the anti-soma

The governor of Missouri has declared school done for the year.  So, admitting that a full quarter is useless in terms of information taught. 

The kids' private school has gone along with the public school order. 

I am...less than pleased.  I'm also trying to figure things out. 

I was hopeful that the kids were going to go back to school at the end of the month, for four weeks.  I really was.  Not totally for my sake, either.  For theirs.  They desperately miss their friends, and they miss their teachers. 

This is horribly unfair to them, especially given that we don't live in a hot spot. 

It's unfair to us, as a family, because some portion of a full quarter's tuition has not been, and will not be, used.  And I have heard nothing about it being credited toward next year's tuition. 

And, given the way the government keeps moving the goalposts, I'm dubious of the value of paying next year's tuition in the first place.  Where's the guarantee that school will start back up in August?  Or won't cut the last however long the twats in charge feel is "necessary for the good of all?"

It's really bad for my imp.  My imp who does not do well without an externally-applied routine.  He's been all over the place...with the help of his meds.  He misses his friends, he misses his teacher, he misses...well, everything except the school work. 

The pixie...well, she's not a whole lot better, but has a much better handle on controlling herself and her reactions to her disappointment and misery. 

I'm contemplating what should be done, and what can be done.  And how is best to do it.  Because while the murder of the nation's economy has pissed me off something fierce, my kids are far more important.  I need to figure out how to get them through this mess with their knowledge base as well-supported as I can manage, and their emotional needs as well-met as I can manage.  I need to figure out how best to set a routine on them to help them settle into adapting to the sudden knowledge that a government large enough to give people things is also large enough to successfully take almost everything away. 

And I'm worrying about their physical and emotional well-being for the short, medium, and long term. 

Reports I've heard out of France put the toll at between 120-160 dead; some reports say the perps are also dead, others aren't sure.

I am...unsurprised, to say the least.  I am also, to some extent, unsympathetic.

The people of France, like us, choose their "rulers" in elections.  Their "ruling class" chose to permit the waves of invaders inside their borders, apparently without even bothering to check baggage.  That, in turn, both permitted and damn near encouraged the recent events.

I cannot feel sorry for people who invited in and welcomed those who seek wage war, with or without a nation* backing them up.

Does that mean that I'm going to be unsympathetic to our own people if it happens here?

In a word?  Yes.

To an extent.  However, I don't think they'll find Americans as easy of targets, unless they deliberately hit gun-free zones (which they likely would).  However, after what's happened in Paris, I strongly doubt otherwise law-abiding carriers will leave their means of self-defense behind.

Other than that...again, the American people have permitted gleefully placed in charge those who would welcome in our enemies with open arms (and perhaps the hope that those enemies will take out a few of those who vote against the socialist/fascist/progressive agenda, and remove enough "no" votes to change the political landscape).

So, yeah.  I'm not feeling a whole lot of sympathy.

I am not Charlie Hedbo.  I am not a Parisian.  I am not a victim.

And I don't feel too sorry for those who choose to be a victim in some weird version of Sister Bertha virtue signalling.  

*If world governments bothered asking the radicals, they'd find that the radicals see "islam" as their nation, rather than any particular acknowledged nation state.

Recently, New York passed a law that states that "assault" rifles must be registered with state authorities.  I recall reading in the article that followed it up some time later that less than 20% of "assault" rifle owners in the state registered their rifles.  I'm pretty sure it was probably fewer than that, should all of the facts be known. 

Connecticut, after Sandy Hook, passed something similar, swearing that they only wanted to know where they were.  I'm pretty sure more registered there than in New York, but probably not as many as they'd've liked. 

And now, they're sending out confiscation letters.  Granted, they're only sending letters to those they think own an evil murder rifle, but I doubt the rest are far behind. 

The government officials involved in this stupidity are forgetting something: those that meekly registered their rifles like they were told may be sheep, but those that chose to disobey the law that ran contrary to their rights stated in and protected by the second amendment are likely to use those very rifles to protect themselves and their rights from a tyrannical government. 

They've also forgotten that Concord and Lexington were prompted by a government gun grab. 

In the twentieth century, there have been numerous gun grabs throughout Europe and Asia: The Ottoman Empire in 1915; the Soviets in the '20s; the Germans in the '30s; China, Uganda, Guatemala, and Cambodia through the second half of the century.  In each case, gun registration was near-immediately (within a year or two) followed up by gun confiscation.  In each case, the citizens meekly and lawfully turned over their arms.  And each case was followed up by massive numbers of people murdered by the very governments they turned their guns over to.  Millions.  Tens of millions.  Mostly either minority ethnic groups, persecuted religious minorities, or political rivals. 

Many Americans are both aware of this and wary of this happening here. 

This nation was founded by men and women who keenly felt the injustice of a hereditary political class that controlled their lives to a huge extent, and thus, left for freer pastures.  Though some two hundred years of political neglect--almost entirely benign--those who made this land their home learned to govern themselves, and learned to like the freedom to be left alone that they'd found here. 

In the early 1770s, that freedom started to be constricted.  The people were treated very unfairly (see the Declaration of Independence for further detail), and it chafed.  In 1775, the British government decided to quell the rebellion it could smell brewing before it got started, and misstepped.  King George III either didn't realize, or forgot, that the American colonies were made up of steel-spined malcontents that clanged when they walked.  And, in trying to seize the means for the colonies to defend themselves, triggered the very rebellion he feared in Concord an Lexington. 

Americans in 2015 are, for the most part, descended from these men who laid their lives, their fortune, and their sacred honor on the line.  We are not sheep. 

And, most of all, we are not European. 

We will not lay down our God-given rights to defend ourselves just because some chattering, inbred nitwits in the hereditary political classes that have grown like a tumor in the heart of our nation tells us to.

"At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism."

So.  We're back to this.  Only, this time, it's in Ukraine. 

Last time, the Jews were rounded up and shoved into ghettos--where they were easy targets for the local governments to aim angry citizens at, and where it was simple to blast through and hand out beatings, rapes, pillaging, and burning. 

And that was just in eastern Europe and Asia. 

And it got worse, as it always does.

Worse yet? They don't have an effective means of self-defense, as everyone in the US has access to, legally or not.

And this is what our own government wants us to face.

No, thanks.

I walked into the bottom floor of the library, then took the elevator up to the circulation desk for my classroom key, just like I always do.  I turned to go up the last floor to my classroom, and came face to print with a whiteboard sign stand, just inside the front doors, and this is where the spitting mad came in.

The sign?  Written yesterday.  Had the footprints of the American chicken all over it,* and wished all viewers "Happy Vietnam Peace Day." 

Um...what? 

Did I read that right?

Sure did. 

There is a holiday celebrating our defeat. 

GRRRR!!!!!



*The hippie peace symbol.

No, not just hell no, FUCK no.

If they pull this shit (and they're working on it, with Common Core), I'm going to say to hell with school in general, and teach my kids at home.

If the whole "furlough" of "non-essential" federal employees hasn't been bad enough, there's tons worse: scenic view pull-offs in South Dakota have been blocked off with orange safety cones to prevent people from pulling over to take pictures (not that that would actually stop someone really determined), and people have been evicted from their homes because they're technically vacation homes set up on federal land. 

So.  The "chief executive" who is the park department's highest point in the chain of command has shown how petty he is.  Now, let me show y'all a little bit more:

Intimidation tactics on full display.  More here.  Because we all know that those Vietnam vets are just explosions waiting to happen, and if they can just trigger one attack...

More petty, meanness on display here.  We must do what the Spoiled Brat wants!  The shutdown is hurting the children!

How about doing his damnedest to scare the shit out of Grandma by threatening to let her starve and freeze on the streets?

The worst, I think, is here.  This page was the Amber Alerts page.  You know, the page where the alerts issued by states were displayed, permitting people all over the country to potentially recognize a kidnapping victim, and get help. 

So.  Petty, mean, and evil.  What more do we need to know about the "leader" of our nation?

There is no way to tell the ones who will not violate your constitutionally-protected rights from those who mistake bottled water for alcohol, or those who decide your house is the perfect stake-out for your neighbor's house...or from those who will shoot you because they think the hose nozzle you're holding might be a gun. 

I do know some good cops.  Some. 

I also know cops who refused to investigate allegations of child abuse, molestation, and various other things, because the accused was one of their buddies, and a good guy, and "wouldn't ever do that to his own kids."

I am disinclined, through incidences in my own past, to believe that law enforcement sees me as anything other than just another target.  And current headlines and stories aren't doing a damn thing to change my mind.

Honestly?  I'm more than a little scared.  When my point of view ceases to be a minority amongst the law abiding, there's trouble.  And more and more people are looking at cops as jack booted thugs to be dealt with when the time comes. 

When ex-KGB commander Vladimir Putin is saying that the current administration is doing bad things with the phone records, and invading citizens' privacy a bit too much...you know there's a real problem. 

I admire Edward Snowdon's courage, but not his intelligence, in shining a spotlight on what the government is doing in ass-plowing the fourth amendment.  He's going to wind up dead.  Whether it's by assassination when they can't haul him back through extradition, or murdered by an inmate (who then immediately gets turned loose as a reward) will depend on which country he manages to flee to. 

I honestly can't see a way for him to survive, since he came out publicly, rather than handing over the information anonymously.  Not with the regime administration tyrants government we currently have in power.

If this goes through, it's a horrible precedent.  Basically, the government in Wisconsin wants to be able to access, and possibly freeze, bank accounts of people who are drawing unemployment insurance.  They claim that it will decrease fraud, and fix mistakes of unemployment insurance overpayment.

That won't be where it stops.  I can see the point of it with some circumstances (like with women with half a dozen children and counting, who use those kids as sources of welfare income), but not for those who lost their jobs because of government interference with the economy. 

I can already foresee one major, unintended consequence: people are going to stop trusting the banks.  I can see a lot of people starting to keep their cash stash separate, and untraceable, if this passes, mostly because they're not going to trust the banks to keep their money safe.  And once that switch flips, more and more people will stop trusting the banks, until banks start collapsing faster than they already are.

I don't distrust my bank.  I distrust my government, especially after seeing what the European governments that my government so admires have been doing to their people with money in the bank. 

Unfortunately, I'm kind of rare in blaming the government.  Most people won't see that it's not the banks that need to be distrusted, but the government that shoves the new law through.

So a bunch of Buddhists in Myanmar* rioted and burned out a lot of Muslim shops, and attacked pretty much any Muslim they saw in the streets.  Good.  It's about time.  Maybe the goat-suckers will learn that actions--like dousing a young, non-Muslim woman in gasoline, then setting her on fire--have consequences. 

This needs to happen anywhere Islamofascist violence against non-Muslims does, and as quickly, as long in duration, and as violently.

Maybe then the savages would get the message.

*The nation formerly known as Burma.

After the way this administration has handled everything thrown at it like the totalitarian thugs they are, I can't see how this hasn't happened earlier, or how anyone can even pretend to be shocked.

You have a city whose gun laws are so very tough that even museums are banned from displaying matchlocks and other historical pieces...and a murder rate that tops even New York City's.  A city where gun stores are illegal, but teenaged choir boys routinely can ride their bicycles, shooting at pedestrians.*  A city where handguns were illegal until recently, but nineteen people were shot over the course of a single night.

Wait...what? 

Can somebody explain to me how this can possibly happen?  No?  

Then how the fuck can they tell me that gun control works?  The cities with the strictest anti-gun laws have the highest numbers of shootings in the country, because the criminals aren't afraid that their victims will shoot back.

*What I don't understand is how his mother can possibly say that the police shot her angel in cold blood when the little bastard (probably literally) was shooting at the police, first.

...is living in a place where your baby can be torn from your arms when there is not only no evidence of child abuse/neglect, but strong evidence, including a doctor's note, to the opposite.

If you have children...move away from states that overwhelmingly believe that children are a resource of the state, and that parents have no rights to care for their own children.

Imagine having $100,000 in the bank.  It's a nice, secure feeling, isn't it?  Enough money to pay all of your bills, perhaps for more than a year, depending on your expenses and where you live.

Now, think about this: your government has declared a bank holiday, with no prior notice.  Checks will not go through, and your debit card will not work. 

This is happening because the government is siphoning $40,000 out of your account.  They've stolen almost half of the money you worked hard for.  Nice, huh?

That's what's happening in Cyprus. 
CYPRUS: Banks still closed; depositors to lose 40%...

Apparently, that was only the first domino to fall.  It's not the last one. 

EUROZONE CHIEF: Personal savings accounts in Spain, Italy will be raided to save euro...


Now, think about this: how long have they had that plan in the works?  How can they possibly have had everything in place to do this without the people governed noticing?

How much of the buildup to Hitler's Final Solution did people miss?  And why was it missed?

Could it be because nowhere else in the world has enshrined in their governing documents that the press is not to be silenced? 

How long will it be before our first amendment is either ignored or stricken from the law of the land?

The answer is simple: pretty much immediately after the second amendment is successfully overturned. 

They'll come for our guns.  Then, our open discussion of events.  Then they'll take our money without even trying to hide what they're doing.

After that?  Who knows.  You'll have to ask the Jews at Auschwitz. 

Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, really nails it: "I don't care what the majority voted to do, they don't have a right to steal my money just because they vote for it."

I barely use a cell phone at all.  I don't care to be constantly tethered to work/family/friends.  I do not do the whole text messaging thing.  I don't like the way the abbreviations have crept into formal writing, and grade those little bits of textspeak very harshly. 

I also refuse to do it.

Not for fear that it'll make me a lazy writer.  Because I hate it with a bloody purple passion.

I'm even more glad that I don't, now that law enforcement is clamoring to force cell phone companies store such data for each customer for at least two years, "just in case." 

That's just creepy.

Saudi Arabia is taking things a wee bit too far, in attempting to control their female population: when a woman travels, officials text the men in their families to make sure they're aware of it. 

Next thing will be ankle bracelets like they put on criminals under house arrest, here in the US.  And then, when that's too inconvenient, they'll start putting chips in their women, like we do our pets.

Where are the feminists?  Where are the women's rights advocates?  This is what they need to be fighting, not domestic violence where the woman is the one that threw the first punch, even if they take the most damage when their man hits them back.