- Phlegmmie linked to this awesome Google Earth view of the cloud of satellites orbiting Earth. If you had asked me to guess how many there were, I'd have been off by a factor of ten.
- The "terrifying arsenal" bar is set pretty low in The Place Where Great Britain Used To Be these days. I especially like the way they clutch their pearls over the "lethal hollow-point and soft-tip" ammo, two ammo cans full of which I have riding around in the trunk of my car because I was too lazy to lug it into the house after my last range trip. (I rationalized the decision by thinking, "Well, it'll just be going back to the range anyway, so I might as well just leave it in the trunk.")
- Scary Quote Of The Week: "I recently had a reliable source tell me the EPA, OSHA, and other regulatory agencies have been told to explore how they can supply their own revenue such that they become self supporting. “Run like a business” and even potentially make a profit. My source explicitly called out the EPA and OSHA but one can easily imagine how this mandate will be extended to the ATF and hundreds of other government organizations.
If the color didn’t just drain out of your face and you nearly fainted you either don’t have a very good imagination or you have a government job." -Joe Huffman
Friday, August 05, 2011
Tab Clearing...
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21 comments:
A friend had a medium sized safe in nearly every room, and each one was stuffed full of guns. I'm not aware that any English people ever visited him.
I do have a govt job. I also have a good imagination. Really bad idea.
Like bryanp, being a government worker does not exclude one from having a good imagination...I have always justified being both a government employee AND a small government proponent by basking in the glory of being a defense sector employee, which is 'Okay(not good) Government' in my book.
Just recently, all 5 police departments that service the Tri-Cities area where I live(Richland PD, Kennewick PD, Pasco PD, Benton County Sherrif and Washington State Patrol, which has to be a problem in itself) completed a 3 week long 'Speed Enforcement Emphasis' campaign. I had 3 co-workers get tickets for going 3 M.P.H over the limit...you can't tell me that's not revenue related.
I'm picturing the EPA doing something similar...
Those are there for extra traction in snow, officer, why do you ask?
If this is true, and if it comes to pass, we're done.
The core of the British Civil Service is composed of just such "Self-Funding Regulatory Agencies"(sfra) that possess the longevity and endurance to undermine any attempt at reform, whether it is attempted via referendum or election. Britain is the gun-free, EU-loving, climate change-obsessed paradise that it is precisely because elections don't matter one bit -- only the prejudices, desires, and ambitions of the Civil Service.
If this should come to pass in America, there will be no way to hold these bureaucracies accountable for anything. Nothing short of repeal of the laws enabling their existence will do.
Dictatorships in the western world are not imposed by the gun -- they are birthed via "white papers" pushing the centralization of power in the hands of those who have only contempt for the people whom they ostensibly "serve".
God help us.
If the EPA has to create its own revenue it has two choices:
1) Sell "Save the Tree Frog t-shirts"
2) Impose draconian fines on every business that operates within the borders of the U.S.
I'm guessing #1 will not be considered.
"Hey, My Name's Tony, and I'm from the FCC. You sure got a Nice Blog here. Sure be a Shame if any thing would happen to it. Hey, Vito, show what could happen to her Blog, okay? Now, we have an Insurance Policy that will make sure nothing happens to your Blog. Once a week, you do a Direct Deposit to....."
I wonder if this isn't a red herring. A very clever, very cynical red herring.
What better way to get small-government, TEA party sympathizers to plug their noses and agree to higher taxes than to float this idea?
If I were the Former Junior Senator from Illinois (and a hell of a lot cleverer than him), this is exactly how I'd spin it.
Then again, if I were the Former Junior Senator from Illinois, the idea of repealing the law creating said agencies would be utterly inconceivable to me.
gvi
What better way to get small-government, TEA party sympathizers to plug their noses and agree to higher taxes than to float this idea?
If that's the case, it just proves that the "Tea Party Terrorist" meme is hypocritical bullshit, because if the Tea Partiers were what they're accused of, the enforcers of revenue enhancement would be looking down the barrels of guns, and they know it.
QED: the Tea Party does not represent a physical threat, only a political one.
Hey, maybe they could sell "This is a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC" t-shirts?
Jeez, thankfully I don't have to fly through London or Manchester to get to Galway out in Western Ireland. My son-in-law will drive two hours to Shannon to pick me up in the Jeep, and we can shoot some cans in his back yard with the .22, and maybe some hand trap.
If we want to shoot his pistol we have to go to the police range, but what the hell, it's free. He got one of the first pistol permits issued when they opened up the law a few years ago.
Or, we could run down to the local army barracks and shoot AUG's with all the local teenagers.
I'm so glad Grandpa and his buddies in the IRA kicked those pathetic pansies and their hired thugs out of what is, arguably, one of the last two civilized countries in western Europe.
The other is, of course, Switzerland.
I think we need a big flyswatter for all those bugs orbiting the planet.
Remember the mass attacks of the vapours in London when someone found a .22 cartridge? (formerly Great)Britain, indeed.
The really big problem is when the Defense Department becomes self funding.
@Joseph:
not necessarily. They can start billing those countries that we have been protecting for the past 60+ years. Figure in a profit percentage, and they're good to go!
Yeah. Let's hire out the U.S. military as the baddest-ass mercenary outfit on the planet.
But nobody could afford it.
You guys are behind the power curve on this one. Jefferson county AL is going bankrupt. The main source of their debt is EPA ordered changes to their sewer system (~$3B)The county paid, through 2007, more than $1.2 million in EPA penalties for overflows. That's a lot of T-shirts
RE: Joe's statement; what he needs to state rather explicitly is that it's not so much imagination that one needs to have, but just a functional grasp of the If/Then logic statement, otherwise refered to as mental wattage.
Guess what, John Q. Public just doesn't have it.
THAT should scare you.
@irritable
Tautologically, roughly 50% of JQPs have an IQ less than 100. Ability to reason is further degraded by our shitty system of public education, and challenged daily by carefully constructed propaganda. Is our democratic republic so well conceived that we can survive being "governed" by representatives elected by the majority...or not. This is the existential question of our; and the next couple of generations. I fear for the worst but still have blind faith that the "average" can eventually come up with the right solution. Blind faith is, unfortunately, all I have left.
My mother carried more guns than that in her CAR!
That's an arsenal? I mean, the skorpion is slightly interesting, but that's not even enough gunfeed to make it through a weekend at the range and have enough left for the ride home.
And what is a "soft point" bullet? Just non-fmj?
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