappointment is far more dangerous to the future of our country than anything I ever encountered in Scouting. You can’t build character in a “safe space.” You can only build dependence and entitlement, and you don’t have to look very far to see the results. Pardon my rant, but the stakes are high.
Too many kids are graduating from high school with no sense of who they are. Too many kids are leaving college with no marketable skill. Too many kids have never pondered a code to live by, or considered the importance of anything beyond the pursuit of their own comfort. It’s easy to call these kids “snowflakes,” but where do you suppose they came from?
We are the clouds from which the snowflakes fell. We are the ones who gave them trophies just for showing up. We’re the ones who told them that their feelings were more important than their actions, and that their dreams would come true if they simply followed them. Now, we are confronted with millions of dissatisfied young adults with no tolerance for beliefs that conflict with their own, and no realistic understanding of how life actually works.
I know I’m generalizing. I know there are many hardworking, conscientious millennials out there. I employ several. But I also know the “safe space movement” is real, and I can think of no better way to push back than to expose more kids to the brand of Scouting that I was lucky enough to encounter four decades ago. If by some miracle the dynamic I experienced in Troop 16 were available to everyone today – if Scouting could somehow recapture that combination of risk and wonder and pride and personal accountability - I believe their ranks would swell with the sons and daughters of millions of anxious parents, desperate to expose their kids to a program that prepares them for the real world.
I worry about The Boy Scouts for the same reasons I worry about The Girl Scouts and The Future Farmers of America and Skills USA and The 4-H Club and every other group that tries to elevate virtues like hard work, delayed gratification, and personal responsibility. I worry, because those ideas are wildly out of fashion, and organizations that have traditionally celebrated them are under enormous pressure to “evolve.” And so they do. But to what end? A 60% drop in membership?
If the Boy Scouts want to attract a new generation of members, they'll need to stand for something more than inclusion. Because being inclusive doesn't make you relevant. If I were calling the shots, I'd take a stand against the safe space movement and everything it embodies. And I'd do it in the most public way possible. But of course, that might also require a level of risk completely inconsistent with current orthodoxy.
As we all know, in 1974, a chipped tooth or a black eye didn’t lead to lawsuit, and today, I’m pretty sure a boxing ring and a trip to the shooting range would make a lot of parents...uncomfortable. But that’s exactly the point. In a world that values safety above everything else, discomfort is never welcome. Neither is risk. And yet, discomfort and risk are precisely why my time in Scouting was so valuable, and why Troop 16 was the polar opposite of a safe space.
Anyway Sharon, that’s a very long way of saying that girls are not the enemy. The enemy is bad ideology, and the inability to effectively confront it. Do I favor co-ed Scouting? Hell no. I can’t think of a single good reason to put girls and boys in the same troop, the same tent, the same boxing ring, or the same game of British Bulldog. But I can think of many good reasons to include them in a unified effort to confront the siren song of “safe spaces.”
Someone has to challenge the insipid belief that safety is the most important part of living. Someone has to challenge the idea that feelings trump achievement. Someone has to challenge the idea that “crying closets” on campuses designed to console stressed out students who just can't handle their finals exams, (or the outcome of a presidential election,) will produce a responsible, productive adult.
It’s not enough to simply ignore bad ideas. The safe space movement needs to be confronted, and I’d love nothing more than to see Scouts of both genders lead the charge.
Mike
Quote of the Times;
“People are not disturbed by things, but by the views they take of them.” – Epictetus
Link of the Times;
https://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2018/07/04/my-declaration-of-incivility-media-call-us-nazis-celebs-call-us-cnts-dems-scream-fck-you/
"2 or 3" she replied.
Probably explains why her marriage collapsed.
*.*
PORTLAND, OR—Immediately after losing a pickup basketball game at a park Friday, local liberal and unemployed man Rayne Wendell took to his iPhone in order to submit a piece to Slate.com in which he argues that the rules of basketball are “fundamentally flawed and unjust.”
Slate quickly published the piece.
“The three-point rule seems particularly imbalanced toward people who are good at shooting the basketball from far away, while the rule that the team with the most points wins is systemic bias at its worst,” he wrote. “Since the other team had more points, the outdated scoring system favored their winning.” He was quick to point out that although the other team did score more points, his team took more shots, and so should have been awarded the victory.
He then argued that the rules of basketball need to be “constantly evolving,” until they arrive at a place where he wins more often, and his opponents don’t win as often.
“And can we talk about the problematic height bias?” he wrote in the 17th paragraph of the piece. “Why should an incredibly tall, skilled, athletic player’s presence on the court count for at least two of me?”
Wendell concluded the piece by suggesting a radical new scoring system for basketball, where he walks on the court and is granted the win, no matter how well the other team plays.
*.*
21 Phrases You Use Without Realizing You're Quoting Shakespeare
William Shakespeare devised new words and countless plot tropes that still appear in everyday life. Famous quotes from his plays are easily recognizable; phrases like "To be or not to be," "wherefore art thou, Romeo," and "et tu, Brute?" instantly evoke images of wooden stages and Elizabethan costumes. But an incredible number of lines from his plays have become so ingrained into modern vernacular that we no longer recognize them as lines from plays at all.
1. "WILD GOOSE CHASE" // ROMEO AND JULIET, ACT II, SCENE IV
"Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five. Was I with you there for the goose?" — Mercutio
2. "GREEN-EYED MONSTER" // OTHELLO, ACT III, SCENE III
"O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on." — Iago
3. "PURE AS THE DRIVEN SNOW" // HAMLET, ACT III, SCENE I AND THE WINTER'S TALE, ACT IV, SCENE IV
"Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go." — Hamlet
4. "SEEN BETTER DAYS" // AS YOU LIKE IT, ACT II, SCENE VII
"True is it that we have seen better days and have with holy bell been knolled to church, and sat at good men's feasts and wiped our eyes of drops that sacred pity hath engendered." — Duke Senior
5. "OFF WITH HIS HEAD" // RICHARD III, ACT III, SCENE IV
"If? Thou protector of this damnèd strumpet, talk'st thou to me of "ifs"? Thou art a traitor—Off with his head." — Richard III
6. "FOREVER AND A DAY" // AS YOU LIKE IT, ACT IV, SCENE I
"Now tell me how long you would have her after you have possessed her." — Rosalind
"Forever and a day" — Orlando
7. "GOOD RIDDANCE" // TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, ACT II, SCENE I
[Thersites exits]
"A good riddance." — Patroclus
8. "FAIR PLAY" // THE TEMPEST, ACT V, SCENE I
"Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle, and I would call it fair play." — Miranda
9. "LIE LOW" // MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, ACT V, SCENE I
"If he could right himself with quarreling, some of us would lie low." — Antonio
10. "IT'S GREEK TO ME" // JULIUS CAESAR, ACT I, SCENE II
"Nay, an I tell you that, Ill ne'er look you i' the face again: but those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me." — Casca
11. "AS GOOD LUCK WOULD HAVE IT" // THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, ACT III, SCENE V
“As good luck would have it, comes in one Mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford's approach; and, in her invention and Ford's wife's distraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket.” — Falstaff
12. "YOU'VE GOT TO BE CRUEL TO BE KIND" // HAMLET, ACT III, SCENE IV
"So, again, good night. I must be cruel only to be kind. Thus bad begins and worse remains behind." — Hamlet
13. "LOVE IS BLIND" // THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, ACT II, SCENE VI
"But love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit, for if they could Cupid himself would blush to see me thus transformèd to a boy." — Jessica
14. "BE-ALL, END-ALL" // MACBETH, ACT I, SCENE VII
"If the assassination could trammel up the consequence, and catch with his surcease success; that but this blow might be the be-all and the end-all here, but here, upon this bank and shoal of time, we’d jump the life to come." — Macbeth
15. "BREAK THE ICE" // THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, ACT I, SCENE II
"If it be so, sir, that you are the man must stead us all, and me amongst the rest, and if you break the ice and do this feat, achieve the elder, set the younger free for our access, whose hap shall be to have her will not so graceless be to be ingrate." — Tranio (as Lucentio)
16. "HEART OF GOLD" // HENRY V, ACT IV, SCENE I
"The king's a bawcock, and a heart of gold, a lad of life, an imp of fame, of parents good, of fist most valiant." — Pistol.
17. "KILL WITH KINDNESS" // THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, ACT IV, SCENE 1
"This is a way to kill a wife with kindness, and thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humor." — Petruchio
18. "KNOCK, KNOCK! WHO'S THERE?" // MACBETH, ACT II, SCENE III
"Knock, knock! Who's there, in th' other devil’s name?" — Porter
19. "LIVE LONG DAY" // JULIUS CAESAR, ACT I, SCENE I
"To towers and windows, yea, to chimney tops, your infants in your arms, and there have sat the livelong day with patient expectation to see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome." — Mureless
20. "YOU CAN HAVE TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING" // AS YOU LIKE IT, ACT IV, SCENE I
"Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?— Come, sister, you shall be the priest and marry us.—Give me your hand, Orlando.—What do you say, sister?" — Rosalind
21. "THE GAME IS AFOOT" // HENRY V, ACT III, SCENE I
"The game's afoot: follow your spirit, and upon this charge cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'" — King Henry V
*.*
A man was eating a meal at a restaurant. He checks his pockets and leaves his tip -- three pennies. As he strides toward the door, his waitress muses, only half to herself, "You know, you can tell a lot about a man by the tip he leaves."
The man turns around, curiosity getting the better of him. "Oh, really? Tell me, what does my tip say?"
"Well, this penny tells me you're a thrifty man."
Barely able to conceal his pride, the man utters, "Hmm, true enough."
"And this penny, it tells me you're a bachelor."
Surprised at her perception, he says, "Well, that's true, too."
"And the third penny tells me that your father was one, too."
*.*
My wife and I went back to the hotel where we spent our wedding night for our 30 year anniversary.
Only this time I stayed in the bathroom and cried.
Issue of the Times;
Off the Wall by Sharon Freeman to Mike Rowe
Mike Rowe, I’m curious as to your opinion on the tragic death of the Boy Scouts of America?! I have several cousins that are Eagle Scouts, and I know that you are one also, so I feel you have somewhat of a vested interest in this matter. I didn’t have a problem with entire families going on Boy Scout camping trips, but to force them to become co-ed...I think that’s sad.
Hi Sharon.
In 1974, I was a painfully shy twelve-year-old kid with an annoying stammer and a deep fear of trying anything new. I was also very awkward around girls. I dreamed of being near them, but in real life, their proximity made me sweaty and nauseous. So one evening, my father dragged me to the basement of Kenwood Presbyterian Church, where the boys of Troop 16 were in the midst of an organized brawl called British Bulldog. The rules were simple.
One kid stood alone in the middle of the room. On the far end, 25 boys waited for the scoutmaster to blow a whistle, at which point they’d bolt to the other end. During the charge, the kid in the middle would attempt to tackle somebody and lift him in the air long enough to yell, “1,2,3, British Bulldog!” That kid, if successfully lifted, would join the other kid in the middle of the room, and together, they’d go about the business of tackling and lifting other kids during each subsequent charge. In the end, the last one to be lifted was declared the winner – the British Bulldog.
I was immediately thrust into this pandemonium and hoisted into the air, despite my best efforts to remain grounded. Somewhere along the way I got a bloody nose. Others sustained busted lips, black eyes, and sprained fingers. Happily, the game was followed by a course in First Aid, taught by a local paramedic who showed us how to apply a tourniquet and administer CPR. It was awesome.
In the coming weeks, I learned how to tie a sheepshank, throw a boomerang, build a fire, and make a lean-to. I was given a Boy Scout Handbook, and told to memorize the Scout Law and The Scout Oath. I did, and a week later, after another round of organized violence and hands on learning, I was summoned to the stage in the basement. There, I stood by the flag, raised my right hand, and promised to “do my duty to God and my country, obey the Scout Law, help other people at all times, and to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.”
The Scout Oath was the first promise I ever made, and I tried my best to keep it. I also got busy earning Skill Awards and Merit Badges, a consistently frustrating pursuit that always seemed to highlight my chronic incompetence. The Scoutmaster, a retired Army Colonel named Mr. Huntington – often said, “I know you're uncomfortable, Mike. Might as well find a way to enjoy it.”
In Troop 16, merit badges reflected merit. There was a boxing ring, where differences were often settled, monthly camping trips, frequent visits to the shooting range, weekly fitness tests, poetry readings from memory, and many other activities tailor-made to pull every kid out of his particular comfort zone. It was often humbling, but never humiliating. Failure was simply viewed as the most common symptom of trying. Consequently, the more I tried, the more I failed. The more I failed, the more I succeeded. The more I succeeded, the more confident I became. My grades improved in school. My stammer vanished, as did my awkwardness around girls.
One year at summer camp, I was called upon to sing a song of my choice at the evening campfire. It was parent’s night, and several hundred people from multiple troops were on hand. None were expecting me to belt out a tune from Tom Lehrer called “Be Prepared,” but that’s precisely what I did.
If you’re not familiar with this little gem, give it a listen. It is without question the most inappropriate song a Boy Scout could ever sing in public, but I thought it was hysterical, and packed with excellent advice. Afterward, Mr. Huntington offered a general apology to the parents in attendance, and gave me latrine duty for the duration of the encampment. Later though, he pulled me aside and said, “Mike, that was the funniest damn thing I’ve ever heard. Great job!”
Six years and two-dozen merit badges later, I was an Eagle Scout. Thirty-five years after that, I became a “Distinguished” Eagle Scout. I’m still not sure what I did to “distinguish” myself, but I accepted the award with gratitude, and I’ve tried ever since to give something back to the organization that gave me so much. Which brings us to what you've called “the tragic death" of The Boy Scouts, and the frightful prospects of “forced co-ed camping.”
According to their official statement, https://cnn.it/2HOv7gY, the Boy Scouts are welcoming girls because that’s what the overwhelming majority of parents want. From what I can tell, no one is being “forced” to do anything. Nothing in their statement talks about “co-ed” camping or even co-ed Troop Meetings.
As I read it, The Boy Scouts are launching a separate program that serves girls. Yes, The Girl Scouts are pissed, and the reason is clear - they don’t want the competition. But respectfully, is that argument even remotely persuasive? Competition is good, even among organizations that have similar goals. Especially now, with 90 million kids in this country unaffiliated with any youth-based organization. So I’m not opposed to building a program within Scouting for girls. But I am very worried about the future of Scouting in general.
When I left the organization in 1979, there were 5 million active members. Today, there are 2.3 million. With the recent departure of the Mormon community, that number will soon drop to under two million. Clearly, something is wrong. The question is what? Is it the past sexual scandals? Is it the more recent admission of gay and transgender members? I would imagine those are factors. But a 60% decline? That seems very unlikely. Besides, the drop-off started long before all that. Likewise, girls have always been excluded from The Boy Scouts, so I’m skeptical that welcoming them now, will fix whatever’s broken.
In my opinion, this kind of attrition can only explained by an increasing lack of relevance, or, the perception of irrelevance. Unfortunately, in situations like this, there's no difference between perception and reality. And right now, there's a perception that The Boy Scouts have gone soft. That's the real tragedy, Sharon, because I can’t think of anything more needed in our country today, than a youth organization that offers kids the same experience I underwent in the basement of Kenwood Church. Why? Because our country’s current obsession with “safe spaces” is destroying character faster than the Boy Scouts of today can build it.
Obviously, we want our kids protected from the hazards of a dangerous world. And clearly, the world we live it is a dangerous place. But safety is not the purpose of our existence, and this whole idea that kids need to be protected from fear, distress, discomfort, and disappointment is far more dangerous to the future of our country than anything I ever encountered in Scouting. You can’t build character in a “safe space.” You can only build dependence and entitlement, and you don’t have to look very far to see the results. Pardon my rant, but the stakes are high.
Too many kids are graduating from high school with no sense of who they are. Too many kids are leaving college with no marketable skill. Too many kids have never pondered a code to live by, or considered the importance of anything beyond the pursuit of their own comfort. It’s easy to call these kids “snowflakes,” but where do you suppose they came from?
We are the clouds from which the snowflakes fell. We are the ones who gave them trophies just for showing up. We’re the ones who told them that their feelings were more important than their actions, and that their dreams would come true if they simply followed them. Now, we are confronted with millions of dissatisfied young adults with no tolerance for beliefs that conflict with their own, and no realistic understanding of how life actually works.
I know I’m generalizing. I know there are many hardworking, conscientious millennials out there. I employ several. But I also know the “safe space movement” is real, and I can think of no better way to push back than to expose more kids to the brand of Scouting that I was lucky enough to encounter four decades ago. If by some miracle the dynamic I experienced in Troop 16 were available to everyone today – if Scouting could somehow recapture that combination of risk and wonder and pride and personal accountability - I believe their ranks would swell with the sons and daughters of millions of anxious parents, desperate to expose their kids to a program that prepares them for the real world.
I worry about The Boy Scouts for the same reasons I worry about The Girl Scouts and The Future Farmers of America and Skills USA and The 4-H Club and every other group that tries to elevate virtues like hard work, delayed gratification, and personal responsibility. I worry, because those ideas are wildly out of fashion, and organizations that have traditionally celebrated them are under enormous pressure to “evolve.” And so they do. But to what end? A 60% drop in membership?
If the Boy Scouts want to attract a new generation of members, they'll need to stand for something more than inclusion. Because being inclusive doesn't make you relevant. If I were calling the shots, I'd take a stand against the safe space movement and everything it embodies. And I'd do it in the most public way possible. But of course, that might also require a level of risk completely inconsistent with current orthodoxy.
As we all know, in 1974, a chipped tooth or a black eye didn’t lead to lawsuit, and today, I’m pretty sure a boxing ring and a trip to the shooting range would make a lot of parents...uncomfortable. But that’s exactly the point. In a world that values safety above everything else, discomfort is never welcome. Neither is risk. And yet, discomfort and risk are precisely why my time in Scouting was so valuable, and why Troop 16 was the polar opposite of a safe space.
Anyway Sharon, that’s a very long way of saying that girls are not the enemy. The enemy is bad ideology, and the inability to effectively confront it. Do I favor co-ed Scouting? Hell no. I can’t think of a single good reason to put girls and boys in the same troop, the same tent, the same boxing ring, or the same game of British Bulldog. But I can think of many good reasons to include them in a unified effort to confront the siren song of “safe spaces.”
Someone has to challenge the insipid belief that safety is the most important part of living. Someone has to challenge the idea that feelings trump achievement. Someone has to challenge the idea that “crying closets” on campuses designed to console stressed out students who just can't handle their finals exams, (or the outcome of a presidential election,) will produce a responsible, productive adult.
It’s not enough to simply ignore bad ideas. The safe space movement needs to be confronted, and I’d love nothing more than to see Scouts of both genders lead the charge.
Mike
Quote of the Times;
“People are not disturbed by things, but by the views they take of them.” – Epictetus
Link of the Times;
https://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2018/07/04/my-declaration-of-incivility-media-call-us-nazis-celebs-call-us-cnts-dems-scream-fck-you/
Dealing?
The Rudest Place Names In Ireland
1. Doodys Bottoms - Co. Wicklow
2. Effin - Co. Limerick
3. Dicksboro - Co. Kilkenny.
4. Fartrim - Co. Cavan
5. Cum - Co. Mayo
6. Slutsend - Co. Dublin
7. Bastardstown - Co. Wexford
8. Fannystown - Co. Wexford
9. Lousybush - Co Kilkenny
10. Muff - Co. Donegal
11. Termonfeckin - Co. Louth
12. Dyke Parade - Co. Cork
13. Letterfinish - Co. Kerry
14. Gaggin - Co. Cork
15. Blue Ball - Co. Offaly
16. Horetown - Co. Wexford.
17. Kilbrittain - Co. Cork
18. Naad - Co. Cork
*.*
ATLANTA, GA—The mandatory time of greeting one another during a church service has always been the bane of the socially awkward church member’s existence.
But self-described introvert Carla Weslow announced Friday that she has found an innovative way to beat the system: a powerful new smoke bomb she has developed over the past seven years.
Tucked away in the waistband of Weslow’s pants at all times, the smoke bomb lies in wait. As soon as a church member spots her trying to avoid attention near the back pew and strides toward her to shake hands and catch up on each other’s weeks, the vigilante introvert springs into action.
Maintaining a calm demeanor, she flings the smoke bomb at her feet with lightning speed and accuracy, causing a cloud of thick fog to instantly envelop the vicinity and obstruct her attacker’s vision. Weslow then uses those few precious moments of confusion to flee the area using a grappling hook, zip line, or other gadget stowed in her purse.
“I am the night!” Weslow cried out as she rolled through a church window and made her getaway to her car during a recent church service, according to witnesses.
“I just wanted to see how her week was going,” a bewildered, coughing church member said later.
*.*
While a friend and I were visiting Oxford University, we noticed several students on their hands and knees assessing the courtyard with pencils and clipboards in hand.
"What are they doing?" I asked our tour guide.
"Each year," he replied with a grin, "The Dean asks the new students how many bricks it took to finish paving this courtyard."
"So what's the answer?" my friend asked him when we were out of earshot of the freshmen.
The guide replied, "One."
*.*
Movement That Demands Forceful Silencing Of All Opposing Viewpoints Unsure Why Nation So Divided
A political movement that immediately demands that people they disagree with be forcefully silenced by myriad means such as having their sponsors pulled and having them fired from their jobs expressed Friday that they weren’t 100% sure why the nation was so polarized and divided. Lamenting the significant problem of America’s deep divisions while simultaneously creating internet mobs to lynch those with whom they disagree, the nation’s liberals collectively stated they couldn’t figure out why polar opposites continued to drift further and further apart.
Representatives of the left, who recently campaigned for advertisers to tank a show they did not like and for a magazine to fire a man they did not agree with, expressed their bewilderment that the nation can’t just unite and all get along. A barrage of social media posts and opinion pieces by progressives all expressed similar confusion at the nation’s polarization.
“It just doesn’t make any sense,” one opinion writer at Slate wrote, in an article entitled “Why Can’t We All Just Get Along And Also Agree With Me Or I Will Kill You?” “Why can’t our nation get along? Also, if you breathe an opinion even slightly different from our own, we will destroy you. But yeah, let’s all be united and stuff.”
“This is America, after all, a land where we are all free to express our own opinions, so long as they agree with mine,” the article concluded. “Or I will bring your livelihood crashing down so fast you and your family won’t be able to breathe.”
One liberal took a break from applauding The Atlantic for firing a conservative opinion writer for having conservative opinions to call for national unity on his Facebook account, while another progressive bookended his Twitter post calling for advertisers to pull from a conservative talk show with quotes about love, unity, and brotherhood.
At publishing time, sources had been able to confirm that the nation’s liberals were rapidly refreshing their Twitter and Facebook feeds looking for differing opinions, so they could find a new target to destroy.
*.*
TEXT TO NEIGHBOR:
Hi, Fred, this is Richard, next door. I’ve got a confession to make.
I’ve been riddled with guilt for a few months and have been trying to get up the courage to tell you face-to-face. At least I’m telling you in this text and I can’t live with myself a minute longer without you knowing about this.
The truth is that when you’re not around I’ve been sharing your wife, day and night. In fact, probably much more than you. I haven’t been getting it at home recently and I know that that’s no excuse. The temptation was just too great. I can’t live with the guilt and hope you’ll accept my sincere apology and forgive me.
Please suggest a fee for usage and I’ll pay you.
Regards, Richard
NEIGHBOR’S RESPONSE:
Fred, feeling so angered and betrayed, grabbed his gun and shot Richard killing him. He went back home and poured himself a stiff drink and sat down on the sofa. Fred then looked at his phone and discovered a second Text message from Richard.
SECOND TEXT MESSAGE:
Hi, Fred. Richard here again. Sorry about the typo on my last text. I expect you figured it out and noticed that the damned Auto-Spell Correct had changed “wi-fi" to “wife”. Technology, huh? It’ll be the death of us all.
Regards, Richard
Issue of the Times;
Dealing With Aggressive Violence By Jim Campbell
The vast majority of people seem confused about violence on both practical and idealogical grounds.
Practically, it is impossible to remove the *ability* for human beings to inflict harm upon one another. Deprived of a rifle, a human intending harm will simply find other means: a knife, a pipe, a pressure cooker, a truck, acid, even sticks and stones, and, if necessary, fists and feet.
This is an unfortunate, yet undeniable fact of the universe. Humans can be incredibly creative in their efforts to harm each other.
The one thing that seems to give predatory humans pause is the possibility of defense in the form of violent counterattack. Everywhere in the Animal Kingdom, predation occurs primarily on the weak and defenseless. Only a desperate predator will risk attack on a strong target that can defend itself. Humans are no different.
Most people supporting “gun control” measures, and now “knife control” measures in the UK, are living in childish denial of this basic reality of the human condition. (A smaller group are not in denial of anything, but seek to turn the population into defenseless subjects.)
Before discussing the solution, an important clarification is necessary:
Not all violence is morally equal or even practically unacceptable.
The kind of violence that should be of concern to decent people is called AGGRESSION. Aggression is violence directed toward an innocent person who is minding their own business. Defensive violence is not a problem. In fact, even those who most staunchly oppose people’s right to arm themselves accept that defensive violence is required to deal with aggression. These people simply believe that defensive violence should only be allowed by a small group of people, typically the police. I will discuss this position later when I address the ideological misunderstandings on this subject. For now, all that is necessary is to see that nearly all people make a distinction between aggressive violence and defensive violence. The problem decent people face is aggression, not violence. The problem is not “gun violence” or even “gun aggression”. The problem is aggressive violence, by whatever means. Many people with a specific political goal deliberately confuse this point.
If we accept the obvious reality that a human being dedicated to harming others will find a way, then what can be done?
The only thing that can be done is to make ourselves and other decent human beings stronger. We must be rational adults and accept that predators can not be made safe by depriving them of the MEANS to harm, because an intelligent human dedicated to harming another person will ALWAYS be able to find means in some form. That is to say, we can not rid the world of aggression. Instead, we must accept radical responsibility for our own safety and the safety of other decent, innocent, people around us.
Technology provides decent people with the means to become stronger. With modest effort, even the physically smallest and weakest person can become quite strong, and a threat to deliver overwhelming defensive violence, making them very unattractive to human predators. This technology, of course, is the firearm. Study after study shows that when decent people are armed, or may be armed, then aggressive violence drops. A population where a small but significant number of people MAY be armed, but it is unknown to an assailant whether a particular individual is armed, as is the case in jurisdictions with “concealed carry” laws, see the highest reduction in violent crime. These are established facts.
In the 1800’s, the Colt Single-Action Army Pistol was called “The Equalizer”, because equipped with this technology, an otherwise physically weaker or slower person was equal to their bigger, stronger, faster aggressor. Women, who on average are about half the strength of a man, should give this some special consideration.
Consider that when only one nation possessed nuclear weapons, they were used. Since there has been the threat of overwhelming defensive violence, so-called “mutually assured destruction”, they have not. Many geopolitical strategists are concerned that one nation may develop the technical capability to launch a successful first attack that destroys the target nation’s ability to respond. This is called “nuclear primacy”. It is a concern because it removes the threat of defensive violence. It is exactly this concern of counter attack that has protected humanity for fifty years.
This, then, is the practical solution for dealing with aggressive violence:
1. Accept that it is impossible to eliminate the means to inflict harm.
2. Accept that some people will seek to harm others.
3. Create in yourself and other decent people the ability to respond to predators with overwhelming counter violence.
History shows us that when people do not have the means to defend themselves, they will eventually suffer atrocities.
The moral argument is more cut and dried:
A human being is the absolute owner and sovereign over their body. As such, they have an absolute and inalienable right to defend themselves from aggression by others, by ANY means available or necessary, as long as those means do not harm other innocent people around them.
Any attempt to deprive a human being of the right to defend themselves is to deny that person ownership and sovereignty over their own body.
As a sovereign individual, a human being has the absolute right to make mutually-voluntary agreements (contracts) with other human beings, to keep the products of their labor and justly-acquired property, whether obtained from labor or contract.
Depriving a human being of the right to keep the fruit of their labor is called “slavery”. Taking a person’s justly-acquired property by force is called “theft”. Both are aggression against the person’s self-ownership and self-determination.
A human being has the absolute right to voluntarily disarm themselves. They do not have the right to forcefully disarm others, interfere with their voluntary relationships with others, take their property, or engage in any other aggression against another person, either directly or by proxy.
Any government which restricts or removes the means for innocent people to defend themselves no longer recognizes those people as free moral agents. It regards them as subjects, and rejects their most fundamental rights as owners of their own bodies. Any such government is de facto a tyranny and illegitimate.
The absolute right to defend one’s self and property is indistinguishable from and synonymous with the existence of the individual as a free moral agent.
Disarmed, we are subjects. Armed, we are citizens. As decent citizens, we have the moral duty to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and other innocent people from those who would harm us
Quote of the Times;
“The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.” - Lawrence
Link of the Times;
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/u-s-co2-levels-drop-again/
1. Doodys Bottoms - Co. Wicklow
2. Effin - Co. Limerick
3. Dicksboro - Co. Kilkenny.
4. Fartrim - Co. Cavan
5. Cum - Co. Mayo
6. Slutsend - Co. Dublin
7. Bastardstown - Co. Wexford
8. Fannystown - Co. Wexford
9. Lousybush - Co Kilkenny
10. Muff - Co. Donegal
11. Termonfeckin - Co. Louth
12. Dyke Parade - Co. Cork
13. Letterfinish - Co. Kerry
14. Gaggin - Co. Cork
15. Blue Ball - Co. Offaly
16. Horetown - Co. Wexford.
17. Kilbrittain - Co. Cork
18. Naad - Co. Cork
*.*
ATLANTA, GA—The mandatory time of greeting one another during a church service has always been the bane of the socially awkward church member’s existence.
But self-described introvert Carla Weslow announced Friday that she has found an innovative way to beat the system: a powerful new smoke bomb she has developed over the past seven years.
Tucked away in the waistband of Weslow’s pants at all times, the smoke bomb lies in wait. As soon as a church member spots her trying to avoid attention near the back pew and strides toward her to shake hands and catch up on each other’s weeks, the vigilante introvert springs into action.
Maintaining a calm demeanor, she flings the smoke bomb at her feet with lightning speed and accuracy, causing a cloud of thick fog to instantly envelop the vicinity and obstruct her attacker’s vision. Weslow then uses those few precious moments of confusion to flee the area using a grappling hook, zip line, or other gadget stowed in her purse.
“I am the night!” Weslow cried out as she rolled through a church window and made her getaway to her car during a recent church service, according to witnesses.
“I just wanted to see how her week was going,” a bewildered, coughing church member said later.
*.*
While a friend and I were visiting Oxford University, we noticed several students on their hands and knees assessing the courtyard with pencils and clipboards in hand.
"What are they doing?" I asked our tour guide.
"Each year," he replied with a grin, "The Dean asks the new students how many bricks it took to finish paving this courtyard."
"So what's the answer?" my friend asked him when we were out of earshot of the freshmen.
The guide replied, "One."
*.*
Movement That Demands Forceful Silencing Of All Opposing Viewpoints Unsure Why Nation So Divided
A political movement that immediately demands that people they disagree with be forcefully silenced by myriad means such as having their sponsors pulled and having them fired from their jobs expressed Friday that they weren’t 100% sure why the nation was so polarized and divided. Lamenting the significant problem of America’s deep divisions while simultaneously creating internet mobs to lynch those with whom they disagree, the nation’s liberals collectively stated they couldn’t figure out why polar opposites continued to drift further and further apart.
Representatives of the left, who recently campaigned for advertisers to tank a show they did not like and for a magazine to fire a man they did not agree with, expressed their bewilderment that the nation can’t just unite and all get along. A barrage of social media posts and opinion pieces by progressives all expressed similar confusion at the nation’s polarization.
“It just doesn’t make any sense,” one opinion writer at Slate wrote, in an article entitled “Why Can’t We All Just Get Along And Also Agree With Me Or I Will Kill You?” “Why can’t our nation get along? Also, if you breathe an opinion even slightly different from our own, we will destroy you. But yeah, let’s all be united and stuff.”
“This is America, after all, a land where we are all free to express our own opinions, so long as they agree with mine,” the article concluded. “Or I will bring your livelihood crashing down so fast you and your family won’t be able to breathe.”
One liberal took a break from applauding The Atlantic for firing a conservative opinion writer for having conservative opinions to call for national unity on his Facebook account, while another progressive bookended his Twitter post calling for advertisers to pull from a conservative talk show with quotes about love, unity, and brotherhood.
At publishing time, sources had been able to confirm that the nation’s liberals were rapidly refreshing their Twitter and Facebook feeds looking for differing opinions, so they could find a new target to destroy.
*.*
TEXT TO NEIGHBOR:
Hi, Fred, this is Richard, next door. I’ve got a confession to make.
I’ve been riddled with guilt for a few months and have been trying to get up the courage to tell you face-to-face. At least I’m telling you in this text and I can’t live with myself a minute longer without you knowing about this.
The truth is that when you’re not around I’ve been sharing your wife, day and night. In fact, probably much more than you. I haven’t been getting it at home recently and I know that that’s no excuse. The temptation was just too great. I can’t live with the guilt and hope you’ll accept my sincere apology and forgive me.
Please suggest a fee for usage and I’ll pay you.
Regards, Richard
NEIGHBOR’S RESPONSE:
Fred, feeling so angered and betrayed, grabbed his gun and shot Richard killing him. He went back home and poured himself a stiff drink and sat down on the sofa. Fred then looked at his phone and discovered a second Text message from Richard.
SECOND TEXT MESSAGE:
Hi, Fred. Richard here again. Sorry about the typo on my last text. I expect you figured it out and noticed that the damned Auto-Spell Correct had changed “wi-fi" to “wife”. Technology, huh? It’ll be the death of us all.
Regards, Richard
Issue of the Times;
Dealing With Aggressive Violence By Jim Campbell
The vast majority of people seem confused about violence on both practical and idealogical grounds.
Practically, it is impossible to remove the *ability* for human beings to inflict harm upon one another. Deprived of a rifle, a human intending harm will simply find other means: a knife, a pipe, a pressure cooker, a truck, acid, even sticks and stones, and, if necessary, fists and feet.
This is an unfortunate, yet undeniable fact of the universe. Humans can be incredibly creative in their efforts to harm each other.
The one thing that seems to give predatory humans pause is the possibility of defense in the form of violent counterattack. Everywhere in the Animal Kingdom, predation occurs primarily on the weak and defenseless. Only a desperate predator will risk attack on a strong target that can defend itself. Humans are no different.
Most people supporting “gun control” measures, and now “knife control” measures in the UK, are living in childish denial of this basic reality of the human condition. (A smaller group are not in denial of anything, but seek to turn the population into defenseless subjects.)
Before discussing the solution, an important clarification is necessary:
Not all violence is morally equal or even practically unacceptable.
The kind of violence that should be of concern to decent people is called AGGRESSION. Aggression is violence directed toward an innocent person who is minding their own business. Defensive violence is not a problem. In fact, even those who most staunchly oppose people’s right to arm themselves accept that defensive violence is required to deal with aggression. These people simply believe that defensive violence should only be allowed by a small group of people, typically the police. I will discuss this position later when I address the ideological misunderstandings on this subject. For now, all that is necessary is to see that nearly all people make a distinction between aggressive violence and defensive violence. The problem decent people face is aggression, not violence. The problem is not “gun violence” or even “gun aggression”. The problem is aggressive violence, by whatever means. Many people with a specific political goal deliberately confuse this point.
If we accept the obvious reality that a human being dedicated to harming others will find a way, then what can be done?
The only thing that can be done is to make ourselves and other decent human beings stronger. We must be rational adults and accept that predators can not be made safe by depriving them of the MEANS to harm, because an intelligent human dedicated to harming another person will ALWAYS be able to find means in some form. That is to say, we can not rid the world of aggression. Instead, we must accept radical responsibility for our own safety and the safety of other decent, innocent, people around us.
Technology provides decent people with the means to become stronger. With modest effort, even the physically smallest and weakest person can become quite strong, and a threat to deliver overwhelming defensive violence, making them very unattractive to human predators. This technology, of course, is the firearm. Study after study shows that when decent people are armed, or may be armed, then aggressive violence drops. A population where a small but significant number of people MAY be armed, but it is unknown to an assailant whether a particular individual is armed, as is the case in jurisdictions with “concealed carry” laws, see the highest reduction in violent crime. These are established facts.
In the 1800’s, the Colt Single-Action Army Pistol was called “The Equalizer”, because equipped with this technology, an otherwise physically weaker or slower person was equal to their bigger, stronger, faster aggressor. Women, who on average are about half the strength of a man, should give this some special consideration.
Consider that when only one nation possessed nuclear weapons, they were used. Since there has been the threat of overwhelming defensive violence, so-called “mutually assured destruction”, they have not. Many geopolitical strategists are concerned that one nation may develop the technical capability to launch a successful first attack that destroys the target nation’s ability to respond. This is called “nuclear primacy”. It is a concern because it removes the threat of defensive violence. It is exactly this concern of counter attack that has protected humanity for fifty years.
This, then, is the practical solution for dealing with aggressive violence:
1. Accept that it is impossible to eliminate the means to inflict harm.
2. Accept that some people will seek to harm others.
3. Create in yourself and other decent people the ability to respond to predators with overwhelming counter violence.
History shows us that when people do not have the means to defend themselves, they will eventually suffer atrocities.
The moral argument is more cut and dried:
A human being is the absolute owner and sovereign over their body. As such, they have an absolute and inalienable right to defend themselves from aggression by others, by ANY means available or necessary, as long as those means do not harm other innocent people around them.
Any attempt to deprive a human being of the right to defend themselves is to deny that person ownership and sovereignty over their own body.
As a sovereign individual, a human being has the absolute right to make mutually-voluntary agreements (contracts) with other human beings, to keep the products of their labor and justly-acquired property, whether obtained from labor or contract.
Depriving a human being of the right to keep the fruit of their labor is called “slavery”. Taking a person’s justly-acquired property by force is called “theft”. Both are aggression against the person’s self-ownership and self-determination.
A human being has the absolute right to voluntarily disarm themselves. They do not have the right to forcefully disarm others, interfere with their voluntary relationships with others, take their property, or engage in any other aggression against another person, either directly or by proxy.
Any government which restricts or removes the means for innocent people to defend themselves no longer recognizes those people as free moral agents. It regards them as subjects, and rejects their most fundamental rights as owners of their own bodies. Any such government is de facto a tyranny and illegitimate.
The absolute right to defend one’s self and property is indistinguishable from and synonymous with the existence of the individual as a free moral agent.
Disarmed, we are subjects. Armed, we are citizens. As decent citizens, we have the moral duty to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and other innocent people from those who would harm us
Quote of the Times;
“The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.” - Lawrence
Link of the Times;
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/u-s-co2-levels-drop-again/
Polls?
We could balance the Federal Budget if we taxed sex. Everyone would pay their share. Young people would pay more taxes and your tax liability would decrease as you got older.
The tax would also promote family values. How would you like to come home to your wife and have her ask, "Honey, why is your tax bill larger than mine?" Or be a teenager and come home to your dad with your tax bill in his hand.
We wouldn't have to pay people to work for the IRS, they would be paying to work there just so they could review peoples returns.
Locker room conversations would change... "Get a load of this tax bill!"
The forms would change a little also. We would now have a 1040Quickee. And it would give a whole new meaning to the phrase, "Substantial penalty for early withdrawal."
*.*
Why was 10 scared?
He was in the middle of 9-11.
*.*
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Still reeling from Trump’s previous Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, Democrats plan to scrutinize any new nominee to ensure that he or she isn’t yet another crony of something called “The Constitution,” Senate Democrats announced Friday.
“Time and time again, we find progressive laws getting struck down,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a Senate address. “And it’s always — always — the ones the Constitution is against. These right-wing judges don’t think for themselves, they just do whatever the Constitution says. And it’s time for that to end.”
Senate Democrats have vowed to make sure that any new nominee isn’t going to be beholden to outside influences like the Constitution, the founding fathers, or the rule of law. “We need judges to be advocates of progressive laws,” Senator Elizabeth Warren added. “Not people who will bow to the whims of the Constitution, pitting its extremist values of freedom of speech and freedom of religion against our agenda.”
“We’re sick and tired of the Constitution sitting in the National Archives, manipulating everything we do,” stated Senator Cory Booker, trying to emote for the cameras but failing. Booker then called a ten-minute recess for him to refresh his supply of fake tears before he could continue.
*.*
I was telling a woman in the Club about my ability to guess what day a woman was born just by feeling her breasts.
"Really" she said, "Go on then... Try."
After about thirty seconds of fondling she began to lose patience and said, "Come on, what day was I born?"
I said, "Yesterday."
*.*
Back in the Soviet Union days; a judge walks out of his chambers laughing his head off.
A colleague approaches him and asks why he is laughing.
"I just heard the funniest joke in the world!"
"Well, go ahead, tell me!" says the other judge.
"I can't – I just gave someone ten years for it!"
Issue of the Times;
Capitalism vs. Socialism by Walter E. Williams
Several recent polls, plus the popularity of Sen. Bernie Sanders, demonstrate that young people prefer socialism to free market capitalism. That, I believe, is a result of their ignorance and indoctrination during their school years, from kindergarten through college. For the most part, neither they nor many of their teachers and professors know what free market capitalism is.
Free market capitalism, wherein there is peaceful voluntary exchange, is morally superior to any other economic system. Why? Let's start with my initial premise. All of us own ourselves. I am my private property, and you are yours. Murder, rape, theft and the initiation of violence are immoral because they violate self-ownership. Similarly, the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another person, for any reason, is immoral because it violates self-ownership.
Tragically, two-thirds to three-quarters of the federal budget can be described as Congress taking the rightful earnings of one American to give to another American — using one American to serve another. Such acts include farm subsidies, business bailouts, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, welfare and many other programs.
Free market capitalism is disfavored by many Americans — and threatened — not because of its failure but, ironically, because of its success. Free market capitalism in America has been so successful in eliminating the traditional problems of mankind — such as disease, pestilence, hunger and gross poverty — that all other human problems appear both unbearable and inexcusable. The desire by many Americans to eliminate these so-called unbearable and inexcusable problems has led to the call for socialism. That call includes equality of income, sex and race balance, affordable housing and medical care, orderly markets, and many other socialistic ideas.
Let's compare capitalism with socialism by answering the following questions: In which areas of our lives do we find the greatest satisfaction, and in which do we find the greatest dissatisfaction? It turns out that we seldom find people upset with and in conflict with computer and clothing stores, supermarkets, and hardware stores. We do see people highly dissatisfied with and often in conflict with boards of education, motor vehicles departments, police and city sanitation services.
What are the differences? For one, the motivation for the provision of services of computer and clothing stores, supermarkets, and hardware stores is profit. Also, if you're dissatisfied with their services, you can instantaneously fire them by taking your business elsewhere. It's a different matter with public education, motor vehicles departments, police and city sanitation services. They are not motivated by profit at all. Plus, if you're dissatisfied with their service, it is costly and in many cases even impossible to fire them.
A much larger and totally ignored question has to do with the brutality of socialism. In the 20th century, the one-party socialist states of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Germany under the National Socialist German Workers' Party and the People's Republic of China were responsible for the murder of 118 million citizens, mostly their own. The tallies were: USSR 62 million, Nazi Germany 21 million and PRC 35 million. No such record of brutality can be found in countries that tend toward free market capitalism.
Here's an experiment for you. List countries according to whether they are closer to the free market capitalist or to the socialist/communist end of the economic spectrum. Then rank the countries according to per capita gross domestic product. Finally, rank the countries according to Freedom House's "Freedom in the World" report. You will find that people who live in countries closer to the free market capitalist end of the economic spectrum not only have far greater wealth than people who live in countries toward the socialistic/communist end but also enjoy far greater human rights protections.
As Dr. Thomas Sowell says, "socialism sounds great. It has always sounded great. And it will probably always continue to sound great. It is only when you go beyond rhetoric, and start looking at hard facts, that socialism turns out to be a big disappointment, if not a disaster."
Quote of the Times;
A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself. - Dostoyevsky
Link of the Times;
https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/07/05/guardian-i-stopped-going-to-the-gym-because-of-trump-now-i-cant-open-jars/
The tax would also promote family values. How would you like to come home to your wife and have her ask, "Honey, why is your tax bill larger than mine?" Or be a teenager and come home to your dad with your tax bill in his hand.
We wouldn't have to pay people to work for the IRS, they would be paying to work there just so they could review peoples returns.
Locker room conversations would change... "Get a load of this tax bill!"
The forms would change a little also. We would now have a 1040Quickee. And it would give a whole new meaning to the phrase, "Substantial penalty for early withdrawal."
*.*
Why was 10 scared?
He was in the middle of 9-11.
*.*
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Still reeling from Trump’s previous Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, Democrats plan to scrutinize any new nominee to ensure that he or she isn’t yet another crony of something called “The Constitution,” Senate Democrats announced Friday.
“Time and time again, we find progressive laws getting struck down,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a Senate address. “And it’s always — always — the ones the Constitution is against. These right-wing judges don’t think for themselves, they just do whatever the Constitution says. And it’s time for that to end.”
Senate Democrats have vowed to make sure that any new nominee isn’t going to be beholden to outside influences like the Constitution, the founding fathers, or the rule of law. “We need judges to be advocates of progressive laws,” Senator Elizabeth Warren added. “Not people who will bow to the whims of the Constitution, pitting its extremist values of freedom of speech and freedom of religion against our agenda.”
“We’re sick and tired of the Constitution sitting in the National Archives, manipulating everything we do,” stated Senator Cory Booker, trying to emote for the cameras but failing. Booker then called a ten-minute recess for him to refresh his supply of fake tears before he could continue.
*.*
I was telling a woman in the Club about my ability to guess what day a woman was born just by feeling her breasts.
"Really" she said, "Go on then... Try."
After about thirty seconds of fondling she began to lose patience and said, "Come on, what day was I born?"
I said, "Yesterday."
*.*
Back in the Soviet Union days; a judge walks out of his chambers laughing his head off.
A colleague approaches him and asks why he is laughing.
"I just heard the funniest joke in the world!"
"Well, go ahead, tell me!" says the other judge.
"I can't – I just gave someone ten years for it!"
Issue of the Times;
Capitalism vs. Socialism by Walter E. Williams
Several recent polls, plus the popularity of Sen. Bernie Sanders, demonstrate that young people prefer socialism to free market capitalism. That, I believe, is a result of their ignorance and indoctrination during their school years, from kindergarten through college. For the most part, neither they nor many of their teachers and professors know what free market capitalism is.
Free market capitalism, wherein there is peaceful voluntary exchange, is morally superior to any other economic system. Why? Let's start with my initial premise. All of us own ourselves. I am my private property, and you are yours. Murder, rape, theft and the initiation of violence are immoral because they violate self-ownership. Similarly, the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another person, for any reason, is immoral because it violates self-ownership.
Tragically, two-thirds to three-quarters of the federal budget can be described as Congress taking the rightful earnings of one American to give to another American — using one American to serve another. Such acts include farm subsidies, business bailouts, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, welfare and many other programs.
Free market capitalism is disfavored by many Americans — and threatened — not because of its failure but, ironically, because of its success. Free market capitalism in America has been so successful in eliminating the traditional problems of mankind — such as disease, pestilence, hunger and gross poverty — that all other human problems appear both unbearable and inexcusable. The desire by many Americans to eliminate these so-called unbearable and inexcusable problems has led to the call for socialism. That call includes equality of income, sex and race balance, affordable housing and medical care, orderly markets, and many other socialistic ideas.
Let's compare capitalism with socialism by answering the following questions: In which areas of our lives do we find the greatest satisfaction, and in which do we find the greatest dissatisfaction? It turns out that we seldom find people upset with and in conflict with computer and clothing stores, supermarkets, and hardware stores. We do see people highly dissatisfied with and often in conflict with boards of education, motor vehicles departments, police and city sanitation services.
What are the differences? For one, the motivation for the provision of services of computer and clothing stores, supermarkets, and hardware stores is profit. Also, if you're dissatisfied with their services, you can instantaneously fire them by taking your business elsewhere. It's a different matter with public education, motor vehicles departments, police and city sanitation services. They are not motivated by profit at all. Plus, if you're dissatisfied with their service, it is costly and in many cases even impossible to fire them.
A much larger and totally ignored question has to do with the brutality of socialism. In the 20th century, the one-party socialist states of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Germany under the National Socialist German Workers' Party and the People's Republic of China were responsible for the murder of 118 million citizens, mostly their own. The tallies were: USSR 62 million, Nazi Germany 21 million and PRC 35 million. No such record of brutality can be found in countries that tend toward free market capitalism.
Here's an experiment for you. List countries according to whether they are closer to the free market capitalist or to the socialist/communist end of the economic spectrum. Then rank the countries according to per capita gross domestic product. Finally, rank the countries according to Freedom House's "Freedom in the World" report. You will find that people who live in countries closer to the free market capitalist end of the economic spectrum not only have far greater wealth than people who live in countries toward the socialistic/communist end but also enjoy far greater human rights protections.
As Dr. Thomas Sowell says, "socialism sounds great. It has always sounded great. And it will probably always continue to sound great. It is only when you go beyond rhetoric, and start looking at hard facts, that socialism turns out to be a big disappointment, if not a disaster."
Quote of the Times;
A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself. - Dostoyevsky
Link of the Times;
https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/07/05/guardian-i-stopped-going-to-the-gym-because-of-trump-now-i-cant-open-jars/
Several animals were savagely beaten in the making of this page, including but not limited to; kittens, rabbits, zebu, skunks, puppies, and platypus. Also several monkeys where force fed crack to improve their typing skills.
And someone shot a duck.
An Images & Ideas, Inc. Service.
No Vegans were harmed in the making of this site. We're looking for a new provider.
And someone shot a duck.
An Images & Ideas, Inc. Service.
No Vegans were harmed in the making of this site. We're looking for a new provider.