Book Review - A Well Regulated Militia

I've been neglecting my usual voracious reading habit for the better part of the last year, so recently, I buckled down and just read something that was waiting for the next opportunity to present itself.

Being a fan of novels by the big boys, like Clancy and Ludlum, and more recently, stuff like Unintended Consequences and Enemies, Foreign and Domestic, I've taken interest in some of the fiction that centers around the eroding civil rights confrontations with respect to the second amendment.

So I picked up John Carpenter's, A Well Regulated Militia.

Stylistically, I found the delivery rather boring. The characters tended to be papery, and lacking substance. There wasn't any real psychological connection to the main characters, when they were even defined, for me to associate with, and the dialogue between characters was about as flavorful as a spoon of dry oats. Just damn flat on characterizations, which is a pity, given the book's setting, combined with current political undertones in the world politic. It could have been good.

The premise was believable enough, with a small, clandestine Islamic cell, on orders out of Damascus, to establish a forward operational post from which to launch incursions into the deserts of the southwestern US, in Mexico. The Syrians work out a plan to combine their tactics with a larger band of openly hostile Mexican nationals, guerillas, mostly of the La Raza movement, mounting a coordinated insurgency via their own sleeper elements, in an effort to reclaim "their" territory, and institute a new Aztlan nation, complete with recognition by a compliant, and covertly helpful UN.

The invasion isn't all that well thought out, either by the books own characters (they eventually get their asses handed to them) or by the book's author, insofar as the literary staging was concerned, though this didn't bother me, as it was, at the very least, a plausible scenario.

The one bright spot in the book, as far as dialogue went, must be mentioned as the concession speeches given by the respective governors of California and Arizona, upon the riots, looting and outright anarchy that the terrorist attacks provoked among the cities in particular, and generally in the entire southwestern states. They were rather convincing in the way in which one might expect a pinko leftist to immediately accept such matters, and be willing to abdicate both soveriegnity and power to other authorities, and do it with a smile on their face, proudly criticizing the "white man", that is the American Public, for "putting down the poor brown people of the world", or some other rot, all the while, preaching about how much we "deserve it". It made me grind my teeth. Just think of Nancy Pelosi getting an infusion of Che' Guevera, and then turn the dial to 11, and you get the idea.

Meanwhile, the Cubans, Mexican army, Venezuala and I forget who else, volunteer their forces to help the UN restore "peace" amongst the unruly Americans, and throw out the white people from the newly founded nation of Aztlan. The US military, fighting on too many fronts around the world, is overwhelmed and is openly instructed by the UN Security Council to not intervene ('bout wet myself with laughter at that one.) The unorganized militia (which is rather inaccurate in the book, considering the implicit mobility of the units therein), largely made up of ex-military personnel, is called up to gather recon for Washington, and eventually engage various divisions of the armies who are marching across the border after staging in Mexico along the border, from San Diego to the eastern border at Arizona.

In the end, the recently impeached President (while under Senate scrutiny for removal from office) finds evidence of the conspiracy from several Congressmen, the Secretary General of the UN, the Damascus directed cell, many local US lawmakers, who are arrested en masse while the militias take out the Blue Helmets, with covert assistance from the Uncle Sam.

My only wish is that the story had more atmosphere and more depth in the characters. I just couldn't differentiate the protagonists personalities enough to really care too much about anything other than the basic plot.

I'd avoid it if you are looking for a good, solid read, as its entertainment value was slim, and recommend it only to those who are studying up on the possible mounting presence of subversive, international forces that are willing to subdue the US at all costs. A "C" effort at best.

When this house falls, I'm going to find the cretins

Why?

Supposedly I haven't ever had a "right", to what is clearly stated elsewhere;

"...SCOTUS is going to give them something that’s never existed: a constitutional right to a firearm."

All one can do is laugh at the stupidity of such non-sense.

I can tell you this; when the house falls, this "gunloon" is going to live up to expectations, and in a big way. The morons will come out of the woodwork, and they'll be easy to spot, painting a big effin' bullseye on their foreheads, proud to wear it, as some badge of honor or something. I digress.

At least the pinko has the brainpower to realize what will be the eventuality of the Heller decision;

"...SCOTUS will produce a very mixed message; it will assert an individual right to firearms but will permit localities great latitude in regulation. This could mean the DC handgun ban stays in place."

Duh. Like it was going to take a genius to figure out that bit. The problem, of course, is that I have to agree with that turd about it, because it's the truth.

Another step toward the inevitable Civil War, volume II.

Had enough?

I've always told my wife that when we do have kids, we're homeschooling them, and if ever we are approached by the "authorities" from the Unified Kiddie Daycare Camp that is the local school district, she is not to open the door for them, at all.

If I'm around, they may get to see the business end of a smokewagon, because of shit like this;

"They checked the home for smoke and carbon-monoxide detectors and examined the contents of the refrigerator. The visit lasted two hours. Afterward, someone from the agency interviewed a representative from Deborah’s school, MS 158 in Queens, and the family pediatrician over the phone."

Pretty awful to be living in this country, right now.

The Big Yawn

So, supposedly, the SCOTUS was supposed to be handing down a ruling today in the Heller case.

It seems they've postponed, until probably Thursday.

Like the lady says, it's going to be a shitty shade of gray, either way.

I don't really give two licks of dead wet rats ass what the Supremes have to say on the subject, today, or any other day. Fuck 'em.

Sanity, in a sea of liberal filth

Nice to see someone in Daleyland spotting, and calling out, the graft for what it is.

Still, the proles will do nothing about the situation, because they like it.

H/T to Kevin Baker at TSM.

Demanding answers

David Codrea wants some answers from the lout nominated by the "Libertarian" Party.

He has solid ground from which to stand, as far as I'm concerned.

The fact that Barr is on the NRA Board should make members rethink their support of both him and the Manchurian Candidate come November.

The field is rather pathetic this go round, so I might as well write myself in. I couldn't do any worse than the losers who've been nominated thus far.

Death by seppuku...

or, as it's quickly being labeled, detergent suicide.

I found it interesting that people are starting to turn away from the usual leap from elevated places, hanging, stepping in front of the train, and strangely, walking around in a pastoral forest. Instead, folks seem to be opting for the gas chamber method at home, via the hydrogen sulphide produced from mixing household toilet bowl cleanser with other chemicals.

Surely, with stricter laws on rope and household cleaners, the land of the rising sun can cure their epidemic of suicide. Or maybe Japan should reclassify these as "building deaths" and blame an architect for the height of the building, or sue rope makers, or SC Johnson, or... *snark alert*

Shades of Katrina

Lovely how the gummint hasn't been taking any notes about that little catastrophe back in August 2005.

"Strike teams searched flood fringe areas on both sides of the Cedar River on Sunday, finding flooded basements, collapsed walls and piles of debris."

Strike teams? Someone should have found a better word for it, from their end. It may make their B&E look a little better from the perspective of someone whose home they've just removed the front door from its hinges.

"Each strike team consisted of six or seven people, including police,firefighters, utilities workers, and city employees. Dall said they were checking for safety issues, including gas leaks, structural integrity, hazardous materials and air quality."

Um, this is private property here, guys. Why don't you let the homeowners decide if they need to call in a professional to give a look at the foundation, or what have you. The water, gas and electricity can be terminated from the street, if there's a serious concern for leaks. Ask me how I know this. Please, do it. I'll school your ass for FREE!

"The main objective is for citizens to get back into their residences," said Dall, a search manager with Iowa Task Force One during the flood recovery effort.

"To be honest, we may come across some people that didn't have relatives and lived alone. You never know what you're going to find."

To be honest...and blunt about it, I think you're full of shit, Capt. Dan! If your main objective really was, get[ting] citizens back into their residences." as you just stated, you'd be escorting people back to their homes on your fancy equipment, like the engines and boats, that the citizens of your community paid for, instead of breaking down doors on unoccupied domiciles. Do you understand, retard?

This kind of shit just pisses me off to no end. When will the thugs learn that it's not OK to do these kinds of things, just because some superior told them to.

Another, unidentified citizen later came into contact with one of the teams and had a few words with them, clearly upset about his own door getting torn open, and justifiably so. It will only be a matter of time before someone, somewhere, has had enough of the bullshit, and tells the "authorities" to go fuck themselves.



Seriously, the cops need a dressing down when they're going around doing this kind of shit. It's nice to know that other people, like Ashton O'Dwyer, have similar feelings. It gives me the warm fuzzies to share space with other such malcontents.

H/T to Jim Rawles for the story at his excellent site, Survivalblog.

More Eco Non-think

The article is simply rife with logical missteps and slight of hand bullshit, for those who know how this vehicle operates, from beginning to end.

Example:

"The fuel cell draws on energy synthesized through a chemical reaction between hydrogen gas and oxygen in the air, and a lithium-ion battery pack provides supplemental power."

Those who know how hydrogen gas is separated and condensed into a liquid and stored in a tank will get their nose slightly wrinkled at that bit.

Any attempts to make the equation look better than it really is are easily trounced using some rather elementary energy calculations.

And, of course, in true Kalifornistan style, it's OK to be flown in for the next-great-coming on a plane, so long as you are famous and are there to introduce the proletariat to your next level of oppression:

"Marie Warner...(from the TV show "24") was flown over by Honda for the ceremony. "

and,

"businessman Jon Spallino...who currently drives Honda's older FCX and was also flown in for the ceremony"

I wonder if these dolts get "carbon credits" to "offset" the plane ride, while proudly flying the watermelon flag in front of their fawning crowd.

Really it's all just absurd.

Eco-Phreak totalitarianism

Strangely, the topic at hand really intrigues me, as production of such seems to be far more realisitic in any sort of real-world scenario versus the other stuff that regularly gets crammed down our throats as being viable.

What got my attention was this comment, left by one "Uncle B":

"ban anything larger than 2000 cc's for piston engines of any kind, outright!"

How very totalitarian of you.

Can't believe people actually think this way, and no doubt a self-professed liberal (anything but, really...), however, it's clear to me that comments like this will only enable governmentally approved thugs from using their jackboots to outright kill people, given the eventualities of a state-run or mandated "carbon system".

But it will all be OK, you see, since it's supposedly about saving the environment, and a story easily recast by some Clintonian turns of phrase, showing how the "perp" was using more than their "fair share" of resources, or some other rot.

Honest to god, if there are those out there who are willing to put these kinds of draconian measures into place, for no other reason than some smug, self-satisfaction of "sticking it to those abusers," or however they'd like to put it, I can promise these same statists a quick retort, probably in the form of a hot lead sandwich.

Come around to my way of thinking

Via Small Dead Animals, I see that the ridiculous Canadian Human Rights Commission sent a hired thug to the house of Ezra Levant's parents, in a rather flagrant attempt to harass him.

The fact that there is even such an entity in existence is reason enough for any rational person to want to pull a Mencken, and clearly we are going to have to start doing this at some point in the future, here.

Count on it.

From Vin Suprynowicz, The Ballad of Carl Drega, pg. 436:

"Are you ready to defend your freedom? You speak of mindset, of folks being paralyzed because they really haven't considered the tough question in advance. Well: " Have you made the decision that you could and would use a handgun to shoot and kill a uniformed government officer who was 'just following orders,' attempting to deprive you or others of your/their Second Amendment [or any others, - ed.] rights?" Would you aim for body mass, or for the bridge of the nose? Let her lie wounded, or quickly close in to put another round in the back of the head?"

So, when that someone, with the right cause, with enough media attention, and with enough people watching finally decides that he'll act, because in his mind, the awkward stage is over, will the balance tilt, or will we get to watch the house fall, to roaring cheers?

So, I wonder, how many people will have to suffer through such atrocities as a governmentally appointed bureaucrat questioning someone for made-up "human rights violations" in the form of the written word, such as Mr. Levant is accused of? Will anyone else come around to my way of thinking about the solution to this problem?

Grim times ahead, methinks.

Repugnant thoughts

I'd long ago committed myself to the idea that if Johnny "Muzzle" McCain got the GOP nod that I would go third party, simply on a matter of principle. I just can't vote for anyone who'd so obviously taken a giant shit on the Bill of Rights, in the form of the erroneously named Campaign Finance Reform Act, of which he claims to be a co-author.

Kevin's take is to vote for Bob Barr. Can't go that route myself, as Barr is a serious lout, having spent his entire political career waffling about from position to position, from party to party, in an effort at appearing to be on the pulse of whatever the popular political sentiment is at the time. Can't go down that road for a guy like Barr, but I sure share the sentiment.

I think this is going to be an Obama landslide come November.

Dark times ahead, boys and girls.

Substituting activity for productivity

The Great Unifier has decreed that since GW Bush's "economic stimulus" plan wasn't such a great thing, he'll do it again, only harder.

This reminds me of a comparison I heard several months ago on NPR, from Russ Roberts;

"It's like taking a bucket of water from the deep end of a pool and dumping it into the shallow end. Funny thing—the water in the shallow end doesn't get any deeper."

And since Barry's plan is only going to soak the rich, it's all supposedly OK, you see:

"Obama has pledged to keep the tax cuts (Uncle George's, ed.) in place for everyone except those making roughly $250,000 and up. He has also made proposals to cut taxes further for the middle class..."

Stupid is as stupid does, I suppose.

H/T to Tam, for getting the ball rolling.

Cut the crap

With the bullshit about "international consensus" and, "establishing an emissions trading market worldwide," I can just bet it has to do more with selling more PV technology to the rest of us and increasing business on the Nikkei.

I don't need the Japanese PM telling me about how much I need his rules shoved down my throat, for my own good.

And the eco-weenies just have to throw in a bunch of crap that can't be proven:

"European nations support a U.N. scientific finding that emissions cuts of between 25 percent to 40 percent by 2020 are needed to stop global temperatures from rising so high they trigger widespread environmental damage."

Of course, there is a red-herring in the whole mess too:

"On the controversial topic of emissions trading, Fukuda said Japan will take a more supportive role in establishing rules and a framework that can be agreed upon internationally.
"It is important to create a market that is based on healthy, real demand, not on a money game," he said."

Ah, so it's about creating a, "healthy, real demand", not a "money game"...on what is clearly a money-making endeavor. Excuse me while I call Bullshit on that one.

And, of course, this being a governmentally derived "solution", their "strategy" for "fixing" the situation is both invasive and nebulous:

"Fukuda said Japan would use a broad range of strategies to reduce its emissions, including investment in new technologies, stiff construction standards to create energy efficient buildings, an array of tax incentives and a public awareness campaign."

So, it sounds like taxes will be raised to "invest" in "new technology", and stiff construction standards (JUST ASK ME ABOUT THIS ONE!) to supposedly create "better" buildings and "incentives" (could you please be more specific, I need to know if it's going to be worth MY money to implement this) and a propaganda campaign that will make the long march of Chairman Mao look like a disorganized weekend scouting trip.

Lovely.

Yet more swirling, Part IV

I sit here, reading stuff like Beck, while also seeing that oil has hit $139 per barrel, just now.

Meanwhile, Obama and McCain are both in bed with the idea of a cap and trade system. Lovely.

Anyone out there know even a little bit about what this will do to oil prices?

I think Beck is right, the idea of what being an American is, is dead.

Swirling about the bowl, Part III

It occurred to me at an early age that, generally, the kids I was forced to be schooled with were idiots. I know I was reading, as in entire children's books, by age 4, and I'm sure I was doing quite a bit of passive reading much earlier. By the time kindergarten rolled around, I was well passed the material being covered. Math, science, reading; all the fundamentals were pretty easy to understand, and I excelled at everything except penmanship. I still print, to this day.

School was usually a drag for me growing up, as my pace for learning was significantly faster than the teachers (socialists) would allow. I felt held back by this, but it was something that I couldn't have articulated to anyone until high school, when my 11th grade English Lit teacher uttered the phrase, "We'll sink or swim together." That was a defining moment for me, right there. It wasn't until college that I even needed to do any sort of serious studying, and even then, most of that was out of need to recite the socialist doctrine bullshit.

It now seems that not only is this "togetherness" imprinted on the minds of "educators", but some may be taking a different view of the fundamentals.

I actually read that same bit earlier, at Kim's, and had similar thoughts about the bayonet thing, but this is the part that struck me:

"That’s not to say that it can’t happen here, of course—I bet there’s at least one “educator” in the California public school system who has identical beliefs—so let this serve as a warning to us all."

If there is one point that could be made about that bit, it's that we've already initiated these same kinds of nonsensical programs of non-study here, they're usually just disguised as ethnic, woman's or multicultural studies. This is not a phenomonon that is confined to the shores of the petri dish that is England.

It makes me think of something Kevin Baker wrote a few days ago:

"I wonder, is there a school system in any other part of the world that teaches "ethnic studies programs" like ours do? Does Mexico, for instance, teach "American-Mexican Studies" that highlights the laws that apply to Americans in Mexico, but not native citizens? Property law, traffic law, employment law, immigration law?"

This is a problem that runs deep, with no easy fix to it. It's fundamentally flawed thought that brings about this "White guilt" that has been allowed to metastasize into its self-loathing, logical conclusion.

I'm homeschooling, if we ever have kids. Others may want to look into same.

Knowing how to spot bullshit

So, I'm doing some light searches, viewing automobiles that I find mildly intriguing, when I run across this.

This is the bit that's hard to swallow:

"The tax incentives, congestion waivers, lower priced e-85, better performance and significantly reduced C02 have all been significant contributors to these sales.

Having literally witnessed the prices and ubiquitious availability of E-85 in Sweden last summer during the Saab Festival, I can assure you that it’s a logical and obvious choice to go to BioPower.

This milestone is another contributor towards Sweden’s efforts to be off of fossil fuels by 2020."

Well, from a certain point of view, this may be true, but given a model, like Germany's, I don't think these assertions can hold water under serious scrutiny.

The first tip off is the notion of the tax incentives. This all has little to do with the actual economic viability of it, and is probably due to the exorbitant tax structure that artificially suppresses the costs of bio-based fuels. This has been the case for years in Germany, with rapeseed being used as a subsidized crop for its biodiesel compatible oil. The heavier taxes levied on gasoline make the diesel more attractive. This is not a market driven solution, rather, an onerous use (mis-use) of government power, attempting to subjugate its citizenry.

With Sweden’s short growing season and limited arable land, I’m rather curious about their sources for E85. They just can’t be doing it within their own borders, and therefore, must be importing it, presumably via ship. I just don’t view these types of scenarios as being nearly as “sustainable” as they are claimed to be.

I think it's more a matter of the .gov making another tax (Swedes love taxes), so that E-85 can get hauled in on a big boat, so that some chump can get all smug and self-satisfied, claiming to be all kinds of "Green".

Yet another reason to get behind the Carbon Belch Day.

Local news...with a Bang!

Seems that last night's storms made a gasoline tank do the whole 'splodin routine. She's still burning, 18 hours later.

I could see the whole mess from my place, almost 30 miles away.

Wonder what gas prices will do?

Law always equals Taxes, Fines and Penalties

So, back in '06, the People's Republik of Massachusetts thinks in a good idea to treat the citizenry to a just and "attainable" goal of insuring the entire population of the state by mandating compulsory health insurance.

And the article just fawns over bureaubotic nonsense claims;

Gov. Deval Patrick said the fact that 95 percent of filers were insured shows the 2006 law is making progress.

"We continue to put one foot in front of the other,"

And from the Dept. of the Obvious;

"Researchers released the first major survey of the health care law.

The uninsurance rate for Massachusetts adults dropped by more than half and residents were paying less in out-of-pocket health expenses, according to the report in the journal Health Affairs, which also found that low-income adults were more likely to have regular checkups and dental visits since the law took effect." ('specially since it's free and all, MY EMPHASIS)

However, I'm far more concerned about thoughts behind certain words, like, "taxpayers must show they are insured or face penalties," as that little bit strikes me as more than a trifle totalitarian.

Repeat after me, boys and girls, "The GOVERNMENT doesn't tell ME what to do, I TELL IT WHAT TO DO!!!"

WHY is it that EVERYONE I meet seem to NOT know this?