Evil profiteers kick FEMA's ass

By way of Cold Fury, this little nose-tweak to the statist punks who are all "you hate da gubmint so you want people to die wah wah wah!!"

Disaster recovery requires nimble decision-making, flexibility, and money. The federal government has only one of those, and arguably none of them if you check out the debt. It is harmful to argue, as the NYT does, for a bigger and ever-less flexible system, ruled entirely by leaders in Washington and to poison the idea of states and private companies taking on larger roles. A federal budget line should not be the measure of success in disaster recovery (and if it is, maybe the paper should take that up with President Obama). If Waffle House spent millions yet served only 16 meals in stormstruck areas, we would never praise its efforts. Perhaps comparable standards are in order for the federal government.

Romney’s comments allow for any number of combinations in the Tetris game of private-public partnerships shown to actually help victims quickly. The NYT editorial attempts to make politically toxic any discussion of innovation in a field where lives and livelihoods depend on it. Which one is extreme?

We often hear from the president and his allies that “we’re all in this together.” America agrees, but to paint the federal government alone as the one true path to helping our neighbors ignores reality, eschews innovation, and ultimately hurts those we’re trying to help.
 

Do RTWT.  Yet more evidence that the People can do a far better job at damn near anything than government, even--maybe especially--because they're motivated by self-interest.

Chew on that.

Benghazi and Cross Border Authority

If you read nothing else about the subject, memorize this:

Did Obama Withhold Cross-Border Authority?

Please help me.

I am trying as hard as I can to get out the word about cross-border authority (CBA).

I just can’t believe reporters don’t know enough to ask the right questions! It’s infuriating.

Libya, as far as standing down the rescue, is 100% Obama’s show, and nobody else’s. Only he can grant CBA, not Biden, not Panetta, not Dempsey, not Hillary, and certainly not Ham in Germany.

The entire episode is explained perfectly inside the context of not granting CBA. The CIA QRF in Tripoli? No problem, send them on the local Tripoli station chief’s say-so. He merely informs up COC that he has done so. CCs them so to speak. "This is what I am doing." Ditto if Predators were in country, no problem using them.

But the big rescue air armada streaming toward Libya right away after the alarm got to Stuttgart and Africom? That has to stop. I believe at the 5pm meeting with Panetta and Biden in the Oval Office, he said, "No outside military intervention," on the basis that the last report was the "lull" from the consulate, at about 1030 p.m. in Benghazi, when the attack appeared to be over and the situation stabilizing.

(As a soft exception, Obama may have authorized sending an unarmed Predator from outside of Libya, but I am thinking the two Predators were already in-country, and hence available to use within "no CBA granted" rules.)

"No outside military intervention" equals "no cross-border authority" and that constitutes "standing orders" until POTUS changes them. Nobody else can "un-decide" the POTUS decree. The rescue air-armada of C-17s, C-130s and SOF helos like MH-47 Chinooks and Pavehawks cannot proceed directly to Libya without CBA being granted, so instead they are all staged at Sigonella, Sicily.

USN ships are in position to "lilypad" helos for long over-water flights. Airborne tankers are coming into position. SOF forces in Sigonella are going over their gear for different contingencies. Fuming all night as officers keep checking in with operational commanders. "Hold in place, no rescue yet. We can’t find the President, it sounds like," say the colonels to the majors and captains. 100s of military must know about this. I keep waiting for the conclusive whistle-blowers to come forward BEFORE the election. After won’t matter, it will be for the historians.

Panetta is falling on his sword for Obama with his absurd-on-its-face, "The military doesn’t do risky things" defense of no rescue. Panetta is destroying his future reputation entirely, to save Obama. The question is why? Loyalty?

Petreaus was probably "used" in some way early, about the supposed CIA intel link to the Mohammed video, and now he feels burned. So he conclusively said via his PAO, "The stand-down order did not come from CIA."

Well, what is higher than CIA? Only White House. Obama, nobody else. Petreaus is naming Obama without naming him.

Now, as far as Obama / Huma Abedin / Valerie Jarrett etc actually wanting Ambassador Stevens dead, to terminate the end of the very dirty Libyan arms to Syrian AQ programs, I can’t speculate. Obama is not competent enough, I’m thinking.

But for sure, the ambassador going to unsecure Benghazi on 9-11 of all days stinks to me of a setup. You can bet Stevens would have told the Turks, "No, 9-11 is not a good day for us," and stayed in Tripoli behind many high and thick walls. For him to go to dangerous Benghazi on 9-11 means the Turks totally insisted, but why would they care about the meeting date, unless they were in on a "hit" as the Judas goat?

Alternatively, ordering Stevens to meet the Turks in Benghazi on 9-11 may have come from down OUR chain of command. Stevens seems to have been wearing two hats as ambassador and CIA arms shipper. Moving between more-secure Tripoli, the Benghazi "consulate," and the CIA "annex." So orders to him might come down the State or the CIA commo channels, or both. I am unclear on his job title and true position, but either the CIA or State sends him final instructions. How this works with "dual-hatted" ambassadors, I haven’t a clue.

But Stevens meeting the Turks at the unsecure Benghazi "consulate" on 9-11 stinks to me of a deliberate setup. The Turks left the meeting and probably flashed their headlights to the attack team commanders lurking in shadows. A coded text, a word on a phone, meaning, "The ambassador is there, with minimal security: proceed with the attack plan."

That is all pure speculation. What I know FOR SURE is that the big "stand down order" issue revolves around granting or withholding cross-border authority.

Every SOF officer and ops officer all the way up has this drummed into his head. We can make Obama respond to this question, even if reporters must shout it at him while he’s doing storm cleanup photo ops. If the reporters KNOW enough to ask the quesion.

That’s why I am shouting all over the internet about CBA.

I can’t believe cross-border authority permission is not one of the top discussion points about Benghazi.

That, and who "set him up" by sending him to Beghazi to meet the Turks on 9-11, with them leaving after dark.
And of course, down the road, was the military rescue-in-progress turned back because Obama actually wanted to make sure the consulate was wiped out? Is that why the spooks at the annex were refused permission to travel the under one mile to intervene? That would connect it all together, but for now, the best focus is on Obama either granting or withholding cross-border authority for the rescue.

Feel free to repost these musings of a long-ago SOF officer anywhere you please.
Reposted in full.

Questions the LSM won't ask...

...because it's hard to ask anything with Obummer's ding-dong that far down their throat.  Luckily, someone's asking them.

Today is October 29. It’s been six weeks and our incurious press (apparently intuiting that if the administration first lied about the story and has now clammed up about it, it mustn’t serve Obama’s re-election efforts) is helpfully ignoring the story. The bird-dog press, who like to say the “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comforted” are doing nothing to make the president uncomfortable; they’re launching no investigations; they’re asking no questions, not even simple, obvious ones, like:

1) If no one gave an order to “stand down” who gave the order to “go save”?

2) If no one gave an order to “go save” just what exactly did the President, the Sec State and the Sec Defense do while they watched Benghazi burn over seven hours. There must be some paper trail, somewhere, that shows us that responsible action was taken, yes?

3) Did they all just vote “present?”

4) Why would you go to the UN, and lie about what happened in Benghazi to the whole world, even as your own spokespeople were admitting that the situation there had nothing to do with a damn video?

5) Was this a gun-running operation? Or some kind of October political theatrical gone bad?

5) People in your administration lied to the public. Should not a few resignations be on the president’s desk? Why isn’t the president asking for them?

6) Does lying not matter any more?

These are not unreasonable questions, and they’re the questions Brian Williams and Chris Matthews and the New York Times and every other news outlet would — quite justifiably — be asking of any other president, particularly if he had an R after his name. And yet, the press will not ask them of Obama.

RTWT.  Great questions, Ma'am.  And you'll get truthful answers from the Thug Regime right about the time Satan puts on a parka.

Enough already, Sandra.

This chick really needs to just STFU and go away.

Let me explain something to you, dear:  not buying you stuff is not the same as 'denying you access to it.'  I'm not being 'denied access' to a new Dyna Glide just because no one wants to buy it for me; I just can't afford it.  So if I want one, I either save my pennies or go into more debt.  Otherwise, I ride the bike I already have.

Lest you blow me off as another uptight prude, let me explain that I used to be such a slut that they wouldn't let me visit the Virgin Islands.  I've been around the block...a lot.  My list of partners is in the triple-digit range(whether yours is longer or shorter, I don't know, nor do I want to).

Yet, I'm childless and disease-free.  Why?  Because I used birth control.  Which I paid for, with my own money, because--unlike yourself--I was enough of an adult to realize that having sex was my choice, and it was my responsibility to pay for the consequences of making that choice.  I could either pay for medical treatment and/or child support, or I could take reasonable measures to keep that from becoming a necessity.  Otherwise, I could have kept it in my pants(which, in retrospect, was probably a better idea all around, but what's done is done).

There are things we have to do to survive.  We have to eat and drink water.  We have to sleep, we have to breathe, we have to go to the bathroom.  These things are requirements.  If we don't do them, we die.

Sex is not a requirement.

Contrary to the insistence of countless teenage boys, you're not going to die if you don't have sex.  You choose whether or not to have sex(and if someone's trying to force the issue, tell me who it is and I'll make 'em stop). 

Now, even as a recently-converted Christian, I figure whatever you get up to is between you and the Lord, and anyone who wasn't there shouldn't have a say in it.  However often and with however many consenting adults you choose to share your bed /couch/ bearskin rug/ backseat of a Volkswagen/ hot tub, and in whatever combinations and permutations you desire, are absolutely none of my business, or anyone else's. 

So stop making it my business, and get your hands out of my wallet.

In a related vein...

Paratus Familia elaborates on why we're so deep in trouble:

Every great nation in history has been founded on ideals. The United States was born in the minds of men long before the Revolutionary War was fought. The actual war was merely the physical manifestation of the convictions held by men intent on securing their freedom. Not only did our fore-bearers put their lives on the line for an ideal, they also scarified their fortunes. They saw past their own finite lives into the future of a nation. They believed that the ideals they held dear were more sacred than their money, their lives and even their families. They understood that men were created to live for something greater than themselves.

No excuse

Whether you believe in God or not, it's hard to deny the logic behind Ann's latest post.

Maximum Culpability: Why God's Wrath is Certain

Posted by Ann Barnhardt - October 28, AD 2012 8:23 PM MST

There are still people, millions and millions of them, who honestly believe that this nation, economy, culture, society, whatever you want to call it, is salvageable and can be turned around. There are still people who, after all of this, still think that ELECTIONS and Washington D.C. will lead us all to the Elysian Fields and pastures of plenty. These people honestly believe that Mitt Romney can and will "fix everything", even though Mitt Romney has actually implemented EVERYTHING people are screaming about Obama attempting, such as RomneyCare (which IS ObamaCare), insurance mandates, contraception mandates, zero-copay abortion on demand, sodomite marriage and assault rifle bans, and has yet to even acknowledge the mathematical impossibility of government spending. These people still believe that Darryl Issa and Allen West will suddenly re-assert the Rule of Law on November 7th, or something. You know, just like they swore up and down that these same people would "stop Obama" and "turn Washington around" after the 2010 elections.

Anyone who still believes this, very simply, has their head up their ass to their shoulders.

Not only will Mitt Romney, Darryl Issa, Michelle Bachmann and Allen West NOT do ANYTHING of any substance if "elected", they CAN'T do anything. It is already too far gone. The economy is MATHEMATICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to fix. $222 trillion in unfunded government mandates over the next 75 years. At minimum $1.4 quadrillion in global derivatives exposure. Thousands of MANPADS and millions of pounds of American weaponry are now in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood / al Qaeda thanks to Obama's Libyan gunrunning. Iran will have an atomic arsenal, if they don't have one already, either self-produced or procured from Pakistan or the old Soviet arsenal. 60 million babies have already been killed. That blood is spilled. You can't ever bring them back.

Now to the point of this essay. God's wrath cannot be assuaged at this point because we, the people of the former United States and Western Civilization, are the most guilty, culpable, iniquitous society to ever exist by many orders of magnitude. In terms of our guilt, we are far, far guiltier than the people of late Rome. There were aspects of late Roman culture that were prima facie worse than our culture, specifically the torture blood sports, but we are far guiltier than the late Romans, and thus deserve far, far worse. And that is exactly what we are going to get.

How can we be orders of magnitude guiltier than the late Romans, or any other culture for that matter?

Because we are willfully ignorant due to extreme intellectual and especially moral laziness. If there was ever a group to whom the words "YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER" applied, it is us. And we have absolutely, positively no excuse whatsoever for our ignorance.

1. We were a free culture. This isn't Saudi Arabia or North Korea, so save me your bullshit excuses. We have been free to read ANYTHING, learn ANYTHING, subscribe to ANYTHING. This has been the most licensed culture in all of human history. Male, female, white, brown, old, young, you name it. There hasn't even been a military draft in this country for forty years. We have had the near-universal societal leisure to pursue and ponder anything and everything. And we have chosen Honey Boo Boo, the Kardashians, and mentally retarded giants who chase balls in stadiums like dogs. We have chosen to be ignorant losers who revel and glory in our own inhuman stupidity, when we could have chosen to be excellent.

2. We are wealthy. We are the wealthiest culture ever to exist. In all other cultures poverty has meant starvation, disease brought on by filth, and daily hard labor just to survive. In this culture, poverty means that your TV is under 42" and that your ObamaPhone is running Android Version 3, not Version 4. No one starves to death here. People don't die from ingesting human fecal matter in their drinking water. The necessities are totally taken care of, and thus people are free to spend the vast majority of their lives at leisure. Even our jobs are leisure, because we all get to choose what it is that we do for a living. Neither family ties nor the government have mandated, under pain of death, what any of us do vocationally. Whatever it is that you are doing or have done vocationally, you chose it and consented to it, and you were free to pursue your own interests. Since our culture has been so wealthy, most people have been able to support themselves with a 40 hour workweek, leaving in excess of 40 hours per week for pure leisure, free to pursue and ponder anything and everything.

3. We could have been educated. We are not. Most people in this culture, even though education was possible, are totally uneducated, and contra-educated. I would classify this culture as "barely literate". People can read and sound out a small core vocabulary of words, but there is very little comprehension of what is read, and that which is read is either ignorant, insipid or morally degenerated. What people are almost universally incapable of and totally unwilling to do is think for themselves - not just to be spoonfed "answers", but to actually ponder and parse information, to independently synthesize data, make connections, and to think through logical progressions. I don't care how many bee-ess college degrees you have, because all "education" today consists of is pumping and dumping information onto multiple-choice tests and occasionally faking a short-answer or occasional paper. That isn't education. That's beta pack animals learning the gestures of submission to the alpha. This culture is operating just epsilon above the animal plane - and those are the "college educated" people. The inner cities are operating on the purely animal level. But we COULD have been the most truly educated culture ever.

4. Every single one of you reading this has the sum of human knowledge literally at his fingertips. The most damning aspect of the internet won't be the pornography, I suspect. The internet pins every single one of us into moral corner because it completely removes any ability to argue that "I didn't know - I didn't have the information."

I gave a priest a thorough rhetorical beating a few years ago because he said something really stupid in a public and official setting that could have been disproved and illuminated in about seven seconds with a simple google, or any search engine, query. Whether you are a priest or a professor, or a politician or a wild-eyed blogger, there is NO EXCUSE for making incorrect public statements, no matter how trivial. If you speak, you have a grave moral obligation to be right, that is to speak the Truth. The cascading consequences of factual and moral errors are massive and horrifying, and we will only see those consequences at the General Judgment. When you have the sum of human knowledge at your fingertips, and thus the potential to extrapolate BEYOND the sum of human knowledge, thus expanding the domain of human knowledge itself; when you have been given that ability and are still so lazy that you can't even get the already-known facts-at-your-fingertips right, there will be hell to pay for that sloth.

As an aside, I am at this point reminded of Leon Panetta's lame-ass lying excuse that no help was sent into Benghazi because they "didn't have enough information." As if a live, real-time video feed from a drone circling directly overhead "wasn't enough information". Leon Panetta is lying, and justice will be done upon him in this life or the next, but everyone else in this culture who tries to claim that "we didn't know" will deserve exactly the same wrath.

5. Finally, we have far more guilt and culpability than any other culture because we WERE a Christian culture and turned our back on God with full knowledge and conscious forethought. The Romans of the 4th century were pagans who either knew very little or nothing at all of Christ. They had the Natural Law as their only guide. We have Christ Himself, physically present in the Eucharist, with our culture *allegedly* built on Him, and yet we have utterly denied and rejected Him and have reverted all the way back to the worst pagan cultures. The only revolt that is worse in enormity and scope is the revolt of Lucifer. Even the Jews of the Old Testament in all of their many episodes of falling away from God, didn't have the knowledge of Christ (obviously, because the Incarnation had not yet happened) and did not have the Physical Presence of God Himself to be taken into their own bodies, in the Eucharist.

We have nailed Christ to the Cross, and when He looks at us and asks us why, we have the unmitigated gall to say, "It's not my fault. I didn't see You there. You should have spoken up."

WE are going to burn like no other culture has burned before, including Rome, because we have, by far, the most guilt. Ignorance due to laziness in the face of unprecedented freedom and license, wealth and leisure time, potential education, technology and availability of information, and the knowledge of and physical presence of Christ Himself is why we must and we will burn. No one has ever, ever deserved it more.

Yep.  By our own foolishness, ignorance and willingness to be led astray by mindless distractions, we have destroyed the very pinnacle of human achievement.  When we decided that convenience was more important than liberty, we killed this country. 

America's dead, and we have only ourselves to blame.  Me included.  And I fear that what's going to happen to us will make the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah look like a house party.

 

Let's eat!

By way of Fr. Z, we come upon Pass the Garum...and by way of that, we find Time Travel Kitchen.  Interesting glimpses into culinary history, and they're giving me ideas for my own kitchen experiments(which generally involve biohazard suits and the CDC being notified, but I'm trying).

Remember, folks, no matter how ugly things get, we're gonna have to eat until the Lord calls us home.  Knowing how to cook old-school (in the case of PtG, really old-school) could be a very useful skill.

It's getting real...

Our favorite spitfire has put her money where her mouth is...and so, the persecution begins.

Happy Birthday
Posted by Ann Barnhardt - October 27, AD 2012 9:41 AM MST

Today is my 36th birthday.

Today is also the day that the IRS confiscated my bank account. I think that is positively poetic. Now you people know why I keep saying that this website won't be around much longer and YOU will have to rebuild after the collapse and war. This isn't a game. This is completely, totally real.

I heard it said recently that saints are people who put their money where their mouth is. I hope that's right. I pray that's right.

Here is this morning's online image from my Wells Fargo personal checking account. I anticipate the business accounts will be drained early next week, too. I further expect that any monies that I attempt to deposit into any of my bank accounts will be swept by the IRS. They claim my "bill" is into the six figures, so $20,000 to them is just the very, very beginning.

They will also be coming after my car and my home.

I'm glad I bought a year's worth of freeze-dried food. Looks like I'm going to be needing it. But today, for my birthday, today will be a DOUBLE bacon cheeseburger day. And a strawberry malted.

Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy: deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man. For Thou art God, my strength: why hast Thou cast me off? And why do I go sorrowful whilst the enemy afflicteth me? Send forth Thy light and Thy truth: they have conducted me, and brought me unto Thy holy hill, and into Thy tabernacles. And I will go in to the altar of God: to God who giveth joy to my youth. To Thee, O God my God, I will give praise upon the harp; why art thou sad, O my soul? And why dost thou disquiet me? Hope in God, for I will still give praise to him: the salvation of my countenance, and my God.

Psalm 42 (Psalm 43 in Protestant Bibles)

Notice that Ann Barnhardt has never harmed anyone.  Never stolen a dime.  The worst she's done is express her opinions in a manner that is less than 'politically correct.'  Her only 'crime' here is following her concience and refusing in any way to support an unlawful and unGodly regime.

Anyone seizing the bank accounts of folks like Jon Corzine and all the other thieving scumbags who've financially pillaged millions of people in America and overseas?  You know, actual criminals who've done real harm to real people?  Are they going to wind up penniless?  Are they ever going to catch a glimpse of the inside of a jail cell?

Yeah.  Didn't think so.  Welcome to the Land of the Fee and the Home of the Slave.

Exactly!

By way of Kevin, a new blogroll addition.

Because this.

Basically, I figure guns are like gays: They seem a lot more sinister and threatening until you get to know a few; and once you have one in the house, you can get downright defensive about them.

Yep.

The costs of government: It'll make you sick

Reposted in full from our favorite spitfire:

On Defense Spending and Shadow Welfare

Posted by Ann Barnhardt - October 23, AD 2012 8:22 PM MST

It's amazing the things you can learn in a life if you just shut your piehole and listen. People ask me frequently, "How do you know all of this stuff?" This website is nothing more than the fruit of a life of near silence, which is required for listening, both auricularly and in the form of reading, which is the purest form of listening.

People look at the now-dead First American Republic's defense spending budget and despair. The amount of money being spent is massive and implies a massive federal income tax as a pure necessity in order to maintain any level of defense preparedness.

I have some good news (for a change) with regards to the issue of defense spending, and you all need to listen up because this will be another HUGE point to remember for after the collapse and war when you are rebuilding or building a new nation from scratch.

The major defense contractors spend at least ten times, and probably closer to twenty times what is actually needed on every project and contract. This is done with the full knowledge and at the command of the federal government.

The massive overspending is on man-hours. Major defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumann, General Dynamics and Raytheon, in addition to supplying and developing technology for the military, are also massive middle-class shadow welfare projects. The top 25 US Defense companies directly employ roughly two million people. The top 5 US defense companies directly employ 550,000 people. Directly. This doesn't count the subcontractors to these companies.

These companies, as they operate today, have at least TEN LEVELS of largely unnecessary, redundant and even detrimental "management" between the scientists and engineers who are actually doing productive work and the actual upper management of the company. Further, these ten levels of "management" are each low six-figure positions. We're not talking ten levels of redundant janitorial staff at $12.00 per hour. We're talking TEN LAYERS of $100k-$250k positions.

And these people do basically nothing that is genuinely productive. In fact, they slow down the process of genuine development and productivity, hamstringing and bogging-down the work of the actual engineers and computer scientists who, ironically, dwell at the absolute BOTTOM of the corporate structure.

Because of this massive bloat in man-hours and horrifically reduced productivity, .gov is billed AT LEAST ten times, and it may be closer to twenty times, what it should be billed by these defense contractors to achieve the same results and innovation.

But before you pick up your torches and pitchforks, please understand that this is exactly what .gov WANTS. Like I said, this is all a massive middle-class shadow welfare system. The .gov explicitly drove these defense contractors into these uber-bloated management regimes in order to provide middle-class jobs. The sub-urbs of the Denver metro area and all other cities which have a sizable defense industry presence, are filled with these defense "management" employees. In other words, these are people who are totally dependent on .gov for their paychecks, and whose jobs are completely, totally unnecessary and have a negative net impact on productivity. Yay. Go America.

Defense is not the only area in the economy where these massive shadow welfare paradigms exist. As Warren Pollock pointed out in one of our YouTube conversations, almost all of the so-called "compliance" positions in the financial services and banking sectors are completely unnecessary and counter-productive. It could also be argued, and argued very, very well that around 97% of the accounting industry is also a .gov shadow welfare project revolving around nothing but the payment of federal income taxes, which shouldn't even exist in the first place. And finally, we should all understand that most of the health insurance industry is nothing but a .gov shadow welfare matrix. Health insurance should be catastrophic coverage only, and thus have an extremely small and streamlined back office labor requirement.

Why? Why did .gov do this? Because almost all of the true manufacturing jobs in the United States have been sent overseas. We MAKE very, very little actual, physical stuff here relative to population and consumption. This economy is now almost entirely a SERVICE economy. Sixty years ago all of the people who are today working in "management" in these defense companies and the other government-created shadow welfare paradigms were working in manufacturing, some in management, and some in actual fabrication.

From what I have heard, there are massive numbers of people working in these defense company management positions getting paid six-figure salaries who literally could not boil water or make themselves a peanut butter and jelly sandwich if their lives depended on it, and thus should be working on a low-skill assembly line somewhere, not browbeating Ph.D. engineers. I personally know that a large number of the people working in the financial services "compliance" regimes struggle to keep from drooling on their desks and when provoked have been known to throw their own poop.

The government created this shadow-welfare economy in order to replace all of the REAL manufacturing jobs that it consciously and willfully exported to China.

So, when it comes time to rebuild and establish a Department of War (not "Department of Defense") in the new Nation, these defense contractors will need to be told in no uncertain terms that there should be no more than three levels of management between the CEO and the engineer, and any contracts should payout as such. The only reason the defense contractors are creating these ridiculous management matrices is because the money is flowing from .gov to do it. Take away the money and the corporations will streamline almost overnight. Management levels 2-8 will suddenly, miraculously, almost as if in an epiphany, be recognized as non-essential. In doing this, you will be able to maintain technological and military dominance for a mere fraction of the cost. The talent is here. It can be done. The .mil thing isn't the impossibly large money-suck that it appears to be when you understand that the outflows to contractors are inflated by a factor of twenty.

Further, in the new Nation, whatever it is, you guys are going to have to start MAKING STUFF HERE AGAIN. Everything. Steel, electronics, textiles, furniture, vehicles, everything. Establish import tariffs which will generate revenue for the government and put Chinese slave labor behind the eight ball relative to domestic employment, productivity and manufacturing. The people who are currently employed in all of the shadow welfare industries I just mentioned will need jobs. Those jobs will be MANUFACTURING jobs.
 

This is what happens when you take away the relationship between performance and accountability.  It's why companies fail when they get too large, and it's why government should be kept on a check rein by those they supposedly 'serve.'

Raising awareness about 'raising awareness'

Is it just me, or are you all getting completely overwhelmed with all these ribbons, walks, campaigns, solicitations and protests over everything from cancer to general malaise?  The inimitable Marc MacYoung gives us a look at the Social Concience Industry, and why you should take all this stuff with a truckload of salt:

That's the happy version. Certain 'noble causes' have crossed the line, however, from simple spin doctoring. They've crossed into intentionally misinterpreting data, twisting statistics, and lying and redefining terms -- all to make the problem sound worse than it is. Not that the real problem isn't bad enough, but you need big numbers for it to be a 'crisis.' Hence the spin, number inflation, constant campaigning, and lying for a good cause.

By raising your awareness, I also can manipulate you into believing by donating money or walking for a cause it means you're participating in the solution. You're doing something about it. You're doing good by giving money. With this strategy, I can justify my career, protect my job, ensure my income, and excuse myself for all the spin, misinformation and lies I'm providing (it's for a good cause after all, and you don't need to know all the dirty little details about how it works). But most of all, I can justify all the money I'm diverting from getting to the people who need help.

All the while I'm doing this, I'm make a huge production about the good and noble things I'm doing for such a just cause. The warm fuzzy is not just for you, it makes me feel good about myself and all the good I'm doing. In the end though, I'm doing exactly shit about aiding the people who need the actual help. The individuals who are suffering from, dealing with, or facing this problem are not benefiting, I am. Now mind you, this isn't corruption. Oh no. It's jobs. It's what I am being paid for and spending money on to raise your awareness.
 

You REALLY should RTWT.  Long, but well worth pondering.

What about the CHILLDRUUNNN???

Yes, indeed...what about the children?

The enemies of liberty would rather have had a 12-year-old girl possibly raped and murdered than see her with access to TEH EEEVIL GUNZ OMG!!!oneone!!!eleventy1!!

Fortunately, young Kendra St. Clair did indeed have access to a gun, and a predator got the surprise of his miserable life.

Debra St. Clair, the girl's mother, said her daughter called her at work to say an unknown man was ringing the doorbell. When the girl didn't answer, the man went around to the back and kicked in the back door.

She told her daughter to grab the family gun, barricade herself in the closet and call 911.

...

St. Clair's daughter had hid in the closet with a .40 Glock.  But Undersheriff Ken Golden said the intruder kept making his way through the house.

"And what we understand right now, he was turning the doorknob when she fired through the door," he said.

Golden said the bullet hit the intruder, and it sent him running.
 

Very wise words concering the concept of 'childhood' in this context can be found at The Cornered Cat, a totally awesome blog which you should all go read now.

She's right, ya know.

Momma Fargo's been under some major stress of late, but her latest post drives home the point yet again(emphasis mine):

The reentry program here is a joke. It always has been and has been very corrupt. Inmates doing and making drugs at the facility, escapees, no accountability, no safety, lax monitoring. Joke, joke, joke. All the cops will say the same thing. All of this is shielded from the public. Why is it still here? Because it generates money. Money, money, money. Joke.

As I was getting ready for work and inching out of my driveway...this escapee was pulling a gun on my fellow officer...and another officer as I approached the station. They were a block away.

You can imagine my dismay when I was told there was a police shooting. It hit the public so fast, I think I had calls before I got into briefing. Want to know what is so great about this incident? In a matter of a week...this asshole felon murderer was able to get his hands on a firearm. That is another reason why people need to carry. Firearms are great and we need outnumber the felons with them. If more responsible citizens would carry...blam. Snuff out the competition. I digress.

Once you've RTWT, prayers and support for one of our favorite Peace Officers would be a Good Thing.

Collectivism is NOT America...

TL gives us another heapin' helpin' of brilliance. 

Liberty is the value of self. It is not a collective value. A collective value is the value of society, of the total. This is why it is so difficult to sell the children of the collective on the idea of liberty. They have been taught to fear it and as so many of our young adults are incapable of self-sufficiency, they lean toward the collective, without understanding the emasculation that comes with it.

Liberty is the ability to act within the constructs of one's physical presence without reaching another's. In older times it came with the ability to do with one's property what one wished, but that has been neutered by the same old concept of the collective. If one destroys their property, it affects the collective property value of a given neighborhood.

The collective sees objects as they are connected to others, not as they stand alone, individual. My house, my lawn, my garbage is no longer mine alone, but connected to those who might view it. This is largely where America has changed into something I do not understand, nor want to understand. It should be beyond the understanding of an American to entertain such concepts of society.

RTWT.  If TLiE isn't on your blogroll, you might want to correct that oversight.

The REAL Racists

What's depressing is that we can post the truth from now till Gabriel blows his horn, and as far as Progtards are concerned, it'll just fly in one ear and out their ass.

...You want to talk racism? Well, let’s talk about this:

It was Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Democrat, who founded the Ku Klux Klan.
Woodrow Wilson segregated Federal Buildings and jobs after 50 years of integration under largely Republican administrations.
It was the Democrat Party in the South that instituted Jim Crow Laws.
It was the Democrat Party in the South that instituted “separate but equal”.
It was the Democrat Party in the South that supported the Ku Klux Klan.
It was George Wallace and the Democrat Party in the South that said “Segregation Forever”.
It was Orval Faubus and the Democrat Party that wanted the Arkansas National Guard to enforce segregation, and Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican President, that sent the 101st Airborne to integrate the schools.
It was Bull Connor, a member of the Democrat National Committee, who turned the hoses on the marchers in Birmingham, and it was the Republicans who made up the majority that passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, over the filibuster of such Democrat paragons as William Fulbright and Al Gore Sr. — and Grand Kleagle Byrd.
(And no, the Dixiecrats didn’t join the Republican Party – most of them remained Democrats.)
It was the Democrats who kept Grand Kleagle Byrd in the party.
It was Democrats who called General Colin Powell a “house nigger”.
It was Democrats who called Condi Rice — who grew up with and knew the little girls in Birmingham who were blown up, by Democrats — an “Aunt Jemima” and ran cartoons of her with fat lips doing Hattie McDaniel riffs.
It was Democrats, or at least Obama supporters, who called Stacy Dash a hundred different racist names for daring to leave the Democrat plantation.
 

 If I weren't completely burned out from the most stressful week of my life, I'd likely have something to say regarding how Conservative policies treat Black folks (and everyone else) like intelligent, capable human beings, as opposed to the Liberal view that Black folks (and pretty much everybody else excepting White hetero Christians) are too stupid and helpless to do anything without Big Daddy Government holding their hand every step of the way.

But I'm just too damn tired to think right now, so this'll have to suffice.

Light & Random

Got some stuff to take care of...blogging from the road for a few days if I have anything of relevance to post.

Brilliant!

An in-depth and entertaining fisking of yet another Marxist douchebag's whining, from Mr. R. J. Bidinotto(welcome to my blogroll, sir!):

From before the days of Marx, the left's zero-sum Narrative evades those questions and their answers. It evades the issue of production and those who make it possible: individual producers. In the progressive Narrative, they simply do not exist. Goods and services are simply here, like the fruit that appears each year on apple trees. As liberal pseudo-economist John Kenneth Galbraith wrote decades ago in The Affluent Society, "the problem of production has been solved"; the real problem now, he said, was "fair" distribution of what was produced. Likewise, to Barack Obama, since business people "didn't create that" wealth, the goal now is to "spread the wealth around." (Note: "the" wealth, not somebody's wealth.)

So what, exactly, is "the problem of production"? What was the "solution"? Who solved it? Don't they deserve to be compensated handsomely for solving it? And by what moral right does the tribe—which did not solve the problem of production—come in and seize the fruits of those who did?

None of these questions are raised or answered by progressives. Liberalism, socialism, "progressivism," Marxism, fascism—i.e., collectivism of any variant—all begin with the unexplained presence of wealth in the world; those who actually created it are causally irrelevant. After all, if "the" wealth is here causelessly, then those who have acquired a lot of it must be takers, not makers.

Well done, indeed.  RTWT.

Take notes.

Via Paco Enterprises, I present something that you might find of interest:

“Corruptissima republica plurimae leges. [The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state.]“ -Tacitus, the Annals ca. AD 69

The nature of what is ‘legal’ has become a truly bizarre concept these days. Developed nations of the west have hundreds of thousands of pages of rules, codes, regulations, laws, decrees, executive orders, etc., many of which are contradictory, archaic, and incomprehensible.

Across these ‘free’ nations, the law is selectively enforced, selectively applied, and completely set aside whenever it pleases the state. As such, even the most harmless of activities (operating a lemonade stand, collecting rainwater, etc.) can be cast as illegal… while the direct theft of people’s wealth through taxes and manipulation of the currency is considered legal.

...

Trying to change this system is a waste of resources. It’s a race that everyone will lose. Besides, you could spend your whole life lobbying to change one law, and by the time you succeed, they’ll have already passed another 10,000 new, even dumber laws.

Fact is, no one can do anything about this. Just like nobody can prevent Ben Bernanke from dropping money from helicopters. We can’t stop the price rises from monetary inflation, we can’t stop out of control spending (and theft) at all levels of government.

What we CAN do is take sensible steps to protect what’s ours… and then use their own stupid rules against them. It’s a much easier way to win.

You really want to RTWT.  It could give you...ideas.

Point to consider

I don't know if Ann is correct here...but would it really surprise you if she were? (Reposted in full)
Truly Scary
Posted by Ann Barnhardt - October 3, AD 2012 9:21 PM MST

I didn't watch the debate. I went over to a Friend's house and talked, read some Aquinas, and then talked some more. Then I went to Chick-Fil-A.

I find myself with an intense feeling of dread after reading the wrap-up comments.
Obama got his ass kicked, or to be more precise, kicked his own ass. From what people are saying, it seems clear that Obama did not prepare in any way, shape or form. More on point, Valerie Jarrett, Michelle Obama and David Axelrod did not force Obama to prepare. At all.
This implies two things. First, the "less-bad" implication:

No preparation was done because they know that the elections will be fixed and none of them care, least of all Barry who is a drug-addled imbecile and doesn't care about much beyond his next gram of coke and male fellation.

What really, really is bothering me and has me genuinely scared (yes, I do feel fear) is the fact that it can now no longer be denied that Barack Obama is worth more to his neo-Stalinist handlers dead than alive.

Someone has to say it. It might as well be me.

There has been buzz of a false-flag assassination attempt contingency plan among the Valerie Jarrett gang, but after this, I am genuinely scared that the false-flag assassination may no longer be a mere attempt, but a full-on JFK scenario.

Obama the man is now a liability to the putsch. These people are evil on a scale that most people cannot fathom, and Barry has only ever been a puppet and a tool to them.

Join me in praying for the safety of Barack Obama or whatever the hell his name is. He needs to be removed, arrested, tried and convicted for what he has done in the calmest, most orderly way possible. If his own handlers false-flag assassinate him, the entire world will fall into tyranny almost overnight, and my fear is that is exactly what they want, and they may be audacious and desperate enough to do it - especially after tonight.

Stay frosty. Pray hard.
I, for one, wouldn't put it past 'em. Getting up close and personal with evil is a horrible, life-changing, soul-scarring experience, but it prepares you to meet the tactics of the worst of mankind. And the worst of mankind is what we're up against.

Expect the worst. Then expect worse than that.

God help us.

Four highly worthwhile minutes

(HT Josh at The Conservative Treehouse)