Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Watch That Backcast

When flyfishing, especially on the small streams I am apt to frequent, it is important to watch your backcast or you are liable to end up with your fly caught in a tag alder or some other streamside vegetation.  This is problematic for a number of reasons, least of which is losing the fly to the vegetation, so it is quite important to watch that backcast.

I mention this after reading a story which Drudge links to under the headline New Obama rules may prohibit citizens from fishing the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters... Drudge’s link actually takes you to an ESPN story headlined Culled out Obama administration will accept no more public input for federal fishery strategy, which begins this way.

The Obama administration will accept no more public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.

Some strategy.  Obama, and the Obama adminstration, seem hell bent on destroying economic prosperity, whether directly attacking it via ObamaCare (DeathCare), or via more subtle attacks on a pastime which has enthralled generations of young and old for thousand of years, fishing.

I don’t care whether you’re a worm dunker, fly fisher, bobber fisherman, catch and release enthusiast, as I am, or simply enjoy a freshly caught trout fillet thrown on the coals, while the gills of the carcass of the trout are still flapping up and down, reading that the Obama administration is even considering prohibiting fishing should raise your ire like a nicely tied fly will raise a finicky trout.

Watch that backcast, and more importantly watch the government before it snatches your fly rod or fishing rod from your hand.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/09 at 12:29 PM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Marijuana Drug War Stupidity

Fifty-four (54) year old Henry Walter Wooten, of Tyler, Texas, was just convicted and sentenced to thirty-five (35) years in prison for possessing 4.6 ounces of marijuana.  This is unimaginably stupid.  Believe it or not, Smith County Assistant District Attorney Richard Vance, who prosecuted Wooten, desired to put this man behind bars for ninety-nine (99) years.  How has this benefited Tyler, Texas, or even society, in any way shape or form?

Tyler Man Gets 35 Years For Drug Possession

Linked via The Raw Story via Fred Lapides.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/09 at 11:58 AM
(2) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Healthcare Deficit Neutrality is Smoke and Mirrors

The following hypothetical conversation, from a Greg Mankiw post titled The Problem with Deficit Neutrality, is a conversation, which though hypothetical, is actually apt to be heard in real life, from the halls of Congress to the lowliest inhabited hovel.

Friend: I am going to take off a few days from work and fly down to Bermuda for a quick vacation.

You: But isn’t that expensive?  Won’t that just add to your growing debts?

Friend: Yes, it is expensive.  But my plan is deficit-neutral.  I have decided to give up that half-caf, extra shot caramel macchiato I order at Starbucks twice every day.  I really don’t need that expensive drink.  And if I give it up for the next three years, it will pay for my Bermuda trip.

You: Well, then, how are you going to solve the problem of your growing debts?

Friend: I am going to figure that out as soon as I return from Bermuda.

You: But in light of your budget problem, maybe you should give up Starbucks and skip the Bermuda vacation.  Giving up Starbucks could be the easiest way to start balancing your budget.

Friend: You really aren’t any fun, are you?

Posted by John Venlet on 03/09 at 11:01 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

19 April 2010: Bring Your Sidearms and Longarms To The Banks of the Potomac

On April 19, 2010, there will be a Restore the Constitution rally on the banks of the Potomac river.

Spreading the word via Western Rifle Shooters Association.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/09 at 10:40 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Census 2010 Question 9 Symbolic Protest

Personally, I want nothing to do with Census 2010, and I have encouraged individuals to skip Census 2010 as a polite, peaceful expression of civil disobedience.

Each individual must decide for themselves whether they will participate in the census though.  Some individuals may only answer the how many individuals reside at this address question, while other individuals may answer all ten (10) questions the census form puts to them.  My census form will be recycled, which is environmentally friendly, right?

If you are an individual who is inclined to completely answer all 10 questions put to you on the Census 2010 form, either because you feel it is your duty, or you fear the compulsion, the force, which can be brought to bear against you by the government in the form of fines for non-compliance, Mark Krikorian, in a post at National Review’s The Corner, has a suggestion for Sending a Message with the Census.

...I have a proposal. Question 9 on the census form asks “What is Person 1’s race?” (and so on, for other members of the household). My initial impulse was simply to misidentify my race so as to throw a monkey wrench into the statistics; I had fun doing this on the personal-information form my college required every semester, where I was a Puerto Rican Muslim one semester, and a Samoan Buddhist the next. But lying in this constitutionally mandated process is wrong. Really — don’t do it.

Instead, we should answer Question 9 by checking the last option — “Some other race” — and writing in “American.” It’s a truthful answer but at the same time is a way for ordinary citizens to express their rejection of unconstitutional racial classification schemes. In fact, “American” was the plurality ancestry selection for respondents to the 2000 census in four states and several hundred counties.

So remember: Question 9 — “Some other race” — “American”. Pass it on.

Krikorian’s proposal is only a symbolic protest, unlikely to raise any eyebrows.  In fact, the census data compilers will probably think individuals who answer Question 9 in the manner suggested by Krikorian were simply confused by the wording of the question as presented by the census form.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/09 at 07:53 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Monday, March 08, 2010

Swiss Animals, Lawyers and Fools

Yesterday, the Swiss put to a vote whether the government should assign lawyers to all the animals residing in Switzerland. The Wall Street Journal noted this in a piece headlined Scales of Justice: In Zurich, Even Fish Have a Lawyer. Though the Swiss did reject this foolish legislation, and though I am not licensed attorney, further commentary on this subject is required.

The WSJ’s piece provides us with an example of how, exactly, one could have expected such a Swiss animal attorney to ply their trade.

Last month, Antoine Goetschel went to court here in defense of an unusual client: a 22-pound pike that had fought a fisherman for 10 minutes before surrendering.

Mr. Goetschel is the official animal lawyer for the Swiss canton of Zurich, a sort of public defender who represents the interests of pets, farm animals and wildlife. He wound up with the pike as a client when animal-welfare groups filed a complaint alleging animal cruelty in the fish’s epic battle with an amateur angler.

So this Mr. Goetschel actually represented a dead fish, albeit a fine speciman of a 22 pound pike, in a Swiss court of law.  Though Goetschel lost the case, the fact that such nonsense made it into a court of law exemplifies the foolishness of the overly zealous animal rights activists.

In an attempt to actually apply rationality to the above, I’m wondering how actual sentient beings, rational human beings, could reciprocally apply for damages under the law if they are damaged by an animal.  For example, say a group of Swiss chamois stampede a poor Swiss hiker off a cliff causing permanent disability, or a rogue Swiss marmot pillaged a storehouse of Swiss cheese. Would human beings be able sue these wild, unruly critters in the Swiss courts for damages?  No, rational human beings would not be able to do this, and if they could, would the chamois or the marmot recompense the humans, if the humans succesfully sued and were awarded damages, with their first born young, some unprocessed cud, in the case of the chamois, or a store of berries, lichens, or roots in the case of the marmot?

The fact that the above examples I concocted are utterly ridiculous perfectly illustrates the depth of foolishness within the pea brained mind of the collective masses.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/08 at 01:04 PM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

The Folly of Working Through Channels

Wendy McElroy has been penning some wonderful essays lately.  Wendy adds to this body of thought provoking ideas in an essay titled Libertarianism as a numbers game, which buttresses my stance in regards to not voting.  From Wendy’s most recent essay.

What would have happened, do you think, if the likes of Paine and Jefferson had “gone through channels”? If they had petitioned the king, run for the local school board or a higher position, if they had tried to repeal the Stamp Act and other laws one-by-one. I suspect there would have been no America because there would have been no revolution, no vox populi repeal of government itself. Instead, the American revolutionaries went to the source of all real social change—the hearts and souls of men. They did the hard work and they showed how quickly a society could be turned around; it took something akin to 15 or 20 years for their ideas to create an expanse of freedom in the world.

How are you working to expand freedom?  Are you going through channels trod deep with futility, or individually acting, showing others that freedom is attainable through the action of individual men?

Posted by John Venlet on 03/08 at 11:13 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Census 2010, the Constitution, and Compulsion

The Center for a Stateless Society posts a piece on the census written by Thomas L. Knapp titled Count, Dracula which I recently commented on at their site.

Roderick T. Long read Knapp’s piece and also commented, stating the following.

Although as an anarchist I don’t especially care what the Constitution says one way or another, it’s worth noting that all the Constitution authorizes is the mere conducting of a census; it doesn’t authorize mandating compliance, since forcing people to answer is not essential to the conducting of a census. (Private groups conduct surveys all the time without enjoying such power.) So as I read the Constitution (though of course the government doesn’t give a damn about how I read it), even if one accepts the Constitution’s authority there is still no legally binding obligation to answer any of the questions.

Will you allow yourself to be compelled, forced, by the government to complete the census form via their threats of fines?

Posted by John Venlet on 03/08 at 09:10 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

"Then and Now"

Most individuals, upon hearing mention of the word Holocaust, will “see” images in their minds of this evil, well except for possibly certain Iranians.

Photographer Alan Jacobs, working with The Auschwitz Museum, created a series of photographs which poignantly contrasts works of art created by inmates of Auschwitz and Birkenau, shortly after their liberation from this man made hell, with the photos taken by Jacobs in our contemporary time.  The series of art and photos are well worth viewing and reflecting on.

Then and Now

Via Fred Lapides’ GoodShit.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/08 at 08:56 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Sunday, March 07, 2010

The Majority Is No Guide At All

Wendy McElroy reposts a short essay penned by R.C. Hoiles back in 1956.  The title of Hoiles’ essay is The Most Harmful Error Most Honest People Make. The meat of this short essay.

From a religious standpoint, it is attempting to serve two masters. It is a violation of the First Commandment, ‘Thou shall have no other Gods but me.’ The most common method is worshiping the divinity of the State, representing the majority. This attempt to serve two masters or have two standards of right and wrong—one for the individual and one for the group—is undoubtedly a result of individuals using as a guide what their contemporary environment regards as right, just and proper. They use this as a guide rather than eternal principles, eternal moral law that never changes with time or place to determine right from wrong. So the individual who intends to be guided by what is currently regarded as right by the majority has, in reality, no guide at all. The individual who is guided by moral law that never changes has a guide. He does not get into moral trouble. He does not injure his fellow-man. He was goodwill in his heart. He does not enter into any collusion to promote his own interest at the expense of another. he does not try to benefit one by injuring another. (bold by ed.)

Choose your guide wisely.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/07 at 11:19 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

A Non-proselytizing Note on Faith

The Trooper’s Girl has a post up titled Taildraggers, Spears & Kilts, which somehow ended up including the following thought, though the post itself actually is meant to draw you to a 2:35 viddie of a small plane in flight, with an experienced pilot at the controls.  The thought which is the impetous for my post.

What’s that? Indigenous people have always known God. They do not - GOD does not - need anyone to tell anyone else how to believe. Nor even if they ought to believe. I assure you there are times when I am quite certain that He simply cannot Be. But that is the course of faith and I think it is supposed to wend its way like a stream in a forest - you never see it, whole. You can lose it, backtrack, turn your back on it when a raging river sings a siren song...and you can pollute it. In the end, it is just you and that faith. Nothing else crosses that limitless sky. So why concern yourself with others? It becomes...sullied. Still, some people do feel that need and I try to look on it with a kind of patient regret.

Amen.

Oh, The Trooper’s Girl also has a new love.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/07 at 09:29 AM
(2) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Soiled Detentions

John McCain and Joe Lieberman have introduced a bill into Congress under the title Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010.

The bill is, I guess, meant to act as a wedgie deterrent threat to individuals who may be considering stepping onto an airplane with a bomb in their underpants, and to other such diaper clad, nonsense spouting individual belligerents nursing grudges against the United States.

The problem with the bill, as Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic points out in a piece titled A Detention Bill You Ought to Read More Carefully, is the language of the bill, as it currently stands, would allow it to be equally utilized against United States citizens and actual terrorists alike.

According to the summary, the bill sets out a comprehensive policy for the detention, interrogation and trial of suspected enemy belligerents who are believed to have engaged in hostilities against the United States by requiring these individuals to be held in military custody, interrogated for their intelligence value and not provided with a Miranda warning.

(There is no distinction between U.S. persons--visa holders or citizens--and non-U.S. persons.)

Be careful out there.

Linked via The Independent Institute.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/07 at 08:55 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Friday, March 05, 2010

"An Armed Society is a Polite Society"

Robert Heinlein must be credited for the title to this post.  The complete quote is as follows.

An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.

I thought of this quote after reading the following headline.  USA Gun Owners Buy 14 Million Plus Guns In 2009 – More Than 21 of the Worlds Standing Armies Combined

The article also includes this information.

14,033,824,000 billions rounds of Ammo
Assuming each gun buyer bought 1000 rounds of ammo for each purchase, and you and I know that it is way, way more than that, that would be easily 14,033,824,000+ billions rounds of ammo fired by USA gun owners.

I must say, that in my errand runs today, ninety-nine percent (99%) of the individuals I interacted with were very polite, but then of course so was I.

Linked via Jeffrey Quick, who titles his post on this subject Got gunz?, and then quips.

Why hasn’t any firearms trade association given Obama an award for “salesman of the year”?

I say, got manners?

Posted by John Venlet on 03/05 at 02:22 PM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Laughable Census Data Privacy Assurance

Here’s a headline regarding census data privacy from sixteen (16) hours ago.

Gov’t offers new assurance census data is private

Here’s a headline from Scientific American from two (2) years ago, Confirmed: The U.S. Census Bureau Gave Up Names of Japanese-Americans in WW II. Here is the opening to the Scientific American article.

Despite decades of denials, government records confirm that the U.S. Census Bureau provided the U.S. Secret Service with names and addresses of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

How are you feeling about the government assurance on census data privacy, now?

Posted by John Venlet on 03/05 at 08:00 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Motiveless Shooter or Clueless Government Officials?

From an AP article on the Pentagon shooting, posted at Yahoo! News under the headline Official: Pentagon shooter was well armed.

Keevill said he did not know the shooter’s motive.

“I have no idea what his intentions were,” he said.

And this statement, which precedes the above quote from the article, seems to add weight to the clueless side of the equation.

Noting that Bedell was wearing a suit, Keevill said: “There was no indication based on the way he was dressed that he had hostile intent."

Posted by John Venlet on 03/05 at 07:22 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Page 1 of 203 pages  1 2 3 >  Last »