Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Book Recommendation
I have just finished the most informative and most entertaining book I have read in many a year. I refer to THE MAGIC OF REALITY by Richard Dawkins and illustrated (fantastically) by Dave McKean.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004T4KR6A/ref=pe_5060_21019210_snp_oe_kindle_edition
Troy L Robinson
Occupy Wall Street
I have been thinking for a while now that I should comment on the “Occupy…” movements. It happens that I actually agree with a few of them, particularly those who want to audit/end the Federal Reserve. However, most of the occupiers are so uninformed that it stretches our credulity to understand the depths of their ignorance.
Now I find that Peter Schiff on Reason.TV has done the job for me. This video is a bit long but it is very instructive (and depressing) to watch.
http://reason.com/blog/2011/10/27/peter-schiff-at-occupy-wall-st
Now, I wonder how these idiots might be turned into “useful” idiots?
Think about it.
Troy L Robinson
Revisiting the World of Islam
In the post A New Ottoman Empire, I offered the prospect that what has become known as the “Arab Spring” (or some-such) might actually be the start of the reformation of the Islamic Caliphate rather than the blossoming of democratic republics all over the region.
With Moammar Gadhafi (or however the hell you spell it) now dead and our pending exit from Iraq, it seems a reasonable time to pause and take score.
So far, the best I have seen is a military dictatorship in Egypt that makes promises of democracy somewhere down the road. In every case where a sitting dictator has been removed from power, the void seems (to me) to be being filled by Islamic rule. After Iraq disintegrates, with Iran taking over the major portion, it seems to me that the real question will be which of the major flavors of Islam will take over the region.
Given what is happening so far, I stand by my earlier prediction. Whether they actually call it a caliphate or not will be beside the point. The monster that results, will be the point!
A new empire in the formation stage while we drift toward 3rd world status — not a pleasing prospect.
Think about it.
Troy L Robinson
The Media Are Choosing The GOP Nominee
With every new debate, it becomes clearer that the media, FOX News included, is trying to determine the outcome of the GOP presidential nomination race. One way to prove this is easy… simply add up the minutes given to each candidate in the debates. The time preferences and distribution will be nearly the same from debate to debate, regardless of who is hosting the event.
More subtle, but even more powerful, is the choice of questions given to each candidate. Again, the pattern will be consistent from debate to debate, regardless of who is hosting the event.
Outside the debates, there is the overall news misreporting. The most obvious and most egregious example was after the Iowa straw poll when the headlines blared that Bachmann had won and Pawlenty had finished third, omitting the fact that Ron Paul had finished second, less than a full percentage point behind Bachmann in what was a statistical tie.
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When is A War A War?
Since the original ideas expressed in The Slope Just Got Slicker have morphed into a discussion of the meaning and ethics of war, I am starting this new thread for just that purpose. As an aside, it is nice to be having a real give and take again!
At the time our Constitution was created, WAR inevitably meant an armed confrontation between two governing entities, usually ending with one entity surrendering to the other. Over time, a body of ethics had been developed, intending to allow the conduct of a war while still somehow constraining its destructive effects.
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The Slope Just Got Slicker
I have waited a few days for the smell of blood to dissipate before writing this. As we all know, a few days ago the Obamanation gave his thugs the green light to assassinate 2 American citizens – Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. Both were killed by rockets fired from drone aircraft in Yemen.
Before I say anything else, let me assure you that I considered these people bad actors who were intent on killing as many Americans as they could. And, they probably deserved to be executed. But, because they were American citizens, any punishment should have come after due process was served – in a court of law. Our Constitution does not provide for the intentional killing of American citizens by any other process, save that of legitimate self-defense.
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Et tu TEA Party?
“(CNN)-Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich picked up a big endorsement Monday, from the head of an influential group.
Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips threw his support behind the candidate for the 2012 GOP nomination, who’s candidacy suffered setbacks early in the campaign.”
Is nothing dependable anymore? I know that Mr. Phillips does not officially speak for the organization he helped found in making this endorsement – but, I’m not sure everyone understands that. I fear this endorsement will have a negative effect on the GOP primary and on the TEA Party movement.
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Too Much To Stomach
Obviously, I have not been much of a contributor lately, mostly because we are traveling in our RV and are more focused on genealogy research than politics. Frankly, it has been a bit of a relief to ignore the political circus for a while. However, the Obamanation’s so called “jobs plan” is simply too much to let go by without a bit of venting.
In the first place, the level of intentional distortion has reach new highs with this latest proposal. And, the dumbing-down of America is paying such rich dividends.
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The Setup Is In
As I predicted before the 2010 elections, the Obamanation is setting up the GOP so he has something to run against next year. Now, in true Obamanation fashion, he has proposed a “jobs plan” that the GOP should oppose. Now, they are pinned to the wall. If they support this nonsense, they lose much of their base and most independents. Ergo, the GOP loses in 2012. If they oppose this nonsense, as they should, Obama will run against the “party of no”, claiming that he had the answer and the GOP blocked it. Most of the lame brains will buy this. Ergo, the GOP loses.
The GOP had their one big chance with the opportunity to refuse to raise the debt ceiling, thus putting the Obamanation behind the eight ball. But, lacking balls of any denomination, they blew it. Now, they get to reap their reward.
The re-election of the Obamanation will be the end of America. And, the GOP had the chance to change things.
Think about it.
Troy L Robinson
Paving The Way For An Obama Victory
From the Internet:
Bachmann: Hurricane and earthquake are messages from God to cut spending
With a single, air-headed phrase, Congresswoman Bachmann has shown herself to be totally unfit for the office of POTUS.
Sometimes frontrunner Rick “Good Hair” Perry similarly disqualified himself with his recent bible-pounding show at Reliant Stadium.
It is a simple fact that the combination of people on the dole, government employees, and union members give the democrat candidate over 40% of the vote, assuming most of the people in these categories show up at the voting booth. In other words, the democrat base is huge.
By contrast, the GOP base is quite small (and shrinking). It does not require the mind of an Einstein to figure out that the only way a GOP candidate can make it to office is by appealing to the libertarians and independents.
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There Is No Gulch, But…
In Atlas Shrugged, John Galt talked the leaders of production into joining him in a hidden place called Galt’s Gulch, where they could be free of government plunder.
We know that such a place is impractical, if not impossible, given current technology. In other words, an alternate society cannot simply hide in plain view via some electronic cloaking device, said device not yet being practical.
But, that does not mean that the leaders of production can’t organize some manner of “strike”. I believe it has already started. It is true that all of them are still running productive firms. Yet, they refuse to expand their operations – many having scaled down to a level of high productivity, using the fewest number of workers, such that they can remain profitable. And, what do they do with those profits? For many of them, the ones I consider to be almost on strike, the answer is nothing. That is, they just let the profits accumulate. No investments in expansion (after all, what for?), little funding for new innovation. Instead, they have tucked the money away are are just waiting. Possibly trying to out-wait the government, refusing to expand operations until the government comes to its senses and gets off their collective backs.
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Economics 101
The other day, I was listening to the radio as I drove to a nearby town. I was only half listening until I realized a reporter was interviewing a member of congress whose name I missed. This congressman was explaining that, now that the debt ceiling crisis was behind us, it was time for both parties in congress to work together to start creating jobs.
Are these morons really that stupid? The average American clearly understands that the only jobs government can create are government jobs. And, we most certainly don’t need more of those. As well, I have just re-read my copy of the Constitution and I see nary a word authorizing the federal government to create jobs. Certainly government has a role in the free enterprise system:
→ It is tasked with maintaining a stable currency. Current grade, F-.
→ It is tasked with creating and enforcing rules, such as contract law, patent protections and the like. Current grade, C.
→ It is tasked with establishing regulations that prevent states and nations from preying on each other through unfair and unethical trade practices. Current grade, D.
What should government be doing right now? I will answer that with an oversimplified view of our economic system.
To begin with, our economic system has two principal groups of actors: Makers and Takers.
Any Way You Look At It, You Lose
Obviously, this is a line from the famous “Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson” from the movie The Graduate (no relation). The statement is made in reference to listening to presidential candidates debate.
I watched as much of the latest GOP debate as I could stomach, and, I came away convinced that NONE of these people, including late entry Rick Perry, represents the solution to the massive problems this nation faces.
I like Dr. Ron Paul a lot and I especially appreciate his ongoing efforts to inject some rationality into the national dialogue. But I know he is not about to become president and I go so far as to doubt that he should. Despite being so right on so many issues, Dr. Paul lacks the leadership style that the situation demands -and- he lacks executive experience.
New Words To An Old Children’s Song
The prices on the market go up and down
up and down, up and down
the prices on the market go up and down
day after day.
This is almost comical. It is like a herd of animals, caught between a range fire and a cliff. The fire scares them, they stampede toward the cliff — then the cliff scares them and they stampede toward the fire — then… and so on.
Meanwhile, the brokers are laughing all the way to the bank because they make their $$ off trading volume no matter which direction prices are headed.
I just wonder how long this can continue.
One is reminded of the fellow who got so confused he did not know whether to crap or go blind. So he closed one eye and farted. This makes about as much sense.
Troy L Robinson
Violence in the United Kingdom
Please pay very close attention to what is happening in the UK because it is the fate that awaits us. And, Obama can hardly wait for it to begin because it would supply the long awaited excuse to spring the dictatorship trap via a declaration of martial law. The greater the chance that Obama might lose the 2012 election, the more pressure on him to declare martial law before that election.
I wonder if participating in all those wars and having so many troops stationed overseas is partly calculated to have them out of the continental United States so that they will be unable to help WTP once the dung hits the whirligig?
Troy L Robinson
Foreign Aid To China
This morning, while roaming the Internet looking at news articles, I came across one where some folks in D.C. (Distribute Cash) were suggesting we save some money by ending foreign aid to China.
FOREIGN AID TO CHINA?
Surely I misunderstood. Sadly, I did not. Then a thought occurred to me. All around us we see such insanity in our government. The Congress starts up a new agency/bureaucracy in order to trade some pork for campaign contributions and/or votes, then off they go to the next pork-a-thon or pandering contest, forgetting all about the little monster they just created.
But, the little monster, having been given keys to the treasury vault, continues on, unsupervised, and such insanity as the U.S. giving “aid” to a country richer than we are, takes place.
Here is my idea: As these bits of insanity surface, we must demand that our government react, not by stopping a particular instance of insane spending, but, rather, by eliminating the entire program/agency/department responsible. Shut the whole thing down because, if they are guilty of one instance of insanity, they are (or soon will be) guilty of others.
Thus, WTP save, not the relatively few millions given to China, but the billions spent to operate the entire program/agency/department. This requires no special commission to spend months and millions, traveling about the country in luxury while generating a report nobody will take seriously. All it needs is for ordinary citizens to follow Berra’s principle that you can observe a lot by just watching.
If each TEA Party group would take it upon themselves to identify just one such outrage, then bring it to national attention along with generating the appropriate pressure on the Congress, WTP could drive down the trillions in deficit spending and, even better, start causing serious shrinkage to the monster our government has become.
Think about it.
Troy L Robinson
The S&P Downgrade
All the talking heads are now focused on the S&P downgrade of U.S. government debt, and speculating whether other rating houses will follow suit. I find that a very uninteresting discussion.
Why aren’t the professional blabber-mouths discussing a more fundamental question: How the hell does any entity get an AAA bond rating when it has a multi-trillion dollar debt that is growing out of control and that cannot conceivably ever be paid???
Might I hazard an answer to my own question? My analysis is that the principle amount of the debt simply does not matter.
How can it not matter? Simple. The principle amount supposedly owed does not matter because the money in question never existed to begin with. When you borrow what does not exist, who really cares whether you ever pay it back. Even if it were paid back, it would be paid in kind. That is to say, a debt of money that never existed would be paid back with other money that never existed.
You may well ask, at this point, why do we care at all?
We care because the whole point of this exercise is that the INTEREST paid on this debt is very real money. It is money extorted from the producers all over the nation. And, since we never pay down the supposed debt, the INTEREST is with us permanently. The S&P downgrade matters because it will likely raise the rate of this interest even higher.
Between the increasing rates on the interest, and the additional interest that must be paid on the additional sums of non-money the government is borrowing, eventually the overall amount of interest that must be paid will consume every last bit of wealth the producers are able to produce. Obviously, we will have failed as a nation long before such a point is reached.
How close are we at this moment? I’m not sure we are ready to deal with the answer.
Is the conversation “interesting” yet?
Think about it.
Troy L Robinson
Solving Unemployment
As I understand it, the administration uses several tricks to make the unemployment rate seem lower than it actually is. One of these is to stop counting a person as unemployed after their unemployment insurance payments run out.
If this is true, couldn’t we instantly lower the unemployment rate to 0 simply by discontinuing all unemployment payments?
Of course, millions of people might still be without jobs. The important thing is that they would not count! What a country.
Troy
I’m Just Asking
Quick question — why is Charlie Rangel, a long time crook who should be in prison rather than in congress, suddenly the darling of almost every talk show on Fox News? Even Huckabee now treats Cholly with obvious respect rather than the contempt he has so richly earned. And, the arrogant fool O’Reilly practically kisses Cholly’s butt on national TV.
What is going on here?
Troy
What Else Can I Say?
Following is a direct quote from my local (Whitney, TX) newspaper:
“The Governor of our great State, Rick Perry, has called upon U.S. Governors, fellow Texans, and people from all backgrounds and CHRISTIAN DENOMINATIONS (emphasis added) to join him August 6 for a ‘solemn day of prayer and fasting on behalf of our troubled nation’ at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas.”
Obviously I live in Texas – a fact I am quite proud of – and have for some years. I can attest from my own personal experience that Texas has become quite diverse in terms of religion and ethnicity. For instance:
