I heard an analogy once using monkeys and it goes something like this:
Take 5 monkeys and put them in a small room with a stepladder bolted to the floor and a bunch of bananas hanging from the ceiling over the stepladder. Every time any of the monkeys attempt to climb the stepladder, spray them all up against the wall with a firehose. After a time, they will all come to associate touching the ladder with being sprayed and will give up trying to obtain the bananas.
Then take one of the original monkeys out and replace it with a new one. As soon as the new monkey attempts to climb the ladder, the other four, not wanting to get sprayed with the firehose will beat him mercilessly every time he reaches for the ladder. Once he finally associates touching the ladder with getting beat up, remove another one of the original monkeys to repeat the process until all the original monkeys were replaced and what you have left are a bunch of monkeys programmed to not ever go near the ladder, but none of them know the original reason why, only associating it with the beatings.
Pretty much how Congress got to be the way it is, isn't it?
But more importantly, that's how many of us have come to hold many of the opinions we do - getting beat up by the masses. Think about why you believe what you do.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Fiscal Cliff? ...or Three Card Monte?
Fiscal Cliff, my butt.
Yea, we're all fools. Government has perfected the three card monte scam. It's called 'matching funds' and this whole fiasco of a debt crisis is just a show. Taxes always go up, because they all keep creating new programs that need funds. It's all just a show of them deciding from which vehicle do they get their loot, but it still comes from your pockets. Just take a look at how states abuse the matching funds of the Medicaid program. That's only the tip of the iceberg as there are literally hundreds of matching funds projects going on.
It's not rocket science. We hear about it all the time with things like this article, "The Effect of Federal Budget Cuts on States and Localities", yet no one seems to grasp the concept. It's a pretty good illustration of the dilemma, but there is one minor thing in the article disturbs me. He wrote:
They don't give a rat's patootey about how much your home is 'worth' on the market. Market value has absolutely nothing to do with tax assessments and their property tax base. All they care about is how much of your money they need to extract to enact their delusions of grandeur. The tax 'base' is simply the total number of taxable properties located within their jurisdiction from which they can plunder the loot. For example, I used to live in a town with a considerable number of government facilities, courthouses, and religious exempted properties for it was the county seat. Anyone who owned a similar property in a town without all those exempted properties paid much, much less in taxes. Two similar properties on the same road could have vastly different tax levies simply depending on a township property line being between them. Nothing drives away homeowners of average means more than unbalanced giveaways in tax-exempt properties. They have their operating budget full of promises to people to vote for them, and they will extract it from you one way or another. The rich tend to settle in those locations, for it's another giveaway they use to simply write off the taxes.
Yea, we're all fools. Government has perfected the three card monte scam. It's called 'matching funds' and this whole fiasco of a debt crisis is just a show. Taxes always go up, because they all keep creating new programs that need funds. It's all just a show of them deciding from which vehicle do they get their loot, but it still comes from your pockets. Just take a look at how states abuse the matching funds of the Medicaid program. That's only the tip of the iceberg as there are literally hundreds of matching funds projects going on.
It's not rocket science. We hear about it all the time with things like this article, "The Effect of Federal Budget Cuts on States and Localities", yet no one seems to grasp the concept. It's a pretty good illustration of the dilemma, but there is one minor thing in the article disturbs me. He wrote:
Finally, there are indirect cost-cutting or tax-increasing measures. Under federal tax laws, homeowners now write off their mortgage interest costs. Over the years, this favoritism has driven up housing prices. Real estate values, now in very bad shape, serve as the foundation for local property taxes. But the feds lose $100 billion or so from the interest deduction. That makes it an attractive target for reducing the federal deficit. But such a step might permanently bend down future growth in housing prices and accordingly, the property tax base.
They don't give a rat's patootey about how much your home is 'worth' on the market. Market value has absolutely nothing to do with tax assessments and their property tax base. All they care about is how much of your money they need to extract to enact their delusions of grandeur. The tax 'base' is simply the total number of taxable properties located within their jurisdiction from which they can plunder the loot. For example, I used to live in a town with a considerable number of government facilities, courthouses, and religious exempted properties for it was the county seat. Anyone who owned a similar property in a town without all those exempted properties paid much, much less in taxes. Two similar properties on the same road could have vastly different tax levies simply depending on a township property line being between them. Nothing drives away homeowners of average means more than unbalanced giveaways in tax-exempt properties. They have their operating budget full of promises to people to vote for them, and they will extract it from you one way or another. The rich tend to settle in those locations, for it's another giveaway they use to simply write off the taxes.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
People Control
Here we go again. Another deranged psychopath and all things important are dropped to start attacking the second amendment.
The interpretations of the second amendment that a bunch of rebels who just fought a bloody war to overthrow control of a tyrannical government would so carelessly cast their fortunes under the creation of a similar one while adamantly preserving their right to keep a hunting rifle always amaze me. The second amendment has nothing to do with hunting rifles for game or guns to defend property against common criminals, it's the right to bare arms, period.
One of the arguments that anti-gun people use is for that sure, a few may be allowed for personal self-defense, presumably citizen against criminal. However, using that same argument against our founders' thoughts, the King's army was protecting them so no need for those pesky rebellious colonists to have armories and military grade weapons of their own. That first shot heard around the world was against the British march to seize their armories at Lexington and Concord to disarm the colonists. They would take them, but they didn't care about their hunting rifles, they wanted their cannons. Those patriots who founded this country and wrote that Constitution were traitorous rebels. Representatives from several of the original colonies had very serious reservations over handing power over to a central government to maintain a standing army and giving up their arms as that would have meant they risked their lives overthrowing one tyrannical government for another. No, I don't think preserving their right to keep a hunting rifle handy to get dinner was the top thing on their mind at the moment.
If all this fuss is over so-called "assault" weapons (which they're not, they're only semi-automatic firing), perhaps you can explain the rationale behind the police, national guard and even regular army troops being used to go door to door and confiscate small caliber handguns from little old ladies in their own homes after hurricane Katrina and leaving them defenseless? Also, why does our government go around the world arming rebels in other countries, as they continually try every method they can to disarm our own citizens? Don't they trust us as much as they trust all the potential terrorists they're arming around the world? And with all the misnamed 'assault' weapons in circulation out there, where are all the huge gun battles and big shootouts that we see in hollywood movies like between the old gangsters and the feds during prohibition even though swat team raids are escalating across the country over little things like food co-ops, farmers selling raw milk, and even delinqency or fraud on student loans?
And it's almost always a lone, deranged gunman we hear about firing up these gun (people) control debates. You don't control guns, you control people - by taking away their defenses. I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I sure wouldn't rule out false flags to achieve exactly that. Mentally unstable people can be coached or coaxed to do just about anything.
The interpretations of the second amendment that a bunch of rebels who just fought a bloody war to overthrow control of a tyrannical government would so carelessly cast their fortunes under the creation of a similar one while adamantly preserving their right to keep a hunting rifle always amaze me. The second amendment has nothing to do with hunting rifles for game or guns to defend property against common criminals, it's the right to bare arms, period.
One of the arguments that anti-gun people use is for that sure, a few may be allowed for personal self-defense, presumably citizen against criminal. However, using that same argument against our founders' thoughts, the King's army was protecting them so no need for those pesky rebellious colonists to have armories and military grade weapons of their own. That first shot heard around the world was against the British march to seize their armories at Lexington and Concord to disarm the colonists. They would take them, but they didn't care about their hunting rifles, they wanted their cannons. Those patriots who founded this country and wrote that Constitution were traitorous rebels. Representatives from several of the original colonies had very serious reservations over handing power over to a central government to maintain a standing army and giving up their arms as that would have meant they risked their lives overthrowing one tyrannical government for another. No, I don't think preserving their right to keep a hunting rifle handy to get dinner was the top thing on their mind at the moment.
If all this fuss is over so-called "assault" weapons (which they're not, they're only semi-automatic firing), perhaps you can explain the rationale behind the police, national guard and even regular army troops being used to go door to door and confiscate small caliber handguns from little old ladies in their own homes after hurricane Katrina and leaving them defenseless? Also, why does our government go around the world arming rebels in other countries, as they continually try every method they can to disarm our own citizens? Don't they trust us as much as they trust all the potential terrorists they're arming around the world? And with all the misnamed 'assault' weapons in circulation out there, where are all the huge gun battles and big shootouts that we see in hollywood movies like between the old gangsters and the feds during prohibition even though swat team raids are escalating across the country over little things like food co-ops, farmers selling raw milk, and even delinqency or fraud on student loans?
And it's almost always a lone, deranged gunman we hear about firing up these gun (people) control debates. You don't control guns, you control people - by taking away their defenses. I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I sure wouldn't rule out false flags to achieve exactly that. Mentally unstable people can be coached or coaxed to do just about anything.
Benghazi Attacks = Systematic Failure?
Well surprise, surprise... The accountability review board Secretary of State Hillary convened to look into the Benghazi attacks has issued its report to have found: no one accountable. Imagine that?!? Well, not entirely. According to the report, the board "remains fully convinced that responsibility for the tragic loss of life, injuries, and damage to U.S. facilities and property rests solely and completely with the terrorists who perpetrated the attack." So there you have it, it's the terrorists' fault.
They also blame "systematic failure" and "management deficiencies at senior levels" and, quite expectedly, the usual obligatory reference from their government report writing template which points to a lack of funds for them to accomplish their mission in stating, "For many years the State Department has been engaged in a struggle to obtain the resources necessary to carry out its work, with varying degrees of success", "a few State Department managers to favor restricting the use of resources as a general orientation" and "budgetary austerity looms large ahead". It simply means, we haven't been able to squeeze more cash out of the slaves to buy everything we want and then some, so we tried to do more with less and, therefore, failure isn't our fault.
Well, there's another 1000 manhours worth of taxpayer funds wasted (extremely gross estimate of the board claiming to have interviewed "over 100 individuals, reviewed thousands of pages of documents, and viewed hours of video footage") to pay a monkey court with a predetermined outcome.
I don't know why I continue to read these things. I used to laugh at them, but after years of reading the same crap over and over covering up ineptitude with claims doing the best they can with resource shortfalls, they're just not funny anymore.
They also blame "systematic failure" and "management deficiencies at senior levels" and, quite expectedly, the usual obligatory reference from their government report writing template which points to a lack of funds for them to accomplish their mission in stating, "For many years the State Department has been engaged in a struggle to obtain the resources necessary to carry out its work, with varying degrees of success", "a few State Department managers to favor restricting the use of resources as a general orientation" and "budgetary austerity looms large ahead". It simply means, we haven't been able to squeeze more cash out of the slaves to buy everything we want and then some, so we tried to do more with less and, therefore, failure isn't our fault.
Well, there's another 1000 manhours worth of taxpayer funds wasted (extremely gross estimate of the board claiming to have interviewed "over 100 individuals, reviewed thousands of pages of documents, and viewed hours of video footage") to pay a monkey court with a predetermined outcome.
I don't know why I continue to read these things. I used to laugh at them, but after years of reading the same crap over and over covering up ineptitude with claims doing the best they can with resource shortfalls, they're just not funny anymore.
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