Category: Do the Right Thing

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Some Non-Random Musings on the Current Scene

N.B.: I frankly DGARA about foreign affairs, except where developments might have a local effect because of “feddle gummint” stupidities or deliberately malicious intent (toward citizens) in policies. So, by “current scene” you can expect me to comment on what was once quaintly known as “the home front,” for the most part.

Today’s topic: Censorship, “feddle gummint” skulduggery, Sharyl Atkkisson, First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, and a possibly appropriate citizens’ response.

By now, anyone with at least one firing neuron who’s not been living under a rock knows that our dear “gummint” placed spying software on Sharyl Atkkisson’s computers. Anyone in denial about the runaway skulduggery in effect in nearly every agency of the “feddle gummint” is either delusional or a part of (or expects to benefit from) the underhanded, nefarious, unscrupulous behavior that seems to now be the norm for “feddle gummint bureaucraps.” Heck, even the WaPo is “viewing with alarm” the appallingly stupid, criminal “feddle gummint” spying on a journalist.

If the feds can do it to her, they can do it to you. “Evidence” of “computer crimes” on ANYONE’S computers is now subject to The Sharyl Atkkisson Caveat: if the feds can plant things on her computer, who’s to say they didn’t plant stuff anywhere else they wanted to?

From now on, any claims by the “feddle gummint” to have found “evidence”–of ANYTHING–on a citizen’s computer should be loudly and raucously mocked.

Citizen response? So far, just the usual “view with alarm” stuff like the WaPo article. Sound and fury, etc. What would be appropriate, I think would be for a “vigilance committee” of patriotic hacker citizens to engage in a “Manhatten Project”-style effort to crack open every government computer system possible and flood the net with everything they want to hide from us. Snowden? He should be so far back he wouldn’t even be visible in the rear view mirror. Of course, it could happen that _some_ secrets could be minimally detrimental to national security, but I seriously doubt there are many such. Most “national security” secrets are more than likely just bureaucratic turf building/protecting.

Sadly, I do not have the skills necessary to make a contribution to the effort, and nor do I any longer have an audience/readership to influence toward that effort, since my work to remake this blog into nothing more than exercise space for “the voices in my head” has borne fruit. *heh*

In further mind-boggling abuses of rights supposedly protected under the First Amendment, while a student who is a Sikh has rightly received a pass on carrying a knife (“ceremonial dagger”) in pubschool, for religious reasons, Christian students who carry or read their Bibles, share their faith with other students or who are seen or heard praying or even just expressing opinions informed by their faith are continually oppressed. (Sure, schools pretty regularly lose in lawsuits over this, but the push against Christians practicing their religion in a pubschool setting is regularly, improperly, assaulted).

And cognitive dissonance never sets in with the left, because. . . it requires cognition? *sigh*

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Not News to Anyone Who’s Been Paying Attention. . .

. . . and who has more active brain cells than a rotten rutabaga.

Republicans More Informed Than Democrats, According to Pew Research

*duh*

Each year, Pew conducts its “What Do Americans Know” survey, which tests respondents on a series of questions. This year, the topics included the federal minimum wage, the territory occupied by ISIS, the Ukraine, Common Core educational proposals, fracking, where the Ebola virus is centered, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, the U.S. poverty rate, where Shiite Muslims outnumber Sunnis, who chairs the Federal Reserve, where the federal government spends most and the U.S. unemployment rate. Unsurprisingly, older adults demonstrated greater knowledge than their younger counterparts, as did better-educated respondents.

But buried at the bottom of the survey report lies the subject heading “Partisan Differences in Knowledge,” which itemizes each question and the percentage of Republicans, Democrats and Independents who answered each one correctly.

On 10 out of 12 questions, Republican respondents “outperformed” the two other classes of respondents, Dims and Independents. By 2% and 5% respectively, Dims outperformed Reps only on where the ebola outbreak began and the federal poverty rate. That’s it.

The best part of the poll? Pew describes Reps outperforming Dims 10 to 2 as performance that is merely “somewhat better” than Dims. That’s Pew for ya: always willing to carry water for the Left.

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A Chillingly Reasonable Conspiracy Theory

A comment at The Belmont Club post, “Ebola in America,” is chilling in the manner it parses federal “incompetence.” Or maybe federal “incompetence” really is, à la John Ringo’s “The Last Centurion”–genuine institutional and political stupidity. You decide.

Ebola In America

From the comments to the post linked above:

“1) Responding to epidemics/pandemics is NOT something that has never come up before. The very fact that we are here, with our pre-Ebola life expectancies, is based on the ability of medical science to respond to disease outbreaks.

“2) The standard first response, backed by millennia of successful experience, is isolation of the infected community/individuals with quarantine for those who are suspected and at risk.

“3) The deliberate, considered, and premeditated response of Federal agencies across the board has been to bring as many disease vectors into this country as they possibly can, to forcibly prevent them from being medically screened, to scatter them throughout the country, and to actively impede state and local health authorities from responding to any disease outbreaks triggered.

“We now have Ebola being spread by government actions within our borders. We now have previously eradicated TB being spread by government action within our borders, except now drug resistant. We now have an epidemic enterovirus all over the country attacking children, now killing them, and mutating into a form of polio which we had eradicated within our borders. We now have Dengue Fever spreading within this country, which has not been here in any volume for a century.

“And all of it spread in the last couple of years with the help of all agencies of the Federal government.

“This is a level of ‘incompetence’ that cannot be blamed on one or two individuals. It crosses several Cabinet level departments with them working together for a common result. Which we are seeing now. That level of “incompetence” is in fact planning and premeditation. The odds of multiple departments committing reinforcing acts to bring this result by pure chance are beyond credibility. Especially, since not one of them are responding to the breaking reality with changed behavior.

“The proper domestic response to the initial outbreak would have been stopping all direct flights between the US and the affected countries, blocking entry of anyone who has been in those countries until they can prove that they have been outside those countries for 30 days, the cancellation of student and tourist visas for people from those countries, and [oh, yes] securing our borders so that anyone who comes in is screened for health and legal status. Noting that 15% of the illegal invaders who cross our deliberately-erased-by-the-Federal-government are NOT from Mexico, Central, or South America. And that from January-August this year 71 nationals from the Ebola infected countries were caught at the former border. And that we only catch a small percentage of those crossing.

“I would also note that we have done the travel restrictions relatively recently for H1N1 flu. This is not breaking new ground. It is deliberate avoidance of proper epidemiological procedure.

“Prediction: sometime soon, the Federal government will institute movement and quarantine controls inside the country for US citizens only. The national borders will remain wide open. Foreigners, legal or invaders, will be allowed to move as they please. And all anti-discrimination laws will be firmly enforced.

“I have expressed doubts about a real election in November. This reinforces those doubts.

“And it would not be a bad thing for those that can to prepare for a period of self-imposed isolation, and self-defense, during it.”–Subotai Bahadur

It sure seems to be a good fit for King Putz’s consistent implementation of Cloward-Pivens, doesn’t it?

In closing, competing aphorisms:

“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”–Ian Flemming

and

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”–attributed to Napoleon

So, which is it? Or, is it essentially both: stupid malice?

Update: While considering the above, add this into your ponderings:

Immigration Expert: Obama Admin Responsible for Letting Ebola Patient into U.S.

Perhaps we should quarantine all US Ebola patients in the WH–along with the “foist” family

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Evil Is as Evil Does

I’m once again questioning my FarceBook participation.

Stopping Zuckerberg’s ‘terrorism network’

From the link:

What are the reasons Facebook allowed the “Third Intifada Page” to remain online for so long while people were dying? The truth is simple: Zuckerberg is more concerned with increasing viewership and participation in the Middle East and elsewhere for his personal financial gain by increasing the value of any future public offering of shares than he is concerned with saving peoples’ lives. To Zuckerberg, if saving lives decreases viewership, he will have no part in it. Zuckerberg has become well aware that furthering and allowing terrorist death threats to remain on Facebook increases readership, which boosts the value of his shares. Facebook’s commercial objective has also obviously been to raise its user base to boost Facebook’s profits, and he will stop at nothing to make it happen.

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Pejoration of Language is Inevitable

But why does it always seem to stem from illiterates and liars?

Illiterates, for example, tear down useful words and phrases through simple ignorance and sometimes stupidity. An example from something I read recently will illustrate this point: “[I]t’s the exception that makes the rule.” This corruption was obviously drawn from the old adage, “The exception proves the rule,” which actually means, “The exception TESTS the rule.” The writer of “the exception. . . makes the rule” never bothered to learn what the original adage actually said and so his corruption makes at least some sort of (non)sense, based on his poor literacy.

Worse are those who wittingly corrupt words, terms and phrases to mean something opposite of their once common senses. Take for example a self-proclaimed “liberal democrat” whose words and deeds prove him to be a tyrannical statist bent on corrupting democracy.

That’s why I so often call out and condemn both illiterate and disingenuous abuse of English. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light,” as it were.

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People Who Cannot Even Speak or Write Their Native Tongue Are Stupid

eye-c-stoopid-ppl

I see stupid people. I see stupid “edumacators” who avoid teaching grammar and stupid students who avoid learning English.

Example: “If [I, they, he, etc.] would have” is a construction that, I suppose, is intended to indicate a class of conditional that should be simply, “If I had.” I am *gagamaggot* sick of seeing the evidence of laziness and stupidity “If [I, they, he, etc.] would have” demonstrates. Now, both of y’all who might comment on this are excused, since I have no doubt such abuse of the English language is off the table for you, but for those folks who may read this and grunt, in their most articulate manner, “Huh?!?” I have only this: *arrgggghhh!*

And that is the kindest, gentlest, most generous response possible. In fact, it is far, far kinder, gentler and more generous than such folks deserve, but that’s just me: kind, gentle and generous to a fault. 😉

N.B. Execrable grammar, word misuse, impenetrable amphiboly, etc., are all completely, totally and absolutely inexcusable* in text written by someone who wants to be PAID for writing. It doesn’t matter what excuse some lame-brained writer, editor or critic (IMO, critics who are writers are few and far between, so I consider the class to be separate, for all “intensive porpoises” *heh*) excretes, such abuse of English is offensive to anyone who thinks these things through, ESPECIALLY when the abuser wants to be paid for the abuse.

*An exception that proves the rule: dialog in a piece of fiction intended to build a character that is an illiterate boob is the one place such things can be marginally legitimate. Anywhere else these abuses occur just demonstrate that the author is an illiterate boob.

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Ah, Memories. . .

*heh* The video below reminds me of a kid who pulled a small caliber automatic on me some 35 years ago. Between my German Shepherd and me with a large wrench (already in hand; was working on car), he decided his lil .25 cal (what it looked like to me) Saturday night special. . . wasn’t so special. Saw him walking up the street a few hours later all torn up and bloody. Story came around someone took his lil ladygun away from him and fed it to him.

Typical “language” warning that accompanies such events. . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DepefuRqwQ

A lesson in manners to a trash-talking wannabe tough guy.