Month: February 2018

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THE Quintessential Liberal on Education and the State

John Stuart Mill, the liberal no contemporary pseudo-“liberal” would ever agree with,

“Were the duty of enforcing universal education once admitted, there would be an end to the difficulties about what the State should teach, and how it should teach, which now convert the subject into a mere battle-field for sects and parties, causing the time and labour which should have been spent in educating, to be wasted in quarrelling about education. If the government would make up its mind to require for every child a good education, it might save itself the trouble of providing one. It might leave to parents to obtain the education where and how they pleased, and content itself with helping to pay the school fees of the poorer classes of children, and defraying the entire school expenses of those who have no one else to pay for them. [Emphasis added] The objections which are urged with reason against State education, do not apply to the enforcement of education by the State, but to the State’s taking upon itself to direct that education: which is a totally different thing. That the whole or any large part of the education of the people should be in State hands, I go as far as any one in deprecating.”

THAT is the genuinely liberal position on education. Tyrannical statists masquerading as “liberals” want to compel people into a lockstep propaganda machine.

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I’m Not a Luddite; I’m a Curmudgeon

The difference is that I like techy things, but I have my limits. I want them to work my way, and when they don’t I get a bit grumpy. *heh*

So, bought a couple of lil bluetooth “fitness trackers” that retail all over the place for about $50 each for $1 apiece at my fav “fell off the back of a truck store” (nah, closeouts, distressed sales, etc.) and discovered what, for me, is a lil “gotcha.” Yeh, the phone app closes in on “sucky.” I like keeping my phone off, so for reporting, etc., it’s turn on phone RE-pair the thing via my phone’s built-in functionality (cos the app from the mfg doesn’t “remember” that well), blah, blah,blah. Worse, the app won’t even pair with the device unless my phone has an internet connection!

Oh, well, I can put up with the rigamarole, and it is a fun lil toy for a buck. If I had paid anything close to retail, though, I’d not be real happy with the app.

It’s quite different to other things that I have paired with my phone, a decent set of stereo headphone, for example, that I use to listen to the music I have loaded onto the phone (nah, I prefer not streaming with the thing,and yeh, it’s just me *heh*). The headphones, I just turn on, start some music playing and it’s cool.

Update: Went back to the store and bought a $1 “fitness tracker watch” that does the same things with no need for a bluetooth connection of app for my phone. It also has a pulse monitor, which “sorta” makes up for the lack of a “gee whiz” app (that worked like a clunker).

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Now, I’m Not a ‘Gun Nut,’ but. . .

. . .all the ignorant, emotional, lie-filled arguments by anti-gun, anarcho-tyrannist statists and wild, slavering, stupid calls for gun confiscation kinda irk me. In light of that, here: a .30-caliber, DIY, fully-automatic air rifle.

Make it in your garage. Completely unregulated, as far as I know, in any of the federal firearms laws, because: air rifle. It is not a firearm.

And that’s just if someone doesn’t decide to get their hands on various pieces of low-quality steel and emulate third world home “gunsmiths” the world around and manufacture themselves an AK-47, since it was designed for ease of low-tech reproduction, of download any one of the widespread sets of plans for making one’s own AR-15, go out along the highway collecting aluminum cans, forge and machine a receiver, etc.

Yeh, that very thing has been done by some guy in his own garage and back yard.

Idiots just irk me, and these willfully stupid, electively-ignorant, anti-gun, anarcho-tyrannist statists wildly screaming for gun confiscation, are just that: self-made idiots.

Oh, the “I’m not a gun nut” comment? Currently, entire “arsenal” consists of an 89-year-old revolver. I’d be happy with a couple more firearms, but right now, I just do not need them, and the lil revolver is enough for my current use. This is only possible, because I live in a county that is about as safe as Switzerland, probably because most folks are armed. *heh*

But.. . I will admit I am a “knife nut.” “Never bring a gun to a knife fight” might be something I would think, and even say. . . *heh* OK, just kidding. It’s always good to have both at hand in a “bad actor” scenario, but at or within arm’s length, I’m MUCH more likely to do serious damage with a knife, even with my teensy lil Spyderco Squeak Sprint1, a really, really small knife.

1Thanks again to my Estimable Son-in-Law. I use this knife–and those given to me by Son & Heir–daily, many many times daily.

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From the Bard to the Beegees*. . .

Whenever someone says something like, “It’s just an argument about terms/meanings/definitions/semantics” I want to dope slap ’em. “Now there abide these three: phonemes, syntax and semantics; and the greatest of these is semantics.”

Meanings of words (terms, whatever) is the very POINT of language. Clarifying and making terms as nailed down and unambiguous, as full of MEANING, as possible is not something that is “just” anything. Without such, any interlocution is just “Sound and fury, signifying nothing,” or at least nothing useful.1

*From the Bard to the Beegees:

Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.
Polonius: What is the matter, my lord?
Hamlet: Between who?
Polonius: I mean, the matter that you read.

*heh*

Beegees: It’s only words,and words are all I have to take your heart away.

1Ah, reminds one of most contemporary “music,” the babblings of Mass MEdia Hivemind Podpeople, and Academia Nut Fruitcakes, doesn’t it?

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The Federal Government Has NO “Rights”

I am so very tired of unthinking people parroting lies from tyrannical statists concerning the “rights” of the federal government.The federal government has no rights. It has specific duties and responsibilities denoted in the Constitution, all aimed at protecting the rights of citizens from infringement. The People also allow the Constitution to empower the federal government with powers derived from themselves to effect the protection of the rights of the People from infringement.

The Constitution also specifically limits the federal government in specific ways (ways most often dishonored in the breach1 nowadays) to forbid it power to infringe on individuals’ rights. One of those limits, noted in the Second amendment, is getting a lot of lying press from the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind, recently. All of the lies being told by the Hivemind are in service to the goals of tyrannical statists who are in favor of removing the People’s final check on a tyrannical government, as well as robbing individuals of an effective means to project their right of self-defense against any bad actors (including government bad actors, at all levels).

Just keep in mind that the Hivemind isnow, has been, and will continue to lie about so-called “gun control.” The truth about “gun control” is quite different in many ways than the Hivemind presents, but one critical way is that we, the People, are meant to be a check on tyranny instituted by government. The Founders viewed ALL of the People, save government officials, as part of the militia meant to protect against government infringement of individual rights. That alone would end “gun control” talk, if truth were told both about the primary purpose the Framers added the Second Amendment and the “long train of abuses” of individual rights that have been and continue to be perpetrated by the federal government against citizens.

1

Apologies to The Bard for mangling his words. The original “more honor’d in the breach” referred to breaking with bad custom. Instead, I refer to the dishonorable behavior of the federal government in ignoring its constitutionally-specified duties and exceeding its constitutionally limited powers.

Horatio:
What does this mean, my lord?

Hamlet:
The King doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swagg’ring up-spring reels;
And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.
Is it a custom?

Hamlet:
Ay, marry, is’t,
But to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honor’d in the breach than the observance,

Hamlet Act 1, scene 4, 7–16

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The Pernicous Effects of A-Literacy

A Politico article (that, coincidentally, was about another aspect of Hivemind stupidity) provided another example of the pernicious results of a particular kind of a-literacy combined with the writer’s bubblegum soul being firmly, adamantly affixed to the lefthand side of the Dunning-Kruger Curve: the inability to perceive any differences in form between a verb’s simple past form and its past perfect form, though this isn’t quite as bad as the more typical inability to know when the past perfect is called for.

Oh, yeh, the presenting problem? The writer stupidly wrote “had sowed.” No, puppy. Only illiterates talk or write that way. The misuse is not even popular enough in English to qualify for “nonstandard” (that is, “stupid”) status.

This just in: yet ANOTHER pernicious effect of a-literacy: ignorance of commonly-known facts, viz. . .

Proud momma reporting (on FarceBook) on her son’s prom date with a girl named. . . Candida. *head-desk* No, I kid you not. No screenshot; no attribution whatsoever. Not even I would be that cruel. But the girl’s mother certainly was cruel when she named her. It would have been less cruel to simply have named her daughter, “Fungus.”

*sigh*

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It’s the Little Things #8,492

#sigh

*heh*

OK, now that that is out of my system. . .

Some of the absolutely stupid things some writers do baffle me, but at least I have found a way to be amused by them.

Recent “Dan Brown wannabe” book where the writer apparently felt even less desire to get anything right about any of his premises than Brown typically does went Brown even further by finding… unique ways to misuse plain English ( for example, misused “infallible” when groping for “unflappable”), have an “expert pilot” grab the “steering column”. . . on a helicopter whose propellers were making enough noise to keep the writer from thinking, “Maybe I ought to do my homework on helicopters before making a fool of myself in print.”

Hilarious.

Another? How about a fun-filled romp through a zombie apocalypse book filled with things like super-competent, manly-man hero filling up a late-model vehicle with gas and then “topping it off” after the pump clicks off. “Manly-men” know that can harm the vehicle’s evap system, cause the vehicle to run poorly, and even lead to hard starting or failure to start. In today’s world, it’s an easy fix (though sometimes complicated) to repair an evap system. . . IF one can narrow down the part or parts damaged by topping off, and costs can range from $10-$200, depending on several factors. In a zombie apocalypse scenario, having to repair the evap system on one’s go-to vehicle is sub-optimal.

But that’s OK, cos the book was chock full of this kind of stupid stuff, so reading it as a farce (OK, OK, skimming it, cos it wasn’t really worth reading *heh*) was. . . OK.

The problem with all these hilariously stupid books–not bad or “suckitudinous” books, just stupidly executed–is that the errors of logic, fact, grammar, punctuation, and usage they embody are just reinforced in whatever uncritical readers glom onto them. *sigh* There were once literate editorial staffs at tradpub houses to correct some of these problems, but even there, the quality of literacy in tradpub editorial staffs has waned.

Oh, well. At least I can laugh at and mock such things, and such amusement is worth something as the world generally goes to hell in a handbasket.

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In Which I Adulterate The Holy Brew in Search of an ‘Efficiency Breakfast’

I am amused by how quickly I have developed a taste for my recently-discovered “efficiency breakfast” (crème brûlée-flavored protein powder in coffee, with some heavy cream added for nutritious fat). After my second try, it’s become my go-to quick breakfast. High protein, few carbs, good fat and COFFEE.

While it’s great to have eggs, bacon, sausage, and maybe a wee bit of fruit or berries for breakfast, this does well to fuel the body properly. I do wish the soluble fiber I have available didn’t clump in hot liquids, because I’d like to add some of that, but this’ll do for now.