A Dixie Carpetbagger

I’ll be short, sweet, and to the point.*  Tuesday night was a spanking– the Dems got themselves taken to the woodshed and beaten for a bit.  Then they went back in the house and Momma took the fly-flap to their bottoms.  Now they’re in their room, whining and crying about how unfair it is, and how Mama and Papa are just so cruel and unfair.  Keep this up, Junior, and you’ll get more of the same…

Now, for a few of the things I’ve seen here and there that make me giggle.  From MacBourne:

From iOwntheWorld, a visual representation of what just happened.  (If you don’t catch that drift, Kevin can clarify.)

From Lagniappe’s Guy: “Oh–and Rubio will be the next Senator from Florida. Nice. Suck on that, Crist.”  You know, if I were Rubio, I’d be in the Governor’s Mansion right now, blowing cigar smoke in Suntan Boy’s face while yelling: “SAY IT!  SAY MY TITLE!  SAY IT!”  But then, I’m just cruel like that– heck, I’d love to escort Charlie out of this state… I just need 7 more guys and a railroad tie to do it…

Then, from Miguel: “… with the inevitable “I am moving out of here” for good measure (And they never move, damn it!)”  No, they never do move… like human-sized ticks, they just burrow in deeper, draining blood the entire time.

On a side note, this is an anniversary of sorts for me.  Two years ago today, I walked into a gun store and purchased my Springfield XD.  (No CCW permit, so I went back and brought it home the next Friday.)  It’s been a fun two years– I’ve added plenty of company to the gun cabinet, and I’ve went from RINO to radical libertarian.  Oh, yeah, and I blog now, too.  Sometimes.

Now, i just have to get used to saying “Senator Rubio.”  (Lights cigar)

*Yeah, you thought I was to the point before?  Well, that presentation I was talking about?  Turns out we went 20:59, not 19:59– the professor gave our female teammate a minute.  Seeing as we got not question and answer time, our “A+” presentation was graded “B+.”  So, to keep us from being docked a letter grade the next time, and to please the mademoiselle, I’m working on being as quick as possible.  (Wait, that sounded wrong…)

405 years ago today, Guy Fawkes was arrested in the basement of the House of Lords.  To date, he has been the only man to enter Parliament with honest intentions.

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And, of course, what better way to celebrate than to watch a movie and set off some gunpowder?

Polls close in this part of Florida at 7 PM.

I’d been saving news stories for a while, looking to make a massive, epic, Kevin-Baker-style post on the election… but I really don’t have the energy.  I know that it’s going to be a good election for the conservative/libertarian/get-the-hell-off-my-back side, but exactly how much treachery is the Left going to pull?  I know more than a few leftists who have given up and stayed home because of (insert your fave here– “Rethuglikkan triks!”  “partisan circus mentality” “OMG GEROJ BUSH!”)… will it be enough to make this a truly epic landslide?

So, for now, I’m just sipping coffee and watching these four sites:

Real Clear Politics House –  Real Clear Politics Senate — Real Clear Politics Governor Races — Florida Election Watch

Let’s compare private enterprise to government monopolies for a bit.  As examples, I’ll choose my favorite gun broker versus the USPS.

My gun broker is available at pretty much any time I need him (I usually just call him or email him, have him order something, and then go pick it up), friendly (hell, first time I walked in his shop, it took him all of 15 seconds to offer me a beer), and knowledgeable.  In addition to all this, he’s competitive– I’ve yet to see him beat in response time or price.

The USPS has, in the past twelve months: lost mail, damaged mail, delivered my mail (including university documents) to my neighbors, delivered my neighbor’s mail (including legal documents) to me, unleashed a delivery driver that can’t seem to figure out if she’s playing Crazy Taxi or Vigilante 8, and slammed the entry door to the local post office… in my face… at 4:27 (by their clock)… twice.  Oh, yeah, and their boss just announced his retirement… via e-mail.

Hmm… one of these lost money last year, and one didn’t… I can’t figure out which is which, though…

…is ridiculous.  Now, there are a lot of things I could comment on here– encroachment of government, the surreality of being fined for one bottle, the irony of a guy who recycles so much being fined while on vacation…  but I’m just going to say that this reminds me of something:

“This stresses the importance of compliance, and not littering.” No shit, Sherlock…

Is it wrong that the first thing I thought of while reading this story was a post-apocalyptic game set in a dystopian future which is controlled by a nanny-state government led by slug-like aliens?

All of the science fiction authors of the past looked forward and saw a rosy future– man expanding to the Moon, Mars, the Asteroid Belt, the Outer Planets… then outward still.  (“Out ride the sons of Terra / Far drives the thundering jet, / Up leaps a race of Earthmen, / Out, far, and onward yet —”)

Instead, we’re perpetually “a decade” from the Moon.  Returning to the Moon, not going there in the first place!  Our second Space Station is behind schedule– and when we do finish it, it’ll be a mere five years from the scrapheap!  (Next year, the last Shuttle lifts the last component, and retirement is looking like a 2016 timeframe.)  By the Nine Divines, we were supposed to have spinning wheels in orbit that would make von Braun envious from beyond the grave!

Instead, we have a billion-dollar showcar that’s cross-dressing as a truck, kills a high percentage of its passengers, and can’t live up to any of its original performance specs– turnaround time, cost per pound to orbit, man-hours of maintenance per flight…

Instead, the last NASA Director who knew his rectum from a mine shaft lies in a hospital because he was flying in an aircraft as old as he was.  Where’s “No Sparrow Shall Fall” when you need it?

Instead, our space agency has been told that their new focus is outreach to the Islamic world.

Help us private industry, you’re our only hope…

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said that Jesus’ Golden Rule inspired him…

Well, that’s good…

… to vote to confirm Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court…

Lindsey…

I just finished one of Heinlein’s essays (the last one in the Expanded Universe), where he projects the 1980 deficit.  He then marvels at how our government at our government would be half a trillion in debt, and points out the staggering amount that is a trillion.  He uses the fact that the Earth’s pole star will change from Polaris to Alrai to Alvahat to Vega and back to Polaris in the time it takes you to count to a trillion– if you count up by one every second of every day… for a little less than 32,000 years.  (31,709, to be exact.)

Be glad Bob was cremated– Southern California probably couldn’t stand the vibrations if he wasn’t… because he’d be SPINNING IN HIS GRAVE.  Right now, we’re over $13,000,000,000,000 (thirteen trillion) in debt and climbing.  That means every citizen (not just the taxpayers) owes over $42,000 in debt.

And you wonder why our economy is bad?  Hell, not even “bad” anymore– unbelievable, in every aspect– the debt, our unemployment… heck, even the statistics are bad.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Two hundred and thirty-four years ago today, our nation came into being.  (Okay, if you’re picky, the resolution of independence was approved July 2nd, 1776– so it was 234 years Friday.)  A group of men– some almost destitute, some very wealthy, some young, some old– came together and forged a nation that ruled not by the whims of a monarch or by an elite cadre, but by the consent of the governed.

God bless this nation, and may the governed therein understand these words.

Eggs will no longer be sold by quantity in the EU– they’ll be sold by weight.  An official was quoted as saying “[t]his proposal would disallow selling by numbers. Retailers would not be allowed to put ‘Six eggs’ on the front of the box. If it was a bag of rolls, it would say ’500g’ instead of six rolls.”  So… the box will be square?  No bumps for the eggs to sit in?  Because otherwise, you’ll be able to tell from the package how many eggs are inside the container.

(H/T Dr. Lott)