90 days Sine Die

As of 53 minutes ago, most laws passed by the AZ legislature became law.

We now have Alaska style constitutional carry. Welcome to the United States. Please ignore the sound of freedom and go back to your daily lives.

That Neo-Kipling thing I wrote

Regarding that "I am now channeling the spirit of Rudyard Kipling thing I wrote last week:

I tweaked the scansion a little bit. It now scans to Leslie Fish's tune for Bridge-Guard in the Karoo. (one of my favorite Kipling poems actually)

I also varied up the chorus a bit. (as Kipling was wont to do)

Want to play a game? How many poems do I explicitly or implicitly reference?


WWRW
(What Would Rudyard Write?)
Words copyright Mark E. Horning


I read in the paper this morning,
I've seen it again and again,
As the oil spreads to the beaches,
Where the sea-walls fail to retain,

That the sons of Mary still dither,
While Martha's Sons still toil,
Ignore the bureaucrat mandates,
And strive to recover the oil.

...And hist'ry repeats before us,
...As we struggle (with) the past in vain.
...The lesson still stands before us,
...And Kipling he saw it plain.

The Treasury's printing out paper,
Our gold and silver replaced.
But it cannot appease the builders,
Nor the Gods of the Marketplace.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings
Have told us down throughout time,
(That) You first have to slaughter the meat-beast,
Before you intend to dine.

...And hist'ry's bearing down on us,
...Like a relentless fate-bound train.
...The lesson still stands before us,
...And Kipling he saw it plain.

Our troops are set forth to conquer,
In Iraq and Afghanistan,
While our leaders refuse them (their) honor,
Or even a vic'try plan.

And invaders trouble our borders,
Seeking our wealth for to pay.
The rich lazy nation's yielding.
That danger shall not go away.

...And hist'ry repeats before us,
...Amazing, uncaring, arcane.
...The lesson still stands before us,
...And Kipling he saw it plain.

The chattering classes bicker,
And struggle for power's reins.
The recession widens and deepens,
While men succumb to the strain.

The Old Issue stands before us,
Dwarfing our hearts and our brains.
Hear the reeds of Runnymede weeping,
(As we) bow down to take up our chains.

...And hist'ry's repeating before us,
...The same struggle day after day.
...The lesson still standing before us;
...What would old Rudyard Say?

Mark E. Horning

CDNN Hi-power Grips

CDNN has Herret Cocobolo Hi-power grips in stock for $27.

They look like this:





A bit sharper than I like, but that's common for Herrets. Fit isn't perfect, but fitting Hi-power grips is a lot harder than simple 1911 slabs. For under thirty bucks I'm not going to complain too much.

The example wearing the new grips is one of the Arginting P90 Hi-powers that J&G sales in Prescott is currently selling for $299. If you need a 9mm for any reason go pick one up.

This will be a range toy and possibly woods or camping gun. I prefer the .45 for a normal carry gun.

State of Nature

I'm sure you all ave read this already, but if not, go forth and read Coyotes in the State of Nature:

Not one, not two, but three money quotes right here:

To use lethal force in self-defense is the ultimate declaration of independence, a kind of momentary secession from the authority of the government whose laws and prisons and police officers have, in that moment, failed the citizen. To acknowledge the right to self-defense — and the concomitant right to be forearmed against aggressors — is to acknowledge that some things are outside the state and its authority...

The horror that progressives feel for gun owners is in many ways like the horror they feel for homeschoolers, whom they recognize, correctly, as one of the few truly radical movements in America...

Just as state schooling is not about education, but about the state, gun control is not about guns: It’s about control. A citizen who can fend for himself when the predators come or the schools fail is less inclined to look to the state for sustenance and oversight in other areas of life. To progressives, that’s an invitation to anarchy. To the men who wrote the Second Amendment, it was a condition of citizenship in a free republic. It’s what free men did, and do.

WOW.

Wal-Mart civic Champion?

Oh this is just rich.

Walmart is suing OSHA.
They are suing over a $7000 fine.
In fact, they are spending millions of dollars just to screw with OSHA to prove a point.

Details HERE.

What would Rudyard Write

Not a song. A poem maybe? Neo-Kipling?




Oh I read in the paper this morning, and I've seen it again and again,
As the oil spreads to the beaches, where the sea-walls fail to retain.
And the sons of Mary still dither, while Martha's sons still toil,
And ignore the bureaucrat mandates, and strive to recover the oil.

And hist'ry repeats before us, as we struggle with the past in vain,
The lesson still stands before us, and Kipling he saw it plain.


The Treasury's printing out paper, our gold and silver replaced
But it cannot appease the builders, nor the Gods of the Marketplace.
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, have told us down throughout time,
That you first have to slaughter the meat-beast, before you intend to
dine.

And hist'ry repeats before us, as we struggle with the past in vain,
The lesson still stands before us, and Kipling he saw it plain.


Our troops are set forth to conquer, in Iraq and Afghanistan
While our leaders refuse them their honor, or even a vic'try plan
And invaders trouble our borders, seeking our wealth for to pay,
The rich lazy nation's yielding, and that danger will not go away.

And hist'ry repeats before us, as we struggle with the past in vain,
The lesson still stands before us, and Kipling he saw it plain.


The chattering classes bicker, and struggle for power's reigns
The recession widens and deepens, while more succumb to the strain.
And the Old Issue stands before us, dwarfing our hearts and our brains,
Hear the reeds of Runnymede weeping, as we bow down to take up our chains.

And hist'ry repeating before us, as we struggle again and again,
The lesson still stands before us; Kipling he saw it plain.

Neither Mary nor Martha

We are neither Mary nor Martha,
Neither fish nor stone,
With no regard to our station
We toil and ponder alone.

--Mark E. Horning

Kipling has been on my mind lately. In particular The Sons of Martha.

The administration, the Democrats, and especially that portion of the left referred to as the academy, are the sons of Mary. Seriously.

And the Sons of Mary smile and are blessèd -
they know the Angels are on their side.
They know in them is the Grace confessèd,
and for them are the Mercies multiplied.

They think deep thoughts, about admittedly very important subjects, but do not create. The very definition of the ivory tower academic, or the anti-pro-cause-of-the-day-week-hour protester. Sons of Mary indeed.

The Republicans are the sons of Martha. They are the ones who make the trains run on time, see to it that the roads get built, and that the bridges stay bridges rather than piles of stone. They are the ones who make it possible for the Sons of Mary to think their deep thoughts.

It is their care in all the ages
to take the buffet and cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages;
it is their care that the switches lock.
It is their care that the wheels run truly;
it is their care to embark and entrain,
Tally, transport, and deliver duly
the Sons of Mary by land and main.

Talk to the folks who make things run, they are overwhelmingly republican. Even in a union shop, which is defined as working to keep from doing work, the actual workers are generally conservatives while it is the union bosses that are the liberals.

Libertarians are both, and neither. Libertarians are libertarians because they took the time to really think things all of the way through. We have a philosophy of liberty. (pure Sons of Mary right there), yet at the same time we have jobs. Standard joke, why do libertarians never show up at protest meetings, because they are working.

So who would you rather be, the Son of Mary or of Martha? The scientist or the engineer? The thinker or the doer?

Maybe a little of both.

Vocations vs. Avocation

I swear if I'm ever in that part of the country I;ll have to buy TJIC a Beer.

In talking about a whining leftie who is complaining that she can't get a paying job in international human rights and welfare, he writes:

I might as well bitch and moan that I’ve never held a paying job in my field – reading cranky libertarian science fiction novels at coffee shops while checking out the racks of every red-head and brunette that crosses my path.

As a matter of fact, even though that may be my avocation, I realized long ago that there’s not much money in it, so I decided to pick up a vocation as well.

Read the rest HERE...

Random Thought on the President

The administration continues to show it's utter and complete incompetence on just about every issue, it's not that they don;t know the answers, it's that they know the answer is more regulation, they just don't know how to force the question to fit.

Or as is increasingly obvious, Jimmy Carter is no longer our worse president.

Rational, thoughtful, deliberate and scientific responses to a crisis will always take a back seat to the teleprompter sound bite. I have come up with a simple phrase to describe the president.

"This is a man who does not cross his sevens."

Mark

Clarence Thomas on McDonald

Let's play a game, you get to have lunch with a Supreme Court Justice. Who do you pick?

For me it's always been Clarence Thomas.

Thomas is clearly the brightest guy up there. He's not always right mind you, but he's clearly the brightest and has the keenest understanding of the historical context.

Note in this context: Right = Agrees with Mark.

Consider Thomas's concurrence in McDonald.

Thomas's reasoning is exceedingly clear. The "rights of the people" listed in various places in the Bill of Rights are not granted rights, they are enumerated rights. I.e. they are innate rights not "procedural" rights.

This should be pretty clear to anyone who has actually read the Federalist, AND Anti-Federalist papers.

Thus invoking the due process clause of the 14th Amendment is stupid. It simply does not apply, and the proper way to apply the 1st through 8th amendments to the states is via the Privileges and Immunities clause.

So wile Roberts and Alito are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to honor stare decisis in order to get the proper result Thomas is more than happy to say the hell with precedent, the Constitution clearly says what it says, and if the court said otherwise in the past they were wrong then as well.

Note, there is an interesting side effect. The privileges and immunities clause specifically references "citizens" not "the people" and thus the end up-shot of McDonald is that strictly speaking, the court has only enjoined the states from violating the 2nd amendment rights of citizens, and not of legal resident aliens.

This raises the interesting question of whether Thomas would have invoked BOTH clauses had McDonald not been a citizen.

On Eccomomics

All right, let's get one thing clear from the get go:

Keynesian Economics is not just simply wrong, it's the most positively debunked theory since Galileo irrefutably disproved Copernican Heliocentrism. On the scale of rational theories it is somewhere behind the Luminiferous Aether and Lamarckian Evolution.

It's so glaringly wrong that you have to wonder if folks have actually, you know, been paying attention to the past 100 years of history.

Velocity of money is simply wrong. If I give you 5 bucks and you give me 5 bucks, Keynes counts that as $10 of economic activity. Despite the fact that no product was produced and each of us has the same amount of currency as before. (actually we have less, since the exchange took some amount of time greater than zero and so some of our buying power was reduced by inflation).

Arthur Laffer (yes the Arther Laffer of the famous Laffer Curve) has an article in the WSJ on why unemployment benefits are not stimulus.

Laffer WSJ

Here's a teaser:

On the face of it, the idea that higher unemployment benefits won't lead to more unemployment doesn't make much sense. Imagine what the unemployment rate would look like if unemployment benefits were universally $150,000 per year. My guess is we'd have a heck of a lot more unemployment. Common sense and personal experience indicate higher unemployment benefits will make unemployment less unattractive and thereby increase unemployment even in the Great Recession.

Read it. It's a powerful rebuke to the Keynesian ideal. Which, again, shouldn't be necessary to anyone who has been paying attention at all to economic matters since, oh, 1928 or so.

We all know what is required to stimulate the economy. The Laffer curve tells us that above a certain point, tax revenues go down as the tax rate increases.

Simple proof:
At 0% tax rate the government gets $0
At 100% tax rate same thing 0% (think about it)
At some rate betewwn the two, the government does take in income.

It's been obvious for decades that we are somewhere above the apex of the curve. Every single time tax rates have been lowered, government revenues have increase. Every time. Thus lowering tax rates not only increases total taxes, but increased real economic growth as well.

In time of war, I think it makes perfect sense to try to optimize said revenue. Otherwise, we should be well below the Laffer peak. Growth, as my friend Aretae is fond of saying, trumps everything else in the end.

Thus one might wonder, if it's clear through evidence that we are above (well above) the Laffer curve peak, why is the tax rate so high. Hint, it's not about government services, it's about control.

Lowering the tax rates would mean more money for both guns and butter, as well as increasing employment rates. The only reason for high taxes is control. The one thing a Statest (of either Conservative or so-called progressive bent) cannot stand is the thought that an individual might be better off making his own choices, even if he has to suffer the consequences of bad ones.

The Lodi Trip

Other than the ill fated air conditioning compressor and it's attendant repair bill (ouch) the Lodi trip went pretty well. Long, very Long though.

Since the trip was for my dad's 70'th birthday, how about a pic of the two of us.

Horse-Dog

Ezra, the Irish Racehorse is a goofball sometimes.

See pic of horse rolling on grass like big giant dog. Oddly, I believe the Gaelic word for horse actually translates as "Big dog".

CopperCon

CopperCon is the annual Fall Arizona science fiction convention. Of our two conventions, Coppercon is usually a bit bigger, and is geared towards a literary slant.

http://www.casfs.org/cucon/

CopperCon 2010 will be held over the weekend of September 4-6


Guests for this years CopperCon:

Writer GoH - Stephan R. Donaldson

Writer Guests - Yvonne Navarro, Weston Ochse, and David Lee Summers

Music Guest - Mark Horning

That is all

Consent - Barbie Edition

So I have NOT seen Toy Story 3 yet, but a quote from Barbie is already making it's ways across the interwebs,

"Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not from the threat of force!"
-- Barbie Toy Story 3

You tell 'em.