Tag: Stupid Human Tricks

I Voted Today

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 Two weeks before Election Day, and there were at least eight people there at the same time, voting, plus there were collection boxes outside for people who had received mail-in ballots to drop off.

But I parked right next to this:

It’s not a Prius?!? 

I can’t IMAGINE a more appropriate vanity license plate.

“Our first purpose was not to be noticed.”

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A long time ago I read Robert Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress for the first of many, many times.  I’m pretty sure I was twelve or thirteen at the time. 
For those of you unfamiliar with the plot, the Earth is governed by a United Nations of sorts, and has turned the moon into a penal colony much like England did with Australia.  Subtle difference, though, without certain drugs and strenuous exercise, spending too long on Luna will result in irreversible physiological changes that prohibit living on Earth again except as an invalid.  The moon, through hydroponic farming using water from lunar pockets of ice, has become the breadbasket of humanity.  A massive linear accelerator is used to send cargo packages of grain down the gravity well to feed Earth.
The population of Luna is only partially convicts as the story begins.  Most of the residents have either served their sentences or been born there as “free people.”  Free being a relative term.  The Authority runs the colonies, and there are several. 

The crisis is that if projections are accurate, Luna is going to run out of water soon, and Earth doesn’t care and doesn’t want to know.  And they want “the convicts” to just do their jobs and feed Earth.

So a small group decides that the only way to save Luna is to have a revolution.  Here’s the passage that struck me so many years ago:

Our first purpose was not to be noticed.  Long distance purpose was to make things worse as much as possible.  Yes, worse.  Never was a time, even at last, when all Loonies wanted to throw off Authority, wanted it bad enough to revolt.  All loonies despised Warden and cheated Authority.  Didn’t mean they were ready to fight and die.

This popped up over on FB a day or two ago, a Tweet from Jeremy Boreing, one of the producers of Ben Shapiro’s podcast and other Daily Wire things, I think:
  1. Instill fear
  2. Lock people in their houses
  3. Drive tens of millions out of work
  4. Remove the pressure valves:  sports, concerts, bars, theaters. lunch with friends
  5. Close the churches
  6. Dehumanize through masking the healthy
  7. Wait
  8. Strike match
I don’t think this was orchestrated, any more than I think the WuFlu was a bioweapon, but the groundwork had already been laid and full advantage is being taken.
Marx defined revolution as violent overthrow of state and economic system when workers would come out of their false consciousness and would realize their exploitation done by the capitalist society. According to Marx, capitalism will eventually dig its own grave but the working class should not wait for it to happen on its own and rather catalyze the process to end their misery through revolution.
The next stage after revolution would be Socialism.  We have had more than one generation “educated” in our places of “higher learning” that Capitalism is Bad and Socialism is Good:

I’m not saying that this is that “revolution.” I think it’s another “wet firecracker,” but there will be more of this, more often, until the entire system collapses, because a significant portion of the population, many working in government and media, want it to and are actively, quietly working towards it.  Things have to get worse before Joe Sixpack will be willing to fight and die.
Thing is, I don’t think the Socialists are the ones expecting to die.

There are No “Solutions” – Only “Trade-offs”

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Today’s Electric Car Batteries Will Be Tomorrow’s E-Waste Crisis, Scientists Warn

Wind turbines kill endangered bird species, electric cars require toxic batteries and run off of coal-fired power plants, The infrastructure necessary to provide charging stations for plug-in EV’s will cost billions and require even more power generation, but no one wants a nuclear power plant in their back yard.

Engineering isn’t about “solutions,” it’s about picking the best options and minimizing the costs of the trade-offs.

Politics is only about getting elected and re-elected. Politicians can promise the moon without any concern about the costs – monetary, environmental, social. And they depend on a public ignorant to the realities. Shouts of “Consensus!” are used to ensure that no one opposed gets listened to.

That’s not how science – or engineering – work. Reality is what remains even if you don’t believe in it.

Stupid Should Hurt

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By far the most viewed, upvoted and commented on answer I have ever given at Quora was a question about concealed-carry vs. open carry.  I mentioned it here a little while ago.

Since the three mass shootings last week I’ve been answering a slew of gun control questions.  Someone I respect over on Facebook today posted about this yo-yo: “You’re presuming guilt of a crime he hasn’t committed. Want attention, surely. Up to no good? Debatable.”

Here we’re going to part company. Somebody shows up at a public venue carrying a long gun who is not obviously law enforcement, I’m going to assume the worst and try to put them down. I’m glad the firefighter didn’t dump a mag into this idiot, but had he I would have voted to acquit. The “debate” can occur in the courtroom. If he was wrong, only ONE person would have been shot.

I’m glad the CCW carrier didn’t do a mag-dump into the idiot, but if he had I would vote to acquit.

It may not be illegal to walk around in public tacticooled out, but it’s STUPID, and stupid should hurt.

Quote of the Day – Sarah A. Hoyt Edition

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Common core is trying to do to math what whole word did to reading. They found that fast readers read “whole word” instead of sounding out, so they thought that everyone should just cut to reading “whole word.” Of course, the problem was that fast readers had done the work to get there. Just treating English as a pictographic language, simply left the kids unable to read NEW words (and none to good with the old, because the word shapes aren’t distinctive enough.)

Common core tries to take the little tricks that people who love math do in their head (because we got bored and worked it out in our heads when we didn’t have anything to read) and reverse engineer them, so everyone does these math tricks. The problem is if you haven’t done the work to internalize these tricks, you’re actually just doing three times the work and never learning the simplest route to the solution.

This is exactly like realizing people who own homes are more stable financially and tend to be more prudent, etc, and deciding the remedy is to make it possible for everyone, no matter how addled, to own a home. It’s taking the virtue required to do something, and thinking it accrues automagically if you do the thing.

It’s one of current leftists’ most persistent and pernicious illusions. They consistently put the cart ahead of the horse.

photo THATS IT.jpg

No, Ann. Just, NO.

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Ann Barnhardt bloviates about the election:

Look, you can tell me about how the United States is “turning it around” when abortion is a capital offense and sodomy is recriminalized. You can tell me all about how the U.S. is on the road to recovery when there are people in the streets weeping and sobbing on their knees begging the Triune Godhead for His mercy and forgiveness for spending the last fifty years proverbially kicking God in the crotch non-stop.

(*SIGH*)

I don’t want her on “my” side.

“Are we all quite mad here in the developed world?”

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Not all of us, but far too many.

Next question?

Mark Champion of Bloomberg View asks the question upon considering the reaction to the government of Spain deciding to euthanize a mixed-breed dog, pet of a Spanish nursing assistant who contracted the Ebola virus.  He reports:

A petition to save Excalibur, the pet dog of a Spanish nursing assistant who has contracted Ebola, received more than 370,000 signatures before the animal was sedated and killed as a precautionary measure this evening. As his corpse was taken away in a van for incineration, a crowd of activists who had clashed with police during the day were reportedly shouting: “murderers!”

I don’t remember people clashing with police to persuade their governments to do more to help stop the spread of Ebola in Africa, where more than 3,400 human beings have died from the disease. Indeed, an online petition to persuade the U.S. government to fast-track research for an Ebola drug has so far received 152,534 signatures. By that measure, we care half as much about finding a cure for Ebola as saving a dog.

Go read the piece and look at the pictures of the protesters in this Daily Mail piece.

In related news, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, not People Eating Tasty Animals) wants to put up a granite memorial at a location where “hundreds of terrified chickens suffered and died” as the result of a truck accident.

I think a memorial Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet should be built there.

A Popeye’s just wouldn’t have the proper gravitas.

Edited to add:  James Lileks weighs in on the subject.