Criminal Occupation

Disclaimer first, opinion after...

I am certain that most of the Occupy folks are decent enough people.  It is always tempting to make the weirdos and oddballs be the mean rather than the outlier.

But still, the Tea Party folks never had weirdos and oddballs of these dimensions.  Check out the list of serious crimes that are being committed in these Obamavilles.  And those are just the ones that have been reported.

The list does not include the many crimes that the various Occupy committees have successfully hushed up.  Their official position appears to be that they are unwilling to engage local law enforcement over criminal activities.

Rape appears to be the most common crime that these "committees" have the most trouble containing.

Worth considering by but unlisted is racism/anti-Semitism.  (A prominent theme for those following the Occupy antics via Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit.)

Many of the positive changes in our society over the last 30-40 years have occurred due to an expanded sense of tolerance.  What is lacking from the Occupy folks is discernment.  Tolerance is what causes a 16 year old girl to avert her gaze to the normal nudity experience when one is preparing for a good night's sleep.  Discernment is what causes her to call the cops when she becomes the object of to public masturbation.

Sadly, she possessed more discernment than the supposed adults that are running these protests.

Never Think The Worst

I'm glad I waited for clarification before offering any commentary about this event.  This was what I was hoping had happened.

"Whoever shot at the White House is basically a terrorist," LoRusso tells CityBeat, "and I was holding a moment of silence for the White House and President Obama and everyone in the White House. I wasn't holding a moment of silence for the terrorist in any way. We're a peaceful movement, and we don't support people shooting at the White House."

Although I do wonder if Dave Maass is aware that there are leftist blowhards that do much the same to folks that are not of a leftist mindset.  Me might try reading the pages of the NYTimes, WaPo...etc...etc....

Now That Is Fast!

At least if you scale it up properly....

More info and a poll here.

Consequences Of Arabian Affluence

As anyone who has studied wealth and demographics will tell you, money changes a people.  Along with a better standard of living, wealth buys a longer lifespan, education, and thus a more fulfilling way of spending one's years than simply squatting out a football team in some muddy backwater field.

Here is one illustration of how wealth and knowledge have changed birthrates.  The focus is on the Middle East, but the lesson is useful around the world.

A View From Above

This time lapse video from the International Space Station is fantastic.  Most of the views are of the night side of earth.  I saw Michigan and the rest of the Midwestern states in several passes.  The Nile river is also clearly visible.

The natural light shows are even more impressive.  Lightning rolls through the clouds as the space station flies overhead.  Also, the aurora borealis hangs shimmering in the atmosphere.

Just beautiful.

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

Miss Aurora's Long Lost Quilt

Although it was not exactly lost.  I knew where it was all the time.

What I didn't know was "when".  As is "when will I ever finish that quilt!"

A Small Update

You may have noticed that my Google Reader feed is gone.  Google, in their infinite wisdom, has eliminated the ability to "share" things read via Google Reader via that gadget.  Instead, you are expected to "share" with your Google+ page.

Google -.

'Cause There Is No Such Thing As Too Much Shatner

OK.  For those paying attention, this post appeared way before it was scheduled.  Then when I tried to change the date, it stayed published.  So I reverted to a draft, and tried to add this note.  But Blogger screwed with the video size.  Argh!!

In any case, this is the selected moment for you to enjoy Mr. Shatner's unique stylings.  Enjoy!

Violent Solutions III

"If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off? Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy city with an H-bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an axe. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him...but to make him do what you want to do. Not killing...but controlled and purposeful violence. But it's not your business or mine to decide the purpose of the control. It's never a soldier's business to decide when or where or how - or why - he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and tell us where and when and how. We supply the violence; other people - 'older and wiser heads,' as they say - supply the control. Which is as it should be."

- Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein



Offered in remembrance of all those that served our nation in defense of liberty.  Happy Veteran's Day to all.

The Engine Is Warm Now

As it was with racial integration, so it is with recognizing and validating the service of homosexuals in today's military.  It took a while to overcome the military opposition to racial integration.  But once it became policy, once the order was given, the military attacked the issue until it was essentially a non-issue.

I would expect that we will see the same thing now that people may serve openly in our armed forces.

Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos — who strongly opposed the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell last year — told NPR’s Morning Edition yesterday that he is “very proud” of how the Marines have handled the repeal of the policy last month. “I’m very pleased now,” Amos said and explained that his previous statements in support of the ban were expressing the hesitancy for change within the Marine Corps.

The Difference Between Occupiers And Tea Partiers

While there are some elements that should unite the two groups (i.e. distrust of the well connected well-to-do and their government toadies), there are other elements in which the difference could not be more clear.  Jeff Jacoby tries to get some mileage out of the 10th Commandment, but the larger point is in the sadly growing catalog of vandalism, rape, assault, and continued threats of violence from the Occupy group. 

Where the Tea Party folks left their gathering spots devoid of trash, the Occupy folks trash their gathering spots.  Policy pretentions aside, the Occupy folks appear to value nothing beyond their own existence.  Nothing matters to them unless it matters to them; narcissism in spades.

Of course, it only takes a few bad apples to spoil the barrel.  Were it not for a complacent media that ignores the blatant lawlessness of those few bad apples and their prior zealous attempts to convert a few minor blemishes into a worm in every Tea Party apple, we might justly and quickly purge the public debate such destructive disinterest in the well being of anyone not "occupying" a tent located inside a major metropolitan park.

Only then can a serious discussion of the issues at hand commence.

As Seen On Instapundit

Who saw it first on Facebook:

“The social contract exists so that everyone doesn’t have to squat in the dust holding a spear to protect his woman and his meat all day every day. It does not exist so that the government can take your spear, your meat, and your woman because it knows better what to do with them.”

Indeed.

Abolish Money?

Via Classical Values:

I'm sure there was a fair amount of cherry picking going on, but still!

Voter ID Is A Good Requirement

So says Artur Davis, former US Representative from Alabama:

The truth is that the most aggressive contemporary voter suppression in the African American community, at least in Alabama, is the wholesale manufacture of ballots, at the polls and absentee, in parts of the Black Belt.

Voting the names of the dead, and the nonexistent, and the too-mentally-impaired to function, cancels out the votes of citizens who are exercising their rights -- that's suppression by any light. If you doubt it exists, I don't; I've heard the peddlers of these ballots brag about it, I've been asked to provide the funds for it, and I am confident it has changed at least a few close local election results.

...

The case for voter ID, however, is a good one, and it ought to make politics a little cleaner and the process of conducting elections much fairer. I wish I'd gotten it right the first time.

Keep the above in mind when we go to the polls a year from today.  There are professional vote fraud agents in the land that sell their services for politics and profit.  And they are working to steal your vote.

h/t to Instapundit

Successfully Patient

I have been intending to write something along these lines for quite some time.  Guy Fawkes was not, despite his popularity among anachronistic anarchists, a friend of liberty.

I waited long enough for someone else to pretty well cover my thoughts.  Success at last!

A Reminder For Scale

Mr. Obama's "stimulus" and other spending is much more than was spent on the Iraq war.

Just in case anyone has forgotten.

Won't You Please Let Me In?

Via the Blogfather comes this excellent essay from The Volokh Conspiracy about the Occupy movements and the underlying socioeconomic forces that have created it.  The short version is that they have dutifully gotten their tickets punched and now expect the rewards to flow regardless of their actual talents or the collective need for their "abilities".  Such as they are.

The longer version....

Pick One, Herman

Mr. Cain supported the right of homosexuals to be homosexual, and opposed government intervention in the private decision regarding abortion.

And then he flipped.

*Sigh*

The Currency Of Time

Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.

But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants "just a few minutes of your time, please - this won't take long." Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time - and squawk for more!
So learn to say No - and to be rude about it when necessary.

Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.

(This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't do it because it is "expected" of you.)

-Time Enough For Love, by Robert Heinlein

The Definition Of Cluelessness

Or an indication of a future politician.