One third of Americans are stupid

A recent survey shows the stupidity of Americans:
 

But 32 percent [of Americans polled] reject the idea of evolution, saying that "animals and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time,"

 A statement that is easily demonstrably false makes Republicans look like idiots. We have antibiotic resistant bacteria, that have evolved in the past 100 years because of man's antibiotic use. It can be demonstrated that species have evolved new traits in just the past couple of centuries. People themselves have evolved. Humans today are taller and heavier than they were just a couple of centuries ago. 

This is where the meme about the right being stupid and uneducated come from.

For the record, I disagree with this group:

A quarter of those surveyed told Pew that "a supreme being guided the evolution of living things."

But at least they are trying to integrate their beliefs with observable fact. I can respect that, even if I disagree with it.

A public apology

I owe some people an apology, and an explanation. Generally, I owe an apology to Christians in general, and to two in particular: CCBPC, and SailorCurt. Earlier this week, I made a couple of posts that were very disrespectful of others, and that is not normally my style. Please accept my apologies, and an explanation.

For the past year, I have been seeing someone. We were closely involved, and I was truly in love with this woman. The only real bone of contention between us was that I was not allowed to meet her family. You see, I was a bit older than she was, and according to her, this would not meet the approval of her deeply religious father. This girl was also a very religious woman, or at least claimed to be.

Things were going well for us, and we were busy making plans for the future. I thought that I had found someone that I was willing to spend my life with. Then, this Christian woman, this religious woman, called me out of the blue, and dumped me, just days before Christmas. Over the phone. No explanation given. She blocked my calls, my emails, and blocked me on Facebook. I was devastated. That was when the truth began to come out. She had been sleeping around. Not just with one man, but with three.

I blamed everyone except the one who did it. I blamed Christians, her Father, everyone. After a time, I called her Father so that I could give him all of her possessions that she had left here. This is what I found out:
- Her father is religious, but he is a decent, nice man
- She lied to me, he did not even know that I existed. He had no beef with me.
- She lied to me when she told me that her older brother had died in Afghanistan in 2010, and her older sister had committed suicide three months later. She is the oldest of two children.
- She lied to her parents about many things to hide the relationships she was having. Her Christian father would not have approved of her screwing her boss and several other men, all at the same time.

For me, the conversation was therapeutic. For her Father, it was devastating. His vision of a good, honest, Christian daughter was shattered. He told me that he has no idea how he will break the news to his wife.

So to all of you, I am sorry that my anger was misdirected at all of you, instead of at the person who has turned my life upside down. I hope that you can understand, and most of all, forgive my indiscretion. Now I have to try and put my life back together. Posting will be sparse for awhile.

Merry Christmas

The holiday of Christmas has mixed origins. The holiday of the Sun god, held on the day that the sun begins returning and the days begin to lengthen (the winter solstice) in the northern hemisphere, and the Roman holiday of Saturnalia. The Christmas tree has its roots in the tradition of Saturnalia.

Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia, a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25.  During this period, Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the weeklong celebration.  The festival began when Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the Roman people” to represent the “Lord of Misrule.”  Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week.  At the festival’s conclusion, December 25^th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this innocent man or woman.

In the 4^th century CE, Christianity imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it.  Christian leaders succeeded in converting to Christianity large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians.  The problem was that there was nothing intrinsically Christian about Saturnalia. To remedy this, these Christian leaders named Saturnalia’s concluding day, December 25^th, to be Jesus’ birthday. The earliest Christmas holidays were celebrated by drinking, sexual indulgence, singing naked in the streets (a precursor of modern caroling), etc

Some of the most depraved customs of the Saturnalia carnival were intentionally revived by the Catholic Church in 1466 when Pope Paul II, for the amusement of his Roman citizens, forced Jews to race naked through the streets of the city. An eyewitness account reports, “Before they were to run, the Jews were richly fed, so as to make the race more difficult for them and at the same time more amusing for spectators. They ran… amid Rome’s taunting shrieks and peals of laughter, while the Holy Father (the Pope) stood upon a richly ornamented balcony and laughed heartily.

The New Testament gives no date or year for Jesus’ birth.  The earliest gospel – St. Mark’s, written about 65 CE – begins with the baptism of an adult Jesus.  This suggests that the earliest Christians lacked interest in, or knowledge of, Jesus’ birthdate.


The year of Jesus birth was determined by Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian monk, “abbot of a Roman monastery.  His calculation went as follows:

a.      In the Roman, pre-Christian era, years were counted from ab urbe condita (“the founding of the City” [Rome]).  Thus 1 AUC signifies the year Rome was founded, 5 AUC signifies the 5^th year of Rome’s reign, etc.
 b.     Dionysius received a tradition that the Roman emperor Augustus reigned 43 years, and was followed by the emperor Tiberius.
c.      Luke 3:1,23 indicates that when Jesus turned 30 years old, it was the 15^th year of Tiberius reign.
d.      If Jesus was 30 years old in Tiberius’ reign, then he lived 15 years under Augustus (placing Jesus birth in Augustus’ 28^th year of reign).
e.      Augustus took power in 727 AUC.  Therefore, Dionysius put Jesus birth in 754 AUC. f.       However, Luke 1:5 places Jesus’ birth in the days of Herod, and Herod died in 750 AUC – four years before the year in which Dionysius places Jesus birth.

So there you have it, the history of Christmas.

Teh gays are sinners

Because they do so many things against the Bible, unlike the Christians, who are so good that they get to sit in judgement of the rest of us, like these guys: (all stories from just the past month)

Pastor Isaac Hunter, who committed suicide.
Pastor Zachary Tims, who died of a drug overdose.
Pastor Michael Bryant, who molested a 16 year old girl in Memphis.
Pastor Otis Jetter, who was convicted of molesting a 12 year old boy in Indianapolis.
Pastor Wiley Leverett, who just turned himself in for molesting little girls, some as young as 8 years old.

Then there is also the Catholic Church, who officially covers up for Priests who sex up little boys.

Yet, you force us to live by the rules of your fucked up religion, even though you don't live up to them yourself.
No alcohol sales on Sunday mornings, in an attempt to keep people of your congregation from showing up to church drunk.
No weddings, unless they are by people that your church approves of.
The church trying to force schools to teach people the superstitious belief that some invisible guy created the world by pulling it out of his magic hat of tricks.

You complain that people are forcing their religion on you, but you have been doing that in this country for over 200 years, and people have grown tired of it.

Quote of the day

Governments, like people, have needs. Unlike people, they have almost unlimited credit card limits.

To CCBPC

This is in response to this comment by CCBPC:

Just after the Japanese tsunami in 2011, Gilbert Godfried tweeted the following jokes:

I just split up with my girlfriend, but like the Japanese say, "They'll be another one floating by any minute now."

My Japanese doctor advised me that to stay healthy I need 50 million gallons of water a day.
What do Japanese Jews like to eat? Hebrew National Tsunami.
What does every Japanese person have in their apartment? Flood lights.
I asked a girl in Japan to have sex with me. She said, "Ok, but you have to sleep in the wet spot."

His jokes were insensitive, crude, and in poor taste. He was fired as spokesman for AFLAC because his comments reflected poorly on his employer.

Jim Zumbo made statements that alienated the owners of the most popular rifle sold in America. He was fired by most of his employers for expressing that opinion.

What if Jack Hanna gave an interview in which he said that whales don't belong in captivity? Sea World would likely fire him the next day, and that would be their right.

Phil Robertson made a statement to the press that alienated many in the public. Just as any other person who makes a statement to the press, he must be prepared for the backlash when his employer decides that they no longer want to employ him. This is not a constitutional issue.

It wasn't just that he made anti-gay statements. He went after all of it: race, homosexuality, and others.He said this of Blacks: "I'm with the Blacks, because we're white trash." He also said that Blacks were happy during the days of segregation, and said that segregation was not mistreatment of Blacks.


When you are in the public eye, you have to watch what you say, or you may lose your job. Robertson can say what he wants, but A&E is within their rights to fire him if his words hurt their business. That is reality when you are in the public eye. If he were smart, he would have just said "no comment." Just because you have an opinion doesn't mean that you have to share it, and just because you have the right to free speech doesn't mean that you should speak, nor does it mean that your employer has to keep paying you.

No one is demanding that you Christians accept anything. They are demanding that you leave them alone to live their lives. Not everyone believes that there is an invisible man in the sky that runs our lives, but the rest of us tolerate your beliefs and expect you to do the same. To say that the Christian church has even pretended to play by the "live and let live" policy is laughable.

Asking you to refrain from screaming "faggot" at a gay couple for holding hands, and demanding that they have the same right to marriage that you are, is not forcing you to accept anything. Two men getting married or holding hands is none of your business, and doesn't hurt you a bit.

I will do the same to defend you from the homosexuals: I disagree that the Christian bakery should be forced to make a cake for a gay wedding.

To claim that homosexuality should be illegal because it does not result in procreation is absurd. I am sterile and cannot have children. Does that mean that I should be prohibited by law from having sex? How about post menopausal women? Should they be prohibited from getting married or having sex? After all, they cannot have children, either.

Boycott A&E all you want; it will have the same effect that your silly boycott against Disney over Gay Days has had: exactly none. In this country, you are free to be a hateful, religious fruitcake all you want: we are free to ignore you. Even if you are somehow able to resolve this situation, you are on the losing side on this one. In the end, homosexual marriage is going to happen, whether you like it or not. Just like interracial marriage did, over the same tired old objections from the same tired old church. Same song, different verse.

You want to know why the Republicans can't accomplish anything? This is why: The Republican obsession with treating people with scorn and hate because they are not like you is literally driving people to the Democrats and to the Libertarians. Every election that you lose is your own fault. I would rather have a gay neighbor than a Bible thumping, hate filled asshole for a neighbor any day, and I certainly don't want to elect a politician that thinks that it is just fine and dandy to legislate where I put my penis.

On top of that, Robertson is everything that I despise about stereotypical southerners: He is an uneducated, bigoted, redneck idiot. He makes all of us here in the South look bad, and validates every bad opinion that the northerners have of us. I, for one, do not mourn his firing.

Throw other people's money at it

Utah brags that they are solving the problem of homelessness by giving people free places to live. That is the liberal answer to every problem: solve it by stealing someone else's money and giving it to someone else.

If you are a person who is worried about homelessness, then I have the following questions for you:

1 How many homeless people are you allowing to live in your home?
2 How much of your own money are you giving to homeless people?

If you care so much for what you consider to be a problem that you are not willing to spend your own money, then why on earth do you think that means that you can spend someone else's money?

Robertson, Christians, and homosexuality

So there is a big kerfluffle going on about Robertson saying that he disagrees with homosexuality. There are many Christians running around, shouting about how God hates fags. They base this opinion on Leviticus 20:13, which says:

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination

and they then claim that, being Christians, they have to follow the Bible. "Ok," I say, "then you must also follow Leviticus 20:20, which says:"

If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbour, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.

Or how about Leviticus20:9:

All who curse father or mother shall be put to death; having cursed father or mother, their blood is upon them. 

So how many adulterers have you killed? How many smart mouthed children? The Bible is the basis for your religion, and I get that. But if you are going to demand that everyone else has to follow what your Bible says, then you need to accept ALL of it, and let the chips fall where they may.

If instead, you agree that maybe killing people for adultery is a bit harsh, then you must also admit that your entire religion is based on a document with which you do not agree, and you can choose to ignore parts of it. Which you have done, or there would be piles of dead adulterers and smart mouthed children lying about.

See, the Christians who are doing this are simply attempting to use their religion as an excuse to practice hatred and to control the lives of other people.
I don't like cherry flavored food. Ice cream, candy, nothing with cherry flavoring. That doesn't mean that I am going to go around criticizing people who do. That also doesn't mean that I am going to get in people's faces and demand that they refrain from eating cherries around me.
On the flip side, you homosexuals need to back off a bit, too. The reason why there is so much backlash against homosexuality is that you keep trying to force people to like you.
All of us need to live and let live. You do your thing, and I will do mine.

More guns != more crime

According to the FDLE statistics for NICS checks, there were 823 thousand firearms sold so far in 2013, 797 thousand sold in 2012, and there were 610 thousand sold in 2011. Now I know that some firearms may be sold more than once, but I also know that more than one firearm can be sold for each check. For example, just this week, I bought two stripped lowers at Spike's tactical, and the guy who was behind me there bought five. That is 7 firearms for two NICS checks.

That means that there are at least two and a quarter million more firearms in Florida now than there were in 2010. In fact, there have been a total of 6,877,866 NICS background checks done in Florida since November of 1998. That number represents one firearm for every two Florida adults. If we are to believe that firearms are the cause of crime, then we should see crime skyrocketing since 2010, but the opposite is true.

But that is not happening. In fact, the number of murders in Florida has remained more or less constant, with there being 966 murders statewide in 1998, and there being 1,009 last year, despite the fact that the population of the state has increased by 22% during that time. This means that the murder rate has DROPPED by about 20% over the last 15 years, despite their being nearly 7 million more firearms.

Homicide isn't the only crime that is not rising. There were 12,000 forcible sex offenses reported in 1998, and 10,000 in 2012. 1998 saw 36,000 robberies, while 2012 saw less than 24,000. and so on. In fact, the state's violent crime rate nearly HALVED from 931 in 1998 to 492 in 2012.

So there you have it: conclusive proof that more guns does NOT equal more crime.

Fiction

The following is a work of fiction. I wrote it because it was in my head, and I needed to let it out.

I fundamentally changed America. Well, not me by myself, but I set in motion a chain of events that exposed the nation's weakness, and destroyed what was left of the American economy. Let me tell you how.

The turn of a century is a time of foolishness. It was at the turn of the last century that we believed that industry, man's cleverness, could overcome all obstacles. Man's folly was in assuming that he had thought of everything. The sinking of the Titanic was the entire folly, wrapped in a single tragedy.

A single ship had been built, and it was declared unsinkable. When that ship went to the bottom, it was due to a basic ignorance of the limits of man's power and ability to overcome obstacles.

The cycle repeated itself at the turn of the following century. We had entered an age where we thought we could legislate away all of the problems that had plagued mankind. We could ensure that everyone was prosperous by simply passing a law.

So we passed the Patriot Act to keep us all safe.
Then, we passed the Affordable Care Act, to keep us all healthy.
After that, we increased the minimum wage to $15 an hour, to keep us all prosperous.

And with that law, my story begins...

I had a bit of money and wanted to open a restaurant. A burger joint. The problem was that the costs of hiring an employee were astronomical. Between providing health insurance and a $15 an hour wage, there was no way for a restaurant owner to make money. I calculated that it cost about $28 an hour to hire a single worker for minimum wage. Factoring in other costs like food, taxes, buildings, etc., my per unit cost for hamburgers would  have been about $7. No one wants to buy an $8 hamburger.

 So I decided that I would be the first novelty restaurant that would have almost no labor costs. I would built an automated hamburger joint. So I bought some automated hamburger machines from a company in California, and opened the country's first fully automated restaurant. Each location only had two employees: The day manager, and the night manager. They had to fill the machines, keep the eating area clean, and call an 800 number if anything broke.

The ordering and cashier stations? Automated. Cooking? Automated. Since the kitchen was automated, there was almost no cleaning needed.

That isn't to say that I employed no one. There was regional maintenance teams, food delivery teams, and the like. The point is that I ran each location with only 20% of the staff of a conventional fast food place. The customers loved it. I was selling fast food at less than half the cost of my competitors, and the initial novelty of watching robots make your food hit America by storm.

It wasn't long before other chains followed suit: McDonald's, Checkers, Burger King, all of them. It seemed like overnight, tens of thousands of fast food workers lost their jobs. Soon the trend expanded to other industries. It was stunning, in less than three years, unemployment within the pool of unskilled labor jumped from 14% to over 70%.

That was when things began to go south. Workers demanded relief, and Congress gave it to them. In 2019, they passed the Employee Fairness Act, and President Clinton happily signed it. That law made it illegal for any business to fire any employee, or cut any employee's compensation without the approval of the local employment office. The law also required that each "robot" performing a job that could affect the health or safety of the public be supervised by an employee. There could be no more than a 2:1 ratio of robots to humans in any business.

So the automated restaurants then had to pay a bunch of people $15 an hour to sit and watch the machines make hamburgers.

Prices skyrocketed. That caused the passage of the Fair Pricing in Commerce and Price Gouging Prevention Act of 2021. That law made it illegal for any business to raise prices without approval of the local State Commerce Board, and prices were rolled back to 2020 levels.

 I was ruined. Every one of my business locations were bankrupt within 3 months. There just wasn't the money to keep them open. I declared bankruptcy, and the government took over the running of my business. They gave me a good job, though. I have health insurance, and I get $15 an hour to watch this machine make hamburgers.

Tax exemption

There are numerous stories floating around the blogosphere about anti-gun groups having a Sandy Hook Memorial at a Catholic Church that was actually a rally for more gun laws. A pro-gun blogger showed up, and was promptly asked to leave by anti-gun representatives.
 
Churches enjoy tax exempt status because of the religious work that they do. From the IRS:

To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.

 A rally where the major focus is the passage of more gun control goes far beyond the scope of a memorial for victims. As soon as you begin a blanket exclusion people of one political opinion and not the other, in my opinion, this is no longer a memorial and is now a political rally, and your church has ceased being a non partisan religious organization and has crossed the line into being a lobbying organization. You want the government to stay out of your church? Then keep your church out of the government.

Any church that uses its self as a shill for any political cause that is not directly related to the church should have its tax exempt status revoked.

Quote of the day

There is an Ayn Rand quote that, in my opinion, illustrates where we are today with regards to the state of our nation.

When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed.

Ideas so good, they have to be mandatory

If CFL and LED light bulbs are so good, then why is buying them mandatory? The bulbs are nearly 20 times as expensive, and do not give the same light. The official line is that the cost savings are there when you take into account that the newer bulbs last longer. I recently did a 5 year test of my own, and discovered that the new bulbs do not last as long as advertised.

The fact that this was signed into law by a Republican simply illustrates what I have been saying for years: There is no functional difference between the two political parties. The only thing that they care about is maintaining political power,, and if that means that they have to take the nation down with them, so be it, as long as they are on top.

I'm sure

This will be used against me later if I ever have to shoot anyone, but what just happened at my house is pretty suspicious. Let me set the scene:
It is 8 o'clock at night, in a quiet suburban neighborhood of single family homes. The ungated neighborhood is posted as "No soliciting allowed." It is raining, and has been off and on for the past few hours. The doorbell rings. When I answer it, I am armed as I usually am when there are unexpected doorbells after dark.
I open the door, and remain halfway behind it. On my porch is a black male, about 5'7" tall, about 130 pounds, early 20's. He is wearing a hoodie, pajama pants, and furry slippers. He is carrying an unopened umbrella, and I catch a whiff of alcohol.

He says: "Sir, I am involved in a communications project, and I have something here that I want to show you."

He begins reaching in his pocket. Out of his line of sight behind the door, I draw my 9mm S&W Shield, and hold it next to my leg. I said in a low voice, "Keep your hands out of your pockets, please. You see that 'No Trespassing' sign? I'm not interested."

He leaves, and just a few minutes later, my neighbor from across the street knocks on my door. He says that the guy was at his house just before mine, and that the guy told him that he knew me, and so my neighbor gave him $5. My neighbor is new here, and believed him. I told my neighbor that I have lived here for nearly 6 years, and I don't know this guy. He also told my neighbor that there were two other people with him.

I called the police. Twenty minutes passed, and they now are questioning the guy two streets over. My opinion? It is a Saturday, and Christmas party season is in full swing. He was looking for homes where no one was home, for a possible burglary later.

FBI foils own terror plot, again

So you are a approached by a person who claims that he wants you to help him plant a bomb, and even provides the bomb. Then it turns out that the person is, in fact, an FBI agent. How is that not entrapment? Yet, we see that play out time and time again: The FBI sets up a terror attack, and then stops it in the nick of time.
It happened this week in Wichita.
It happened last November in Oregon.
It happened last September in Chicago.
This doesn't impress me. You cannot tell me that the FBI is so effective that they are catching every single person who wants to build a bomb. The sad truth is that these wanna be terrorists are losers who couldn't make a bomb, and without FBI assistance, this is as far as things would go.
This is pure grandstanding on the part of the FBI.
This makes me wonder:
- Is it possible that the Oklahoma City bombing was, as rumored, a failed FBI sting, where a foolish agent provided a real bomb to McVeigh? I remember seeing a report about that on a news program at the time, but I cannot find it any longer.
- It also makes me wonder how come there are mass shootings galore whenever there are pushes for more gun control, but not when the issue seems dead.
Are we seeing manufactured crises that are designed to increase the authority and budgets of various agencies of the government? I would dismiss this as paranoia, except we know that the FBI is at least ginning up fake bombers.

From the appeasing criminals file

A man who was released from prison after doing 5 years for robbery was at it again just a few days later. Christopher Porter knocked on a homeowner's door, and when the man opened it, Porter grabbed him by the throat and demanded money, and threatened to kill the homeowner if he did not comply.

Porter's friend, Irvine Nesmith, had this to say about Porter:

"He needs help. But he don't know how to ask. He won't ask. He like to kinda like borrow money from people he don't know, you know what I mean? Stuff like that"

So grabbing someone by the throat and threatening to kill them if they don't hand over their wallet is classified as "like" borrowing money from people you don't know.

Another source for the story shows a picture:

I answer the door armed. Every time. If this had happened to me, there would be a would be violent borrower with several refusals of credit lodged deeply in his chest.

New Madrid Fault

Peter over at Bayou Renaissance Man did a post about Prepping and Earthquakes. It just so happens that I did a report on this subject when I was in college. It was a short writing assignment that was given to us each week, and that week's report just happened to be on the New Madrid Fault. Much of that report applies to preppers as much as is it applies to emergnecy response areas. Here is a copy of that report, with the most boring and technical portions removed:

In 1811 and 1812, the New Madrid area in the boot heel of Missouri was struck by a series of six to nine earthquakes that ranged from an estimated 7.0 to 8.8 on the Richter scale, and there were also numerous smaller aftershocks, and no fewer than 18 of these quakes were felt along the Atlantic seaboard. The seismic waves were felt as far as 2000 km away (Quebec) and caused damage over an area greater than 500,000 square km. Damage caused by the quakes was limited, as the area was populated by less than 4,000 people at the time. This area is known as the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ) and is the location of the rift where the North American Continent nearly split apart 3 million years ago.

 A similar scenario playing out today would be devastating for a number of reasons. Population densities are much higher than they were during the 1811-1812 events, and a large earthquake in the area today would affect as many as 3 million people.  Infrastructure in the area was not constructed with earthquake protection in mind, and many structures in the area are built upon fault lines, as evidenced by the numerous sand boils in the area.

There are areas in the NMSZ where crops cannot grow, and this makes that land relatively cheap to buy, and for this reason many governments buy this land for infrastructure like roads, radio repeater sites, power generation, and placing pipelines. The reason that this land is so cheap is that the soil is contaminated with salty sand that has boiled up from deeper regions of the earth where faults are located, as earthquakes disturb the land. There are five major gas pipelines and two crude oil pipelines that pass directly over the fault zones, and at one point, they pass over a fault line at nearly the same point, with less than 10 miles separating four of the pipelines. NASA has estimated that gas line ruptures and the ensuing explosions at that point would be so large that their reflections would be visible as they bounced off the moon.

 In the short term, responders would have to deal with all of the standard problems associated with large disasters: fire, loss of personnel, casualties to the population, etc.. Other problems would complicate this, including the loss of electrical and natural gas supplies, and the difficulty in getting aid into the area due to the loss of Mississippi river bridges. The loss of communications would also complicate response to the area, and make coordination of resources nearly impossible.

The long term effects of losses of this infrastructure would be devastating to the population and problematic for emergency responders, not only within the earthquake zone, but in areas served by this infrastructure. The loss of five of the nine gas pipelines from the Texas/Louisiana gas fields to the industrial areas of Chicago and the Ohio valley would likely cause widespread disruption of energy and heating service in those areas. Loss of the I-40 bridge in Memphis could potentially cause transportation delays, as the loss of this bridge would cause land traffic detours of more than 300 miles and make the Mississippi River impassible to water transport. Transformers lost as a result of failures to the electrical grid could take eight to twelve months for replacement.

To combat this, the following steps need to be taken:
* Bridges and other existing structures, including emergency operations centers, need to be hardened against earthquakes
* Radio repeater sites need to be located away from sand boils, and mobile repeaters mounted on trailers need to be accessible.
* Responders need to ensure that they have a disaster plan in place, and local authorities need to ensure that they are prepared to use the National Incident Management system to coordinate amongst themselves and the local utility providers.
* National guard planners from the potentially most affected states of Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi need to be ready to coordinate supply deliveries.

Some of these steps have already been taken. Bridges and vital facilities are being retrofitted, and should be able to withstand a magnitude 7 earthquake in the future. Of course, it remains to be seen how they will withstand multiple events of this magnitude, or how a magnitude 8 earthquake will affect them.

Mortgage

Even though SunTrust Mortgage has paid me money for damages 4 times over the past four years (once in 2010, once in 2012, and two times this year already) for trying to collect on a mortgage when they don't even have a mortgage on my home, they have continued to send people to my door, call me, send bills, and threaten foreclosure. To date, they have directly or indirectly paid me nearly $40,000, in addition to the fact that I have lived in this house for over 4 years without making a house payment.
Why? Because they got greedy, and were a part of the nationwide banking scam that committed fraud on an unprecedented scale and was responsible for the largest transfer of wealth in human history.

 SunTrust Mortgage has sent me a dozen letters and sent 7 collectors to my house since the last lawsuit concluded in July.

As a result, I filed my third lawsuit in the past year against them this morning. I can't help but wonder how many times we have go through this before they realize that they should leave me alone. I am sure that the judge is tired of them as well.

From the old post file

A post I began writing earlier this year and never published:

There is an image out there that the Brady Campaign claims is an obvious fake:


In today's spin-conscious world, no organization would dare be so blunt. Or would they? Here is a screen shot of a similar photo posted on their Facebook page:

Perhaps it was a part of their "We're better than this" campaign, and was pulled due to negative publicity. (analysis here) Who knows for sure? However, even IF the poster is fake, it is an accurate representation of the Brady Campaign's position.

The Brady Campaign insists on stripping law abiding women of their right to defend themselves against rapists. Brady Campaign-approved guidelines about preventing rape say women should vomit, urinate, defecate or announce you are on your period.

There are those that think that posters like this are beneath the progun side, but I say that, if it is a fake, it is an effective way of demonstrating the idiocy that is the antigun position.

Prepping

I saw this website, and it made me think about prepping. I am sure that some of the ideas from this could be useful for preppers. Imagine the security of growing your own food inside of your home.

Only ones

This week, the Sheriff of Orange County, Florida, Jerry Demings, says that he wants to stop gun violence. He is so serious, that he teamed up with Democrat Senator Bill Nelson to try and pass gun control legislation back in January, and is on record as saying that police are the 'only ones' that should be allowed to own guns.
Of course, he neglects to mention that his department, and actually, he and his wife, have supplied more guns to criminals than I and all of my gun owning friends have, combined.

On February 7, 2012,  Deputy Peggy Leonard's personal car was broken into and her handgun was stolen. It was recovered the next day.
In 2011, a Deputy had a pistol and a shotgun stolen from his unlocked patrol vehicle.
In 2009, the Sheriff's wife, who is the police chief of Orlando, had her pistol stolen from her unlocked police vehicle. The police tried to keep the press from finding out.
In 2006, a SWAT Deputy had a silenced MP5 submachine gun, a .308 caliber rifle, and a .45 caliber handgun stolen from his patrol SUV.
As deputy police chief in 2007, Mrs. Demings ordered off-duty officers to store city-issued AR-15 assault rifles at police headquarters after three of the weapons were stolen.

Seen at Disney

Apparently, Disney World in Orlando has dogs working in the security department.

Disney has its own security department, which is supplemented by Orange County Sheriff's Deputies. In this case, the handler is not in the OCSO uniform, but is instead wearing Navy Blue BDU pants, a navy blue dress shirt, and is unarmed, meaning that this is a security guard. I must, however, admit that this looks nothing like Disney Security's regular uniform.

Science is for sale

So many people believe in science. The problem is that science is being corrupted by those who stand to profit from certain advances. Rather than wait for the truth to be discovered, these profiteers pay scientists, who are willing to whore themselves out, to study problems and recommend solutions that- miraculously- always seem to financially favor the people who paid for the study.

This is how Al Gore made millions from the global warming and carbon credit fad. This is happening in medicine, where it turns out that the American Heart Association, which claims to be a non-profit, is overestimating the risk of cholesterol in heart disease by 75-150%.

The American Heart Association reported $521 million in donations from non-government and non-membership sources and many well-known large drug companies contribute amounts in the $1 million range. The AHA also rakes in millions from food companies which are also million dollar donors and which pay from $5,490 to $7,500 per product to gain the “heart-check mark” imprimatur from the AHA, renewable, at a price, every year. The foods so anointed are supposed to be low in fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol, yet Boar’s Head All Natural Ham (340 mg of sodium per serving) somehow made the cut as did Boar’s Head EverRoast Oven Roasted Chicken Breast (440 mg of sodium per serving).

That is why many of us in the gun community do not trust the government to study gun violence. My rights are not up for debate, especially not a debate that will be based upon studies performed by "scientists" that are for sale to the highest bidder.

Barack Obama racist

Remember when Barack Obama snubbed the British by not going to Margaret Thatcher's funeral? When Poland's President and Fist Lady were killed in a plane crash, he didn't go to the funeral. He isn't missing Nelson Mandela's, though. He must be racist.

Future News

Internet News Service
Wednesday, January 20, 2021

President Walt Disney Company to be sworn in today

Washington- In only two hours, we as Americans will see history made. The new President, Walt Disney Company, will be sworn in today. This is truly a history making moment, as we herald in a new era of American history when we inaugurate the first non-human President in the history of the US and the world.

The groundwork for this was first laid in a series of Supreme Court decisions: First, there was the 1886 case, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, in which the Supreme Court held that a private corporation is a person and is entitled to the legal rights and protections the Constitution affords to any other person. Later, the 2010 case of Citizens United v. Federal election Commission, in which the Supreme Court held that, for Constitutional rights purposes, a corporation was a person and that a person could not be prohibited from exercising free speech as exercised through spending money for political purposes.

After that came the decision of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. v. Sebillius in 2014. In that landmark case, the court reaffirmed that a corporation is a person, even though it rejected the company's assertion that compelling them to provide insurance that against their religious beliefs violated their First Amendment rights.

The big decision came in the case of SEIU v. Federal Election Commission, when the Service Employees Union asserted that a corporate person, being able to donate freely to political causes, should also be able to cast a ballot. The Supreme Court agreed. Overnight, tens of thousands of Corporations registered to vote in Delaware and North Dakota.

The idea of running the Disney company for president began as a joke, said Walt Disney Company CEO Mark Taylor: "We were joking around at a meeting of the Board of Directors about the company running for President. Then, our corporate attorney said, 'Why not?' The rest is history."

Taylor went on to explain that the more they looked into it, the more it looked like it could be done, "The company was started in the USA, it was over 35 years old, and thanks to the lawsuits challenging [President] Obama's eligibility to be elected failing for lack of standing, we knew we were on to something."

Indeed they were. Democrats, happy that a company that supported so many progressive ideas like benefits for domestic partners and gay rights, were excited to vote for such a progressive candidate. Many Republicans felt sure that a large company like the Disney company would stand up for business. Many voters feel like it is time for change, and that is what we are about to get.

This post is satire. It came to me, and I thought it was funny. The court cases mentioned are real, the election of a company to the office of President is not.

ObamaCare to eliminate 72% of firefighters in the US

In the US, there are over 750,000 volunteer firefighters. This number represents 72% of all firefighters in the US. The IRS is trying to define the provisions of Obamacare, and the way that the law is written now would require volunteer fire departments to provide health insurance to their volunteers. This would be prohibitively expensive, and bring volunteer firefighting to a halt.

One of Obamacare’s reforms is known as the “Shared Responsibility Provision,” which requires that large employers offer health insurance to their employees. The act defines large employers as those with 50 or more full-time employees (FTEs) or FTE equivalents. The act further defines an FTE to be an employee working 30 or more hours per week.

So any time a volunteer works more than 30 hours per week, the volunteer department with more than 50 volunteers would be required to provide that volunteer with insurance.Even though the volunteer system was disbanded years ago, Osceola county, Florida once had a dozen individual volunteer fire companies providing protection to the rural areas of the county, while career stations provided service to the more urbanized areas of the county. This meant that each individual volunteer department had fewer than 50 volunteers, collectively there were several hundred "employees" that would have needed insurance under Obamacare.

The uncertainty surrounding the Shared Responsibility Provision is compounded for fire departments due to conflicting federal guidance on whether a volunteer firefighter or emergency medical provider is an employee of their fire department. While the Department of Labor classified most volunteers as non-employees, the IRS is responsible for enforcing the Shared Responsibility Provision and considers all volunteer firefighters and emergency medical personnel to be employees of their fire department.

Simply changing this IRS rule for the purposes of Obamacare won't work, either. See, the rule was passed in response to a policy that many career fire departments once had, where they required their full time paid personnel to work a certain number of hours each year without pay as a volunteers.

All of this is causing volunteer departments to curtail or even shut down operations. Burlington, Washington has 9 full time and 30 volunteer firefighters. The city's fire department announced early in November that they will have to curtail volunteer's activities.

 “If we were to extend full medical benefits to those firefighters, it would be $750,000 that the city hadn’t anticipated. And given the entire fire budget is $1.6 million, that’s a substantial portion of the budget,” said City Administrator Harrison. “I’m not sure where we’d get that money.”

We need to pass it to find out what is in it, indeed. The unintended consequences of this law are just now beginning to come to light.

93 years of corrupting the Constitution

Eighty years ago today, the 21st Amendment to the US constitution was ratified, ending alcohol prohibition in the United States.

The 18th Amendment, ratified on January 17, 1920, outlawed alcohol in the United States. The Amendment was enforced through the Volstead Act. One thing that I find interesting is the fact that Heroin and Cocaine were still perfectly legal during prohibition.

The Amendment was passed because  legal theories at the time said that the states were responsible for the law within their borders, while the Federal government only had jurisdiction over international affairs and interstate commerce. Thus, making liquor that stayed purely within a state's borders illegal at a Federal level was unconstitutional

At first, it seemed as though prohibition was working: liquor consumption dropped, arrests for drunkenness dropped, and the price of alcohol soon rose to a level that was more than the average worker could afford. Many people that had supported the Amendment initially were angered by the Amendment and had felt misled. They felt that the phrase "intoxicating liquors" would not include beer and wine, but the Volstead act defined the term to mean anything with more than 0.5% alcohol.

Just like today's war on drugs, the enforcement of alcohol prohibition granted many new powers to the Federal Government. Over the prohibition years, the Supreme Court modified its interpretations of the 4th, 5th, and 10th amendments in order to uphold the Volstead Act and interpret the enforcement power in the 18th amendment expansively.  The court allowed wiretaps without a warrant, allowed a person to be charged twice for the same crime under state and federal statutes, and allowed warrantless searches of motor vehicles – establishing the “reasonable suspicion” standard.

The law of supply and demand soon caught up with prohibition, and people that were willing to break the law to get beer were soon willing to break the law to get other liquors. Demand for alcohol soared, criminal enterprises began supplying it, and prices came down as supply increased. Criminal enterprises began competing for territory. It was not long before the problems of public drunkenness were replaced with organized crime, the corruption of police and courts, and widespread violence.

Many states eventually grew tired of the hassle. In fact, by 1925 six states had developed laws that prohibited police from enforcing the Volstead Act. Cities in the Midwest and Northeast were particularly uninterested in enforcing Prohibition. By 1928, 28 states had stopped enforcing the law. Juries began nullifying the law by refusing to convict people.

When confronted with what the people and the states believed to be federal overreach, the people responded with outright disobedience and jury nullification.  The cities and states nullified through sporadic or complete absence of enforcement.  As with the Whiskey Rebellion and resistance to the Federal Fugitive Slave Act, the federal government was unable to overcome the resistance and was eventually forced to repeal the detested intrusion.

 So you can see that the Prohibition era and the Temperance movement changed our Constitution and damaged our freedoms. It set the stage for the drug war, Obamacare, the NSA scandal, sobriety checkpoints, the TSA, and tons of other overreaches of Government power.

it seemed as though prohibition was not only a great idea, but that it was working. "The amendment worked at first, liquor consumption dropped, arrests for drunkenness fell, and the price for illegal alcohol rose higher than the average worker could afford. Alcohol consumption dropped by 30 percent and the United States Brewers' Association admitted that the consumption of hard liquor was off 50 percent during Prohibition." However, as time progressed, the statistics would change.

it seemed it seemed as though prohibition was not only a great idea, but that it was working. "The amendment worked at first, liquor consumption dropped, arrests for drunkenness fell, and the price for illegal alcohol rose higher than the average worker could afford. Alcohol consumption dropped by 30 percent and the United States Brewers' Association admitted that the consumption of hard liquor was off 50 percent during Prohibition." However, as time progressed, the statistics would change.as though prohibition was not only a great idea, but that it was working. "The amendment worked at first, liquor consumption dropped, arrests for drunkenness fell, and the price for illegal alcohol rose higher than the average worker could afford. Alcohol consumption dropped by 30 percent and the United States Brewers' Association admitted that the consumption of hard liquor was off 50 percent during Prohibition." However, as time progressed, the statistics would change.

72 years

Today, my father would have been 72 years old. He died more than 8 years ago.

I still miss him.

Work is for suckers

Hosts on a KLBJ radio station in Austin, Tx, had been talking about how accustomed people have become when it comes to welfare.  Expressing the fact that some people would rather sit around and wait for their free check in the mail than go to work, got at least one listener upset. The listener called in to say that she would always be on welfare, and that everyone else is an idiot for doing otherwise.

One of the hosts then asks the woman if she viewed the working class as idiots because we go to work instead of staying home and reaping the benefits that have been paid by those working.  She sadly replied that she did think working was foolish declaring that even though she doesn’t work, she’s still going to get paid. According to her, her parents were on Welfare, her kids are on Welfare, and she will be on Welfare for the rest of her life.

and she votes. This nation is doomed.

Servers are a whiny bunch

Via Peter at Bayou Renaissance Man, we find a blog post about how we all should tip more.

I am so tired of hearing about how servers don't get enough in tips.

 Here is a description of your job: You write down what I want, and then someone else prepares it. You pick up what I asked for (that someone else prepared) and bring it to my table. If I ask you for something like more sugar or ketchup, you bring it to me. You keep refilling my glass. That’s it. It isn’t skilled labor. That is why they call it the ‘service industry’.

You complain about how hard your job is? Try working a summer in building construction, laying roofing tile. Think your pay as a server is low? Get a job running a cash register at Wal Mart.

Look, let’s say that you work at a restaurant that assigns you four tables, and each table spends about an hour eating. Let’s also say that the average check for each table is $60, and let’s also say that your employer only pays you $3 an hour, and the rest of your pay comes from the ‘cheapskates’ that you are serving. Even if half the tables stiff you and the other half only tip 10%, you are still making $15 an hour. Where I live, that is double the minimum wage, and there are many, many people who make less than that. In this scenario, if one in four tables stiff you, and the others tip the 20% you constantly whine for, you are now making $39 an hour.

Sorry, what you are doing isn’t worth $78,000 a year. So my new tipping policy: I tip 15% for GOOD service, and less for crappy service. My tips are capped at $10 for each hour I am there. That is more than enough, and if you work a second table during that hour, means you are making more than I am. For carrying stuff. Be happy you have a job.

My sister is a high school dropout. She went back and got her GED, but the highest paid job she can get is waiting tables at TGI Friday's. She comes home from an 8 hour shift with $80-100. That is in addition to the $4.77 an hour she gets from her employer. Of course she complains that her check is frequently $0, after taxes are taken out, and that she must rely on tips for her entire income. Welcome to the real world. We all pay taxes, and your pretax income is $15-17 an hour- pretty good money for unskilled labor.

Marker

A 76 year old woman is robbed by three young people in her own driveway, as she was arriving home from work. She has a concealed weapons permit and managed to shoot one of her attackers before they killed her.
The comments on the article are appalling. Just click on the "worst rated" to see the mentality of the people there who are blaming her as they assume that the robber would have not attacked her if she was unarmed. If we are to take this advice, we are relying on the good will and conscience of the criminals.

If I have a weapon, I have a choice: I can submit, or I can resist.

If I do not have a weapon, I must submit. That is what a weapon does for me: it gives me a choice. It is freedom. I know that a firearm is not a guarantee of safety. It is not a magic wand or talisman. I would hope that if I find myself in such a situation that I would come out alive, and if this is not possible, at least I will be found in a pile of my spent brass, not on my knees with my hands tied behind my back.

At least in this case, the victim marked her killer for future identification.

Robot Watchman

After the school massacre at Newtown, a company named Knighthawk was founded. They claim that they want to sell and market a robot watchman that will prevent shootings like this from happening.

The robot is unarmed. So tell me how a burglar alarm system on wheels is going to prevent a shooting when, according to the article, it can't even prevent unruly teenagers from tipping it over. When asked about teens tipping it over, they said that the video recording ability of the robots would deter this. Explain to me how a person engaged in a suicide mission of killing kids would be deterred by the fact that he was being video recorded.

Irony

Paul Walker, star of the Fast and Furious film series, died in a fiery crash, as the car that he was riding in slammed into a tree. The police think that speed was a factor in the crash. Oh, the irony.

The Fast and Furious movies glamorized riding around in heavily modified small cars and street racing them.

The first of the movies was released on June 22, 2001.

In 2001, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported that police listed street racing as a factor in 135 fatal crashes. The total was up from 72 street-racing-related fatalities reported in 2000.

The city of San Diego prosecuted 147 illegal street racing cases in 1999, 161 in 2000, and 290 in 2001.

The numbers of street racing related deaths increased in 2001, 2003, 2006, 2009, and 2011: each and every year that a new Fast and Furious movie was released.

That's Hollywood: Glamorizing things like street racing and killing people, and then claiming that your movies don't influence people's behavior, but charging big bucks for product placement because seeing your product in the movies makes people want to buy it.